[INDOLOGY] Another interesting study on Indian genetics - from The Hindu and the actual paper

[Dean Michael Anderson]

 Thanks for the correction, Steve. It was indeed, as you observe, posted in too much haste.
Best,
Dean

    On Saturday, September 7, 2019, 11:24:11 PM GMT+5:30, Steve Farmer via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info> wrote:  
 
 Dean -
The Hindu story you just posted in Indology (below), based on Shinde’s very well-known claims, is certainly NOT based on Narasimhan et al. — the paper I posted early on Indo-Eurasian Research, then on Indology, and that you just reposted below.
Very different papers, published in different journals, and of totally unequal importance.
Narasimhan et al. is based on finds involving 523 aDNA samples from Central Asia, S. Asia, and Iran. It is the largest study by far ever published on aDNA evidence re. Central Asia and South Asia.
Shinde’s paper, cited by all the Hindutva types, is based on a single reconstructed aDNA sample of one (1) female skeleton discovered years ago by Shinde at Rakhigarh. 
If you have to read a news story about it rather than consulting the full paper (Shinde’s was published in Cell, not Science), read this story about it in Science, which doesn’t have a nationalist axe to grind:
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/09/genome-nearly-5000-year-old-woman-links-modern-indians-ancient-civilization
The skeleton showed genetic affinities, as you’ll see in the story, to aDNA samples from Iran and Turkmenistan, which supports lots of evidence of other sorts that the Indus Valley civilization was populated by peoples from outside India: not so nativist after all.
Shinde’s paper carries a very misleading title: "An Ancient Harappan Genome Lacks Ancestry from Steppe Pastoralists or Iranian farmers” . True but devious and misleading: it does carry genes from outside India, so not so nativist after all.
Maybe check your sources before posting?
Steve

On Sep 7, 2019, at 1:12 PM, Dean Michael Anderson via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info> wrote:

‘Indus Valley settlers had a distinct genetic lineage’ 
Throwing fresh light on the Indus Valley Civilisation, a study of DNA from skeletal remains excavated from the Harappan cemetery at Rakhigarhi argues that the hunter-gatherers of South Asia, who then became a settled people, have an independent origin. The researchers who conducted the study contend that the theory of the Harappans having Steppe pastoral or ancient Iranian farmer ancestry thus stands refuted. The finding also negates the hypothesis about mass migration during Harappan times from outside South Asia, they argue.

https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/indus-valley-settlers-had-a-distinct-genetic-lineage/article29355941.ece

Here is the actual paper since the journal is behind a paywall.

https://reich.hms.harvard.edu/sites/reich.hms.harvard.edu/files/inline-files/2019_Science_NarasimhanPatterson_CentralSouthAsia.pdf
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