Peopling of India
Encyclopedia
The peopling of India is a contentious area of research and discourse, due to the debate on topics such as the Indo-Aryan migration
hypothesis. Some anthropologists hypothesize that the region was settled by multiple human migrations over tens of millennia, which makes it even harder to select certain groups as being truly aboriginal.
period..
about 74,000 years ago destroyed much of India's central forests, covering it with a layer of volcanic ash, and may have brought humans worldwide to a state of near-extinction by suddenly plunging the planet into an ice-age that could have lasted for up to 1,800 years. If true, this may "explain the apparent bottleneck in human populations
that geneticists believe occurred between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago" and the relative "lack of genetic diversity among humans alive today." Since the Toba event is believed to have had such a harsh impact and "specifically blanketed the Indian subcontinent in a deep layer of ash," it was "difficult to see how India's first colonists could have survived this greatest of all disasters." Therefore, it was believed that all humans previously present in India went extinct during, or shortly after, this event and these first Indians left "no trace of their DNA in present-day humans" - a theory seemingly backed by genetic studies. However, research published in 2009 by a team led by Michael Petraglia of the University of Oxford
suggested that some humans may have survived the hypothesized catastrophe on the Indian mainland. Undertaking "Pompeii
-like excavations" under the layer of Toba ash, the team discovered tools and human habitations from both before and after the eruption. However, human fossils have not been found from this period and nothing is known of the ethnicity of these early humans in India.
One narrative, describes Negrito
s, similar to the Andamanese
adivasis of today, as the first identifiable human population to colonize India, likely 30-65 thousand years before present (kybp). This first colonization of the Indian mainland and the Andaman Islands by humans is theorized to be part of a great coastal migration of humans from Africa
along the coastal regions of the Indian mainland and towards Southeast Asia
, Japan
and Oceania
. 60% of all modern Indians share the mtDNA haplogroup M
, which is universal among Andamanese islander adivasis and might be a genetic legacy of the postulated first Indians. A 2010 study by the Anthropological Survey of India
and the Texas-based Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research
identified seven genomes from 26 isolated "relic tribes" (sic) from the Indian mainland, such as the Baiga, which share "two synonymous polymorphisms with the M42 haplogroup
, which is specific to Australian Aborigines
." These were specific mtDNA
mutations that are shared exclusively by Australian aborigines and these Indian tribes, and no other known human groupings.
Australoid
people (who largely shared skin pigmentation and physiognomy with the Negritos, but had straight rather than kinky hair), and adivasi tribes such as the Irulas
trace their origins to that displacement. The Oraon
adivasi tribe of eastern India and the Korku
tribe of western India are considered to be examples of groups of Australoid origin.
s and Indo-Aryan
s) and Mongoloids (Sino-Tibetans) immigrated into India: the Elamo-Dravidians (called such, so as to distinguish them from the modern Dravidian
populations of India, which are of predominantly Australoid racial stock) possibly from Iran
, the Indo-Aryans possibly from the Central Asia
n steppes and the Tibeto-Burmans possibly from the Himalayan and north-eastern borders of the subcontinent. None of these hypotheses is free from debate and disagreement.
s are frequently classified as an Australoid group, yet Bhil languages
are Indo-European.
Indo-Aryan migration
Models of the Indo-Aryan migration discuss scenarios of prehistoric migrations of the proto-Indo-Aryans to their historically attested areas of settlement in the northwest of the Indian subcontinent...
hypothesis. Some anthropologists hypothesize that the region was settled by multiple human migrations over tens of millennia, which makes it even harder to select certain groups as being truly aboriginal.
Early hominins of Acheulean period
The presence of intelligent hominins in the subcontinent may stretch as far back as 1,500,000 ybp to the AcheuleanAcheulean
Acheulean is the name given to an archaeological industry of stone tool manufacture associated with early humans during the Lower Palaeolithic era across Africa and much of West Asia, South Asia and Europe. Acheulean tools are typically found with Homo erectus remains...
period..
Humans and the Toba catastrophe
It has been hypothesized that the Toba supereruptionToba catastrophe theory
The Toba supereruption was a supervolcanic eruption that occurred some time between 69,000 and 77,000 years ago at Lake Toba . It is recognized as one of the Earth's largest known eruptions...
about 74,000 years ago destroyed much of India's central forests, covering it with a layer of volcanic ash, and may have brought humans worldwide to a state of near-extinction by suddenly plunging the planet into an ice-age that could have lasted for up to 1,800 years. If true, this may "explain the apparent bottleneck in human populations
Population bottleneck
A population bottleneck is an evolutionary event in which a significant percentage of a population or species is killed or otherwise prevented from reproducing....
that geneticists believe occurred between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago" and the relative "lack of genetic diversity among humans alive today." Since the Toba event is believed to have had such a harsh impact and "specifically blanketed the Indian subcontinent in a deep layer of ash," it was "difficult to see how India's first colonists could have survived this greatest of all disasters." Therefore, it was believed that all humans previously present in India went extinct during, or shortly after, this event and these first Indians left "no trace of their DNA in present-day humans" - a theory seemingly backed by genetic studies. However, research published in 2009 by a team led by Michael Petraglia of the University of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
suggested that some humans may have survived the hypothesized catastrophe on the Indian mainland. Undertaking "Pompeii
Pompeii
The city of Pompeii is a partially buried Roman town-city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. Along with Herculaneum, Pompeii was destroyed and completely buried during a long catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius spanning...
-like excavations" under the layer of Toba ash, the team discovered tools and human habitations from both before and after the eruption. However, human fossils have not been found from this period and nothing is known of the ethnicity of these early humans in India.
The Negrito migrations
Negrito
The Negrito are a class of several ethnic groups who inhabit isolated parts of Southeast Asia.Their current populations include 12 Andamanese peoples of the Andaman Islands, six Semang peoples of Malaysia, the Mani of Thailand, and the Aeta, Agta, Ati, and 30 other peoples of the Philippines....
s, similar to the Andamanese
Andamanese
The Andamanese people are the various aboriginal inhabitants of the Andaman Islands, which is the northern district of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands union territory of India, located in the southeastern part of the Bay of Bengal. They include the Great Andamanese, Jarawa, Onge, Sentinelese, and...
adivasis of today, as the first identifiable human population to colonize India, likely 30-65 thousand years before present (kybp). This first colonization of the Indian mainland and the Andaman Islands by humans is theorized to be part of a great coastal migration of humans from Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
along the coastal regions of the Indian mainland and towards Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
and Oceania
Oceania
Oceania is a region centered on the islands of the tropical Pacific Ocean. Conceptions of what constitutes Oceania range from the coral atolls and volcanic islands of the South Pacific to the entire insular region between Asia and the Americas, including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago...
. 60% of all modern Indians share the mtDNA haplogroup M
Haplogroup M (mtDNA)
In human mitochondrial genetics, Haplogroup M is a human mitochondrial DNA haplogroup. An enormous haplogroup spanning all the continents, the macro-haplogroup M, like its sibling N, is a descendant of haplogroup L3....
, which is universal among Andamanese islander adivasis and might be a genetic legacy of the postulated first Indians. A 2010 study by the Anthropological Survey of India
Anthropological Survey of India
Anthropological Survey of India is the apex Indian organisation involved in anthropological studies and field data research for human and cultural aspects, working primarily in the fields of physical anthropology and cultural anthropology...
and the Texas-based Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research
Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research
Texas Biomedical Research Institute , located in San Antonio, Texas, is an independent biomedical research institution, specializing in genetics and in virology and immunology...
identified seven genomes from 26 isolated "relic tribes" (sic) from the Indian mainland, such as the Baiga, which share "two synonymous polymorphisms with the M42 haplogroup
Haplogroup M (mtDNA)
In human mitochondrial genetics, Haplogroup M is a human mitochondrial DNA haplogroup. An enormous haplogroup spanning all the continents, the macro-haplogroup M, like its sibling N, is a descendant of haplogroup L3....
, which is specific to Australian Aborigines
Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....
." These were specific mtDNA
Human mitochondrial genetics
Human mitochondrial genetics is the study of the genetics of the DNA contained in human mitochondria. Mitochondria are small structures in cells that generate energy for the cell to use, and are hence referred to as the "powerhouses" of the cell....
mutations that are shared exclusively by Australian aborigines and these Indian tribes, and no other known human groupings.
Hypothesized Australoid migrations
Some anthropologists theorize that the original Negrito settlers of India were displaced by invading Austro-Asiatic-speakingAustro-Asiatic languages
The Austro-Asiatic languages, in recent classifications synonymous with Mon–Khmer, are a large language family of Southeast Asia, also scattered throughout India and Bangladesh. The name Austro-Asiatic comes from the Latin words for "south" and "Asia", hence "South Asia"...
Australoid
Australoid
The Australoid race is a broad racial classification. The concept originated with a typological method of racial classification. They were described as having dark skin with wavy hair, in the case of Veddoids from South Asia and Aboriginal Australians, or hair ranging from straight to kinky in the...
people (who largely shared skin pigmentation and physiognomy with the Negritos, but had straight rather than kinky hair), and adivasi tribes such as the Irulas
Irulas
Irulas are a scheduled tribe of India. Irulas are present in various parts of India, but are mainly located in the Thiruvallur district of Tamil Nadu...
trace their origins to that displacement. The Oraon
Oraon
The Oraon उरांव or Kurukh कुड़ुख tribe , also spelled Uraon, Oran, or Oram, are tribal aborigines inhabiting various states across central and eastern India as well as Bangladesh...
adivasi tribe of eastern India and the Korku
Korku
Korku is a scheduled tribe community predominantly found in the East Nimar , Betul and Chhindwara districts of Madhya Pradesh and adjoining areas in Melghat region of Maharastra in India speaking the Korku language, which is a member of the Austroasiatic language family...
tribe of western India are considered to be examples of groups of Australoid origin.
Caucasoid and Mongoloid migrations
Subsequent to the Australoids, some anthropologists and geneticists theorize that Caucasoids (including both Elamo-DravidianElamo-Dravidian languages
The Elamo-Dravidian languages are a hypothesised language family which links the living or proto Dravidian languages of India to the extinct Elamite language of ancient Elam . Linguist David McAlpin has been a chief proponent of the Elamo-Dravidian Hypothesis...
s and Indo-Aryan
Indo-Aryans
Indo-Aryan is an ethno-linguistic term referring to the wide collection of peoples united as native speakers of the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-Iranian family of Indo-European languages...
s) and Mongoloids (Sino-Tibetans) immigrated into India: the Elamo-Dravidians (called such, so as to distinguish them from the modern Dravidian
Dravidian peoples
Dravidian peoples is a term used to refer to the diverse groups of people who natively speak languages belonging to the Dravidian language family. Populations of speakers of around 220 million are found mostly in Southern India. Other Dravidian people are found in parts of central India, Sri Lanka,...
populations of India, which are of predominantly Australoid racial stock) possibly from Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
, the Indo-Aryans possibly from the Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
n steppes and the Tibeto-Burmans possibly from the Himalayan and north-eastern borders of the subcontinent. None of these hypotheses is free from debate and disagreement.
Crossovers in languages and ethnicity
While people of predominantly Caucasoid racial origin generally speak Indo-Aryan languages and people of predominantly Australoid racial origin generally speak Dravidian languages, it nevertheless remains true that ethnic origins and linguistic affiliations in India sometimes do not correspond. For example, Khasis and Nicobarese are considered to be Mongoloid groups, yet both groups speak Austro-Asiatic languages. The BhilBhil
Bhils are primarily an Adivasi people of Central India. Bhils are also settled in the Tharparkar District of Sindh, Pakistan. They speak the Bhil languages, a subgroup of the Western Zone of the Indo-Aryan languages....
s are frequently classified as an Australoid group, yet Bhil languages
Bhil languages
The Bhil languages are a group of Western Indo-Aryan languages spoken by some 6 million Bhils in western, central, and by small numbers, even in far eastern, India...
are Indo-European.
See also
- Genetics and archaeogenetics of South AsiaGenetics and archaeogenetics of South AsiaThe study of the genetics and archaeogenetics of the ethnic groups of South Asia aims at uncovering these groups' genetic history. The geographic position of India makes Indian populations important for the study of the early dispersal of all human populations on the Eurasian continent.The Indian...
- Early human migrationsEarly human migrationsEarly human migrations began when Homo erectus first migrated out of Africa over the Levantine corridor and Horn of Africa to Eurasia about 1.8 million years ago, a migration probably sparked by the development of language Early human migrations began when Homo erectus first migrated out of Africa...
- AndamaneseAndamaneseThe Andamanese people are the various aboriginal inhabitants of the Andaman Islands, which is the northern district of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands union territory of India, located in the southeastern part of the Bay of Bengal. They include the Great Andamanese, Jarawa, Onge, Sentinelese, and...
- NegritoNegritoThe Negrito are a class of several ethnic groups who inhabit isolated parts of Southeast Asia.Their current populations include 12 Andamanese peoples of the Andaman Islands, six Semang peoples of Malaysia, the Mani of Thailand, and the Aeta, Agta, Ati, and 30 other peoples of the Philippines....
- Australoid race
- IrulasIrulasIrulas are a scheduled tribe of India. Irulas are present in various parts of India, but are mainly located in the Thiruvallur district of Tamil Nadu...
- Indo-Aryan migrationIndo-Aryan migrationModels of the Indo-Aryan migration discuss scenarios of prehistoric migrations of the proto-Indo-Aryans to their historically attested areas of settlement in the northwest of the Indian subcontinent...