A Genetical Study of Human Migration1

by Dr D K Bhattacharya2
[Book Review of: The First Civilization of the World, author: P. Priyadarshi
(priyadarshi101@hotmail.com), Publisher: Siddhartha Publications, 10, DSIDC Scheme II,
Okhla Industrial Area Ph II, New Delhi 110020 (arunrajive@gmail.com)]

In 2001 The International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium

started cataloguing common human haplotypes for the first time. It is just about
nine years gone and now genetic finger printing methods have not only become
advanced but the data generated have become so great that origin and dispersal
of man can be demonstrated easily and accurately through the time estimation
of the mutation of marker haplogroups. Consequently this technique is fast
emerging as a credible alternative to fossil evidence to trace the emergence and
distribution of our human ancestors.

Dr. Priyadarshi approaches his entire delineation to trace the birth of

man, his language and other attributes of culture through the evidences
provided by molecular genetics. This he does in combination with molecular
genetical markers in plants and also the animals that man domesticated. He
traces the origin and spread of mice and rats, both of which originated in India
and spread with farming to the rest of world. They were human commensals
and pests since Homo erectus days over 900,000 years. Yet they were restricted
to India until quite recently. To prove this he cites from thirteen science journal
articles. Thus he demonstrates that farming must have originated in India first
and then spread into west Asia.

The entire work is spread into 11 chapters and a 20 pages bibliography in

smaller font. There is an exaustive index too. Each of the chapter headings is

1
Publication Details: Eternal India, Vol. 3, Number 2, November 2010, India First Foundation,
New Delhi.
2
Dr D. K. Bhattacharya is retired Professor of Anthropology, University of Delhi. He has
written a large number of books and journal articles on physical anthropology, especially on
prehistoric human migration and prehistoric archaeology.

1
self-explanatory. For example, the first chapter discusses the earliest farming
sites of Eurasia on archaeological ground. In this, author brings forth lesser
known facts of Indian archaeology. For example, the author quotes from
Nature journal that evidence of earliest dental drilling treatment has been found
from India of 9000 years back.3 World‘s oldest metallic copper and oldest spun
cotton threads dating 8000 years back have been recovered from India.4 The
second chapter discusses the issue of Human evolution and dispersal out of
India over last 100,000 years on the basis of molecular genetics. Each
successive chapters follow the same patterns for human being, his culture, his
domesticates and also his language having dispersed out of India. The author
has taken pains to understand several extremely diverse and specialized
subjects like genetics, linguistics, anthropology, ecology and archaeology, to
drive his point about India being the epicenter of both biological and cultural
evolution of man home.

This kind of super-imposition of archaeology, linguistics and genomic

attributes are seen almost all over in each of the chapters. It is not an easy job
to combine these diverse disciplines to understand the history of human
civilization. It is also true that such attempts have been made earlier but Dr.
Priyadarshi had to work hard to demonstrate significant pre-conceived bias in
almost all these earlier studies.

Before the advent of molecular genetics all conclusions regarding the

origin of the genus Homo and its subsequent ramification was based on fossil
finds. These were seldom complete and at times depended on such small
fragments as merely a tooth or a broken ramus of the mandible. It is well
known how Weidenreich, a celebrated plaeontologist, picked up a single tooth
from a Chinese vendor selling bones for folk medicine in a city in China. He
found the tooth so peculiar that he enunciated an entirely new family of pre-
human race and named in Telanthropus. This kinds of looking out for fossils
3
Coppa, A., et al, Palaeontology: Early Neolithic Tradition of Dentistry, Nature 2006, 440: 755-756.
4
Moulherat, C. et al., First Evidence of Cotton at Neolithic Mehrgarh, Pakistan: Analysis of
Mineralized Fibres from a Copper Bead, J Archaeological Sc. 2002 Dec., 29(12): 1393-1401.

2
soon became a full time activity of reputed scholars like the Leakeys in Kenya
or Johanson in Ethiopia. Today Lake Turkana in east Africa and Omo in
Ethiopia have become such famous names that no text book in palaeo-
anthropology can avoid these names.

By the end of the sixties a consensus about human origin and dispersal
was arrived at, entirely based on fossils. This proposed that the large branch
from within which smaller branches emerge is called Genus Homo. Somewhere
between 2.4 to 2.1 million years ago the first smaller branch (called a species)
from within this emerged and it was called habilis. Whether the next branch
called erectus in Asia and ergaster in Africa emerged from the habilis was not
well understood. However, most scholars today believe that erectus evolved in
the Caucasus region before migrating to other places.

Whether habilis went extinct in the mean time or mixed with the invading
erectus to give to the ergaster cannot be decided as yet until more evidence is
discovered. It was also accepted that Homo erectus migrated to various parts of
Africa, Europe and Asia and developed into regional varieties of Homo sapiens
sapiens. That is, the common ancestry of all mankind is pushed to 1.8 million
years. This was referred to as the ―Theory of multiregional origin.‖ Many
geneticists found this view difficult to accept. They argued that accepting all
human populations all over the world having independently evolved in a
parallel way to give rise to the same species is a genetic improbability unless
one accepts that people in various parts of the world belong to different species.

In 1987, for the first time, mitochondrial DNA was used to promulgate a
new theory named ―Out of Africa‖ theory. It was empirically proposed that
Homo sapiens sapiens evolved in East Africa, and around 50,000 years ago it
migrated through Suez to West Arabia to rest of the world. Later evidence
ruled out this route of exit, and indicated that man left Africa through the Horn
of East Africa to South Arabian coast, Eastern Iran, India and then to Southeast
Asia and Oceania. This also got a kind of nod from fossil experts who

3
discovered three skeletons from Herto Bouri in Ethiopia. 5 These were dated to
160,000 and taxonomically the skeletons show enough evolved features to
appear as the closest relative of the Homo sapiens sapiens. It has been placed in
a separate sub-species Homo sapiens idaltu.6 Two recent fossil findings have
not so far been integrated into the human evolution hypothesis. First is
discovery by Kennedy that Narmada Man was actually a female fossil, with a
cranial capacity of 1400 cubic centimeters—highest recorded from any female
fossil of that age. It belonged not to Homo erectus, but to archaic Homo
sapiens.7 The second is a discovery of a ferricated archaic Homo sapiens baby
fossil dated 160,000 from Tamil Nadu in India.8

Dr. Priyadarshi emphasizes the neglected fact from the genomic findings
that although earliest humans entered India from Africa about 100,000 years
back, it was from India that rest of the world and most of Africa was populated.
Thus he almost turns over the table. It is because he does not enter into the
discussion of Homo erectus as directly as that of ‗Out of Africa‘ model. While
discussing the language and culture migration over the last 35,000 years, Dr.
Priyadarshi chooses to concentrate on male lineages. To quote, ―It became
further clear that the source of Africa‘s most frequent Y-chromosomal Hg E
was India. ... The original African male lineages which exist in Africa today
constitute only 8% of male lineages of sub-Saharan Africa, i.e., 0.25% of male
lineages of world. The rest 99.75% descended from India. If we consider only
maternally mediated lineages, even then 97% of the world population is of
Indian descent. The remaining 3% are from purely African lineage and they
live in sub-Saharan Africa‖ (p.11). Thus, ‗Out of Africa‘ is being replaced by
him with what may be called ‗out of India‘, theory.

5
White, T. D. et al, Pleistocene Homo sapiens from Middle Awash, Ethiopia, Nature 423:742-747 (12
June 2003)
6
Ibid.
7
Kennedy, K. A. et al, Is the Narmada hominin an Indian Homo erectus ? Am J Phys
Anthropol, 1991, 86(4): 475-96.
8
Rajendran, P. et al, Homo sapiens (Archaic) sample from Middle Pleistocene, Ancient Asia,
vol 1, 2006.

4
In order to establish this change the author goes to expose at length the defects
of many earlier workers. We might quote some. ―Basu‘s article is badly
designed work full of inconsistencies. It tries hard to prove that the Aryans
invaded India, and in that way suppresses many facts and distorts others, yet in
that goal it miserably fails‖ (p. 18). ―Partha Majumdar‘s review article is a
disaster. He writes that the Aryan speaking north Indians came to India from
Central Asia, and that genetically the north Indians show DNA similarly with
today‘s Indo-European speaking Central Asians. He little appreciates that Indo-
European is not spoken by any group in Central Asia today... all Central Asian
languages are Altaic‖ (p. 21) Kumar et al studied 2768 tribals for
mitochondrial DNA. Priyadarshi writes. ―Kumar‘s article is completely
confused. Firstly the authors do not show awareness of M3 (one of the oldest
lineages of India). They are also probably not aware that M, N and R all three
mitochondrial DNAs originated in India.‖ (p. 23)

The author tries to show that the Toba Volcanic eruption occurring
around 74,000 years ago had a prolonged effect on all living creatures in India.
This must have dispersed survivors into distant corners and some who could
find a favourable corridor started migrating to both western Asia and Central
Asia as well as Southeast Asia. This must have started from around 60,000
years and may have continued to occur in spasmodic waves all through till
early Holocene. Thus man, both in his biological status as also in his cultural
achievements, would seem to have been a product of India.

Although not logically sound, almost all evolutionists have tried to link
human evolution with cultural progression. Thus the most primitive form of
society was named hunter-gatherer. This was a kind of small filial bands where
man foraged and hunted like wild animals do. The entire Palaeolithic
populations from 2.1 million years to 10,000 B.C. seem to have been of this
kind of human existence, although one can demonstrate a progression from
casual hunting to group-hunting of large mammals as one progresses from
Lower Palaeolithic to Upper Palaeolithic. Dr Priyadarshi thinks differently, and

5
gives evidence based on molecular genetics of man, cattle, goat and pig to
suggest that settled life with domesticated animals started about twenty five to
thirty five thousand years back in India, and from here it spread to Central
Asia, China, Southeast Asia and lastly to West Asia and South Europe.

Traditionally, it is held that Holocene Starts around 10,000 years back and this
marks the beginning of Chiefdom societies forming more organized
exploitation of the ecology. Wild seed collection must have begun in this phase
which finally led to agriculture, and the society which could maintain this
labour intensive economy is called Tribe. Finally with the arrival of metal the
last form of society called Statehood emerges. From the time of Gordon Childe
and then Braidwood the beginning of agriculture has been traced to the Fertile
Crescent – the area spread from eastern Turkey, Jordan, Iran and Iraq.

That early agriculture has been noted outside this Fertile Crescent in Mexico or
even in northern Thailand is not the concern of Dr. Priyadarshi. His aim is to
challenge the West Asian theory. This he argued on the basis of the fact that the
radiocarbon dates of Mehrgarh (Baluchistan, Pakistan), Koldihwa and
Lahuradeva (Gorakhpur, India) far exceed the West Asian dates.

Further the occurrence of such wild types of rice as Oryza rufipogon or

Oryza nivera along with the domesticated variety (Oryza Sativa) is taken as an
additional proof of their indigenous development rather than readymade arrival
from West Asia or South China. To support his claim, Priyadarshi cites six
recent science journal articles written by scientists working on rice genome. He
does similar exercise for barley and establishes, with the help of science
articles on barley genome, that India was the first to cultivate and domesticate
barley, even earlier than West Asia.

Priyadarshi launches into a detailed analysis of linguistic terms prevalent

in Proto-Indo-European, Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic and other languages in
order to demonstrate that terms referring to agriculture in all these languages
seem to show close semantic resemblance with Sanskrit. This exercise, he does

6
to demonstrate that agriculture emerged in India first and then migrated to West
Asia from where it spread into Africa, Europe and rest of Asia. The well argued
analysis about the origin of farming is further substantiated on the basis of
DNA markers in both the domesticated cereals as also mice and rats. The latter,
it is believed, evolved with agriculture and hence if they can be shown as
having evolved in India first and then migrated to other parts of the world, one
can win an additional point in this series of Indo-Centric arguments. It must be
admitted that Dr. Priyadarshi wins in all accounts.

That issue of the Aryan invasion in India is elaborately examined in

chapter-8. Dr. Priyadarshi believes that ―This school often deliberately omits
recent discoveries in DNA mapping and often takes help of outdated rejected
literature to resurrect their hypothesis‖ (p. 91). Earlier some authors had
suggested that Y-chromosomal lineage R1a (M17) which is found in Europe,
India and Central Asia, was a marker gene of Aryans, invading from Central
Asia to India and Europe. Dr Priyadarshi contradicts this view with the help of
latest works of Underhill et al (2009)9, Sahoo et al (2006)10 and Sengupta et al
(2006)11 who examined the DNA haplogroup R1a in detail, and found that it
originated from India, and started migrating out to Central Asia in 16,000 years
back, reaching from there to East Europe by 7000 years back.

On the ground of both mitochondrial DNA12 and Y chromosome haplogroup

R1a13, it will appear there has been no migration into India from the north-

9
Underhill, P.A. et al, Separating the post-Glacial coancestry of European and Asian Y-
chromosomes within haplogroup R1a, European Journal of Human Genetics 2009, 4
November online.
10
Sahoo, S. et al, A prehistory of Indian Y chromosomes: Evaluating demic diffusion
scenarios, PNAS 2006 Jan., 103(4): 843-848.
11
Sengupta, S. et al, Polarity and Temporality of High-Resolution Y-Chromosome
Distributions in India Identify Both Indigenous and Exogenous Expansions and Reveal Minor
Genetic Influence of Central Asian Pastoralists, Am J Hum Genet 2006 Feb., 78(2): 202–221.
12
Metspalu, M. et al; Most of the extant mtDNA boundaries in South and Southwest Asia
were likely shaped during the initial settlement of Eurasia by anatomically modern humans,
BMC Genetics 2004, 5: 26doi:1186/1471-2156-5-26.
13
Oppenheimer, S.; The Real Eve : Modern Man’s Journey out of Africa, Carroll and Graf
Publishers, New York, 2003. Also, Sahoo, Sanghmitra et al, A prehistory of Indian Y
chromosomes: Evaluating demic diffusion scenarios, PNAS 2006 Jan., 103(4): 843-848.

7
western corridor of India, of a kind that can give rise to such a widespread
culture as Indus Valley Civilization. With the help of migration route of Y-
chromosomal haplogroup J2, which has been established to be a marker gene
of farming and pottery in West Asia and South Europe14, and Indo-European
language in the same provinces15, Dr Priyadarshi tries to establish that Indo-
European languages migrated out of India with this gene and farming.

In fact, it would be quite likely that right from Mature Harapan Phase (2700
B.C.) there may have been people and goods going out of India to West Asia.
Here again Dr. Priyadarshi wins a point as almost all archaeologists are
beginning to realize that Indus Valley is a local development.

Reading this excellent work of Dr. Priyadarshi one is led to believe that
all major University graduates (which includes the reviewer) have been largely
mouthing Euro-Centric views for far too long a period. No wonder the
discovery of Malhar (near Varanasi) which indicates a distinct possibility to
demonstrate that Iron was discovered first in India (3800 years back), did not
cause any ripple in Indian academia. The meticulous references of almost all
original workers and a critical examination of their views make this work
extremely important. May be a next generation of scholars will undertake
works in archaeology to finally prove many of the issues raised by the author.
It is a book which should be read by scholars in the field of anthropology,
archeology, linguistics, genomics, palaeontology and also palaeo-botanists.
There are large number of abbreviations used throughout, and these need to be
explained for smooth reading.

14
King, Roy and Underhill, Peter A., Congruent distribution of Neolithic painted pottery and
ceramic figuries with Y chromosome lineages, Antiquity 2002, 76:707-714.
15
Bellwood, Peter, Early agriculturalist population diasporas? Farming, Language and Genes, Annu
Rev Anthropol 2001, 30:181-207.