Origins of Indian ethnic groups

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The Indian subcontinent has been home to a multitudinous variety of racial groups throughout the millennia, making it one of the most genetically rich areas on the globe today. Relatively isolated from the rest of Eurasia by the Himilayas to the north, and the Indian Ocean to the west, east and south, India has managed to shelter some of the most ancient races outside of Africa, while also assimilating and absorbing waves of later human populations, resulting in a greatly enriched genetic, linguistic and cultural heritage.

Contents 1 Negrito Aborigines 2 Veddoid Migrants 3 Mediterannean Farmers 4 Indo-Aryan Invaders 5 See also 6 Notes

[edit] Negrito Aborigines

The aboriginal inhabitants of India belonged to an ancient population of uncertain origins who mainly inhabited the jungle environments of the subcontinent, much like the modern day Pygmies of Africa and the Negritos of Southeast Asia. We can only assume that the morphological features shared by these last two geographically diverse populations, such as very small-stature, dark skin, woolly hair, scant body hair and occasional steatopygia, must also have characterised the ancient Indian homunculi. Although little is known of their origins, we know that their arrival in the Indus predated that of the Proto-Australoids^[1] roughly 60,000 years ago. Forming a sub-stratum with which later waves of ethnic groups have been merged, these enigmatic pygmies have largely been amalgamated into the modern Indian race ^[2] leaving no trace of their language or culture.

[edit] Veddoid Migrants

Main article: Proto-Australoid

The second wave of migrants to enter India, around 60,000 years ago, followed a coastal route out of eastern Africa, using a simple form of watercarft to cross the narrow span of water between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Surviving on a largely marine diet, a number of these nomadic hunter-gatherers stayed in the Indus and moved inland along river systems of the subcontinent. Others pressed on into Southeast Asia, eventually giving rise to the Australian Aborigines.

Genetically the Proto-Australoids are associated with the mtDNA haplogroup M, the earliest lineage outside of Africa.^{[citation needed]} Veddoid peoples were characterised by gracile body types, dark skin and wavy hair, broad, flat noses and fleshy, protruding lips. They had long heads with low foreheads and prominent eye ridges, thick jaws, large teeth and small chins. ^[3][4]

The Australoids laid the foundation of Indian civilization. They cultivated rice and vegetables and made sugar from sugarcane. Their languages have survived in the Central and Eastern India. The Veddahs of Sri Lanka are believed to be partly descended from the Australoids.

[edit] Mediterannean Farmers

At present this race includes a large number of groups of peoples stretching from Iberia to India. The characteristic type appears in late Natufian times in Palestine and may have been differentiated in the southern steppes of Northern Africa and in Asia, and spread westwards and eastwards. The peoples of Asia Minor, Crete and the pre-Hellenic Aegean ^[5] as well as the predynastic Egyptians belonged to this stock and the purest representatives at present are to be found in the Arabian Peninsula. In India it forms a dominant element in the population of the north and is widespread elsewhere among the upper social classes. Such people are medium to tall in stature, wih a complexion ranging from dark to light olive brown, a long head and face, and eyes ranging from black to brown and characteristically large and open. The body is slenderly built. The archeological evidence shows that this long-headed Mediterranean type is everywhere in Western Asia associated with the earliest agricultural settlements. The appearance of the early Mediterranean folk in prehistoric India must be related to this Neolithic expansion from the west. ^[6] They are reputed to have built the city civilizations of the Indus Valley, the remains of which have been found at Mohenjo-daro and Harappa. ^[7]

[edit] Indo-Aryan Invaders

Originating somewhere in the broad grazing lands either between the Rhine and the Don, or between the Rhine and Western Turkestan, an eastern division of the Aryans gave rise to the early Persians and the Indo-Aryans. Mounted on chariots, this raiding party pressed through the passes of the Hindu Kush and broke into the broadly spreading, rich Indian plain. Most closely resembling the modern day Balto-Slavic tribes, they were of a race so little interested in cities that once they had gained the mastery there were no more cities in the Indus for a thousand years. ^[8]

[edit] See also

• Wanniyala-Aetto
• Australoid

[edit] Notes