Early Indians by Tony Joseph is a captivating account of the prehistory of India. It answers the question, “Where do the modern day Indians come from?”
Summary
India has had 3 major migrations which have contributed towards the genetic ancestry of its people: African migrants, agriculturists from the Zagros region of Iran and pastoralists from the Steppe region in Central Asia. The story starts about 65000 years ago with African migrants and ends with the arrival of Steppe pastoralists around 2000 BC. As the story unfolds, the reader learns about how these immigrants became our ancestors and shaped the genetic make-up, languages, religious customs and traditions prevalent today. These migrations also influenced the emergence of religious factors like the Hindu caste system. Instead of simply narrating the story, Joseph derives it using proofs from the fields of genetics, archeology, linguistics and agriculture. This book is highly recommended for anyone who is curious about the history of India, our ancestors, the origins of our languages and cultural beliefs.
Prehistory of modern day Indians
The Homo Sapiens species emerged about 300,000 years ago in the continent of Africa. About 70,000 years ago, a group of Homo Sapiens from Africa (known as Out-of-Africa migrants) started migrating from Africa towards East Asia and Australia. The Out-of-Africa migrants became the ancestors of all modern humans outside of Africa. They reached the Indian sub-continent about 65,000 years ago and became our earliest known ancestors, the First Indians. Modern-day Indians owe 50–65% of their genetic ancestry to First Indians.
When the First Indians reached India, it was already occupied with archaic humans (species of genus Homo other than Sapiens). Archaeological artefacts belonging to archaic humans in the form of ancient tools have been excavated which date to about 1.5 million years ago. The First Indians spread across India in a gradual and opportunistic manner over a period of 30,000 years. Aided by climatic changes and superior tools, they managed to conquer over the existing archaic humans and sent them to extinction.
Around 9000 years ago, the earliest experiments in agriculture in South Asia laid the foundation of the Harrappan civilisation which thrived between 5500 BCE to 1900 BCE. An Iranian agriculturist population migrating from the Zagros region in Iran mixed with the First Indians on the periphery of the Harrappan civilisation between 9000 to 5000 years ago. After the decline of the Harrappan civilisation about 4000 years ago due to a draught, its residents moved towards south and east India looking for food and fertile land to cultivate and settle. They carried the Iranian agriculturist ancestry with them and mixed with the local First Indians wherever they went. This admixture gave rise to the ancestry known as Ancestral South Indians (ASI) which derives from a mixture of First Indians and Iranian agriculturists and is prevalent today in the region of peninsular India.
Harrappan civilisation was one of the largest civilisations of its time and laid the foundation of the Indian civilisation prevalent today. Harrappan heritage is shared by both the Dravidian (south Indians) and the Indo-Aryan (north Indians) speakers. Dravidian heritage is linguistic whereas the Indo-Aryan heritage is cultural. Harrappans used what was known as Proto-Dravidian languages which gave birth to all Dravidian languages spoken today. Many of our myths and cultural beliefs are the gift of Harrappan civilisation. The famous cooking ‘handi’ used all over India, the use of ‘sindoor’ by married women, the sacredness of the Peepul tree, etc. are all inventions of the Harrappan civilisation. Stone depictions of humans sitting in a cross-legged position with eyes closed and various hand mudras show that early forms of Yoga and meditation were also prevalent in the Harrappan civilisation.
Around 2000 BCE, South Asia faced an influx of pastoralists belonging to the Steppe region in Central Asia. Steppe pastoralists moved from the north-west direction into the Indian subcontinent up to Central India and mixed with the local population there in varying degrees. The resultant genetic ancestry was an admixture of First Indians, Iranian agriculturists and Steppe pastoralists, known as Ancestral North Indians (ANI).
The Steppe pastoralists identified themselves as Aryans and brought with them an early version of Sanskrit. Vedic culture is a mixture of the cultural elements, beliefs and myths brought in by the Aryans and the locally prevalent cultural elements of the Harrappan civilisation. It is a result of the interaction, adoption and adaptation between these pastoralists who brought the Indo-European languages to India (like Sanskrit) and those who were already well-settled inhabitants of the region. The high position of the horse in Hindu religious texts, the chariots, etc. were brought in by the Aryans. This is evident by the fact that the horse is curiously absent from Rigveda, the oldest Veda (origins tracked to about 600 BC during the Harrappan civilisation) but takes the centre position in the later Vedas. The caste system, separating the mankind based on their occupation, fully took form in India after the entry of Aryans. Although, some of it may have been present during the Harrappan civilisation.
Interestingly, there is a higher presence of Indo-European ancestry among the population which is considered to be of a priestly status, expected to be custodians of the Aryan culture, than there is amongst other caste people.
Almost all present day Indians are a mixture of ANI and ASI, in different proportions in different regions and communities.
