Negroids & Shudras, North-south

[Paul Kekai Manansala]

Yashwant Malaiya wrote:

> Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
>
> >They argue either for a Holocene or pre-Holocene migration from the
> >Sahara or East Africa as the main source of 'recent' African genetic and
> >cultural contribution to the Dravidian population.
>
 Is this "African genetic contribution" a speculation or there
> is scientific basis for it?

>


Yes, Samar posted some of these and they should be in the archives.
The most notable are those from Bamshad et al.

Also, a study last year tended to confirm what many thought but was
never proven -- a degree of relationship between Andaman Islanders and
the Pgymy of Africa.

As Raveen noted there are still some whole groups and plenty of
individuals with 'Negrito-like' characterisitics on the subcontinent.
Also, it has long been noted that his type frequently appears in Gupta
artwork.

You can find the whole Scientific American article on the web:

"Out of Africa, into Asia"
http://www.sciam.com/1999/0199issue/0199scicit1.html

However, no study has been constructed to examine this theory
specifically. Most of the data has come accidentally while trying to
prove something else.

>I assume this does not go back to
> the time when humankind originated in Africa.
>

Yes and no -- something more recent is often suggested -- the Holocene
period.  Rashidi notes that there was an expansion of Asian "Negroid"
types around 20-30 kya, but I don't believe he specifies where this
originates. In fact, the evidence points to an Australomelanesian
movement around this time probably originating in SE Asia. These people
likely developed out of African migrants who came to Asia around 60 kya.

> >Strangely, the ancient Greeks also noted that there were very hoary
> >connections between 'Ethiopia' and India.
>
> Can you mention the authors and the what they said? Thanks.
>

Well here is something from Runoko Rashidi's website:

---
ANCIENT AFRICA AND EARLY INDIA

     Exceptionally valuable writings reflecting close relationships
between Africa and early India have existed for more than two thousand
years. In the first century B.C.E., for example, the famous Greek
historian Diodorus Siculus penned that, "From Ethiopia he (Osiris)
passed through Arabia, bordering upon the Red Sea as far as India.... He
built many cities in India, one of which he called  Nysa, willing to
have remembrance of that (Nysa) in Egypt, where he was brought up."

     Another important writer from antiquity, Apollonius of Tyana, who
is said to have visited India near the end of the first century C.E.,
was convinced that "The Ethiopians are colonists sent from India, who
follow their forefathers in matters of wisdom." The literary work of the
early Christian writer Eusebius preserves the tradition that, "In the
reign of Amenophis III [the mighty Dynasty XVIII Egyptian king] a body
of Ethiopians migrated from the country about the Indus, and settled
in the valley of the Nile." And still another document from ancient
times, the Itinerarium Alexandri, says that "India, taken as a whole,
beginning from the north and embracing what of it is subject to
Persia, is a continuation of Egypt and the Ethiopians.'


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