Talk:Genetics and Archaeogenetics of South Asia
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Why is no one talking of sample size and sampling strategy of all the studies that have been done? MOst of these studies are poor in terms of design and not much generalisations can be made from them.== Tocharians == This article probably could benefit from some reference to (or at least a link to) the Tocharian people [1]
Borderline if they can be included in the "south asia concept" but as india seems to belong here, and the Tocharians probably had some contact there on their way to the east of China....
Even if they did or did not in the end contribute many genes they can stand as an example of the migrations from Europe to Asia that were taking place. And it's nice that we have physical relics of them, mummies and colour depictions.
Then there are the genetics of the Berber people and the Guanche People, who also seem to have had that funny looking yellow hair and seem to have been lodged outside their normal realm, but they are in africa hence by far outside the scope of this article.
Would take a shot at it myself if I were not so lazzzzy.
[edit] Removed copy from Bamshad et al. study
A user 71.195.221.190 has copied a large portion from Bamshad et al. study. This is irrelevent here as the it was just one of the studies also the first one to explore it. The details of the study has been included under mtDNA and Y-chromosome headings. In fact, many of the data from the study is patently incorrect, such as mtDNA U2i as proved by the later Kivisild et al. study(2003). So we don't have to consider that primitive study as the final word on caste genetics.
Manjunatha (23 Apr 2006)
[edit] Text
Maybe this text (from Indo-Aryan migration article) can be merged here: There has been significant progress in genetic studies of the Indian caste populations in the last five years (as of 2006); this has implications for the Indo-Aryan migration/invasion theory. The studies could be broadly classified into pro-racial and pro-cultural.
The genetic studies are ongoing with conflicting results: those that support an infusion of genetic material {Bamshad et al.(2001), Spencer Wells, Journey of Man(2002), Basu et al. (2003), Cordaux et al.(2004)} (pro-racial) and those that don't {Kivisild et al.(2003), Sengupta et al.(2005), Sahoo et al.(2006)} (pro-cultural). A final picture will emerge after critical and comparative analyses of these studies.
The pro-racial construction studies maintain that there exists "Aryan" Y-lineages in Indian(especially upper caste) population. The age of these Y-lineages in India coincided with the putative Aryan invasion period in their studies.
The pro-cultural construction studies argue that the lineages identified with the "Aryan" are in fact more diverse in lower caste and tribal populations even though their frequency is lower. Their studies came to the conclusion that most of Indian Y-chromosomes date back to late pleistocene.
Interestingly, western Eurasian mtDNA haplogroup U2i in pro-racial Bamshad et al. study turned into Eastern Eurasian(mostly India specific) in pro-culture Kivisild et al. study.
However, there are still doubts exist over autosomal admixture analysis. It is also suggested that Indian marital traditions may have an impact on the calculation of age of Indian Y-haplogroups.
