Thanks, Herman (and Chris?), for this reference.
Both the study and the brief reactions so far confirm me in considering "genetics" only a parameter of secondary, derived importance depending on social inertia (which became stronger ca. 70 generations ago, i.e. ca. 350 CE, that is, around the date of the final redaction of what is now known as the generalized (sarvaparsada) Manava Dharma Sastra or Manu Smriti).
The real underlying parameter in the case of, for instance, the sufficiently attested spread of Vedic culture *within* the Indian subcontinent from 1700 BCE is to be understood in terms of memetics and memory culture.
http://www.rle.ucpel.tche.br/index.php/rle/article/view/1089/783
(I have a less complete version for those who do not read Portuguese.)
Whether the same applies to the transmission of early Dravidian literature, I leave to Dravidologists to evaluate.
Full of questionable attributions of labels, the DNA study of Basu et al. and the research of David Reich (cited e.g. here: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/16/science/dna-deciphers-roots-of-modern-europeans.html?_r=0) who must obviously be happy with Basu et al., are conceptually as full of holes as Leerdam-cheese (or as a good piece of Emmental).
It is over and again going through the whole discussion about Louis Dumont's Homo Hierarchicus (see for, in my view, a rich and balanced criticism: Richard Burghart's Conditions of Listening, ed. by C.J. Fuller and J. Spencer).
Jan Houben


      

Jan E.M. HOUBEN

Directeur d’Études

Sources et histoire de la tradition sanskrite

École Pratique des Hautes Études

Sciences historiques et philologiques 

54, rue Saint-Jacques

CS 20525 – 75005 Paris

johannes.houben@ephe.sorbonne.fr

https://ephe-sorbonne.academia.edu/JanEMHouben

www.ephe.fr


On 27 January 2016 at 21:45, Tieken, H.J.H. <H.J.H.Tieken@hum.leidenuniv.nl> wrote:
For those interested in DNA/genomics and castes in India, see the attachment. I got the article from my eldest son, who works in the field of bio-medical science.
Herman


Herman Tieken
Stationsweg 58
2515 BP Den Haag
The Netherlands
00 31 (0)70 2208127

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