Chapter 7. Does the "Genetic Evidence" Prove the AIT? [TALAGERI- 2019]

 

Chapter 7.  Does the "Genetic Evidence" Prove the AIT?

[From my book "Genetics and the Aryan Debate: 'Early Indians', Tony Joseph's Latest Assault", 2019]

 

[This is the chapter most loaded with technical terms and concepts, since it deals directly with the alleged "genetic evidence" from the Reich Report touted by Tony Joseph in his book. But, as I do not expect everyone to buy and go through the book, I am presenting this chapter for anyone interested. It shows the fraudulent nature of the conclusions drawn in the Reich report. For good measure, see also my more recent blog "The Common Identity of the Rigvedic and Harappan Civilizations" with the precise data, map and evidence about high lactase persistence in modern India and its clear implications].   

 

The essence of Tony Joseph's book is the new "genetic evidence". Let us examine this now. As I wrote earlier, I will leave it to geneticists to contest or accept his claimed genetic data. I will, in fact, accept for arguments' sake that the genetic data does, in fact, show the movements of the claimed genetic groups at the points of time claimed by him and in the claimed directions. But I will show how he himself deliberately misconstrues and even misrepresents the genetic data (particularly the terminologies and categories) in order to draw out false historical conclusions. We will examine the genetic data as follows, but this will have to be preceded by a story related by Tony Joseph about a Hindu conspiracy:

A. The Hindu conspiracy which reportedly delayed Tony Joseph's book.

B. What the new genetic report of the ninety-two scientists in March 2018 claims as per Joseph.

C. The deliberate misrepresentation and misinterpretation, and fudging of data.

D. What the genetic report actually shows: Data vs. Conclusions.

 

A. The Hindu conspiracy which reportedly delayed Tony Joseph's book:

The story of Tony Joseph's book, of what stalled the book for three years, and of the conspiracy by wily Hindus with a political agenda to subvert the genetic data, is an interesting one:

"There is a reason why this book could have been written only now, and not earlier […] when this book began six years ago, we did not know who were the people of the Indus Civilization or where their descendants had gone, but now we do. Six years ago, we did not know how much of our ancestry we owed to the original Out of Africa migrants who reached India about 65000 years ago, but now we do. Six years ago, we did not know when the caste system began, but now we can zero in on the period with a fair degree of genetic accuracy" (p.7), all, of course, because of the new genetic report of the ninety-two scientists in March 2018.

Tony Joseph starts out by giving (pp.8-9) his journey into the whole subject in six years: his visits to Harappan sites, his visits to and interviews with many eminent scholars, his search for "population genetics papers dealing with the peopling of South Asia […] followed by meetings or discussions with its authors" (p.9). His main sources were two papers on genetics published in 2009 and 2013.

The conspiracy: Joseph's book was delayed because of a conspiracy by two wily Hindu scientists who had in fact co-authored the 2009 paper: he tried to start the book in 2015, but "could not complete my article because what Singh and Thangaraj told me did not match up with what I read in the paper they had authored along with other scientists from around the world in 2009. I, therefore, decided to put the story on hold and gain a better understanding of population genetics before writing on it. […] The confusion arose because when I met the scientists in 2015, they had put forward a new thesis that there were no large-scale migrations to India during the last 40,000 years or so. They also said that there were two very ancient populations, one located in north India and the other in south India and that all of today's populations had descended from the mixing of these two groups, technically given the tags Ancestral North Indian (ANI) and Ancestral South Indian (ASI). But the paper that Lalji Singh and Thangaraj had co-authored with authors from the Harvard Medical School in 2009 (titled 'Reconstructing Indian Population History') had made no claims about there having been no large migrations to India in the last 40,000 years. The paper had clearly stated that ANI, unlike ASI, were related to the Eurasians (west Asians, Europeans, central Asians and people of the Caucasus region). This would have given strong support to the theory that Indo-European language speakers who called themselves Aryans had migrated to India within the last 4000 years or so" (p.9-10).

Then follows a description of how Tony Joseph toiled for months and months "reading and rereading tough-to-understand genetics papers from different periods dealing with the formation of the Indian population; trying to correlate their often contradictory findings" (p.11). He wrote a paper in 2017 showing how genetics actually supported the AIT. And then finally he was vindicated by the latest study in March 2018, the "path-breaking paper written by ninety-two scientists from around the world, 'The Genomic Formation of South and Central Asia'" (p.11). Ironically Reich and the above Thangaraj were also co-directors of this study.

The conspiracy revealed (pp.87-89): Why and how did Singh and Thangaraj mislead Tony Joseph? There are "twists in the story […] it is worth following the twists to understand the political contexts of the discussions about migrations. The suggestion that modern Indians carry a significant amount of west-Asian-related ancestry was unpalatable to many" (p.87). After ranting against the Sanskrit-chauvinists, Tony Joseph tells us that the conspiracy was revealed by David Reich in his 2018 book Who We Are and How We Got Here. Reich revealed that he was emotionally blackmailed by Singh and Thangaraj, who felt that the formulations of the genetic report (of 2009) "implied that West Eurasian people migrated en masse into India. They correctly pointed out that our data provided no direct conclusion for this evidence. They even reasoned that there could have been a migration in the other direction, of Indians to the Near East and Europe […So] The next day, the full group reconvened in Singh's office. We sat together and came up with new names for ancient Indian groups. We wrote that the people of India today are the outcome of mixtures between two highly differentiated groups. We wrote that the people of India today are the outcome of mixtures between two highly differentiated populations, Ancestral North Indian (ANI) and Ancestral South Indian (ASI), who before their mixture were as different from each other as Europeans and east Asians are today. The ANI are related to Europeans, central Asians, Near Easterners and people of the Caucasus, but we made no claim about the location of their homeland or any migration" (pp.88-89).

Tony Joseph clarifies what this means: "In essence, instead of stating that today's Indians are descendants of both the First Indians and the west-Eurasian-related populations as the research suggested, the published paper created two new theoretically constructed population groups and said that today's Indians are the result of a mixture of two highly differentiated groups, ANI and ASI, with the ANI being closely related to west Eurasians. This was a scientifically defendable framework to understand the population of South Asia and to avoid a political controversy, but the cost of the compromise was that it made it easier to misinterpret the study. For instance, it left room for uninformed and false commentary in the news media that the ANI was a homogeneous and very ancient population group of India, like the ASI, which had settled here tens of thousands of years ago. This, despite the study itself stating clearly that the ANI could be a mixture of populations resulting from multiple migrations and may not be a homogeneous group, thus leaving open the possibility that some migrations may be as recent as within the last 4000 years" (p.89).

"But this still left a problem, as those ideologically not ready to accept the idea of migrations into India could still assert that the direction of migration was from India to the rest of the world […] we need to look for a third method to settle the argument about the direction of migration, and there is, in fact, such a method: DNA analysis of ancient human remains. And to this we turn now" (pp.89-90), i.e. we turn now to the report of the latest genetic study by the "ninety-two scientists from around the world" released in March 2018, which analyses ancient DNA and tells us about the direction of migrations of the ancient genetic populations.

Tony Joseph gives his methodology for this on pp.90-92, and tells us what it found on pp.92-97. And to this, we also turn now.

 

B. What the new genetic report of the ninety-two scientists in March 2018 claims as per Joseph:

Tony Joseph's book is based on the latest genetic study, the "path-breaking paper written by ninety-two scientists from around the world, 'The Genomic formation of South and Central Asia' and posted in the preprint server for biology, bioRxiv. Reich and Thangaraj were among the co-directors of the study." (p.11).

This study published in 2018 rectifies the problems created (as per Tony Joseph) in the report of the earlier genetic study published in 2009.

In that earlier paper, due to pressure from two Hindu scientists, the team was compelled to announce that "the people of India today are the outcome of mixtures between two highly differentiated populations, Ancestral North Indian (ANI) and Ancestral South Indian (ASI), who before their mixture were as different from each other as Europeans and east Asians are today. The ANI are related to Europeans, central Asians, Near Easterners and people of the Caucasus, but we made no claim about the location of their homeland or any migration" (pp.88-89).

But this new paper (2018) classifies the major genetic components of the Indian population as mixtures between three major genetic groups which migrated into South Asia at three different periods of time:

1. 65000 years before present: The First Indians migrated to South Asia from Africa.

2. 7000 BCE: Zagros/Iranian Agriculturists migrated to South Asia from the Zagros mountain area of Iran.

3. 2000-1000 BCE: Steppe Pastoralists migrated to South Asia from the Kazakh Steppes and beyond.

 

These three original major immigrant groups, according to Tony Joseph, intermixed together. From 65000 years BP (before present) to around 7000 BCE or 4700 BCE, the First Indians were almost the exclusive inhabitants of South Asia. But later two mixtures took place:

1. From 7000 BCE or 4700 BCE to around 3000 BCE, the Zagros/Iranian Agriculturists mixed with the First Indians to produce what Tony Joseph repeatedly calls the Harappans:

"In south Asia, the incoming herders from Zagros mixed with the First Indians and went on to create the Harappan Civilization" (p.181).

Tony Joseph postulates a broad period of 7400 BCE to 4700 BCE for the commencement of this mixing on the basis of genetic data analyzed by the new study:

"When could the mixing between Iranian agriculturists and First Indians have taken place? By looking at the genetic data of the three outlier individuals from the BMAC and Shahr-i-Sokhta, genetists can determine the latest period by which the mixing could have happened. And that works out to between 4700 BCE and 3000 BCE. (Genetics hasn't been able to work out a similar period for the earliest period by which mixing could have happened) But as we have seen, there is evidence for the beginnings of agriculture at Mehrgarh much earlier, from around 7000 BCE. So agriculture in Mehrgarh or elsewhere in the region could either have begun locally by the First Indians with migrating agriculturists from the Zagros region arriving only later, or Iranian agriculturists may have moved into the region and brought with them some agricultural practices before mixing later with the First Indians […] it could also mean that the Iranian agriculturists from Zagros arrived around 7000 BCE and mixed with First Indians around that time itself, since genetics hasn't provided the earliest date of the mixing" (p.96).

Who are these "three outlier individuals from the BMAC and Shahr-i-Sokhta" (also referred to as "'Indus Periphery' individuals"), and what is their importance?

Apparently, the "path-breaking paper written by ninety-two scientists from around the world, 'The Genomic formation of South and Central Asia'" is based on a study of the ancient DNA and genomes of 612 physical specimens of individuals from the ancient past from three "regions and periods" (p.91) in and around Central Asia:

a) "Iran and Turan, an old term for the region that includes Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan (dated 5600-1200 BCE)" (p.91-92),

b) "the Steppe east of the Ural mountains, including Kazakhstan (4799-1000 BCE)" (p.92),

c) and "the Swat valley of Pakistan (1200 BCE- 1 CE)" (p.92).

This ancient DNA data was compared with the present-day DNA from 1789 individuals "from 246 ethnologically distinct groups" (p.92), i.e. castes and tribal groups from the present-day population of South Asia.

The "three outlier individuals from the BMAC and Shahr-i-Sokhta" (i.e. from Gonur in Turkmenistan, and Shahr-i-Sokhta on the Iran border with Baluchistan) refers to 3 out of the 612 specimens of ancient DNA from in and around Central Asia. These 3 stood out from the other 609 in the fact that their DNA showed 14-42% First Indian ancestry and the rest 86-58% was Zagros/Iranian Agriculturist ancestry, but no Anatolian ancestry at all.

Of the others from the same area (i.e. from BMAC sites in the "Iran and Turan" area), "the study had access to the DNA of sixty-nine ancient individuals from BMAC sites and a great majority of them had this particular combination of ancestries: early-Iranian-agriculturist-related ancestry (about 60 per cent), Anatolian agriculturist-related-ancestry (about 21 per cent) and west-Siberian related ancestry (about 13 per cent)" (p.94) but no First Indian ancestry at all. In fact, none of the ancient specimens other than these three individuals, had First Indian ancestry.

From this, it is deduced that the "three outlier individuals from the BMAC and Shahr-i-Sokhta" alone (unlike the others) seem to have had ties with the Indian (First Indian) side of the area, i.e. with the Harappan side, but not with the western (Anatolian) side.

Therefore the study "defines the 'Indus Periphery' population as migrants from the Harappan Civilization who were residents in neighbouring cities that the Harappans had trade and cultural relations with […] Since no ancient DNA has been recovered from the Harappan Civilization areas so far, these 'Indus Periphery' individuals stand in as proxy for the Harappan population itself" (p.93).

On this basis, Tony Joseph concludes with the following equation: "Harappans (First Indians + Zagros agriculturists)" (p.169).

2. But the study also had "the DNA of forty-one ancient individuals from the Swat valley, who lived approximately between 1200 and 800 BCE - about a millennium and a half later than the outliers in BMAC and more than half a millennium after the Harappan Civilization started declining around 1900 BCE" (p.95). And these Swat individuals not only had First Indian + Zagros Agriculturist ancestry (like the three outlier individuals and the Harappans), but also "a 22 per cent ancestry from the Steppe-Middle-to-Late-Bronze-Age people" (p.95). In short, the Steppe DNA, not yet found in the three outliers (and therefore deduced as not present in the Harappans) now registers its first  presence in India in the 2000-1000 BCE period.

These Swat individuals represent the mixture of the new people who entered from the north in this period and the original Harappans. So now, in this period, we get a racial mixture which Tony Joseph classifies as ANI (Ancestral North Indian): "ANI [Harappans (First Indians + Zagros agriculturists) + Steppe Pastoralists]" (p.169).

After registering their first entry into India from the north in the Swat valley DNA data of 1200-800 BCE, the Steppe Pastoralistsspread out all over India, and today, according to Tony Joseph, we get the following position of the two "differentiated groups" (ASI and ANI) postulated in the earlier genetic report of 2009:

"ASI (Harappans + First Indians)" (p.169).

"ANI [Harappans (First Indians + Zagros agriculturists) + Steppe Pastoralists]" (p.169).

Tony Joseph concludes: "we now know that the ancestry of ASI derives from First Indians (Ancient Ancestral South Indians or AASI) and Iranian agriculturists. And we also know that the ancestry of ANI comes from First Indians (AASI), Iranian agriculturists and Steppe pastoralists. Almost all present-day populations of Indians are a mixture of ANI and ASI, in different proportions in different regions and communities" (pp.95-96 fn).

Thus, the arrival of the "Aryans" from the north in the period 2000-1000 BCE stands proved from the genetic DNA data, according to the "ninety-two scientists" and Tony Joseph. But is this really so? Let us examine the genetic evidence objectively.

 

C. The deliberate misrepresentation and misinterpretation, and fudging of data:

"Genetic studies" with a fixed agenda of "fixing" Hindus must obviously be concentrating on selective data. In the world of statistical surveys, it is a well-known axiom that one can obtain diametrically opposite results, as desired, by a clever selection of respondents, or by asking questions in a particular way or of a particular type, or both. In these genetic studies as well, clearly much motivation, skill and selectiveness must have been employed towards obtaining desired results.

Nevertheless, I will leave the question of debating the actual criteria and formulations, and the statistical methods, of these "ninety-two scientists" and their spokesperson, to more competent authorities and interested persons. Not being a geneticist, I may not be competent enough to do all that, and since the genetic data is irrelevant to the Indo-European/"Aryan" debate anyway, I am definitely not interested enough.

So we will here accept, for the time being, the basic formulation set out by these geneticists: that the present day population of India has three major ancestral strands (First Indian, Zagros/Iranian Agriculturist and Steppe Pastoralist), and that these entered South Asia roughly in 65000 BP, 7000 BCE and 2000-1000 BCE respectively, and started intermixing (after a decent interval following their arrival) with those already present in South Asia before them, thus giving us the present intermixed population of India.

But the "ninety-two scientists" and their spokesperson draw linguistic conclusions from this alleged genetic data. And this certainly deserves to be examined, since there is a very great dichotomy between the data and the conclusions: to paraphrase Tony Joseph's own words, "what Tony Joseph tells us does not match up with what the genetic data is supposed to show".       

 

To begin with, there is plenty of deliberate obfuscation of identities in the nomenclatures used by Tony Joseph, all leading deliberately towards a fixed agenda. Let us start with the mildest and most inconsequential example:

1. He refers to the second of the three groups alternately as Zagros or Iranian. Now the term Iranian can lead to some confusion in the mind of the less-aware reader, since he will not be aware that the term here does not refer to the Indo-European-language speaking "Iranians" but to an ancestral group supposed to be originally located in the Zagros mountains of present-day Iran before the present-day Indo-European "Iranian" languages entered present-day Iran. However, this is inconsequential, since the authors are not claiming that the Iranian Agriculturists brought the "Aryan" languages to India.

2. Slightly of more consequence is the persistent reference to them as Agriculturists, which could lead to the impression that they introduced agriculture to the Harappan region. But whether they are supposed to have done so or not is not important to our discussion, and Tony Joseph in any case, as we saw, leaves the question open: "there is evidence for the beginnings of agriculture at Mehrgarh much earlier, from around 7000 BCE. So agriculture in Mehrgarh or elsewhere in the region could either have begun locally by the First Indians with migrating agriculturists from the Zagros region arriving only later, or Iranian agriculturists may have moved into the region and brought with them some agricultural practices before mixing later with the First Indians" (p.96).

3. Much more serious is the persistent reference to the Steppe immigrants as Steppe Pastoralist. Note that Tony Joseph starts out by referring to them as "pastoralists" in their earliest habitats in the areas east of the Urals, uses other terms during other stages of their alleged journey towards India ("Steppe-Middle-to-Late-Bronze-Age people" p.95, or "west-Siberian related" p.94), and then keeps emphasizing the "pastoralist" theme when describing their presence in India. Is this just a casual coincidence?

Clearly this is to enhance the subconscious impression of the Steppe immigrants being the "Aryans": note that contrasting the so-called pastoral nature of the Vedic Indo-Aryans with the so-called urbanite nature of the Harappans, to show them as different people with different cultures, is an old AIT tactic.

Also, as we already saw, this alleged sharp contrast is conveniently forgotten when trying to identify the pastoral Brahui speakers of Baluchistan as residuals  of a "Dravidian" urbanite Harappan Civilization: "Those who brought Dravidian languages to south India first may not have been the urbanites of the Harappan civilization but pastoralists, some of whom may remain so even today, like the Brahuis of Balochistan" (p.149).

But what are the geneticists up to, trying to employ this tactic here? Is it their contention that pastoral culture was brought to the urbanite Harappans by the Steppe immigrants? Apart from the fact that they produce no "genetic evidence" of any kind to show that the cattle of the Harappan areas, and consequently the ancestors of all Indian cattle, were brought from the Steppes by these immigrants, the antiquity of pastoralism and cattle in the Harappan area is no secret. In fact, the pre-Harappan Civilization area is one of the two centres of cattle domestication in the world. This is from the Wikipedia entry on "cattle": "Archeozoological and genetic data indicate that cattle were first domesticated from wild aurochs (Bos primigenius) approximately 10,500 years ago. There were two major areas of domestication: one in the Near East (specifically central Anatolia, the Levant and western Iran), giving rise to the taurine line, and a second in the area that is now Pakistan, resulting in the indicine line [….] European cattle are largely descended from the taurine lineage".

4. But most serious of all, and most vital to the agenda, is the use of the words ANI and ASI using the suggestive terms "north" and "south". Tony Joseph himself, on the testimony of Reich, tells us that these very two terms are incorrect terms which were invented only in order to placate two sulking Indian scientists who objected to the idea of Indian culture being imported, and who wanted to claim, and in fact did claim in discussions with Tony Joseph, that "there were no large-scale migrations to India during the last 40,000 years or so […] there were two very ancient populations, one located in north India and the other in south India and that all of today's populations had descended from the mixing of these two groups, technically given the tags Ancestral North Indian (ANI) and Ancestral South Indian (ASI)".Therefore these two terms should stand discredited and should not be used now by either the "scientists" or by Tony Joseph.

So why is he using these terms here? By any logic, as per the history of immigrations reported by the "ninety-two scientists" and their spokesperson, we would have at any given point of time any one of the following "genetic" situations in India, north and south, with each new incoming group first appearing in the north and later spreading into the south (with shifting border-lines between the north and south) at different points of time in the past (i.e. at six different hypothetic stages relative to the different immigrations):

65000 BP-7000 BCE:

Stage 1: North: First Indians.

Stage 2: North: First Indians; South: First Indians.

4700-2100 after the mixing between the First Indians and the Zagros people:

Stage 3: North: First Indians + Zagros people; South: First Indians.

Stage 4: North: First Indians + Zagros people; South: First Indians + Zagros people.

2000-1000 BCE onwards, after the mixing of the Steppe people with the existing populations:

Stage 5: North: First Indians + Zagros people + Steppe people; South: First Indians + Zagros people.

Stage 6: North: First Indians + Zagros people + Steppe people; South: First Indians + Zagros people + Steppe people.

In each case, north India would have seen the first arrivals of the newcomers and the first mixtures between the existing population of the time and the newcomers coming from the north, and later this would extend to south India.

So how do we define ANI and ASI? And worse: AASI?

The agenda driven nomenclature of the "ninety-two scientists" and their spokesperson classifies the First Indians as "AASI: First Indians (Ancient Ancestral South Indians)" (p.95). As Tony Joseph tells us: "According to this study, the ASI were descendants of the First Indians" (p.89): but, as per his claims, aren't we all?

By what logic are the First Indians, who are found in all six stages in the north, but only in five stages (i.e. all except the first stage) in the south, given the nomenclature "south"? Why not simply AAI (Ancient Ancestral Indians)?

And when defining ANI and ASI, why is only Stage 5 being considered? Obviously, the ANI and ASI (if one must use these terms) in each stage were different.

Clearly, the agenda is to create the politically-loaded subconscious identification with the Indo-Aryan-language speaking north and the Dravidian- language-speaking south of the present day.

 

In fact, here is Tony Joseph's own take on ANI and ASI: "In India, the incoming Steppe pastoralists mixed with the Harappans to create the new genetic cluster ANI, while the Harappans mixed with the inhabitants of south India to create the new genetic cluster ASI. Both groups mixed again, to varying degrees in different regions and during different periods, to create the population of India as it is today" (p.181).

[Incidentally, does this tally with what he tells us elsewhere as being the claim of the 2009 report: "Ancestral North Indian (ANI) and Ancestral South Indian (ASI), who before their mixture were as different from each other as Europeans and east Asians are today"? If both ANI and ASI have the Harappans as the major constituent in their DNA, how can ANI and ASI be "as different from each other as Europeans and east Asians are today"?]

 

How do the Harappans enter into the picture? He goes on: "When the Harappan Civilization fell apart after 1900 BCE, the people who built it and kept it going for centuries spread out to the rest of the subcontinent - to the east and the south, in particular" (p.97). Then "when the civilization dimmed due to the long drought, the Harappans spread out, to both the east and the south, seeking new fertile land and carrying their language, culture and at least some of the practices with them" (p.187).

For a book which claims to be revolutionizing the ancient history of India on the basis of new "genetic evidence", this is rich:

a. he repeatedly admits that "no ancient DNA has been recovered from the Harappan Civilization areas so far" (p.93),

b. nor is there any ancient DNA (much less any analysis and comparison of such DNA) from the Dravidian areas in the south before or after the Harappans allegedly "spread out" to the south (and east),

c. or any ancient DNA from areas geographically situated between the Harappan areas and the south during the course of this alleged spread, which could lead to direct or deducible "genetic evidence" for this bold narration.

 

The only things which can be claimed to be shown by the genetic study by the "ninety-two scientists", as reported by Tony Joseph, are:

1. In the ancient period before 2000 BCE, the population of the Harappan Civilization (deducible only from the DNA of the three "Indus Periphery" or "outlier" individuals) had First Indians + Zagros people ancestry. As there is no ancient DNA from any other part of India for that period (neither from the Harappan area, nor from the interior of North India, nor from South India), India as a whole was either in stage 3 or stage 4 above. We have no means of knowing exactly how far into India the Zagros people had entered and intermixed with the existing populations. And Tony Joseph is only indulging in wishful thinking when he assumes that south India was in stage 3 till the Harappan people "after 1900 BCE" or "due to the long drought" migrated to the south and east and led to stage 4.

Tony Joseph tells us: "Scientists have managed to recover DNA from the Harappan site of Rakhigarhi in India, but the study has not yet been published. Credible news reports about the unpublished study, however, suggest they support the conclusion of a mixture between Zagros agriculturists and the Harappans" (p.93,fn). Although many of his anti-AIT critics would object to this, he is probably right. On the evidence of the Indus Periphery individuals, it seems unlikely that it could show First Indians + Zagros people + Steppe people ancestry. And in the unlikely case that it throws up a purely First Indians ancestry, it will revolutionize India's genetic history.

2. In the period well after 1500 BCE (actually after 1200 BCE), the population of the northernmost part of the Harappan area (the Swat valley in northern Pakistan to the west of Kashmir) had First Indians + Zagros people + Steppe people ancestry. Again, as there is no ancient DNA from any other part of India for that period, (neither from the Harappan area, nor from the interior of North India, nor from South India), India was either in stage 5orstage 6 above. Logic suggests it could at best be a very early part of Stage 5, but again we have no means of knowing exactly how far into India at that time the Steppe people had entered and intermixed with the existing populations.

3. In the present stage of Indian history, we are in stage 6, where all sections of the Indian population, north and south, whether they speak Indo-European languages or Dravidian languages or Austric languages or (in many cases) Sino-Tibetan languages, have First Indians + Zagros people + Steppe people ancestry. As Tony Joseph repeatedly tells us:

"[…] all of today's population groups in India draw their genes from several migrations to India: there is no such thing as a 'pure' group, race or caste that has existed since 'time immemorial'. Of course, the degree to which the mixing between different populations has occurred differs across regions and communities. So the fact of Indo-European migrations has to be told along with the truth of multiple migrations and large-scale population mixing that happened over millennia. We are today a uniquely Indian civilization that has drawn together many population groups with different migration histories, and its impulses, culture, traditions and practices come from multiple sources, not just one singular source" (p.12).

Two papers in 2009 and 2013, and now this one in 2018, confirm that "everyone in India today is a mix, in different proportions, of ancestry related to at least two groups: the First Indians and west Eurasians. The term west Eurasians includes west Asians such as people of the Fertile Crescent and Iran, as well as those from central Asia, the Caucasus and Europe. The studies showed that all population groups in India today have some amount of west Eurasian ancestry, varying from 20 per cent to 80 per cent, depending on the group. (Whole genome sequence data of present-day populations gives us a general picture of affinities between different groups, though not a granular picture of how that affinity came about or who moved from where to where)" (p.87). Note that here, the term west Eurasians is being used to vaguely club together the two groups that he elsewhere calls Zagros and Steppe.

"In India, by contrast, the ancestry of the First Indians still constitutes between 50 and 65 per cent for most population groups when you look at the whole genome (as opposed to either Y-chromosome or mtDNA separately" (p.182).

"almost all Indians had acquired First Indian, Harappan and Steppe ancestries, though, of course, to varying degrees […] nearly all groups experienced major mixture in the last few thousand years, including tribal groups like Bhil, Chamar and Kallar that might be expected to be more isolated" (pp.211-12).

"The tribals are 'us'. The tribals share much with the rest of the population genetically since they carry the ancestry of the First Indians […] As we have seen, 50 to 65% of the whole genome ancestry of the Indian population comes from the descendant lineages of the First Indians. And there is no population group in India today that does not carry First Indian ancestry, no matter what language it speaks or where in the caste hierarchy it falls" (p.204).

"between 2200 BCE and 100 BCE, there was intensive admixture between the different Indian populations with the result that almost all Indians had acquired First Indian, Harappan and Steppe ancestries, though of course, to varying degrees" (p.211). [Note the obfuscation: the word Harappan is here presumptuously used as a synonym for the Zagros people alone when it is repeatedly emphasized by the geneticists themselves that the Harappans were First Indians + Zagros people. Note this again, when at one place, he gives us the equation "Harappans (First Indians + Zagros agriculturists)", and then, on the same page, he also puts it as follows: "ASI (Harappans + First Indians)" (p.169)!]

 

From all this genetic data and evidence, the only picture that emerges is of many different waves of people migrating into India at different points of time (of which these geneticists identify three main groups at different points of time, migrating into India from the northwest and spreading out in the course of time to every single corner of India). Leaving aside from this discussion for the moment (as Tony Joseph does) other later immigrants coming from west and east, the Indians of today definitely represent stage 6 above, where all the Indians, whatever their caste, religion or language, have major ancestral components, in different degrees, of the First Indians, the Zagros people and the Steppe people. The beginnings of the process of the alleged immigrations of the Steppe people is seen in the ancient DNA from "the Swat valley of Pakistan (1200-1 BCE)" (p.92), and the end result is seen in the population of India today.

The whole picture throughout is a constantly moving and expanding one, and not even the most intense wishful thinking (nor all their piety nor wit … nor all their tears), of "scientists" with an agenda of finding ancient genetic evidence for the AIT,  will manage to freeze that picture at a point of time where we see all the Indo-Aryan-speaking people in India having First Indians + Zagros people + Steppe people ancestry and all the Dravidian-speaking people having First Indians + Zagros people ancestry (the dubious ANI-ASI division proposed by Tony Joseph), not only because it will be impossible to get conclusive ancient DNA evidence for this from all parts of India at any one particular time from the past, but also because it is impossible, for countless different reasons (with many of which even Tony Joseph will agree) for such an absolute situation to ever have prevailed at any point of time.

[Contrast this with the absolute, exception-less and consistent "huge numbers versus zero" nature of the chronological and geographical evidence in the Rigveda].

This does not of course stop Tony Joseph from making sweeping statements like the following, in the name of "genetics" without bothering to produce a shred of "genetic" data or evidence to prove it: "In the language of genetics, the Harappans contributed to the formation of the Ancestral South Indians by moving south and mixing with the First Indians of peninsular India and also to the formation of the Ancestral North Indians by mixing with the incoming 'Aryans'" (p.187): which part of this recent revolutionary report gives us the "genetic" evidence for this statement?. 

Therefore any attempt to connect the Steppe peoples' immigration with the alleged entry of Indo-Aryan (Indo-European) language speakers, or the southward migration of Harappans, is very definitely not proved by the genetic data or by the genetic study and report of the "ninety-two scientists from around the world" released in March 2018.

 

Tony Joseph repeatedly tries to present this picture by showing that the Steppe DNA has affected people in the (mostly Indo-Aryan-speaking) North to a greater extent than the people in the (mostly Dravidian-speaking) South:

"It is clear that north Indians and western Indians consume far more milk and milk products and far less meat and fish than east Indians or south Indians. Politicians and commentators often look at these differences as socio-political in nature. But these have a more foundational reason: genes. Or more specifically, a gene mutation called 13910T which originated in Europe some 7500 years ago. This gene allows the human body to digest milk beyond infancy, into adulthood […] most Indians who have the ability to consume milk as adults carry this European version […] A countrywide screening of DNA samples from all major language groups and regions of India to answer questions about lactase persistence (the technical term for the ability to digest milk after infancy) came to many conclusions, three of which are as follows: first, its distribution in India follows a general north-west to south-east declining pattern. Second, the mutation is identical to the European one. Third, only about a fifth of Indians can digest milk into adulthood, with people in western and northern India being the most likely to do so. The frequency of the gene ranges from over 40% in certain parts of western and northern India to less than 1 per cent in parts of north-east India" (p.218).

This is a bit difficult to understand, since the Harappan area was one of the two world centers of domestic cattle and pastoralism, as we have seen, and Tony Joseph himself tells us: "Those who brought Dravidian languages to south India first may not have been the urbanites of the Harappan civilization but pastoralists, some of whom may remain so even today, like the Brahuis of Balochistan" (p.149). So why should there be such a low degree of lactase persistence in South India?.

Also, if this developed in Europe "7500 years ago", at a point of time long before the Steppe people, as per Tony Joseph's own accounts, carried the Indo-European languages to Europe, at what point and how did the Steppe people who entered northwestern India after 2000 BCE from an area somewhere between India and Europe acquire these genes from Europe and then bring them into India?

Anyway, let us accept that they did (by some kind of reverse migration later). The only point of relevance is that the distribution of these genes, brought by the Steppe people, are found within India in "a general north-west to south-east declining pattern" and "only about a fifth of Indians can digest milk into adulthood, with people in western and northern India being the most likely to do so. The frequency of the gene ranges from over 40 % in certain parts of western and northern India to less than 1 per cent in parts of north-east India". This, coupled with similar claims about various other aspects of the Steppe DNA which are found distributed in a similar manner, are supposed to prove that the Steppe people brought the Indo-Aryan languages into India.

But all these things only show a purely geographical phenomenon associated with the spread of immigrants in general, and not any kind of linguistic identity. Obviously and naturally, unless some specific historical or sociological factors can be seen to have skewed this pattern in specific individual cases, anything coming into India from the northwest and then slowly spreading out all over India would show just such a distribution.

Two points will make things clear:

1. An example from Tony Joseph's own book will suffice: "Anatolian ancestry can be seen spread all the way from Anatolia (today's Turkey) to eastern Iran and far-eastern Turan. But the ancestry keeps declining as you move from the west to the east - it ranges from 70 per cent in Anatolia to 33 per cent in Iran and 3 per cent in far-eastern Turan. The reason for this distribution could be that Anatolians had played a role in spreading agriculture towards the east (just as they had also spread it towards the west, into Europe)." (pp.93-94). So the only reason for any "general north-west to south-east declining pattern" in India is geographical. [Incidentally, does the Anatolian data also constitute "evidence" that the carriers of the Anatolian DNA also spread a language?].

2. In spite of this above reality, the fact is that the Steppe DNA is spread unevenly over the different linguistic groups, north, south, west and east. Tony Joseph tells us: "If Indo-European languages are spread out over a large area of Eurasia, is there a genetic signature visible across this geography? Yes there is: the Y-chromosome haplogroup R1a or, more specifically, its subclade R1a-M417" (p.165). Here is what Wikipedia has to say about the spread of this subclade in its article "Genetics and Archaeogenetics of South Asia":

"In India, high percentage of this haplogroup is observed in West Bengal Brahmins (72%) to the east, Gujarat Lohanas to the west (60%), Khatris (67%) in north, Iyengar Brahmins (31%) in the south. It has also been found in several South Indian Dravidian-speaking tribes including the Chenchu (26%) and Valmikis of Andhra Pradesh as well as the Yadav and Kallar of Tamil Nadu suggesting that M417 is widespread in these Southern Indian tribes. Besides these studies show high percentages in regionally diverse groups such as Manipuris (50%) to the extreme North East and Punjabis (47%) to the extreme North West", and "In Pakistan it is found at 71% in the Mohanna of Sindh province to the south and 46% among the Baltis of Gilgit-Baltistan to the north".  

 

Ultimately, the only thing that the genetic study shows (if we accept their genetic findings) is that groups of Steppe people entered northwestern India after 2000 BCE, had expanded at least as far as the Swat valley by 1200 BCE-1 CE., and had managed to spread all over India and get intermixed with all the local populations in every area, to various degrees, by the present age.

Does this also show that these people brought the Indo-Aryan languages into India? Even Tony Joseph realizes that this simply cannot be claimed without connecting up the genetic data to the linguistic and textual evidence, and the only way to do this is by connecting up with the evidence of the Rigveda, the oldest and most archaic Indo-Aryan-language text in India.

And in trying to connect these Steppe people, who are supposed to have entered the northernmost borders of south Asia from Central Asia only after 2000 BCE, with the composers of the Rigveda, and in staking their all on the period from2000-1000 BCE, these geneticists succeed in scoring a very decisive and conclusive self-goal against the AIT, given the fact that the chronological and geographical evidence shows the Vedic Indo-Aryans to have been present as far east as Haryana and western U.P. in a purely "Indo-Aryan" land, with no memories of western areas, at a point of time long before 2500 BCE. Therefore the logical conclusion is that any Steppe people who entered South Asia from present-day Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan after 2000 BCE, and then spread out all over India in the course of the next four thousand years, intermixing to different degrees with all the existing inhabitants of the land and contributing their genomes and DNA to the Indian gene pool - whatever else they may have brought with them into India - did not bring the Indo-European languages and Vedic culture. The fact that all their migrations and intermixing within India did not create even a ripple in the archaeological record, or leave any kind of memories among any section of the different groups concerned, shows that they in fact got integrated into the local populace everywhere, accepting the local languages and the general culture and traditions, like most other later ancient people in the historical record (the Greeks, Persians, Scythians, Huns, etc.).

 

D. What the genetic report actually shows: Data vs. Conclusions:

So far, we examined the historical implications of the report of the detailed genetic study by ninety-two internationally renowned scientists, as reported by Tony Joseph.

When we turn to the actual report for clarifications on some points, we find very serious and sharp contradictions in the report, and a very sharp dichotomy between the data shown in the report and the historical conclusions drawn from them. The data sharply contrasts with the picture presented by Tony Joseph. And to be fair to him, it is not wholly because he has misreported them: he is in fact by and large reporting the conclusions of the "scientists". But an examination of the report shows either that the scientists are very confused about the methodology, categories and data that they are presenting, or that it is a deliberate attempt to confuse and obfuscate issues and present a fraudulent and agenda-driven picture.

 

Let us recapitulate the sum total of what Tony Joseph tells us:

1. The present-day population of India, regardless of caste and creed (and ignoring minor later genetic intrusions from east and west), represent different degrees of combinations of basically three ancestral lineages, which he calls First Indian, Zagros and Steppe respectively.

2. There are no ancient DNA specimens from any part of India for the Harappan period (except the still-undisclosed results of the analysis of the Rakhigarhi DNA, to which we will come presently). But Tony Joseph tells us that the Harappans (and therefore naturally the rest of India to their south and east) had combinations of basically two ancestral lineages: First Indian and Zagros.

[This is based not on any DNA from the Harappan areas or from interior India, but on the basis of DNA analysis of specimens from Central Asia and the rest of Eurasia from this period:3 out of the 612 specimens of ancient DNA from in and around Central Asia stood out from the other 609 in the fact that their DNA showed 14-42% First Indian ancestry and the rest 86-58% was Zagros/Iranian Agriculturist ancestry, but they had no Anatolian ancestry at all.

Of the others from the same area (i.e. from BMAC sites in the "Iran and Turan" area), "the study had access to the DNA of sixty-nine ancient individuals from BMAC sites and a great majority of them had this particular combination of ancestries: early-Iranian-agriculturist-related ancestry (about 60 per cent), Anatolian agriculturist-related-ancestry (about 21 per cent) and west-Siberian related ancestry (about 13 per cent)" (p.94) but no First Indian ancestry at all. In fact, none of the ancient specimens other than these three individuals, had First Indian ancestry.

From this, it is deduced that the "three outlier individuals from the BMAC and Shahr-i-Sokhta" alone (unlike the others) seem to have had ties with the Indian (First Indian) side of the area, i.e. with the Harappan side, but not with the western (Anatolian) side.

Therefore the study "defines the 'Indus Periphery' population as migrants from the Harappan Civilization who were residents in neighbouring cities that the Harappans had trade and cultural relations with […] Since no ancient DNA has been recovered from the Harappan Civilization areas so far, these 'Indus Periphery' individuals stand in as proxy for the Harappan population itself" (p.93).

In the footnote, he tells us that the Rakhigarhi DNA will also most likely show the same combination of only First Indian and Zagros].

3. The only DNA from ancient India is from the Swat valley in northern Pakistan from a post-Harappan period: after1200 BCE, till around 100 BCE.

This DNA , Tony Joseph tells us, represents a combination of the same three major genetic ancestral lineages found in present-day India: First Indian, Zagros and Steppe.

This, Joseph tells us, proves that the Steppe DNA entered into India in the period 2000-1000 BCE.

But this is the period that Indologists and linguists have long held as being the period of the "Aryan invasion" of India by speakers of the Indo-European languages, who are also alleged to have come from the Steppes of South Russia. And this, according to Tony Joseph, proves the AIT.

As we already saw, even if we accept all the above three propositions of the "scientists", it still does not prove the claims about "Aryans" and the Indo-European languages: given the fact that the chronological and geographical evidence shows the Vedic Indo-Aryans to have been present as far east as Haryana and western U.P. in a purely "Indo-Aryan" land, with no memories of western areas, at a point of time long before 2500 BCE, this "genetic evidence" only means that any Steppe people who entered South Asia from present-day Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan after 2000 BCE got integrated into the local populace everywhere, accepting the local languages and the general culture and traditions, like most other later ancient people in the historical record (the Greeks, Persians, Scythians, Huns, etc.).

But going even deeper into the report, does in fact the data in the genetic report itself support the above three propositions of the "scientists"?

Please note that the following analysis is based on the data given in the report itself, which sharply contradicts the above three propositions.

 

The data concerned is:

A. A list of seven "ancestry sources" about which the report tells us: "We can model almost every population as a mixture of seven deeply divergent 'distal' ancestry sources (usually closely related to populations for which we have data, but in some cases deeply related)" (REICH 2018:6).

B. A chart showing the genetic components of the DNA of twenty-one ancient groups, on the basis of which the "scientists" draw their conclusions (REICH 2018:22), and a map showing the geographical locations in Eurasia of the sites which provided the DNA of those twenty-one ancient groups (REICH 2018:22).

A. The following are these seven "deeply divergent 'distal' ancestry sources" (REICH 2018:6) and the colors assigned to each of them on his above graph (REICH 2018:22, Figure 2):

1. "'Anatolian agriculturist-related': represented by 7th millennium BCE Anatolian agriculturists" (Orange).

2. "'Western European Hunter-Gatherer (WHG)-related': represented by Mesolithic western Europeans" (Red).

3. "'Iranian agriculturist-related': represented by 8th millennium BCE pastoralists from the Zagros Mountains of Iran" (Blue).

4. "'Eastern European Hunter-Gatherer (EHG)-related': represented by hunter-gatherers from diverse sites in Eastern Europe" (Teal).

5. "'West Siberian Hunter-Gatherer (West_Siberian_HG)-related': a newly documented deep source of Eurasian ancestry represented here by three samples" (Green).

6. "'East Asian-related': represented in this study by Han Chinese" (Purple).

7. "'Ancient Ancestral South Indian (AASI)-related': a hypothesized South Asian Hunter-Gatherer lineage related deeply to present-day indigenous Andaman Islanders" (Yellow).

The graph tabulates the ancestral components, from these seven "ancestry sources", of 21 ancient groups (some of which consist of just one individual each, such as three of the five groups, from the Iran-Turan region, pertaining to the three "Periphery Indus" outlier individuals). 

To avoid repeated use of long and complicated names, we will primarily refer to these seven deeply divergent ancestral components by their color-names in the graph.

 

B. The following are the names of the twenty-one ancient groups and their geographical locations, and the color-code of each group as per the seven ancestral components:

Seven groups from the Northern Steppes:

1. Khvalysnk_EN. In western Siberia far to the north of the Caspian Sea.Blue + Teal.

2. Steppe_EMBA. To the northwest of Mongolia.Blue + Teal + Orange.

3. Dali_EBA. In NW Sinkiang to the west of Mongolia.Blue + Green.

4. Okunevo.SG. To the northwest of Mongolia.Blue + Green + Purple.

5. Steppe_MLBA_East. Belt from Latvia to the west of Mongolia.Blue + Teal + Orange + Red.

6. Steppe_MLBA_West. Belt from Latvia to the west of Mongolia. Blue + Teal + Orange + Red.

7. Zevakinsky. To the west of Mongolia.Blue + Teal + Orange + Purple.

Six groups from Western Iran-Turan:

8. Hajji_Firuz_C. In western Iran.Blue + Orange.

9. Seh_Gabi_C. In northern Iran. Blue + Orange.

10. Tepe_Hissar_C. In Semnan province of NE Iran.Blue + Orange + Green.

11. Parkhai/Anau_En. In Turkmenistan. Blue + Orange + Green.

12. Geosiur_En. In Turkmenistan. Blue + Orange + Green.

13. Sarazm_En. In northwest Tajikistan. Blue + Orange + Green.

Five groups fromEasternIran-Turan:

14. BMAC. In northern Afghanistan and areas of southern Central Asia. Blue + Orange + Green + Yellow.

15. Shahri-Sokhta_BA1. In southeast Iran (Helmand). Blue + Orange + Green + Yellow.

16. Shahri-Sokhta_BA2. In southeast Iran (Helmand). Blue + Green + Yellow.

17. Shahri-Sokhta_BA3. In southeast Iran (Helmand). Blue + Green + Yellow.

18. Gonur 2_BA. in southern Turkmenistan. Blue + Green + Yellow.

Three groups from the Swat valley in the northern fringes of South Asia.

19. SPGT. In Swat valley of northern Pakistan. Blue + Orange + Green + Yellow.

20. Saidu_Sharif_IA. In Swat valley of northern Pakistan. Blue + Orange + Green + Yellow.

21. Butkara_IA. In Swat valley of northern Pakistan. Blue + Orange + Green + Yellow.

 

Now let us examine the conclusions drawn by the "ninety-two scientists" and their spokesperson Tony Joseph about the genetic evidence presented in their report, to see whether it fits in with the data given in the above charts, which have not been prepared by us but by their own selves:

To begin with, the paper is intended to analyze the genomic formation of the present-day population of South Asia and Central Asia by comparing the genetic ancestries of the available specimens of ancient individuals with the genetic ancestries of the present-day population: "our dataset includes 612 ancient individuals that we then co-analyzed with genome-wide data from present-day individuals […] 1789 of which were from 246 ethnically -distinct groups in South Asia" (REICH 2018:5).

But while the graph provides the genetic ancestral components (from the seven above "ancestry sources") of the twenty-one ancient population groups, nowhere does the report similarly provide the genetic ancestral components of the present-day population groups from the same seven above "ancestry sources" [The three major ancestral components of the present-day Indian population (excluding immigrations from the east, as well as other later minor additions from the west which constitute a very minor portion of modern Indian ancestry) are First Indian, Zagros and Steppe, according to their report].

Further, when it comes to the present-day population, they create dubious new categories and components, such as AASI, ASI, ANI, etc., which consist of a large number of vague, garbled and unspecified combinations of the above ancestries at various unspecified points of time, making it difficult to compare, and easy to fudge, the connections between the ancient and new genetic categories. Even the much-debated haplogroup categories are not specified: for example, Tony Joseph expands at length on R1a1, the "genetic signature" of the "Aryans" (p.167, etc.), but the term R1a1(or R1a) is only mentioned once in passing on p.12. But more on this (R1a1) later.

So how is any comparison possible?

 

However, the genetic ancestral components (from the seven above "ancestry sources") of the twenty-one ancient groups at least are given, and we can examine them.

1. When we do so, we immediately see the first anomaly as per Tony Joseph's explanation of the evidence in the paper: The three major ancestral components of the present-day Indian population (excluding immigrations from the east, as well as other later minor additions from the west which constitute a very minor portion of modern Indian ancestry), as per Joseph, are First Indian +Zagros +Steppe, and of the Indus Peripheral individuals from ancient India (whose DNA is so useful in identifying the Harappan genetic structure) are First Indian + Zagros.

The graph on p.22 should therefore show us the genetic ancestry of the Indus Peripheral individuals as blue + yellow: (nos. 3 and 7 in the list).

However, the graph shows it as blue + yellow + green. That is, it includes also the green ancestry described as "'West Siberian Hunter-Gatherer (West_Siberian_HG)-related': a newly documented deep source of Eurasian ancestry represented here by three samples" (p.6): no. 5 in the list.

This is before the alleged immigration of the Steppe people into South Asia.

Accordingly, the only ancient DNA from South Asia, from the three groups from the Swat valley of northern Pakistan, which is supposed to represent a stage after the alleged immigration of the Steppe people into South Asia also shows this additional component of green.

This is clearly a distinct deviation from the conclusions presented by them.

We can however, adjust this data and fit it into their scheme by simply taking "blue + green" instead of "green" alone in all their results for South Asia.

2. According to Tony Joseph, the Indus Peripheral individuals stood out as distinct from all the other people in the "Iran-Turan" region, including the BMAC, since "none of them had any Anatolian ancestry. This was quite unlike others around them in the same region, who all had Anatolian ancestry and no ancestry related to the First Indians" (p.133).

This fits in with the fact that, except for the three "Indus Periphery" individuals in the graph (named "Gonur2_BA", "Shahr-i-Sokhta_BA2" and "Shahr-i-Sokhta_BA3"), the other eight groups in the "Iran-Turan" region in the graph (named "Hajji_Firuz_C", "Seh_Gabi_C", "Tepa_Hissar_C", "Parkhai/Anau_EN", "Geoksiur_EN", "Sarazm_EN", "BMAC" and "Shahr-i-Sokhta_BA1") all have orange in their ancestry, i.e. "Anatolian ancestry".

So far so good.

But now comes the anomaly that cannot be explained away: the oldest DNA from South Asia, from the Swat valley in the northernmost province of Pakistan, dated from 1200-800 BCE, not only had First Indian + Zagros (actually, as we saw, blue + yellow + green) ancestry (like the three outlier individuals and the Harappans), but also, according to Joseph, "a 22 per cent ancestry from the Steppe-Middle-to-Late-Bronze-Age people" (p.95). In short, the Steppe ancestry, not yet found in the three outliers (and therefore deduced as not present in the Harappans), now appears for the first time in South Asia in the Swat DNA. Further, the report tells us that the BMAC area in Central Asia was "bypassed by members of these [Steppe] groups who hardly mixed with BMAC people and instead mixed with peoples further south" (REICH 2018:8), and hence reiterates: "We reject BMAC as a primary source of ancestry in South Asia" (REICH 2018:20).

Amazingly, all this is not what the graph shows us at all:

a. According to the graph, the other (than the Indus periphery individuals)  eight groups in the "Iran-Turan" region in the graph (named respectively "Hajji_Firuz_C", "Seh_Gabi_C", "Tepa_Hissar_C", "Parkhai/Anau_EN", "Geoksiur_EN", "Sarazm_EN", "BMAC" and "Shahr-i-Sokhta_BA1") all have orange in their ancestry, and the BMAC people in particular have the ancestral components: blue + orange + green + yellow.

b. Also according to the same graph, the three Swat groups in the later period also have exactly the same ancestral components: blue + orange + green + yellow.

So where are the new Steppe ancestral components which "bypassed" the BMAC and are found in the Swat groups?

In fact, far from rejecting "BMAC as a primary source of ancestry in South Asia" (REICH 2018:20), the data seems to show that BMAC groups with the ancestral combination of  blue + orange + green + yellow, missing earlier in South Asia (as per the indirect testimony of the three Indus periphery individuals), had in fact expanded into northern Pakistan (Swat) by 1200 BCE, bringing the Anatolian or orange ancestry into South Asia.

Unless we are to assume that orange in the BMAC color-code represents Anatolian ancestry, but orange in the Swat color-codes represents Steppe ancestry!

[Note: the yellow ancestral component, the First Indian ancestry,  is found only in present-day South Asia, in the three ancient Swat groups, and in the five ancient groups from Eastern Iran-Turan, and nowhere else outside this area, clearly testifying to an Indian sphere of ancestry extending to and including the BMAC area of Central Asia].

3. The report tells us: "we examined our Swat Valley time intersect from 1200 BCE to 1 CE. While the earliest group of samples (SPGT) is genetically very similar to the Indus_Periphery samples from the sites of Gonur and Shahr-i-Sokhta, they also differ significantly in harboring Steppe_MLBA ancestry (~22%). This provides direct evidence for Steppe_MLBA ancestry being integrated into South Asian groups in the 2nd Millennium BCE, and is also consistent with the evidence of southward expansions of Steppe_MLBA groups through Turan at this time via outliers from the main BMAC cluster from 2000-1500 BCE. Later samples from the Swat time transect from the 1st millennium BCE had higher proportions of Steppe and AASI derived ancestry more similar to that found on the Indian Cline, showing that there was an increasing percolation of Steppe derived ancestry into the region and additional admixture with the ASI through time" (REICH 2018:14-15).

Where do we find the Steppe ancestry in the report, which is supposed to appear in South Asia for the first time in the Swat DNA from 1200-800 BCE?

As per the chart shown in the report, there are seven ancient NorthernSteppe groups, all stretched out from Mongolia in the east to Latvia in the west:

1. Khvalysnk_EN. Blue + Teal.

2. Steppe_EMBA. Blue + Teal + Orange.

3. Dali_EBA. Blue + Green.

4. Okunevo.SG. Blue + Green + Purple.

5. Steppe_MLBA_East. Blue + Teal + Orange + Red.

6. Steppe_MLBA_West. Blue + Teal + Orange + Red.

7. Zevakinsky. Blue + Teal + Orange + Purple.

As we can see, five of these seven groups have teal ancestral components (and one of these also purple, and two others red), and a sixth one (which has no teal) has purple. None of these three ancestries are found in any of the ancient samples from the Swat area, which could have been alleged to have been brought by the Steppe people into South Asia after 2000 BCE and before1200 BCE. The seventh group does not have any of these three ancestries: it has only blue and green, which were already there in the Indus Periphery samples of the Harappan era.

The two Steppe_MLBA groups above both have teal and red in their ancestries, missing in all the Swat samples.

So where, in the chart, do we find any Steppe ancestry which entered the Swat area of South Asia after 2000 BCE? And if we don't, how can we postulate Steppe people moving into South Asia from the north after 2000 BCE, citing the ancient Swat samples as the earliest evidence?

This is a simple and logical question. If the answer to this is that there is a new Steppe ancestry in the Swat groups which was missing in the BMAC group, and it is only our stupidity and ignorance about the super-science of genetics which prevents us from understanding this, then we can only conclude that the "scientists" who prepared the chart of the ancestries of the twenty-one ancient groups (REICH 2018:22) must be even more stupid and ignorant in presenting a chart which contrasts sharply with their own narrative and conclusions. Or else the conclusions drawn by the "ninety-two scientists" and presented by their spokesperson Tony Joseph are just a fraud.

[Incidentally, then how much credence should be given to their claims that the Steppe_MLBA ancestry (with red and teal ancestral sources) is found in the present-day Indian population when they do not even provide us with similar charts with the above seven ancestry sources for the present-day castes, communities and regions?]