In this post, I analyze the date of steppe admixture with local ancestry in Swat Valley Iron age samples (avg 910 BCE) and RoopkundA (avg 850 CE) samples from Uttarakhand, India. These are the only 2 sets of good quality ancient DNA samples from the Indian subcontinent, and therefore extremely important to study the genetic changes in the subcontinent.
In one of my earlier posts, I analyzed all 23 RoopkundA samples and show that in that set of 13 male samples, the steppe component is not correlated with Y-HG R1a1a, instead, it is correlated with Y-hg J2.
Since the 2019 Narasimhan et al paper on Swat Valley, Pakistan samples was published, one of the key questions which remained was — When did the steppe ancestry seen in modern Indians and Pakistanis enter mainland India?
Burzahom Site: Location and few pictures of the site.
Sure, the Swat valley samples from 1200–800 BCE show steppe ancestry, but when did it enter what is now modern Pakistan? The papers claims that this happened between 1800–1500 BCE, however ancient human samples till 1500 BCE in neighbouring Bactria Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) show very little evidence of steppe people having traversed there. Crossing BMAC is a must to get from Steppe to Pakistan, so the question remained.
We may have the answer through preliminary results obtained by one of the top Indian researchers in the field of population genetics, Dr. Niraj Rai. In a conference 3 weeks ago posted on Youtube, he let slip one of his unpublished findings — That there is no steppe autosomal ancestry to be found in north India till 1300 BCE, although he refrained from stating the site explicitly. Upon going through his talk, I think the only plausible sample he is talking about is from the site of Burzahom, near Srinagar, Kashmir. We shall see if my educated guess was correct.
When did the steppe ancestry reach mainland India? Or was it localized to other regions than Kashmir? Question remains open.
In 2019, a paper1 was published with the analysis of the remains of 38 individuals whose bones were found in Roopkund lake, Uttarakhand at an altitude of 5000m above sea level.
Context of Roopkund Lake. a Map showing the location of Roopkund Lake. The approximate route of the Nanda Devi Raj Jat pilgrimage relative to Roopkund Lake is shown in the inset. b Image of disarticulated skeletal elements scattered around the Roopkund Lake site. Photo by Himadri Sinha Roy. c Image of Roopkund Lake and surrounding mountains. Photo by Atish Waghwase
In 1995, a paper1 was published by David Anthony, the well known kurganist, and Prof Nikolai Vinogradov titled 'Birth of the Chariot'. The paper mainly sought to explain the findings at the Potapovka & Sintashta-Petrovka sites in Russian steppe and relate them to Vedic rituals. Before we get to the crux of this article, I first want to deal with 2 other claims made in the same 1995 paper. First one is:
Click the settings wheel to choose heat map or cluster map, or to reset map.
Circular arrow on top right to reset map
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In the search bar, type country, group id, y haplogroup or mtDna haplogroup to only show matching samples. can clear the sort from the bottom right.
Once on a sample, click info to see various info on that sample. Multiple samples from same site will be clustered together. Can view each by clicking next arrow.
Best viewed on PC (and firefox browser apparently).
I will be adding samples as I see new aDna papers. Link me papers which I have missed. Thanks.
