Peter Bellwood in First Farmers presents a hypothesis for the expansion of the Dravidian languages into southern India in the late Neolithic through the spread of an agro-pastoralist lifestyle through the western Deccan, pushing southward along the Arabian sea fringe. At the time I was skeptical, but now I am modestly confident that this is close to the reality.
There is always talk about “steppe” ancestry on this weblog. But there are groups that seem “enriched” from IVC ancestry, as judged by the Indus Periphery samples. The confidence is lower since we don’t have nearly as good a sample coverage…but I think I can pass on what we’ve seen so far: groups in southern Pakistan, non-Brahmin elites in South India, and some Sudra groups in Gujarat and Maharashtra, seem to be relatively enriched for IVC-like ancestry. Then there is the supposed existence of Dravidian toponyms in Sindh, Gujarat, and Maharashtra. And, their total absence in the Gangetic plain.
There have been decades of debate about Brahui. I’ve looked closely at Brahui genetics, and they are no different from the Baloch. Combined with evidence from Y chromosomes (the Baloch and Brahui have some of the highest frequencies of haplogroups found in IVC-related ancient DNA), I doubt the thesis they are medieval intruders (if they are, their distinctive genes were totally replaced).
Genetically, we know that some southern tribes, such as the Pulliyar, have some IVC-related ancestry. But other groups, such as Reddy in Andhra Pradesh, have a lot more. How does this cline emerge? My conjecture is that there were several movements of “Dravidian” people from Sindh and Gujarat into southern India, simultaneous with the expansion of Vedic Aryans to the north into the Gangetic plain. The region the Vedic Aryans intruded upon, Punjab, was not inhabited by Dravidian speakers. Like Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley Civilization was probably multi-lingual, despite broad cultural affinities developed over time.
Do you think Brahui could be the original language of Balochistan
Unlike the supposed Aryan intrusion into North India, the southern historical tradition has a memory and several lores of migration into the south.
The most important one is the Velir migration, where Sage Agastya guides several clans from Dwarka to the South. Important thing to note is that Agastya is one of the Saptarishi, the most important group of Rishis (priest-kings) in the Vedic corpus. The majority of the Velir clans settled in Kongu Nadu (Coimbatore, Salem, Erode). This is attested.
Agastya is very important to Tamil grammar. He holds a status equivalent to Panini in the Sanskritic tradition. His idols are found in several temples and he is universally acknowledged as the compiler of Tamil language rules.
My community has a fragment of oral history pertaining to this. 16 hordes of men came down from the heavens. One of the hosts was led by Skanda himself. The armies vanquished many Asuras in a campaign that is supposed to have lasted 3 generations. At the end, Shiva appeared and instructed Skanda not to kill anymore (even animals or cattle) for a hundred generations. The communities took a vow and passed from Kshatriyadom to becoming a agricultural and weaving community. We did not take up arms again until the medieval Cholas.
“Agastya is very important to Tamil grammar. He holds a status equivalent to Panini in the Sanskritic tradition. His idols are found in several temples and he is universally acknowledged as the compiler of Tamil language rules.”
An Aryan holding that position in Dravida-land
Tasty! 😛
You serious buy into this flying chariots stuff, don’t you. It shouldn’t need repeating that mythology and history are very different, and that history refers to coded (ie primarily written) narratives instead of disparate stories.
If your standard upheld throughout the world, then Paul Bunyan formed the Grand Canyon, and Merlin built stonehenge.
….mythology and history are very different
You are probably using myth in the political sense of the word and its quite clear a lack of vocabulary prevents you from framing arguments coherently. The Greeks meant it to simply mean speech or narrative. There was no implication as to whether it had any basis in reality (non-fiction) or otherwise (fiction). However your insinuation is quite clear.
….that history refers to coded (ie primarily written) narratives…
Applying the criterion of your home baked nonsense, we should classify the Rgveda as “not history” since it was not written down for the greater part of its transmission cycle. And we should consider the written works (De Natura Deorum) of Cicero to be history where he speculates that “the Gods might indeed have agents upon Earth”.
All oral histories and written artifacts handed down from earlier generations ARE history. They have gathered the barnacles of time, they have grown in the retellings and now the core has pulp surrounding it.
Maybe, but as you yourself seem to admit, such passed-down “histories” contain both fact and fiction (embellishments as well as fabrications). What is the systematic process you’d use to distinguish the two?
Modern history (i.e., starting 200 years ago or so) has converged to a 3-legged stool for such a process: archaeology, linguistics, and (now) genetics. Information contained in ancient texts and myths is not a fourth leg because it is inherently unreliable, and because it can be self-contradictory at places, unsound. Instead, the 3 legs are applied to analyze claims made in texts and myths, allowing us to retain what sounds plausible and discard the fantastical.
In that case OIT scores 2 – 0:
1. Archaeology: Cultural continuity and no invasion/migration evidence
2. Linguistics: No dravidian word in Old Rig Veda
According to you:
+ Literary
So, you must be OIT supporter.
Genetics: Cannot say as Harappans also have Iran_N ancestry. You know only J haplogroup is found in Hittites and Mycenaean Greeks.
Linguistics: that’s your (rather idiosyncratic) interpretation. Almost every linguist I have read supports AIT. I know Talageri and Elst and Jaydeepsinh dissent from that view, but it’s a minority opinion. I’m not sure you are right about there being no Dravidian loanwords in the RV. And even if you are, I don’t see at all how that’s a slam dunk in favor of OIT.
1-0 AIT
Archaeology: PGW shows movement from west to east across the Gangetic plain in the timeline the AIT would project for Indo-Aryan movements. There may be no archaeological evidence of invasion into the subcontinent, but there isn’t any evidence of invasion in the other direction either. But if you are not a complete quack and believe in the existence of the Indo-European language family, invasion must have occurred in one of the two directions. So this is a complete wash as far as I’m concerned.
1.5-0.5 AIT
Genetics: Almost impossible to square OIT with the genetic evidence in my opinion. Harappans are supposed to have shared farmer ancestry with Iranians, so I don’t know what you are crowing about.
2.5-0.5 AIT
Que sera sera!
1. No Dravidian word in Old Rig Veda is also confirmed by Witzel (The Languages of Harappa), and every linguist who has studied Rig Veda. Whatever language Harappans spoke, it cannot be Dravidian. OIT wins by default.
2. Rig Veda is a Bronze age text; and iron age in India started from 16th century. So, your favorite PGW — later than 15th century culture — does not work. OIT wins.
3. Iran_N and Harappans share ancestry, and this ancestry is intrusive to Europe. Genetics is uncertain. Or If you prefer: AMT wins (to make you happy); the exciting part is now we are close to solving the IE question; just not in the way people expect.
So, we have 2-1.
What is the meaning of the title – Rg Veda?
Tpot, there is very little if any Iran_n in Europe and it is limited to southern and more specifically southeast Europe. Iran_n =/= CHG. The haplogroup J spread of IE languages used to be a talking point of the Anatolian hypothesis among others.
As for the pottery, well, it Aryans could have just employed local labor for that.
Well said, Mr Iyer (&Tanuj),
Stonehenge, so as thousands of other European megaliths was built by Vincha I2 people which lived in British Isles btw 5500-2500 until Yamnaya people came from Russian steppes. They now consist only 5% of BI people. Some descendants of those who emigrated to US are B. Gates, C. Norris, D. Crocket, Elvis Presley, President Munro, Ted Dunston also Martin Luther, etc.
Druids (from – drewo=tree(oak) in Serbian) got their name because they were preaching under the oak trees. Oak is still a sacred tree among Serbs (both, with and without moustaches) what Christianity also adopted and Serbian Christmas tree is oak, not fir or pine.
We tend to forget that first migrants along the sea coast into South India (40-36k BCE) must have been the first settlers, while some moved on to Southeast Asia and further. Would their DNA have similarities with the IVC minus the later Iranian component. And subsequent southward movement of phased droves of IVC migrants into South is plausible. Manu smriti talks of borders of Vindhyas. Beyond these mountains are the Andhras according to M. Apparently the barbarians lived down South. Until Agastya, and the initial Aryan incursion into the South took place, it was Dravidian country, with populations of possible returning-of-migrants from Southeast Asia.. And Agastya’s move to South could have happened a few centuries BCE. By then Dravidian languages, with Tamil taking the lead, followed by Malayalam, must have been already prevalent. Over few centuries with Sanskrit’s spread the Telugu and Kannada evolved, a mix of Dravidian and a smattering of Sanskrit. I am an amateur with interest in this field. My questions: are Elamites related to Dravidians? Was a proto-Dravidian language spoken from the Elam to South India, overtaken by the IE language speakers who spread west from Anatolia and east till Vindhyas between 4000 and 1500 BCE? Does that explain Brahui, Baloch and Brahmi? Incidentally, my own ancestry (123andme) traces to South India 36000 Ya.
I’m starting to side with the hypothesis that IVC signs represents a non-linguistic symbol system, like the Coat of Arms. Tamil-Brahmi is found right next to these IVC esque Pottery Graffiti in Keezhadi(Circa:580-600 BCE). This brings me to another IVC Script hypothesis, which suggests that IVC Signs are all Numerals, it makes sense as these Indus Seals look like a precursor to Coins.
As far as I know, the oldest known potential precursors to some general seal-based tally system go back to the PPNA at Jerf el Ahmar and Mureybet.
Not necessarily. The consensus is that IVC characters reflect a language, based on algorithmic analysis.
I think the symbols with Tamil Brahmi could reflect something like Japanese, where a mixture of Kanji (chinese based characters embodying a whole word) are used with hiragana (letters and syllables that typically reflect grammatical portions, or other phonetic additions)
Kammas and Reddys are pretty close to Patel average,though patels have wider range. This is is in line with what you said. Groups like Patils in Maha are related directly to Patels in Gujarat. These people are the closest living relics to one end of the IVC cline.
mythology can be informative. but excessive punctilious adherence to the details is cringe.
like trying to figure out the relevance of pelops to bronze age history
IVC cline extended from Baloch/Bruhuis to mid cast south indians(common geneotype for ASI infleunced Pak Punjabis). Phenotype is subjective and complex but i would say IVC people ranged from Balochs/Darker Pashtuns to mid cast south indians/darker Pak Punjabis.
Yes. Accurate presentation of diversity
Not quite, Baloch and Brahui seem to have some more recent copper age/post copper age Iranian admixture along with a shahr ba1 component which was somewhat removed from the indus periphery cline because of the anatolian ancestry.
Target,Distance,IRN_Seh_Gabi_C,IRN_Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA1,IRN_Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA2,NW_AASI_Sim_modern_Av,RUS_Sintashta_MLBA,RUS_Tyumen_HG,S_AASI_SimAv
Balochi:HGDP00054,0.02950955,22.6,32.8,19.8,4.8,20.0,0.0,0.0
Balochi:HGDP00062,0.02807894,29.8,32.8,19.2,4.2,12.6,0.0,1.4
Balochi:HGDP00066,0.03559201,14.4,39.6,21.2,6.0,18.8,0.0,0.0
Balochi:HGDP00072,0.03098006,20.6,23.4,35.2,1.6,19.2,0.0,0.0
Balochi:HGDP00074,0.04894291,26.0,30.4,22.0,9.0,12.6,0.0,0.0
Balochi:HGDP00078,0.05065732,35.2,17.8,23.8,2.8,16.4,4.0,0.0
Balochi:HGDP00080,0.03355472,26.0,32.8,20.8,6.2,13.6,0.6,0.0
Balochi:HGDP00086,0.04560627,5.0,61.0,13.6,4.8,15.6,0.0,0.0
Balochi:HGDP00088,0.02981077,26.2,29.2,22.0,5.6,15.2,1.8,0.0
Balochi:HGDP00090,0.02796975,21.8,13.6,46.2,5.2,11.6,1.6,0.0
Balochi:HGDP00096,0.02673528,13.6,35.6,31.6,4.0,15.2,0.0,0.0
Balochi:HGDP00098,0.03068559,28.2,13.2,39.8,3.6,14.6,0.6,0.0
Brahui:HGDP00001,0.02930452,26.4,23.6,32.2,2.8,13.4,1.6,0.0
Brahui:HGDP00003,0.03014403,25.0,26.6,28.0,5.4,14.6,0.4,0.0
Brahui:HGDP00005,0.03372682,24.0,26.8,27.8,8.0,9.8,3.6,0.0
Brahui:HGDP00007,0.03640556,21.8,28.6,26.8,7.6,15.2,0.0,0.0
Brahui:HGDP00009,0.03371963,27.4,22.6,25.6,8.0,16.4,0.0,0.0
Brahui:HGDP00011,0.02494792,17.2,37.8,20.6,9.4,15.0,0.0,0.0
Brahui:HGDP00015,0.04318953,25.8,30.6,25.8,4.6,13.2,0.0,0.0
Brahui:HGDP00017,0.03045673,22.6,33.0,23.2,7.2,14.0,0.0,0.0
Brahui:HGDP00021,0.04948009,14.4,43.0,25.4,0.0,17.0,0.2,0.0
Brahui:HGDP00023,0.03138268,27.2,32.0,23.8,4.2,11.2,1.6,0.0
Brahui:HGDP00025,0.02724780,22.4,28.8,28.0,3.8,16.0,1.0,0.0
Brahui:HGDP00031,0.02877370,16.4,29.0,32.2,5.8,16.4,0.2,0.0
Brahui:HGDP00033,0.02946474,25.2,28.4,24.8,5.6,16.0,0.0,0.0
Brahui:HGDP00035,0.03705095,20.2,30.2,33.6,5.4,10.2,0.4,0.0
Brahui:HGDP00037,0.03455315,17.2,34.6,19.6,7.2,19.2,0.0,2.2
Brahui:HGDP00039,0.03613815,12.6,37.0,24.2,0.0,16.4,0.2,9.6
Brahui:HGDP00045,0.03450529,15.4,44.8,18.4,5.6,14.0,1.8,0.0
Brahui:HGDP00047,0.04134419,47.0,0.0,35.6,0.0,14.0,1.6,1.8
Brahui:HGDP00049,0.03247994,14.8,39.8,26.4,0.0,16.8,0.8,1.4
Average,0.03427221,22.3,30.3,26.4,4.8,15.0,0.7,0.5
I agree with Bellwood. One of the papers from 2018 showed that Pulliyars started getting IVC-related admixture around 1000 BC (the lowest possible admixture date was 400 BC). Pulliyars claim to be the adivasis of Kerala. (literal translation of the word adivasi – first people or indigenous peoples). This means that IVC people probably arrived in Southern India around 1500-500 BC, bringing with them their Dravidian languages.
just a note: the admixture dates are usually biased toward being closer to the present than they were. so i bet it’s a little older, at least at the start
Dravidian Invasion Theory – they never saw it coming! Clearly the Dravidian language and culture are exogamous to south India. And clearly the IVC heritage can be correlated to your caste status. Ergo caste system is likely Dravidian in origin or they also had a caste system.
We are all victims of a Dravidian patriarchy!
Who knows it better than us Indo Aryans chaffing under the weight of Dravidians overlords. Now they have even taken over our beloved cricket team.
Down with Dravidian-archy!
Shah Mehmood Quereshi knew it all along.
Its not for nothing he can be Pakistan’s Manmohan Singh, with the vocabulary of Rajnath Singh.
You’re being facetious but it is true, Indians are indeed a result of Dravidian&Aryan Patriarchies.
Interesting topic, maybe one of the follow up texts can say something about Aryans in Sri Lanka who conducted silk trade via ocean route. Where the old name – Serendib (>>> Ceylon) came from?
Isn’t IVC mtdna higher from West Coast to East Coast in India? So a higher proportion among Punjabis, Gujaratis, Costal and interior Maharashtra, costal and North Karnataka, Kerala?
I wonder if the IVC portion is higher among Maharashtrians and people from Karnataka as compared to TN and Andhra?
Will be good to see percentage region wise and population group wise distribution map/table of IVC related DNA in India
Who are the Sindhi peoples?
There are Hindus and Muslims, most Hindus have migrated out of Pakistan. How genetically similar are the Hindus and Muslims in these groups. Secondly, there appears to be a long history of Baloch people in Sindh so how much Baloch admixture is there in Sindhi Muslims and Sindhi Hindus, is there any difference?
In my knowledge, about 40-50% Sindhi population is Sindhi Speaking Baloch, but don’t take my word for it, I only read and heard about it from multiple sources.
The region the Vedic Aryans intruded upon, Punjab, was not inhabited by Dravidian speakers.
What language family would have been spoken in the Punjab region pre Vedic aryans ?
Any thoughts / guesses?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burushaski
@Milan
“Where the old name – Serendib (> Ceylon) came from?”
Arabic Sarendīb/Serendib as a name for the island of Ceylon, attested in geographical accounts from the 9th century CE, corresponds to early Byzantine Greek Sielediba (attested in Kosmas Indikopleustes, 6th century CE). Both words were seemingly corruptions of the Pali geographic name Sīhaḷa-dīpa (‘island of the Singhalese’, cp. Sanskrit Siṃhala-dvīpa).
The Pali name Sīhaḷaṃ (with -ṃ ending) was probably misheard and/or changed by non-Indic speakers to /silam/ (> Portuguese Ceilão, Dutch Zeylan, English Ceylon), /sielen/, /selan/, /seren/, etc. These and other non-Indic names for Ceylon appear to reflect nothing more than the numerous orthographic variations in the way these names have been transliterated in early medieval West Asian and European sources, including changing the final -ṃ to -n, changing the /a/ to /e/, omitting the aspiration, etc.
Of course, Pali sīhaḷa, Prakrit sīhala and Sanskrit siṃhala all derive from Old Indo-Aryan siṃha- ‘lion’. The traditional first king of Ceylon is Vijaya, heir to a kingdom in northern India. His legend relates that his mother had mated with a lion and had born him children. Having been exiled, Vijaya and his followers sailed until they reached the island of Ceylon. On account of his descent from a lion, Vijaya and his followers called themselves Sīhaḷa or ‘people of the lion’, a name that ultimately became the designation of Ceylon and of the Sinhalese people (Mahavamsa 7.42-45).
I agree with the thesis that Drav languages spread from northwest India , overlooking melodramatic Sindhi Homeland.
Age of Drav group estimated to be not less than 4500 Years through statistical study
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.171504
One more thing I believe is that when Drav speakers spread over south India, arya society mores were already embdded with them , with all vedic themes . So there was no “pure” Dravdian society with no mixture of Old Indo-aryan culture
Probably not outright northwest but in a specific region which was in the neolithic by 5000 BP. Could be in southern rajasthan (if you consider that to be geographically nw).
I always thought the same thing – much like “indigenous Japanese culture” or “Koshinto”, by the time we have any attestation it seems that external influences are already the same thing.
That said, I wonder if these influences may have also filtered in via Buddhism.
One bit that makes me skeptical that any sort of aryan cultural assimilation happened to dravidians prior to their ingression to the south is observing the most primitive folkways. Invariably the “deep rural” communities (that i interact with in karnataka at least) with the most cultural distance from brahmins have hardly any sanskrit in their vocabulary (they can’t even pronounce), but relatively less tadbhav/prakrit type words. I just don’t see the mark of deep co-evolution with aryan culture, just perhaps the possibility of periodic engagement in history. Their habits, taboos, origin stories and myths seem of a profoundly different type, I tend to think that the rest of us just have a veneer and a very deliberate shunning of the “old ways”. I do believe that dravidian “history”, as properly understood, began with the encounter and assimilation of indo-aryan themes, linguistic and ritual. But I’d wager there’s a pre-history before the mahajanapada period where the proto-kannada and proto-telugu people were completely non-aryanized. This is not to say southerners were “pure” anything at this point, because the dravidian languages could have been minority-driven colonization and diffusion against fragmented AASI animists (who themselves may have spoken mutually unnitelligible language and no impulse to unify)
\keptical that any sort of aryan cultural assimilation happened to dravidians prior to their ingression to the south\
girmit. You have point in observing folkways and folk religion and speech. OTOH, i was looking at the ‘high’ culture represented by literature. It is also true that Hinduism as we know it has eveolved by absorbing folk culture by what may be called sanskritization. What we know the culture of dravidian speakers is also elitist i.e. those with more advanced economy and technology
Great post, very interesting.
Why are folks ignoring the Kodava? In a prior analysis by Razib, they have the highest %IVC of any peoples including Reddy or Patel and they speak a unique south Dravidian language and as suggested by @Aditya about highlands, have a preserved heritage, food and traditions from isolation in the highlands in Coorg.
Middle lion, was about to mention kodavas as well. The one data point I’ve seen shows them as uniquely high IVC, low AASI, and low steppe. Their language and religion are great proxies for how a non-brahminized dravidian culture might manifest. Their racial uniqueness has probably been over emphasised to the extent of imagining european intermixture from antiquity. But they seem to share customs with many other highland western ghats communities, who also seem to share phenotype like malnad gowdas, idigas and bants.
How much IVC ancestry do Kodavas have?
I’m also interested in the Toda tribe in the Nilgiris. Very isolated. Dravidian speaking. Look kind of distinctive.
Wait, what’s all this about the Kodavas? I know their language and culture are unique, but I always assumed it was a part of their geography (I don’t think the typical southern unstitched wrap would work in the cold). I certainly never knew they were the highest in IVC ancestry! What about the Tuluvas?
Aryan invading Mangalore theory.
The Mangalorian , coming soon on Disney +
The Mangalorian – running a Jewellery Shop on Coruscant trying to juggle two children, and four rental properties in Tatooine and Mangalore Prime
kodavas themselves claim to have kurdish origins.
Anything to distinguish from the universally demonized AASI. That’s just the rule.
Tropical features + dark skin= undesired is the context for so much of these claims.
lol
Even more far-fetched was the supposed hellenic connection. These are mostly the musings of retired colonels and the raj-era district administrators that indulged them.
Kodavas are Kurdish, and Jats are from Mars
Touche
Kodavas look distinct in that they look more like Northern Indians. They look like Punjabis/Haryanvis.
I have never heard Kodavas claiming Kurdish origins. I doubt they even know who Kurds are.
Maybe they meant curdish, like wheatish
“Their language and religion are great proxies for how a non-brahminized dravidian culture might manifest.”
My thoughts as well. North Indian phenotype and yet non steppe genotype and non-Brahmin and non-Vedic religious expression with south Dravidian distinct language.
A wormhole to IVC language and culture?
No just high iranic HG related and lower aasi. NW Indian pheno and its extreme bollywoodoid, even when not in interracial form like Kaif or Fernandez, is defined more from low AASI than it is from high steppe.
AASI is responsible for the element of the Indian phenotype that is so demonized. It is unfortunate. It is wrong. And it has to change. People have to stand up to these silly standards, many of which are secondary to historical power hierarchies and entrenched control more than anything else.
You seem a lil obsessed with the ‘demonization’ of AASI phenotype. But I think it’s more from preference. There are AASI influenced actors like Rajnikanth who is famous in South India even though he is from Maharashtra. But Bollywood prefers South Indians who look more like Hema Malini (Tamil Brahmin) or Asin (Kerala Nasrani Christian).
Bollywood likes relatively lower aasi S Indians shocker. And Rajnikanth is genrally accepted as ugly but masculine in his own way in Indian society.
South Indians also have a bias for fair skin, when was the last time a dark female celebrity was in S.Indian Cinema? Its not a “preference” its racism lol Preference is something like choosing a cute Desi Girl over an equally cute East Asian Chick. What Indians have is more of an outright disgust for Dark Skin.
Gotta feel for AASI ppl here. They were the OG Indians and all traces of their culture&language got wiped out, all that’s left is their dark racial phenotype, which is resented by their own progeny.
I wonder if this fair skin bias has manifested itself in sexual selection.
Have Indians on average been getting lighter skinned over time?
Or is this bias too recent?
Or does the arranged marriage system guard against such changes?
Or does skin pigmentation not work this way?
Prats, your first question makes for an interesting topic:
My guess is on a millenial-scale it’s probably true. The first movement of Iranian farmers to the Indus probably made the average population of the time lighter, since the resulting pop. mix had taken up farming, so higher demographic heft w.r.t. rest of the AASI pop. that hadn’t done so. The migrations from the steppe again had an impact, although that depends based on jati/varna.
Overall, the northern subcontinent supports a much greater pop. due to larger areas of fertile land, so could support greater demographics vis-a-vis the south. And the British efforts to irrigate Punjab meant an explosion of the population in the NW subcontinent in the last 150 years, so proportionately higher numbers of people with Steppe enriched ancestry.
As for today, the TFR among various castes has mostly converged to replacement level outside of a few states in the Hindi belt, although for some of the UCs it’s been well below for a while. The TFR of the north is still higher than the south, so a larger proportion of (relatively) higher ANI northerners in the coming years.
About what might happen in the future, I think a large part would be influenced by the mismatched gender ratio in the country how that plays out in the marriage market. In parts of the country, there are 10 men for every 9 women. Let’s say that income being equal and after varna/jati checks out, the woman would decide based on attractiveness and personality, the fairness part will likely play an important role in considerations alongside other markers, so some unfortunate men would get left out.
And when the pandora’s box of gene editing becomes financially viable for the Indian commoner you can guess how things will turn out w.r.t. what they want when it comes to the baby’s intelligence and looks.
gene editing will be wild, on a widespread basis (already occurring but in niche settings). S Asians have all sorts of diverse genes to play around with, given their relatively recent heterogenous origins, that too of quite divergent populations (AASI vs. others). the tech might give them relatively more “room” to modify towards their desired outcomes
“Overall, the northern subcontinent supports a much greater pop … an explosion of the population in the NW subcontinent in the last 150 years, so proportionately higher numbers of people with Steppe enriched ancestry.”
That is an interesting point. Environmental selection has clearly favoured lighter skinned ethnic groups at the sub-continental level.
Not sure if that has been replicated regionally as lower castes have had higher TFR for a while.
Sexual selection would have played a role within endogamous groups.
“In parts of the country, there are 10 men for every 9 women.”
This is one of the plot points in a science fiction story I am writing. Mid 21st century Delhi aunties trying to find high Steppe wives for their 30-something sons.
Genetic engineering makes an appearance.
(pun intended)
off topic but I think Asin is the most beautiful woman in the world
But she still ended up with steppe-enhanced guy.
It’s more wealth enhanced than anything else. Guy is a billionaire
No just high iranic HG related and lower aasi.
This spiraled downhill quite fast? @Warlock, not sure why you are defensive with your own ilk. AASI, it’s what makes Indians, Indians; and what makes the instant head nodding connections across the seven seas; and it is our AASI that keep india as one country. AASI is the fevicol of India. AASI integrates us while Steppe differentiates us.
I had assumed that the phenotype of IVC was a mix of Iranic and AASI Hunter gatherers that’s all. Didn’t want to trigger the negative spiral.
I agree. I just don’t like how AASI heavy people always end up being shafted and considered ugly. They don’t dominate Indian sports, entertainment, media, politics, economy, education, etc. They get literally nothing on average. They are relegated to ridicule and poverty with a few token leaders like Mayawati. It’s a sad state of affairs.
warlock, they may not dominate cricket but they are plenty represented in soccer, hockey, and athletics. (you can always root for sri lanka?) Look up IM Vijayan, dude looks andamanese, and was the greatest modern player talent-wise. That we don’t find more examples in business other than shiv nadar really speaks to more to the domination in that field by a very small subset of castes. Regional politics is replete with leaders who phenotypically reflect the people they represent. Its a bit counter-intuitive, given how anti-racism is a religion in the US, one would think that people in india are only *more* self-loathing about their genetic heritage. I don’t think its accurate though, and the type of jatt vanity and AASI deprecation you see around you in NJ doesn’t have as much currency as you might predict over here.
Dark skinned AASI heavy phenotypes seem to be overrepresented in the Indian Space Research Organization.
Look at K. Sivan for eg.
But the sad thing is if bollywood makes a movie about ISROs mars mission, they might get Hrithik Roshan in dark contacts and brown face to play Mr. Sivan (like they did in the movie Super 30).
When some white director (Steven Spielberg??) wanted to make a film on malcolm X , Spike Lee made a big noise to make sure only a black should make a movie on MX and he won
The head of ISRO is K Sivan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K._Sivan
Very high AASI.
Proud of him.
I am also proud that Dravidians gave us Shruti Hasan
You could look up the Sri Lankan cricket teams now and past.
Sanath Jayasuriy, short tubby guy, easily mistaken for Jamaican.
Apparently has a big thing too, his girl friend (Sanath is married) released a action video onto the net.
He is the only player to score over 10,000 runs and capture more than 300 wickets in One Day International cricket, and hence regarded as one of the best all-rounders in the history of limited-overs cricket
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanath_Jayasuriya
Athletics,not really world class. 2 silvers from Olympics, one for Womens 200m and the other 400m Hurdles. India has a many Badminton, hockey etc medals, non for athletics other than 2 in 1900 to an Anglo Indian.
I would think we are probably hold our own or better in South Asian games and ASEAN games.
Got 251 medals compared to Indias 311
Not bad for a country of 21 million
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_South_Asian_Games
Maybe AASI people need their own country.
We in SL are doing OK, given that we dont work too hard.
Cant say we are poverty stricken, illiterate etc.
Well weren’t Tamils trying to do exactly that in your country 😛
Lankan Tamils are no different from the Sinhalese, just cultural affiliation to Tamil Nadu. They can easily assimilate.
Heck most of Sri Lanka are of South Indian origin. Dalits according to Brahmin commentor and some Tamil on a Sri Lankan blog.
AASI is the reason and attractiveness of this brown pundits blog. We would not be together in Brown Pundits if not for our AASI. I agree with @Sumit and @girmit, the Indian’s love for the inner and outer AASI will come with achievements in sports and science and culture such as music and art, and eventually even the movies. The achievement inversion in India, where the South is more developed than the North certainly is driving change in perceptions already. It will lag in Pakistan and lead in Bangladesh for obvious reasons.
Internationally, I expect AASI will be transformative as the world pivots to a greater inclusiveness, in the US, in Europe and in the South Asian milieu, especially because South Asians will very visibly show leadership in the world of business, culture and science. So, is it the swan song of the steppe? Lets see!
The swan song may not last that long, once gene editing comes into the picture in a couple of decades, the stereotypes held by the Indian masses will emerge, and you’ll see a good chunk of people requesting that their children get TamBrahm intelligence, Kalash looks, and Jatt Sikh height.
Data doesn’t support the height. Look into previous threads. It might jsut be largely bravado and income driven. Look up secular height study.
Regardless, I think it will rake more than a couple decades. Maybe 4-5. Governments may also try to restrict it a lot. The externalities could be bad.
That is why I mention stereotypes, it may not turn out to be true statistically.
Frankly, this is something the government would have difficulty restricting, and the woke agenda would be turned on its head; this is how the conversation will turn out:
People opposing gene editing: “It’s bad, can’t you see that you shouldn’t interfere with (wo)man’s natural state?”
People supporting it: “Why do you want to prevent us from having it? Do you want the physical and cognitive advantages UCs have acquired over the decades to be restricted to them and denied to us? Down with Brahmin supremacy!”
People opposing it: (twiddling thumbs) *crickets*
Rather than trying to oppose it, the government should see that it’s available to everyone for an affordable price. The world won’t be closed in the 2050s like it was in the 1800s, and by restricting it in India, those very keen on it would just fly abroad to countries taking arbitrage advantage of the situation, thus resulting in only the wealthier people in the country gaining access to all those genetic ‘advantages’, and thereby perpetuating a new caste system.
It would be interesting to see people on the left do an about turn and start talking about g-factor and other Steve Sailer pet obsessions.
Eagerly await the confirmation of this horseshoe theory.
Idk about height but there is a frame difference. Northwest Indian clavicles are longer than south Indian clavicles. For a comparison, northwest Indian clavicle size is similar to east Asian clavicle size.
Although I don’t think that it correlates only with latitude since south Indians seem to have slightly larger clavicles than west Indians and Iranians have smaller ones than northwest Indians.
Yes that is true. Frame diff is there I think. Data shows it irrc. Granted E Asians arent so broad either so broadness doesn’t seem to be a strong suit for the subcontinent in general.
I’m just happy I inherited shoulder width from my mom’s side. Dad’s side is more narrow. Mom’s is more medium. My wrists and ankles are small tho. Kinda sucks for strength sports. Rib cage ans hips are ok tho.
Yes south Asians aren’t particularly broad. Native HG were likely slender and I suspect that Iran HGs were as broad as taforalt at most, which is broader than most modern populations. However the Iran HG and AASI mix would have been subjected to reduction in the neolithic and copper ages.
Taforalt was a slightly broader than modern Europeans and Africans but it wasn’t even close to Afalou which must have been among the broadest AMH, up there with the broadest subsets of MUP European HGs. Afalou was however shorter than taforalt and it would have represented an extremely mesomorphic population. Their average clavicle length was around 170 mm and they had a stature of 174 cm.
There aren’t enough east Iran HG remains. I guess it is because they are both ancient and far away from western Iran which I guess gives the region and the layers a lower priority in Iranian archaeology.
Why it would lag in Pakistan ? please elaborate..
AASI is responsible for the Indian brown skin ??
Fyi, the so called ‘Iranian HG’ were mostly dark skinned people even though they had one of the allele coding for light skin…
“TamBrahm intelligence, Kalash looks, and Jatt Sikh height”
LOLOL
Glad that my peeps have a positive stereotype going for themselves. But the insider truth is that there is no inherent intelligence or any of that BS, its just hardcore parenting plain and simple. Ah if only I could have had a dime for everytime I cried to join my friends playing cricket instead of being dragged off to carnatic music/maths/shloka chanting classes.
Regarding looks, I personally prefer the thin waisted sharper featured milk chocolate complected lasses from my part of the country, but each to his own. The kalash just seem…foreign. But exotic in their own way I guess.
“AASI is the fevicol of India. AASI integrates us while Steppe differentiates us”
Totally mate!
@warlock – I get where you’re coming from, but you’re overestimating the AASI hate. Speaking for my community only, there may be some preference for lighter complected folks but that pales in comparison to acheivement or talent. Also maybe its the seeping in of Western PC culture, but I don’t hear any casual colourist comments in family getherings any more, while they were fairly commonly thrown around maybe 10-15 years ago.
In wider society, as acheivement heavy arenas such as sport and entrepreneurship start getting more social cred and bollywood/showbiz starts fading in importance (about time!) the “AASI hate” will start disappearing – maybe I’m being hopeful
Maybe the high expectations have a long term impact of separating the wheat from the chaff.
If everyone thinks you are ugly, you are ugly. There is no way to sugarcoat this. And if every group including your own group thinks your racial/ethnic/tribal group is ugly, then that also becomes true. People just need to accept and become comfortable in their own skin, perhaps spend less time worrying about whether they are ugly or not and more time on other less superficial goals.
Yeah, this beauty is subjective and all this debate of global ideals or media pushing certain things is way overblown imo , there are certain objective traits of beauty ,its only above which subjectiveness begin.
to a great extent, i agree with what you are saying
it’s just a lot of northwest indian/pakistani types say moronic things that are clearly cultural and subjective (like querishi above, who is on the reasonable side tbh, but just reflects his cultural views with zero heft beyond that). i think it’s cuz you ppl are parochial and don’t get out much, and also don’t read the scientific literature (it’s not like you’re iyers to boot up google scholar 😉
i mean, unibrows and light mustaches were considered attractive on women in qajar iran. it’s not like there aren’t fashions…
warlock is a little obsessed with ‘convincing’ ppl like you, but i think you are just reflecting your culture and too dumb to think outside of that so it’s a waste. most humans are stupid so it’s fine. arguing about attractiveness with you morons is like arguing about genetics with ugra.
I am not sure if this woman from the Qajar era was considered ”beautiful” even then..
http://www.upsocl.com/cultura-y-entretencion/la-verdadera-historia-de-la-princesa-qajair-simbolo-de-belleza-y-perfeccion-cientos-la-amaron/
And it’s not because of her skin color or her unibrow or her figure..
A lot of the ”research” on historical beauty standards are done by ‘gender experts’ and professors of sociology.. it’s preloaded with a left-wing agenda and does not mirror ground realities or lived experience.
Sexual dimorphism is what drives intersex attractiveness, prominence of masculine features (wide jaw and defined jawline, facial hair, low bodyfat%, muscular frame, tall height) is what females generally find attractive when they are most fertile, while males are more attracted to females that have big tits, large hips, etc and both men and women find symmetrical features, clear skin, luscious hair attractive as this is a sign of youth and fertility.
Obviously these aren’t the only things that figure into attractiveness, 1) fame, 2) personality, 3)financial status and 4)educational achievement are also are extremely important, in that order, especially for women and slightly less so for men.
This is not just different culture, millions of men are jacking off to the same porn every day.
shut the fuck up you moron.
steven pinker follows 40 ppl on twitter. i’m one of those 40. you think i don’t know the research? david buss wants to meet me, i haven’t had time 😉 [we live in the same town]
end the high midwittery and defer to your betters. your attempt to grok the ev psych research is commendable, but your mangling in the service of your naive intuitions are not
steven pinker follows 40 ppl on twitter. i’m one of those 40. you think i don’t know the research? david buss wants to meet me, i haven’t had time ? [we live in the same town]
Lol at south asian style status signaling / bragging.
It always comes off as so crass to me, but its just part of the culture (esp. North / North West) so people aren’t necessarily trying to be jerks etc. when they brag.
I think the social protocol is to acknowledge the brag, and appreciate its impressiveness, and then a few minutes later brag about something yourself so the opposing party can have an opportunity to acknowledge your impressiveness.
” it’s preloaded with a left-wing agenda and does not mirror ground realities or lived experience.”
lived experience is a stupid term invented by idiotic left-wing ideologues. rule #1 of purging yourself if this idiocy is not to adopt their language
“Why it would lag in Pakistan ? please elaborate….”
@Pakguy, I meant Pakistan would lag in their love and identification with AASI. From what I read, it is on a different journey identifying with the large muslim world to its west, maybe I am wrong.
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Well finding common ground with someone isnt wrong if it result in diplomatic and economic gains its not all about physical appearance , also pakistan mainly has warm relations with Turkey and gulf countries not much to other Muslim countries.
Also how you identify with AASI , By accepting indian hegemony in South Asia?
Happy to see such optimism about the AASI. One day they will be treated equitably. Much works need to be done. Many are stuck in the past and want to hold onto paradigma that favor them or give them comfort of a “natural order,” so they don’t have to confront the tragic reality in a meaningful way. They can just dismiss it all to stochacistism or some sort of evolutionary hierarchal hapstance, if you will, rather than seeing it more for what it is, a problem that can be intervened on and produce results that lead to less unfair treatment and better allocation of human’s resources via a long term more meritocratic system. I don’t advocate for quotas. But I do advocate for education and understandingand free society, one in which equity gains are slow but real, built on principle of rewarding merit long-term via market based competition, thus resulting in an actual economic footing and societal entrenchment that is based on individual real skills rather than historical power hierarchies, many of which were just perpetuated power schemes, based on luck of the first move and subsequent snow ball effect.
Also how you identify with AASI , By accepting indian hegemony in South Asia?
By accepting the reality and appreciating the incredible depth of Pakistan’s cultural heritage and its humanistic underpinning perhaps? Not sure what India has got to do with it at all. Bangladesh is already well ahead of India in many ways (perhaps because it is more culturally homogenous) on this journey.