Beyond the ANI-ASI cline

Beyond the ANI-ASI cline

Long time readers area aware of the thesis of Reconstructing Indian Population History. Indian populations are a two-way admixture of “Ancestral North Indians” and “Ancestral South Indians.” The former are a West Eurasian population. The latter are not, and their closest relatives today are the people of the Andaman Islands, albeit, 10-30,000 years diverged. But long time readers will also know that I strongly suspect that the two population model is too simple. Other genome bloggers like Dienekes have noticed the following trend, but Zack Ajmal has done the most in clarifying the issue. There is a low level very European-like element which does not seem to follow a simple geographical cline.

The labels below are not literal. Rather, they point to the population(s) in which the element is at highest frequency. Additionally, the elements themselves may not be real, but may be linear combinations of other components. So don’t read the absolute values, but the relations between them. I’ve sorted by highest S Indian + Baloch value to the lowest. Look at the NE European column. The results imply to me that the Aryans spread rather quickly across North Indian atop the ANI-ASI cline. Observe that the NE European values are very low in the Brahui and Baloch, but they are also clearly populations which little ASI. The ANI were probably West Asian farmers. In other words the probability of Dravidian being the language of the ASI is low. I have no idea as the detail of the pattern of “Caucasian,” but it seems elevated in some populations which have Near Eastern influences in Western India.

Ethnicity N S Indian Baloch Caucasian NE Euro East Asian
gujarati-patel 2 55% 41% 0% 0% 1%
vysya 5 64% 32% 1% 0% 2%
gujarati-a 63 54% 42% 0% 1% 1%
ap-reddy 3 57% 37% 2% 0% 2%
mala 3 73% 21% 1% 0% 3%
sakilli 4 68% 26% 1% 0% 3%
velama 10 56% 37% 3% 0% 2%
piramalai-kallar 8 63% 30% 2% 0% 2%
ap-mala 11 72% 20% 0% 0% 4%
kamsali 4 66% 27% 1% 0% 3%
tamil-vishwakarma 2 68% 24% 2% 0% 4%
chamar 10 66% 26% 0% 2% 2%
tamil-vellalar 4 59% 33% 2% 0% 2%
naidu 4 61% 31% 1% 1% 2%
tamil-nadar 2 61% 31% 1% 0% 3%
dusadh 6 60% 31% 1% 2% 3%
kol 16 61% 30% 1% 3% 3%
bhil 7 67% 24% 0% 2% 3%
sinhalese 2 59% 32% 2% 1% 3%
lodi 5 59% 32% 1% 3% 2%
north-kannadi 8 70% 20% 3% 1% 2%
hallaki 7 62% 28% 3% 1% 2%
kerala-nair 3 48% 39% 4% 3% 2%
up-muslim 5 53% 33% 3% 5% 3%
iyer-brahmin 10 48% 38% 5% 5% 1%
kerala-christian 5 50% 35% 7% 1% 2%
ap-brahmin 25 49% 36% 3% 6% 2%
gujarati-b 34 44% 39% 5% 7% 1%
kerala-muslim 2 52% 31% 3% 2% 6%
meghawal 5 45% 37% 5% 6% 2%
up-kshatriya 7 45% 37% 4% 8% 2%
tharu 7 58% 23% 4% 3% 7%
bengali-brahmin 3 44% 35% 4% 11% 4%
brahmin-uttar-pradesh 8 42% 36% 5% 12% 1%
bengali 5 49% 28% 3% 5% 11%
punjabi 7 34% 42% 9% 9% 2%
sindhi 24 29% 46% 10% 6% 1%
punjabi-jatt 5 28% 43% 8% 14% 1%
bhatia 2 25% 46% 12% 11% 2%
brahui 25 12% 58% 12% 2% 2%
haryana-jatt 3 28% 40% 7% 18% 1%
balochi 24 14% 54% 14% 3% 2%
kalash 23 22% 43% 18% 11% 2%
pathan 23 23% 42% 16% 11% 3%
burusho 25 23% 41% 12% 10% 11%
onge 9 51% 0% 0% 1% 32%
Razib Khan