History of Human Races In India

History of Human races in India

The study of orgin of races and human evolution is called anthropology it is very important to knoe about our genes and orgins. It is very useful for the medical world.

Today me Rodger Bloor is going to write an article about the Ethnic Races In India.

India is a land of many races. The story of how people In India come in different, shapes, sizes and skin colours is a very big story.

Where were the human beings when all of this was happening? Most scientists agree that human beings first evolved in Africa around 2,00,000years ago. The San tribe of
the Kalahari (also called the Bushmen) is probably the oldest surviving population of humans. A genetic study of the members of this tribe revealed that they show the great genetic variation of any racial group. This means that they are likely to be the descandants of the earliest modern human population.We are survivors from a large family tree. There were many

challenges that modern humans had to meet in those times.
The first attempt by modem humans to leave Africa was a failure. Archaeological remains in the Skhul and Qafzeh
caves in Israel show that modem humans may have made their way to the Levant (the region immediately cast of the
Mediterranean) about 1,20,000years ago. The planet was then enjoying a relatively wet and warm interglacial period, which would have allowed them to wander up north. However, this climatic period didn't last for long and a new ice age started. Itlooks like the early settlers who made it to this point either died out or were forced to go back. The Neanderthals whowere better adapted to the cold probably reoccupied the area.

Races of India.

For the next 50, 000 years, our ancestors remained in Africa. Africa 65, 000-70 , 000 years ago, very small number maps a single band, crossed over from Africa into the southern Arabian peninsula. And it was from this group that all non-Africans descended
Climate and environment had a very big impact on the expansion of modern humans. Our planet goes through natural cycles of cooling and heating. When the
modern humans made their way out of Africa, the earth was much cooler and much of the world's water was locked
in giant ice sheets because of the low temperature. As a result, the sea levels were as much as 100 metres lower than to day and coastlines and climate zones were very
different, to. The early band of humans migrating from Africa to southern Arabia would have had to make a relativelyshort crossing across the Red Sea. They would have also foundthe Arabian coastline to be wetter and better for survival.After this, the modern humans made their way along thecoast to what is now the Persian Gulf. The average depth of the Persian Gulf is just 36 metres. With sea levels in 100 metres below current  levels, this area would have been a lush and fertile plain. It would have been paradise for the modern humanswho are likely to have flourished and increased their numbers.Central Asia and Europe would have been very cold at this time because of the ice age. The modern humans must have spreadout along the Makran coast into the Indian subcontinent.The modern humans who had reached the subcotinentspread quickly through it and then to South East Asia.Some believe that the indigenous tribes of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands were maybe descendants of the earliest people who came into the region.From here, one branch reached Australia aound 40.000 years ago and became ancestor of the aborigines. Studieshave confirmed that the Australian aborigines have a genes similar with aboriginal tribes in South East Asia. However, fora long time, researchers couldn't find a direct genetic link between present-day Indians and native Australians. But in 2009 , a study published by the Anthropological Survey of India found genetic traces to link some Indian tribes with native Australians. These were very tiny traces but still, they werethere! The researchers suggested that the Indian and Australian groups had separate about 50, 000-60000 years ago.

We've talked about the adventurous people who like
Persian Gulf and went exploring But what of those who were content to stay behind the population that remained in the vicinity of the Persian Gulf and the subcontinent
stated there for several thousand years. Scientists think that many important genetic branches came from this land at this time. During the relatively warmer interglacial
periods, sub-branches would have spread farther out into Europe, Central Asia and so on. But you have to remember
that temperatures would have still been far lower than present-day levels and that there would have been man drastic climatic changes. Much of the Persian Gulf is now
underwater, so it's not very easy to conduct research on the people who lived there.This is a very short and simplified account of whathappened over tens of thousands of years. We're talking about very small Stone Age bands of fifty to hundred people over vast expanses of time and space. Their movementswould not have always been systematic. They might have wandered somewhere, come back, gone to places that didn't lead anywhere and so on. Just as there were groups coming into the subcontinent, there were others that were going out Scientists think that India may have been the source of anumber of genetic lineages that can now be traced worldwide. Natural calamities, hunger, tribal wars and disease would have decided which of these groups survived and whichof them didn't. There are plenty of remains of these early humans in Stone Age sites scattered across India. Bhimbetkain central India is one of the most extensive sites in theworld. The hilly terrain is littered with hundreds of cavesand rock shelters that appear to have been inhabited almostcontinuously for 30, 000years! It is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.The last full-blown ice age started around 24,000 years ago,reached its peak around 18, 000-20 , 000 years ago and then warmed up. Around l4, 000 years ago, the ice sheets began melting rapidly, the sea levels were rising around the world and weather patterns are changing. The Persian Gulf began to fill up 12, 500 years ago. Around 7500-8000 years ago, the Gulf Oasis was completely flooded. Is this the event that is referredto as the Great Flood in Sumerian and Biblical accounts? It's quite possible.

Recent archaeology suggests that the people of the Persian
Gulf moved to higher ground around 7500 years ago.

Ice

agehttps://www.nobedad.com/article/ethnic-races-in-india-1/c=84941e57f5.

They also seem to have learned how to travel by water. A small clay replica of a reed boat and a depiction of a sea-going boat with masts from this period have been found in Kuwait. By this time, people knew how to farm, domesticate animals and build boats. Some groups made their way into Central Asia,taking advantage of the warmer temperatures. Others might have made their way into Europe where earlier migrations had previously pushed out the Neanderthals. Groups from South East Asia had already established themselves in China and the warmer climate would have allowed them to expand.The Indian coastline moved several kilometres inland toroughly resemble what we would now recognize on the map.The sea moved inland all along the coast and there were two places where very large land masses were flooded. One was wherewe now have the Gulf of Khambhat (Cambay), just south of the Saurasthra Peninsula of Gujarat. The other land masses extended south from the Tamil coast and would have included Sri Lanka.

In 2001 , marine archaeologists found two underwater
locations in the Gulf of Khambhat. They seem to be the
remains of large settlements that would have been flooded
about 7500 years ago. Scholars are still finding out the exact
nature of these discoveries, but if proved, they would be truly
Remarkable. Though we don't know about these for sure yet,
it is reasonable to say that the changes in weather patterns
and the sharp rise in sea levels must have made people in
those times move from one settlements to another Earlier it was thought that people from the Persian Gulf area carried the knowledge of farming to other regions. Thereis evidence to show that some of the crops that were farmed systematically in the subcontinent,around 7000years ago in Mehrgarh, Baluchistan, were West Asian species such as wheat and barley. Did this mean that Indians learned to farm from West Asian migrants and only later managed to domesticate local plants such as eggplant, sugar cane and sesame? But recently, researchers have uncovered evidence that Indians may have independently developed farming, including the cultivation of rice. Did the knowledge of farming travel from one region to another or diddifferent groups develop it independently in around the sametime? The evidence now suggests parallel development.

What we do know is that by the end of the Neolithic age,
there was a fairly large population living in India. Who were
these people? How are present day Indians related to them?

Up to the early twentieth century, it was believed that India was inhabited by aboriginal Stone Age tribes till around 1500BCE when Indo-Europeans called 'Aryans' invaded the subcontinent Bringing with them horses and iron weapons. Indian civilization was seen as a direct result of this invasion. Though this theory didn't have any solid evidence to back it, it became a popular explanation for why Indian and European languages have similarities, It was also politically convenient at that time because itt made the British colonizers appear as if they were merely latterday 'Aryans' who'd come to further civilize the local population.

The theory, however, took a beating when remains of the
sophisticated Harappan civilization were discovered. These
discoveries proved that Indian civilization was well underway
even before 1500 BCE. But strangely, the 'Aryan invasion' theorywas not thrown away. It was instead modified to suggest that apeople called the Dravidians (supposed ancestors of modem-dayTamils) created these cities and that they were later destroyed by the invading Aryans. But this theory was also flawed because there is no archaeological or literary evidence of such a large
scale invasion. The Harappan cities did not suddenly collapse but suffered a slow decline because of environmental reasons.

Aborigines

India is a country with a bewildering mix of castes, tribes and language groups. Some of these groups came to India in historical times-Jews, Parsis, Ahoms, Turks to name a few. But there are also many populations that have lived in the country for a verylong time. Many groups migrated to different parts of the country and settled there over thousands of years. So where a group is found may today may not be where it originally came from. Over the years most group's have become hybridised races. There are no pure races to be found. Some tribes on Andamans and Northeast India have some pure races.

In 2006 , there was a study that said India's population has been broadly stable for a very long time and that there has been no major injection of Central Asian genes for
over 10, 000 years. This means that even there had been a large-scale influx of 'Aryans', it would have taken place
more than 10, 000 years ago, long before iron weapons and the domestication of the horse. The study also suggested thatthe population of Dravidians had lived for a long time in southern India and that the so-called Dravidian genetic pool may have even originated there. Another study published in 2009 suggested that the Indian population can be explained by the mixture of two racial group ASI and ANI.

Ancestral South Indian and Ancestral North Indian.

The ASls are the older group and are not related to Europeans, East Asians or any other group outside the subcontinent. The ANIS are a somewhat more recent group and are related to Europeans. The ANI genesmhave a large share in North India and account for over 70 perncent of the genes of Kashmiri Pandits and Sindhis. But the ANI genes also have a large 40-50 per cent share in South India and among some of the tribal groups of central India.

Is the ANI-ASI split same as the Aryan-Dravidian theory?
Firstly, the ANI and ASI are not pure' races. They are just
different genetic mixes, each of which contains many strandsThe terms "Aryan' and Dravidian', on the other hand,
are not just about genetics; they also carry strong cultural connotations. For instance, the 'Aryans are usually linked to
the Vedic tradition while the 'Dravidians are linked to the Sangam literary tradition. But we can't conclude that this is
the same as the ANI-ASI framework because these two groupsemerged well before the Vedic tradition, Sangam literature,or the Harappan civilization. We are talking about smallbands of hunter-gatherers and early farming communitiesrather than the thundering war chariots, iron weapons and fortified cities that are said to have been part of an Aryan Dravidian' rivalry.

Simply said, after thousands of years of mixing, Indians

are very closely related to each other and it is pointless to try and find out who is more Aryan and who is more Dravidian
There are also many groups in India that don't fit in within
the ANI-ASI framework and which have influences from
other parts of the world. Genetics has just confirmed what wecan see for ourselves-Indians are a mongrel lot who comein all shapes, sizes and complexions!
What about the genetic links of North Indians toEuropeans? And how do we explain the linguistic similaritiesbetween Indian and European languages if we don't accept the Aryan-Dravidian' theory? When we talk about a genetic

link between North Indians and some Europeans and Iranians what we're usually referring to is a gene mutation called Rlal, and more specifically, a subgroup called Rlala. This gene is common in North India and among East Europeanssuch as the Czechs, Poles and Lithuanians. There aresmaller concentrations in South Siberia, Tajikistan, north eastern Iran and in Kurdistan (that is, the mountainous
areas of northern Iraq and adjoining areas). Interestingly,
the gene is rare among Western Europeans, western Iranians
and through many parts of Central Asia. But how is it that
this gene is present in the Indian subcontinent and Eastern
Europe while skipping Central Asia and Western Europe?
In 2010 , it was discovered that the oldest strain of the
Rlala branch was concentrated in the Gujarat-Sindh
Western Rajasthan area, suggesting that this was close to theorigin of this genetic group. European carriers of Rlala alsodisplayed a further mutation, M 458 , which is not found at allin their Asian cousins. Since the M 458mutation is estimatedto be at least 8000 years old, the two populations must have separated before or during the Great Flood. Thus, the geneticlinkages between North Indians and East Europeans are best explained by the sharing of a common ancestor, perhaps from just after the end of the last ice age. Does this have to do with the climate change maybe.

The most common gene in Western Europe is Rib
This is related to Rial and possibly also originated in the Persian Gulf area but the two separated a long time ago-probably during or before the last ice age. India has a relatively low concentration of Rlb. Could we be dealing with two major genetic dispersals occurring from the
Persian Gulf-Makran-Gujarat region at different points in the climatic cycle? One occurring at the onset or during the last ice age with Rlb carriers heading mostly west and another occurring around the time of the Flood involving R L carriers?There is also reason to believe that some Indian tribesmoved westward to Iran and beyond during the Bronze Age. We'll read more about that in the next article. Cultural linkages could have also happened because of
trade. The spread of Indian culture to Southeast Asia in ancient times and the popularity of the English language
in the postcolonial period show that it is possible for cultural exchanges to happen even without war or largescale migration.

The study of orgin of races and human evolution is called anthropology it is very important to knoe about our genes and orgins. It is very useful for the medical world.

Author: Rodger Bloor (Gurunithyan Rahul)