Indo-Aryan or Indic peoples are an ethno-linguistic group referring to the wide collection of
peoples united as native speakers of the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-Iranian language family,
and is in turn a member of the larger Indo-European language family. Today, there are over one
billion native speakers of Indo-Aryan languages, most of them native to South Asia, where they
form the majority.
Origins
Earliest migrations The first people to have settled in India
during Paleolithic times appear to have been an Australoid group who may have been closely
related to Aboriginal Australians. From a genetic anthropological point of view, the
research of Basu et al. indicates that: there is an underlying unity of female lineages
in India, indicating that the initial number of female settlers may have been small;
the tribal and the caste populations are highly differentiated;
the Austro-Asiatic tribals are the earliest settlers in India, providing support to one
anthropological hypothesis while refuting some others;
a major wave of humans entered India through the northeast;
the Tibeto-Burman tribals share considerable genetic commonalities with the Austro-Asiatic
tribals, supporting the hypothesis that they may have shared a common habitat in southern
China, but the two groups of tribals can be differentiated on the basis of Y-chromosomal
haplotypes; the Dravidian tribals were possibly widespread
throughout India before the arrival of the Indo-European-speaking nomads, but retreated
to southern India to avoid dominance; formation of populations by fission that resulted
in founder and drift effects have left their imprints on the genetic structures of contemporary
populations; the upper castes show closer genetic affinities
with Central Asian populations, although those of southern India are more distant than those
of northern India; historical gene flow into India has contributed
to a considerable obliteration of genetic histories of contemporary populations so that
there is at present no clear congruence of genetic and geographical or sociocultural
affinities." Indo-Aryan language
The separation of Indo-Aryans proper from Indo-Iranians is commonly dated, on linguistic
grounds, to roughly 1800 BCE. The Nuristani languages probably split in such early times,
and are classified as either remote Indo-Aryan dialects or as an independent branch of Indo-Iranian.
By the mid 2nd millennium BCE early Indo-Aryans had reached Assyria in the west and the northern
Punjab in the east. The spread of Indo-Aryan languages has been
connected with the spread of the chariot in the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE.
Some scholars trace the Indo-Aryans back to the Andronovo culture. Other scholars have
argued that the Andronovo culture proper formed too late to be associated with the Indo-Aryans
of India, and that no actual traces of the Andronovo culture have been found in India
and Southern countries like Sri Lanka and the Maldives.
Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex Archaeologist J.P. Mallory finds it "extraordinarily
difficult to make a case for expansions from this northern region to northern India" and
remarks that the proposed migration routes "only [get] the Indo-Iranian to Central Asia,
but not as far as the seats of the Medes, Persians or Indo-Aryans". Therefore he prefers
to derive the Indo-Aryans from the intermediate stage of the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological
Complex culture, in terms of a "Kulturkugel" model of expansion. Likewise, Asko Parpola
connects the Indo-Aryans to the BMAC. But although horses were known to the Indo-Aryans,
evidence for their presence in the form of horse bones is missing in the BMAC. Parpola
has argued that the Dasas were the "carriers of the Bronze Age culture of Greater Iran"
living in the BMAC and that the forts with circular walls destroyed by the Indo-Aryans
were actually located in the BMAC. Parpola elaborates the model and has "Proto-Rigvedic"
Indo-Aryans intrude the BMAC around 1700 BCE. He assumes early Indo-Aryan presence in the
Late Harappan horizon from about 1900 BCE, and "Proto-Rigvedic" intrusion to the Punjab
as corresponding to the Swat culture from about 1700 BCE.
Recently Leo Klejn proposed a hypothesis of linking the earliest stage of Indo-Aryan peoples
with the Catacomb culture. Indo-Aryan superstrate in Mitanni
Some theonyms, proper names and other terminology of the Mitanni exhibit an Indo-Aryan superstrate,
suggesting that an Indo-Aryan elite imposed itself over the Hurrian population in the
course of the Indo-Aryan expansion. In a treaty between the Hittites and the Mitanni,
the deities Mitra, Varuna, Indra, and Nasatya are invoked. Kikkuli's horse training text
includes technical terms such as aika, tera, panza, satta, na, vartana. The numeral aika
"one" is of particular importance because it places the superstrate in the vicinity
of Indo-Aryan proper as opposed to Indo-Iranian or early Iranian in general.
Another text has babru(-nnu), parita(-nnu), and pinkara(-nnu). Their chief festival was
the celebration of the solstice which was common in most cultures in the ancient world.
The Mitanni warriors were called marya, the term for warrior in Sanskrit as well; note
mišta-nnu "payment". Sanskritic interpretations of Mitanni names
render Artashumara as Arta-smara "who thinks of Arta/Ṛta", Biridashva as Prītāśva
"whose horse is dear", Priyamazda as Priyamedha "whose wisdom is dear", Citrarata as citraratha
"whose chariot is shining", Indaruda/Endaruta as Indrota "helped by Indra", Shativaza as
Sātivāja "winning the race price", Šubandhu as Subandhu 'having good relatives", Tushratta
as *tṷaiašaratha, Vedic Tveṣaratha "whose chariot is vehement".
Vedic period
An influx of early Indo-Aryan speakers over the Hindukush together with Late Harappan
cultures gave rise to the Vedic civilization of the Early Iron Age. This civilization is
marked by a continual shift to the east, first to the Gangetic plain with the Kurus and Panchalas,
and further east with the Kosala and Videha. This Iron Age expansion corresponds to the
black and red ware and painted grey ware cultures. For Hellenistic times, Oleg N. Trubachev suggests
that there were Indo-Aryan speakers in the Pontic steppe. The Maeotes and the Sindes,
the latter also known as "Indoi" and described by Hesychius as "an Indian people".
Middle Ages
The various Prakrit vernaculars developed into independent languages in the course of
the Middle Ages, forming the Abahatta group in the east and the Hindustani group in the
west. The Romani people are believed to have left India around 1000 CE.
Contemporary Indo-Aryan peoples
Contemporary Indo-Aryans are spread over most of the northern, western, central and eastern
regions of the Indian subcontinent, Hyderabad in southern India, and in most parts of Sri
Lanka and the Maldives. Non-native speakers of Indo-Aryan languages also reach the south
of the peninsula. The largest groups are the Hindi, Bengali and Punjabi. or Hindi/Urdu
speakers of India, Bangladesh and Pakistan number more than half a billion native speakers,
constituting the largest community of speakers of any of the Indo-European languages. Of
the 23 national languages of India, 16 are Indo-Aryan languages.
Genetic anthropology
A study headed by geneticist Z. Zhao et al. based on an analysis of "32 Y-chromosomal
markers in 560 North Indian males collected from three higher caste groups and two Muslims
groups were genotyped" found that "a substantial part of today's North Indian paternal gene
pool was contributed by Central Asian lineages who are Indo-European speakers, suggesting
that extant Indian caste groups are primarily the descendants of Indo-European migrants."
An increasing number of studies have found South Asia to have the highest level of diversity
of Y-STR haplotype variation within R1a1a, such as those of Kivisild et al., Mirabel
et al. and Sharma et al.. However, studies based on Y-STR haplotype variation have been
recently criticized as being inaccurate and highly unreliable because the results are
often affected by which markers are consciously chosen for analysis. In a 2011 study examining
the effects of microsatellite choice and Y-chromosomal variation, the authors conclude:
"Subsequently, we suggest that most STR-based Y chromosome dates are likely to be underestimates
due to the molecular characteristics of the markers commonly used, such as their mutation
rate and the range of potential alleles that STR can take, which potentially leads to a
loss of time-linearity. As a consequence, we update the STR-based age of important nodes
in the Y chromosome tree, showing that credible estimates for the age of lineages can be made
once these STR characteristics are taken into consideration. Finally we show that the STRs
that are most commonly used to explore deep ancestry are not able to uncover ancient relationships,
and we propose a set of STRs that should be used in these cases."
Sengupta et al. in their 2006 paper in the American Journal of Human Genetics say that
"Our overall inference is that an early Holocene expansion in northwestern India contributed
R1a1-M17 chromosomes both to the Central Asian and South Asian tribes". The haplotype dating
methodology employed by the Sengupta paper is based on the "evolutionarily effective"
mutation rate for Y-chromosomal STR loci, a method which has been severely criticized
by Balanovsky et al.. According to these researchers, who compare both the accuracy and reliability
of the Zhivotovsky evolutionary mutation rate with a genealogical rate:
"We found that "evolutionary" estimates of most clusters fall far outside the range of
the respective linguistic dates, while "genealogical" estimates gave a good fit with the linguistic
dates. At least two population events in the Caucasus are documented archaeologically,
which allows additional comparison with these "historical" dates. In both cases, the historical
date is similar to a genetic estimate based on the "genealogical" mutation rate."
The latest research conducted by Watkins et al. also reject the Sengupta study, but only
because of the stochasticity of uniparental markers which may have been affected by natural
selection; they also argue for the need to analyze autosomal polymorphisms in addition
to both Y-chromosomal and mitochondrial DNA in order to generate a comprehensive picture
of population genetic structure. The authors of the study write:
"The historical record documents an influx of Vedic Indo-European-speaking immigrants
into northwest India starting at least 3500 years ago. These immigrants spread southward
and eastward into an existing agrarian society dominated by Dravidian speakers. With time,
a more highly-structured patriarchal caste system developed ... our data are consistent
with a model in which nomadic populations from northwest and central Eurasia intercalated
over millennia into an already complex, genetically diverse set of subcontinental populations.
As these populations grew, mixed, and expanded, a system of social stratification likely developed
in situ, spreading to the Indo-Gangetic plain, and then southward over the Deccan plateau."
Reich et al. indicates that the modern Indian population is a result of admixture between
Indo-European and Dravidian populations. The authors of the study write: "It is tempting
to assume that the population ancestral to ANI and CEU spoke 'Proto-Indo-European', which
has been reconstructed as ancestral to both Sanskrit and European languages, although
we cannot be certain without a date for ANI–ASI mixture." Recent research indicates a massive
admixture event between ANI-ASI populations 3500 to 1200 years ago.
List of Indo-Aryan peoples Historical
Contemporary See also
Arya Aryan
Aryan race Aryavarta
Indo-Aryan migration Indo-Aryan languages
Proto-Indo-Europeans Iranian Peoples
Dasa Kshatriya
Notes
References Bryant, Edwin. The Quest for the Origins of
Vedic Culture. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-513777-9. Mallory, JP. 1998. "A European Perspective
on Indo-Europeans in Asia". In The Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Peoples of Eastern
and Central Asia. Ed. Mair. Washington DC: Institute for the Study of Man.
Trubachov, Oleg N., 1999: Indoarica, Nauka, Moscow.
External links Horseplay at Harappa - People Fas Harvard
- Harvard University A tale of two horses - Frontline