Genetic History of the Tajiks

12 metre Buddha in Nirvana: Ajina Tepe, Tajikistan 6th - 7th Century CE)

I was going through the paper by Guarino-Vignon et al (2022) again and was struck by some very good insights. The paper is titled "Genetic continuity of Indo-Iranian speakers since the Iron Age in southern Central Asia".

The paper studies the modern Tajik and Yaghnobi people of Tajikistan. While the Tajik speak a Persian dialect (Iranian > West Iranian > SW Iranian > Persian > Tajik), the Yaghnobis speak an Eastern Iranian language, a descendant of ancient Sogdian (Iranian > East Iranian > Sogdian > Yaghnobi).

Steppe Ancestry definitely arrived in India post 1000 BCE - The Final Blow

कर्ण (karNa), by @zdrava

In my first post on this topic - 'The True source of steppe ancestry in modern Indians' - I laid out the genetic claim that the best source for steppe in Indians seems to be a sample from the Yaz II Iron Age culture site at Takhirbai 3, Turkmenistan (short name of the sample - TKM_IA), dated to approximately 850 BCE. Based on other archaeological, anthropological, epigraphic and literary evidence which also supported this claim, I proposed that only a post-1000 BCE movement of these 'proto-Śāka' people could explain the steppe ancestry present in modern Indians. The main reason to reject the view that steppe folks came to the core Vedic region (of Punjab, Haryana and East UP) around ~1500 BCE, and gave Indians the Vedic culture and Indo-European languages is the fact that absolutely no archaeological evidence exists to support such a big claim. This difference is important - a post-1000 BCE movement of Iranian-speaking proto-Śāka into India cannot bring the Vedic culture and language. Neither does it match the evidence from Rig Veda, which describes a pre-Iron Age life. Do read that article to understand all the evidence in support of my claim. 

The true source of the Steppe ancestry in modern Indians (continued)

In my previous post, I concluded that the steppe ancestry in Indians is most likely to have arrived after 1000 BCE via the East Iranian-speaking Śāka. the ~850 CE TKM_IA sample turned out to be the best steppe source among the options provided.

Since then, a particular commentator on Twitter, who is adamant about the ~1500 BCE invisible steppe invasion into India has been putting alternative viewpoints in support of the old theory favoured by Kurganists. 

In his first attempt, he argued for an Inner Asian Mountain Corridor (IAMC) specific ancestry (Aigyrzhal_BA from Kyrgystan 2000 BCE as the proxy).

@Astra_2310 @DevarajaIndra @razibkhan @agenetics1

Tl;dr I'm arguing we need bronze age Aigyrzhal, not just Sintashta, to model the steppe ancestry in Indians. Thoughts? https://t.co/7SRF1KwXWs

— Ummon Karpe | 𑀅𑀫𑀦 𑀓𑀭𑀧𑁂 💎 (@The_Equationist) December 13, 2022

The true source of the steppe ancestry in modern Indians

 

This post aims to clarify the source of the bronze age steppe ancestry in modern Indians. For this, I have chosen the following targets.

Modern targets and their details