RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INDIAN POPULATIONS AND EUROPEANS

Joseph Skulj, Jagdish C. Sharda, Snejina Sonina, Petr Jandacek

Hindu Institute of Learning

Abstract:
In India as well as in Europe, there are ongoing debates between scholars regarding the original settlers in the respective lands. What ethnic group is indigenous to a particular country and who arrived later and when did the historical event occur; this is being re-examined in the light of new discoveries. Scholars have formulated many theories, based on archaeological finds, historical records and linguistic hypotheses in an attempt to explain the presence of various languages and ethnic groups in particular countries. Now, scientists are applying another scientific tool--genetics-- which is currently used to help the researchers in their quests for knowledge about the historical past.

In Slovenia, there is a debate whether the Slovenians are indigenous to the country or, whether, they arrived 1500 years ago (Savli, 1996). Similarly, on the Indian sub-continent, there is a question whether the Aryans (Indo-European speakers) are autochthonous (Rajaram & Frawley, 1997) (Ghosh, 1988), or whether they arrived after the Dravidian speakers, just 3,500 years ago (Chatterji, 1988) or even much earlier, possibly 10,000 years ago (Kivisild, 1999). There are reasonable arguments to support the debate (Ghosh, 1988). However, in such debates the scholars do not consider the close linguistic relationship between Sanskrit, the language of the Aryans and the Slavic languages of Europe and also of the present day genetic relationship of Aryans on the Indian sub-continent and the Slavs of Europe. This applies particularly to the Slovenian which is relatively little known, but along with Czech, is the most westerly Slavic language.

The main feature of Indian society is caste and scholars speculate that something very like castes were in India even before the Aryan speakers entered India (Majumder 2001). Now, Geneticists have discovered that the upper castes are more similar to Europeans, particularly East Europeans, whereas lower castes are more similar to Asians. The higher the caste, the closer they are to East Europeans (Bamshad et. al., 2001).

In this paper, we will demonstrate the linguistic and genetic relationship between Aryans of the Indian sub-continent and Slavs of Europe.

INTRODUCTION:
Well known Indian scholar Navaratna S. Rajaram, has noted that there is evidence in the Indian epic literature pointing to connections between Vedic and Puranic records on the one hand, and the languages and mythologies of prehistoric Europe on the other. This suggests linkages between Vedic India and prehistoric Europe, that have long been suspected, but insufficiently explored (Rajaram & Frawley, 1997).

It is for this reason that an attempt will be made to explore the linguistic and the genetic linkages between Slavs in Europe and the Aryans (Indo-European speakers) on the Indian sub-continent and to determine when in history the separation between Slavs and Aryans occurred.

DISCUSSION:
S. Srikanta Sastri has noted that a number of scholars have advocated a theory that the Aryans are indigenous to the Indian sub-continent and that the expansion or migration of the Aryans started from the Indian sub-continent. Some of the arguments to support this theory are as follows:
--There is no evidence to show that the Vedic Aryans were foreigners or that they migrated into India within traditional memory. There are literary materials available to indicate that they regarded Sapta-Sindhu as their original home. The Vedic Aryans, if at all they came from outside, must have lived in Sapta-Sindhu so many centuries before the Vedic period that they had lost all memory of the original home.
--The linguistic affinities are not positive proofs of Aryan immigration. Other Aryan languages may have come into existence as a result of the contact between migrating Aryans and non-Aryans outside India and Persia.
--Aryans migrated from India, but they were superfluous population of roving tribes and did not leave literary records (Ghosh, 1988).

Rajaram cites Shrikant Talagari who proposed that the presence of Indo-European speakers from India to Ireland going back to prehistoric times may be ascribed to a combination of political and ecological disturbances in the Rigvedic heartland that seem to have taken place in the fifth millennium B.C. (Rajaram & Frawley, 1997).

The Roma (Gypsies) are an example of the out of India immigration. Linguistic evidence suggests, that they are of diverse Indian origin. They became one of the peoples of Europe, when they arrived in the Byzantine Empire 900-1,100 years ago (Gresham et. al., 2001).

Prof. B. K. Ghosh, on the other hand, presents arguments, which indicate that India was not the original home of the Aryans:
--The fact that the whole of South India and some parts of North India too are to this day non-Aryan in speech is the strongest single argument against the Indian-home hypothesis, especially as the existence of a Dravidian speech-pocket in Baluchistan suggests, that the whole or at least a considerable part of India was non-Aryan in speech. It may reasonably be argued, that had India been the original home of the Aryans, they would have certainly tried to Aryanize the whole of the sub-continent, before crossing the frontier barriers in quest of adventure.
--The cerebral sounds of Sanskrit which sharply distinguishes it from all other Indo-European speech-families including Iranian, are best explained as the result of Austric and Dravidian influences on the language of the incoming Aryans.
--Some scholars have assumed that blond hair was chief characteristic of the Indo-Europeans. Blond hair was also known in India. The grammarian Patanjali declared blond hair to be one of the essential qualities in a Brahmana. True Brahmanas, therefore should have been blondes in the pre-Christian era (Ghosh, 1988).

Within the known historical times, the riches of India have been like a magnet that attracted numerous armies to the sub-continent to plunder the wealth, beginning with the Persians. Herodotus wrote almost 2 500 years ago, that the Indians are more numerous than any other nation and they paid to the Persian king Darius, a tribute exceeding that of every other people (Herodotus). The Persians, were followed by the invasion of the Alexander the Great with his Macedonian and Greek army, then by Mongols and last by the British. This underlines the fact, that India was the goal of many and shows the usual path taken by the plundering armies.

Caste and Indian Society:
The main feature of Indian society, seen at its strongest in the rural areas, is caste. A caste is a collection of people who share similar cultural and religious values and practices. Members within a caste generally marry among themselves; inter-caste marriages are a cultural taboo (Majumder, 2001).

Contemporary India is a land of enormous human genetic, cultural and linguistic diversity. The social structure of the Indian population is dominated by the Hindu caste system. Most of the population is hierarchically arranged into four main caste classes: Brahmin (priestly class), Kshatriya (warrior class), Vysya (business class) and Sudra (menial labour class). Indian culture and society are also known to have been affected, by multiple waves of migration, that took place in historic and prehistoric times.....The contemporary tribal population are largely Dravidian or Austro-Asiatic speakers....In view of the persistent survival of Dravidian languages in the pockets of Iran, Baluchistan and Afghanistan, some linguists believe that Dravidian speakers came from outside. Others, however, believe that since Dravidian speakers are largely restricted to India, these languages may have developed within India (Roychoudhury et. al., 2000).

The Aryan world comprised three classes (varnas): priests, nobles and commoners. Aryans placed their three classes on the indigenous Indian society. The varna organization is hierarchical. Initially, the system had names for two ranks, Brahma and Kshatra, Brahmin being socially higher rank than Kshatriya. The third rank was made of Vis, that is, all the subjects. To this society, a fourth rank was added: Shudra, who had no right to Aryan ritual. In southern India, the menial workers, the so-called “untouchables” were placed in a new varna, Panchama (fifth) (Majumder, 2001).

GENETIC INFORMATION:
The recognition of new Y-chromosome markers represents a major leap in the investigation of human genetic diversity (in male lineages, complementing the information from female lineages derived from mitochondrial DNA). The resulting phylogeny supports out-of-Africa origins of our species and opens the way to further insights into prehistoric demography and world prehistory (Renfrew, 2000). Applying molecular genetics to questions of early human population history, and hence to major issues in prehistoric archaeology, is becoming so fruitful an enterprise that a new discipline—archaeogenetics—has recently come into being. That many of its applications have so far related to prehistoric Europe is due in part to the detailed archaeological attention devoted to Europe by a series of 19th and 20th century scholars. It is also due in part to the early application of a specific demographic model, the “wave of advance” to explain the chronological patterning that emerged as farming spread across Europe at the onset of the Neolithic period (Renfrew, 2001).

Based on the genetic information compiled by Semino and 16 co-authors, they suggest that the present European population arose from the merging of local Paleolithic groups and Neolithic farmers arriving from the Near East after the invention of agriculture in the Fertile Crescent. Two lineages, those characterized by M170 and M173 appear to have been present in Europe since Paleolithic times (Semino et. al., 2000).

M173 Lineage—Distribution and Age:
Semino proposes that M173 is an ancient Eurasiatic marker that was brought by or arose in the group of Homo sapiens sapiens who entered Europe and it diffused from east to west 40,000 to 35,000 years ago spreading the Aurignac culture. M 173 lineage is shared by haplotypes Eu18 and Eu19, which characterize about 50% of the European Y chromosomes (Semino et. al., 2000).

The frequency of Eu18 is at its highest in the Basques at 90%, 81% in the Irish ( Rosser, 2000) and decreases from west to east. On the Indian sub-continent it is present at 11% and 12% in Pathan and Sindhi ethnic groups speaking Indo-European languages (Semino et. al., 2000, Qamar et. al., 2002).

In contrast, haplotype Eu19, which is also derived from M173 and is distinguished by M17 mutation, is virtually absent from Western Europe. Its frequency increases eastward and reaches 54% Ukraine, where Eu18 is virtually absent (Semino et. al., 2000). Haplotype Eu19 is also found on the Indian sub-continent at 45% and 49% in Pathan and Sindhi language groups (Qamar et. al., 2002).

Semino interprets the differentiation and the distribution of haplotypes Eu18 and Eu19 as signature of expansion from isolated population nuclei in the Iberian peninsula for Eu18 and the present Ukraine for Eu19, following the Last Glacial Maximum. In fact, during this glacial period 20,000 to 13,000 years ago, human groups were forced to vacate Central Europe, with the exception of a refuge in northern Balkans (Semino et. al., 2000).

In the study by Rosser and 61 co-authors, HG1 which is analogous to Eu18, is found at ~80% in the Celtic speakers (not tested by Semino), confirming that the trend is similar, decreasing from west to east. Haplogroup HG3 which is analogous to Eu19 is not unique to Eastern Europe but is also found in northern Sweden at 19% and in Norway at 31% (Rosser et. al., 2000).

Genetic research and studies of the peoples of India show, that when the whole Indian sub-continent is considered, Indians show considerably more genetic similarities with the Caucasoids than with the Negroids (Majumder, 1998). To be more precise, a number of researchers have found that Indians share many genetic similarities with the Europeans. Underhill has noted that haplogroups derived from M170 and M173 lineages are found mostly in Europe and the Indus Valley (Underhill et. al., 2000). Semino observes that haplogroup Eu19, which appears at the highest concentration in Eastern Europe at between 29%-60%, is also present at substantial frequency in northern India and Pakistan (Semino, 2000); calculated at 32% (from information provided in Table 1, Underhill, 2000). Some geneticists interpret this as marking the movement of the Kurgan people, from north of the Caspian Sea, dated to ~7,000 years ago (Rosser et. al., 2000).

Semino estimates the age of M173 to be ~30,000 years, which appears consistent with the hypothesis that M173 marks the Aurignac settlement in Europe or, at least, predates the Last Glacial Maximum (Semino et. al., 2000).

M170 Lineage—Distribution and Age:
Semino proposes that M170 originated in Europe in descendants of men that arrived from the Middle East 20,000 to 25,000 years ago, who have been associated with the Gravettian culture. It has been suggested that Gravettian and Aurignac coexisted for a few thousand years. When human groups were forced to vacate Central Europe, during the Last Glacial Maximum with the exception of a refuge in the northern Balkans, Western Europe was isolated from Central Europe. However, an Epi-Gravettian culture persisted in the area of present-day Austria, the Czech Republic and the northern Balkans. After climatic improvement, this culture spread north and east (Semino et. al., 2000).

Semino proposes that the polymorphism M170 from which haplotype Eu7 is derived represents another putative Paleolithic mutation whose age has been estimated to be ~22,000 years. The mutation is most frequent in central Eastern Europe, at 45 % in Croats and 49% in Yugoslavs (Rosser et. al., 2000) and also occurs in the Basques that have accumulated a subsequent mutation (M26) that distinguishes Eu8 (Semino et. al., 2000). It is also present on the Indian sub-continent; Pathan and Sindhi in Pakistan show a frequency of 16% and 9% (Qamar et. al., 2002).

Indo-Aryan and European Genetic Affinity:
Indian culture and society are known to have been affected by multiple waves of migration that took place in historic and prehistoric times. A section of Aryan speakers are believed to have migrated first to Iran and from there to north-west of India where they encountered the indigenous people who spoke non-Aryan languages (Roychoudhury et. al., 2000).

It is conceivable that the Aryan speakers had greater contact, including genetic admixture, with the Brahmins, who were professionally the torchbearers and promoters of Aryan rituals. The Aryan contact should have been progressively less as one descended the varna ladder. The genetic expectation, therefore, is that the proportion of those genes (or genomic features, such as haplotypes or haplogroups), that “characterized” the Aryan speakers should progressively decline from the highest varna to the lowest and a reverse trend should be observed with respect to those genes that “characterized” the indigenous Indians (Majumder, 2001).

From the historically prevalent social structure of Indian populations, it may be predicted, that there has been very little male gene flow across ethnic boundaries. The analysis of DNA samples indicates that there has been virtually no male gene flow among ethnic groups, whereas, there is considerably more female gene flow. The upper castes, while sharing haplotypes with the middle and lower castes, do not share any haplotypes with the tribes (Bhattacharyya et. al., 1999).

A close affinity, based on Y chromosome, has been reported between Hindi speaking (Aryan) Indians and Europeans (Quintana-Murci et. al., 1999). Bamshad has gone a step further and compared the affinities between the castes and also between the Europeans. He has found that the affinity to Europeans is proportionate to caste rank; the upper castes being most similar to Europeans particularly East Europeans. These findings are consistent with greater West Eurasian male admixture with castes of higher rank. The lower castes, on the other hand, are more similar to Asians. For this comparison, Eastern European samples from Russia and Romania were used (Bamshad et. al., 2001).

LANGUAGE AFFINITIES:
The well known geneticist Barbujani observes that humans do not tend to easily cross language boundaries when choosing a partner. This gives languages a great evolutionary significance, because linguistic affinities are also clues to population history. He cites Sokal who has noted that a common language frequently reflects a common origin, and a related language indicates a common origin too, but farther back in time. He was also one of the first to make an intriguing observation that the partial correlations with the language are stronger for the Y chromosome than for mtDNA and suggests that when women were incorporated into a group speaking a different language, they passed to the future generations, their husbands’ language (Barbujani, 2000).

DATING THE SETTLEMENTS OF PEOPLES:
Dating of the Separation of Europeans and Indians: Barbujani & Bertorelle propose that in the Upper Paleolithic, around 40,000 years ago, Neanderthal people were replaced by anatomically modern humans, who moved in from Levant, and settled in many areas of the continent. At the latest Glacial Maximum, some 18,000 years ago, Northern and Central Europe were largely covered with glaciers. Human presence then seems restricted to the warmest regions or refugia, and only later reappears more to the North, accompanying the retreat of the ice sheet (Barbujani & Bertorelle, 2001).

Adams and Otte propose that the climatic instability led to the language spread. They postulate that any one population group that acquired both the general cultural traits that caused it to spread rapidly out of a refugium and the technology to enable it to do so, would have experienced a rapid population growth. There is a possibility that the population increase causing the spread of Indo-European languages occurred at the end of the Last Glacial Maximum about 14,500 years ago. However, another event that might have affected the spread was the widespread cold, dry event that occurred 8,200 years ago (Adams & Otte, 1999).

Roychoudhury et al. have found, that on the basis of the analyses of mtDNA of the ethnic populations of India, a higher Caucasoid admixture in the northern Indian populations and that there is evidence that western Eurasian specific haplogroups and subclusters were introduced into India with the entry of Aryan speakers from western and central Asia (Roychoudhury, 2001).

Based on genetic data Kivisild disagrees with a commonly held hypothesis which suggests a massive Indo-Aryan invasion into India some 4,000 years ago. Based on the investigations of the maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA, he estimates that the divergence between Europeans and Indians took place some of 9,300+/- 3,000 years ago. However, the investigation is not able distinguish whether there were one or many migration waves, or whether there was a continuous long lasting gradual admixture. The results, nevertheless, do not support a recent massive Aryan invasion into India, nor do the results support Indian penetration into western Eurasia (Kivisild, 1999).

Richards et. al. estimate that based on mtDNA results over 90% of the present European populations were in their present locations prior to the Bronze Age. Only 7% of the population came to the Alps and 8% to Southeastern Europe since the Bronze Age. Most of the populations were present in their present locations in Europe since the Lower Upper Paleolithic ~14,000 years ago. About10% of the lineages, date to the first colonization of Europe, by anatomically modern humans during the Early Upper Paleolithic (EUP) (Richards, 2000).

About 20% of the lineages arrived during the Neolithic. Most of the other lineages seem most likely to have arrived during the Middle Upper Paleolithic (MUP) and to have re-expanded during the Lower Upper Paleolithic (LUP) (Richards, 2000).

Despite numerous similarities between Sanskrit and Slovenian, there is no common recognizable terminology for metals. The discovery and dating of the “Ice Man” in the South Tyrol with his copper axe, indicates that metals were known 5,200 years ago. This could also be construed as an indication that the Slavic and Aryan languages separated before metallurgy was discovered.

OBSERVATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS:
There is a significant correlation between linguistics and genetics in the Slavs and the Aryans on the Indian sub-continent. This is particularly true when the genetic comparison is made on the basis of paternally inherited DNA haplogroups on the Y chromosome. The genetic profiles of the Slavic speakers resemble rather closely those of the Aryan speakers. There is also a notable linguistic similarity between the Slavic languages and the Aryan languages such as Hindi and Punjabi, despite the fact that Aryan languages have been profoundly influenced by Dravidian neighbors and the invaders that have come to India over the millennia.

Slavic languages preserve many grammatical and lexical similarities that they share with Sanskrit that are no longer found in modern Indian languages such as Hindi and Punjabi. Slovenian in particular appears to be very archaic, because it still preserves a number of grammatical and lexical forms that are no longer present in some other Slavic languages nor in the Aryan languages.

Slovenian and Sanskrit have more grammatical and lexical similarities than, say, Slovenian and Germanic languages, despite the geographic proximity. Approximately 20% of Slovenian vocabulary corresponds to the ancient Vedic Sanskrit in sound and meaning and 10% to Classical Sanskrit, but considerably less in Hindi and Punjabi. This indicates that the older the language, the greater is the similarity. This would also indicate that there has been little linguistic interaction since the Vedas have been written between the Slavs and the Aryans.

The linguistic similarity of about 20% between Slovenian and Vedic Sanskrit is significant, because the present day similarity between Slovenian language and the neighboring German is only about 6%. On the other hand, Slovenian has about 80% of the vocabulary that is similar to Russian, in sound and meaning, despite much greater geographical separation.

Populations with genetic similarities as defined by haplotypes Eu7 and Eu19 show a greater linguistic similarity, even when geographically separated, than the neighbors with lesser genetic correlation.

Genetics does not support any massive population changes during the last 3,000 years. The bulk of the population both in Europe and on the Indian sub-continent can be considered to be indigenous to the lands they now occupy, despite some language replacements.

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[square brackets indicate transcriber's notes]

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