The figure to the left is a three dimensional representation of principal components 1, 2, and 3, generated from a sample of Gujaratis from Houston, and Chinese from Denver. When these two populations are pooled together the Chinese form a very homogeneous cluster. They don’t vary much across the three top explanatory dimensions of genetic variance. In contrast, the Gujaratis do vary. This is not surprising. In the supplements of Reconstructing Indian population history it was notable that the Gujaratis did tend to shake out into two distinct clusters in the PCAs. This is a finding you see over and over when you manipulate the HapMap Gujarati data set. In reality, there aren’t two equivalent clusters. Rather, there’s one “tight” cluster, which I will label “Gujarati_B” from now on in my data set, and another cluster, “Gujarati_A,” which really just consists of all the individuals who are outside of Gujarati_B cluster. Even when compared to other South Asian populations these two distinct categories persist in the HapMap Gujaratis.
Zack has already identified a major difference between the two clusters: Gujarat_A has some individuals with much more “West Eurasian” ancestry. …