Update: IVC & Swat Valley Genetics, Bonus - Kashmiri Pandit Ancestry

SECTION A: THE INDUS PERIPHERY SAMPLES

In the Narasimhan et al 2019 paper, 13 outlier samples were published - 10 from the Iranian site of Shahr-i-Sokhta (abbrv. SiS, various dates 3100-2000 BCE) and 3 from the Bactria Margiana Archaeological Complex (abbrv. BMAC) site of Gonur (2400-2000 BCE). These samples showed an elevated ancestry component found in the Onge Andamanese and modern Indians, which was not found in the main samples from SiS and BMAC. Based on this, the hypothesis was made that these people were migrants from one or more sites of the Indus Valley Civilization (abbrv. IVC) and were labeled as 'Indus Periphery Samples'.

Various Site Locations

Are Bactrian (BMAC) horses not horses?

Librado, P., Khan, N., Fages, A. et al. The origins and spread of domestic horses from the Western Eurasian steppes. Nature 598, 634–640 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04018-9

This paper was published in October 2021. The following is the abstract:

Domestication of horses fundamentally transformed long-range mobility and warfare. However, modern domesticated breeds do not descend from the earliest domestic horse lineage associated with archaeological evidence of bridling, milking and corralling at Botai, Central Asia around 3500 BC. Other longstanding candidate regions for horse domestication, such as Iberia and Anatolia, have also recently been challenged. Thus, the genetic, geographic and temporal origins of modern domestic horses have remained unknown. Here we pinpoint the Western Eurasian steppes, especially the lower Volga-Don region, as the homeland of modern domestic horses. Furthermore, we map the population changes accompanying domestication from 273 ancient horse genomes. This reveals that modern domestic horses ultimately replaced almost all other local populations as they expanded rapidly across Eurasia from about 2000 BC, synchronously with equestrian material culture, including Sintashta spoke-wheeled chariots. We find that equestrianism involved strong selection for critical locomotor and behavioural adaptations at the GSDMC and ZFPM1 genes. Our results reject the commonly held association between horseback riding and the massive expansion of Yamnaya steppe pastoralists into Europe around 3000 BC driving the spread of Indo-European languages. This contrasts with the scenario in Asia where Indo-Iranian languages, chariots and horses spread together, following the early second millennium BC Sintashta culture

I have a serious problem with the emphasized part, and the emphasis is mine. So I exchanged mails with the authors. They are pasted below. Thoughts in the comments will be appreciated.