Origins

Arun's recent post on the subject of Indian origins piqued my interest in the subject. There are a few oddities about the population of India, including evidences of ancient occupation of the place by peoples very similar to the present inhabitants and a wide variety of physical types. In addition. a dominant language, closely associated with Indian elites for millenia, is closely related to a large group of European languages and appears to be descended from a common ancestor.

The conventional interpretation has been that the Indo-Europeans, perhaps the first masters of horses as weapons of war, conquered many territories, including India, and left the local populations with their language, elements of their culture, and some of their genes. The study cited by Arun appears to challenge this. Such views are popular in India, probably in part due to nationalistic feelings and reluctance to concede local cultural autonomy.

A more recent study is more friendly to the conventional theory. It found that while the Indian population is overwhelmingly dominated by old Asian genes, there is (1) a significant admixture of European genes and (2) the European gene content varies among castes and increases with increasing caste status (3)there are differences between what the mtDNA (maternal line) and Y chromosome (paternal line) data show.

Genetic distances estimated from Y-chromosome STR polymorphisms differ significantly from zero (p < 0.001) and reveal a distinctly different pattern of population relationships (Table3). In contrast to the mtDNA distances, the Y-chromosome STR data do not demonstrate a closer affinity to Asians for each caste group... ...

For Y-chromosome biallelic polymorphism data, each caste group is more similar to Europeans (Table4), and as one moves from lower to middle to higher castes the genetic distance to Europeans diminishes progressively. This pattern is further accentuated by separating the European population into Northern, Southern, and Eastern Europeans; each caste group is most closely related to Eastern Europeans. Moreover, the genetic distance between upper castes and Eastern Europeans is approximately half the distance between Eastern Europeans and middle or lower castes. These results suggest that Indian Y chromosomes, particularly upper caste Y chromosomes, are more similar to European than to Asian Y chromosomes. This underscores the close affinities between Hindu Indian and Indo-European Y chromosomes based on a previously reported analysis of three Y-chromosome polymorphisms (Quintana-Murci et al. 1999b).

This study supports the idea of an admixture of European genes into what either already were or subsequently became the upper castes, and that the European genes were mainly from the European males.

It seems safe to say that as genetic analysis proceeds evidence for one theory or the other will become overwhelming. It also seems likely that politics and science will continue to be uneasy bedfellows.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anti-Libertarian: re-post

The most pointed critique of social security and liberalism in general is the libertarian critique. The problem with libertarians, for a liberal, is that we have too much in common. We both believe in individual rights, tolerance of individual differences, and dislike government prescription of religion. The basic difference, it seems to me, is the different answers we give to Cain's (with thanks to the Captain - my original version had the corpse asking the question!) famous question: "Am I my brother's keeper?" That's not really my basic bitch against the libertarians though. My real complaint is the same as my complaint against most religion - its premise is a fraud. For those who can't stand to wait for the punchline, I believe that trying to implement libertarian principles leads to tyranny or social disintegration. Demonstrating that takes some historical (and pre-historical) context. For all but the last 15,000 or so of the 100,000 years the human spec...
Read more

Uneasy Lies The Head

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown ........... Shakespeare Henry IV, Part II. So it is with us and our slightly distant primate cousins , so it seems. A 9-year study of wild baboons in Kenya by Princeton University and the Institute of Primate Research may turn conventional assumptions of alphas males upside down. The study found that alpha males have high testosterone levels, which allows them to dominate other baboons, get access to more food, and attract better mates. This is expected. Surprisingly, though, the alpha males also have high levels of stress hormone glucocorticoid, which scientists measured from their feces samples. In fact, the stress of alpha baboons was on par with low-ranking baboons. The convention wisdom is that access to food and females provides life security and thus less stress for dominant males. Conversely, weak males who are constantly threatened by starvation and physical violence from stronger males are thought to be more stressed. The st...
Read more

We Call it Soccer

The US played its best, and maybe only good game of World Cup, but lost thanks to brilliant goalkeeping by the Swedish keeper and the bizarre method soccer uses to settle ties when three US stars could not put the ball on frame from the 12 yard spot.  At the end it came down to a blocked shot that spun in by maybe a couple of centimeters. Well, that's football - too much like life.   Which brings me to a modest proposal.  Replace the thirty minute overtimes with as many 7-player 15 minute periods as needed to settle it.  Scoring should be much easier with fewer players.
Read more