Fact Check: Origins of Indians - Aryans, Dravidians, and Indus Valley DNA

what are Indians are we descended from Arians who came in from Europe or are we descended from dravidians who were

always here in India or are we descended from the Indus Valley Civilization these questions have been very controversial

for the last years but in recent times we finally have scientific evidence which allows us to answer these

questions with a degree of certainty okay I remember reading in my school textbooks that the Arians came in via

the Iber pass and that's about all I can remember so let's start from the beginning of that Arian Theory okay okay

in the late 1700s there was a British linguist who came to India so he was amazed at how many words in North Indian

languages like Sanskrit Bengali Hindi were similar to words in European languages like greek latin French and

also Persian so he came up with the idea that all of these are descendants of a common language called the Proto

indoeuropean yeah later in the mid 1800s Max Mueller came up with the theory that there was a group of people in the

Caucasus Mountains who spoke this Proto indoeuropean language and they spread this all over some of them migrated to

Europe giving rise to the europian languages some went to Persia giving rise to Persian and Iranian languages

okay and some came to India giving rise to Sanskrit and modern Indian languages the Caucasus Mountains is where

Caucasians are from the white man the white Caucasians right correct and racist Europeans loved this Theory okay

the theory is that white men spread out and they were the superior race and they defeated and subjugated the Primitive

local races and they ruled the world okay of course because why not The White Man's Burden as we all know not just

that tell me why Caucasus Mountains uh no idea honestly because that's where Mount Ararat is Mount Ararat where

Noah's Arc landed after 40 days okay so their theory is that the biblical people from Noah's Ark spread out from the

Caucasus Mountains and these Caucasians took over the world and their language took over the world so they basically

took every possible story that could have been created and mashed it into one single thing that fit into the biblical

worldview yeah why not this Theory called the Aran Invasion theory is not taken seriously

by anyone in Academia anymore because the evidence is just not there okay there is no evidence that Arians came

and invaded there is no evidence that the local people were primitive and would give up easily right the Moen jaro

and harapa civilizations were quite Advanced there is no evidence that these guys came and took over and like became

rulers okay so if the Arian Invasion theory is not true then what is the theory that explains all of this before

we go there let me talk about the reaction of Hindu nationalists to the Arian Invasion Theory okay they hated

the idea so much that they went to the Other Extreme obviously according to them Hindus have always been here hm

okay because this the land of Ganga is our puni and our pomi okay so the idea that we came from

outside just doesn't jel with their worldview okay so their theory is that we are the Arians in India we created

Sanskrit the perfect language we created vdas the perfect books and then we took it to the rest of the world 7,000 years

ago and that gave rise to Persian and the avestan religion and in Europe that gave rise to Greek and Latin and all the

modern European languages and I'm guessing this is not true either this is in fact so untrue that no academics take

this seriously at all there is zero evidence for this there is no archaeological evidence showing movement

from here outside there is no genetic evidence showing movement of genes outside of India it's less than 2% and

there is no linguistic evidence all the evidence actually points towards movement into India okay archaeological

evidence as in so for example you see certain kinds of pottery H say 5,000 years ago in India then 4,000 years ago

it shows up in Afghanistan okay then 3,000 years ago it shows up in Persia then 2,000 years ago it shows up in

Ukraine then 1,000 years ago shows up in Europe right so that would mean that Pottery went from India to Afghanistan

to uh Persia to Ukraine right and it's not just Pottery right it's specific Styles it is a way of making pots it's a

way of making tools it's a system of using iron whatever right all those things okay so that evidence points the

other WEA exactly okay and the genetic evidence you said correct so this is the big thing in the last 15 20 years okay

because now with DNA sequencing what we can do is that we can dig up human remains that we find at archaeological

websites we can try to pick out DNA from that and sequence them in the lab okay okay for each such person we can pick

out 600,000 genetic markers okay okay not just that but for each one of them we can use

carbon dating so we know the date also okay okay okay now imagine that there are two lines of DNA one in say Iran and

it is showing genetic markers B CDE bcde bcde and like every few hundred years and it is going down like this okay on

this side in India you are for similar dates you are seeing pqrs in the Next Generation there is pqrs 100 years later

there is pqrs suddenly now you start seeing bcrs BCS okay oh you can clearly see that what has happened is that

someone from Persia came to India around this time and then they started mixing here H if it were P qde then we would

say that the mixing happened the other way around and I'm not talking about just four or five things like that right

we are talking about 600,000 so when there is evidence there is lots of evidence like this got it okay got it

now evidence like this there are 100 of papers earlier they used to be the archaeological evidence okay but now at

least dozens of papers with genetic evidence showing flow towards India related to India have been published

okay we will focus primarily on one paper which is like an awesome paper Okay 2019 paper it has 100 plus

co-authors from 18 countries including from Indian colleges okay this paper analyzed DNA from 800

different persons from 19 different locations all over this region dates from 12,000 BC all the way to 1 BC okay

okay and 269 distinct dates by carbon dating so 269 different points in time over a period

of 12,000 years remember that everything we do here is backed by SCI scientific research and scientific uh data so even

when we are giving examples those examples are actually from existing papers and existing research so in this

particular case this paper has uh data from a period of 12,000 years there are 269 different points in those 12,000

years that are being considered but those are enough to establish a clear timeline not just that but the findings

of this paper agree with all the other re evence the archaeological evidence the linguistic evidence the

anthropological evidence and evidence from stories of all the different cultures okay so this looks like a

fairly solid bit of research here absolutely what does this paper say h it says that modern Indian DNA has come

from three sources of DNA okay the first is ancient hunter gatherers who came out of Africa to India around 65,000 years

ago the second wave is of Middle Eastern pre farmers who came around 6,000 to 4,000 BC the third wave was step herders

these are from the step grasslands Ukraine kazakistan they came in around 1800 BC okay okay so now let's look at

these three waves in detail and what they did to India all right all right so first 65,000 years ago humans from

Africa they crossed the Red Sea they crossed Arabia they crossed Persia Afghanistan

and then came into India settled all these places correct they continued they went to the andamans they went to

Indonesia they went to Australia and some of that still exist you can see that DNA in some Andaman tribes some of

the Aboriginal tribes in Australia and so on okay okay so now India is sparsely populated by these Hunter gather mirers

okay okay this situation continues for like 60,000 years okay all right now around 9,000 8,000 7,000 BC uhuh in the

region which is now Iran okay the Fertile Crescent huh some of the people started to kind of figure out a little

bit of cultivation of crops okay they were not full- flesh Farmers they just understood some seeds wheat and barley

and wherever they went they would try to grow it sometimes with success sometimes with failure fair enough these people

some of them started coming towards India okay and when they reached the Indus Valley they settled there okay

okay now the thing is that for a pre farming Society like this life isn't easy when you move the reason is that

they didn't understand farming technology as such they didn't understand different kinds of seeds Okay

okay okay what happened was that where they came from the Fertile Crescent there rain happened in winter so they

had wheat and barley seeds which would grow very well if you had winter rain but they moved to indust Valley where

there is rain and Monsoon summer correct so their seeds didn't grow as well and they were struggling a little bit makes

sense so what ended up happening is that they ended up with decent relations with the hunter gatherers and there was trade

correct when their crops worked well they would give it to the hunter gatherers when not they would take stuff

from hunter gatherers and things happened correct okay after a while they slowly figured out variants of those

seeds which worked well in this Monsoon climate agriculture developed agriculture developed City started

developing they had surplus of food they could use that for all kinds of things and over time they developed irri ation

that's how we got the Indus Valley Civilization Mo Hara everything else oh are these the Arians that we spoke about

at the beginning no okay but let's first understand the current situation okay okay inside India there are the ancient

hunter gatherers right in the Northwest Indus Valley huh there is this new thing called the Indus Valley Civilization

which consists of a mixture of Middle Eastern pre- farmer DNA and ancient hunter gatherer DNA remember

there was trading and intermixing for many centuries here correct that's the current situation yeah okay Arians

haven't arrived yet but before the Arians arrive huh something important happens okay what this indust Valley

Civilization reached its peak around 2500 BC okay it flourished for the next 600 years and then suddenly starting

around 1900 it began to decline why we don't know for sure okay we know that it wasn't a war it wasn't some sudden

natural disaster okay we believe it was because Rivers dried up okay okay because of various geological action huh

there was the gagar hakra river system here okay which just changed course and this whole civilization which depended

on the rivers and irrigation of the rivers couldn't survive anymore and they started dying out uh-huh some of them of

course started migrating into India okay is this or could this be the F sarasti river that disappeared during that time

we are not sure but it could be okay because around that time there was a river system and there is evidence that

it disappeared there are some mismatches there but it could be okay it could be sarasti the mystery continues yeah but

now what's happening is that these Indus Valley people are moving into India okay okay remember that whenever they move to

a new location they struggle initially because their crops and their systems are not adapted for that correct and

because of that again they are trading and intermixing with the locals yeah at that time again the locals now are still

the ancient hunter gatherers who are mixing with the Indus Valley people now okay the IND Indus Valley people being a

mix of the Middle Eastern farmers and the ancient hunter gatherers from earlier correct after a while what

begins to happen is that their agriculture technology starts working okay and they slowly become more and

more prosperous correct this results in two things one is that the population explodes

okay we have done an episode on why India is the most populous country it is related exactly to this yeah second

thing is that some of them start migrating South okay okay and the same thing repeats whenever they migrate a

little bit there's initial period of struggle there is some intermixing then they migrate further so a gradation

gets set up in India from north to south gradation in terms of the DNA percentag is mixed so in the north it is much more

Indus valy DNA and very little ancient hunter gatherers okay in the South there is more ancient hunter gatherer and less

indust Valley correct corre if you look in terms of the original Middle Eastern pre farmer okay so in the

north about 50 to 70% is that DNA okay and in the South about 30 to 40% is that DNA okay okay this we are going to call

Ani and Asi ancestral North Indian and ancestral South Indian okay so these are sort of the ancestors of North and South

India this is the situation in India from around 1800 BC to 1,000 BC right okay so this is the period of the indust

valley civilization declining correct okay around 1600 BC step herders from Central Asia Eastern Europe they started

moving south okay near Tajikistan they split one part went to Iran and became ancient Persians okay the other part

came to India and these were the Arians oh but we are not going to use the word Arians because racist people took that

word and they have completely changed the meaning of the word Arian yeah so we'll refer to them as step herders all

right okay fair but these are the guys who came in with a language which was one of the ancestors of Sanskrit and

they came in with religion which was one of the ancestors of the Vic religion okay okay but what the DNA evidence

shows is that these guys came and they settled and they intermixed with the local populations huh which is thei

and Asi okay but in a very interesting manner the DNA evidence shows that only the male DNA from Step herders is there

in India today ah almost all the female DNA is from The ancestral hunter gatherers not even from the Middle

Eastern preformers that's very interesting so first of all how do we know this okay our DNA actually is two

different sets of DNA one is the regular DNA that you all know about and that half you get from your mother half you

get from your father right but in the mitochondria there is mitochondrial DNA and 100% of it has come from your mother

and she has gotten it from her mother and she has gotten it from her mother so you can trace a unbroken line back

through all the mothers so mitochondria is not just the power of the cell it is also a record of all your ancestral DNA

of sorts of female ancestral DNA right okay so what we know is that the Steppy herders probably came here without women

and they started intermixing with local women not just that but looks like like at least some places they out competed

the local men okay so their percentages increased okay and just like the indust valley people some of them slowly moved

South but not a whole lot so again there is a gradation right in North India maximum 30% DNA is Step harder male DNA

in South India it is as low as 10% there are a few tribals who have 0% step DNA okay so at this point North India is

mostly Middle Eastern pre farer DNA with probably an equal amount of seep farmer and ancient Hunter gathered DNA mixed in

so 40 30 30 is the breakup percentage there you go and South India is more of the Middle Eastern preformer DNA because

at this point through the indis valley civilization and etc etc they've come in so it's mostly Middle Eastern pre-former

DNA with uh uh another large part of uh ancient Hunter gather DNA but only a small part of the step Herer DNA mixing

in yeah so actually it's 10% step Herer 40% uh Middle Eastern pre farer and 50% ancestral uh hunter gatherers ah okay

ancestral not ancient sorry but uh then these are the dravidians that we speak about just checking yes okay by the way

another thing to keep in mind is that the amount of DNA varies quite a lot by cast Okay Okay in North India huh if you

look at the amount of Step Herer DNA different casts have different amounts and the maximum is in the brahmins and

the bmars the casts which were traditionally in charge of Sanskrit and of the rituals of Puja and all of that

okay and it reduces as you go over to the other casts it kind of makes sense when you realize that a lot of your

initial rituals might have forbidden going out of your tribe and from the tribe casts were born kind of but it's

very interesting to note that your DNA percentages are regulated by cast well that's a tricky question okay okay

because two things H one is that up till about 100 AD okay so from 1300 BC for the next

14500 years there was lots of intermixing going on okay okay the DNA evidence they have

looked at the ancient DNA and they have also looked at DNA of 70 different groups of modern Indians and they have

done an analysis and what they found is that there was lots of intermix across all casts and jatis and whatever

happening until about 100 AD and then it just kind of stopped and since 100 AD until Modern India there is very little

intermixing across casts so DNA from 100 AD of a particular cast will be very similar to that same cast today because

suddenly you became endogamous that is marrying within your cast yeah so another interesting finding

related to our cast from DNA wow so from 100 AD till about 200 ad for about 1900 years we were endogamous we were only

marrying within the cast and only in recent times this entire intercast marriage has sort of again allowed us to

mix dnas very interesting we started about 65,000 years ago and we've just reached 2008 and probably 2024 so I

think to summarize right Indians are mix of ancient hunter gatherers from 65,000 years ago from Africa Middle Eastern

farmers who came 6,000 to 4,000 BC correct and step herders who came around 1800 BC right all Indians are a mix of

all three correct okay there is nobody who's only step Herer or only Aran or whatever yeah all the languages are also

a mix what the step herders brought in mixed with what the north Indians were doing mixed with what the South Indians

were doing very likely that the ancient hunter gatherers in South India had an old language probably Proto Davidian and

the Indus Valley languages mixed with that to form dravidian languages and then the step herders came in with

the pre Sanskrit and that mixed with all of this to form Sanskrit and then those formed all the modern Indian languages

right wow okay now suddenly the history of ancient India and India in modern times uh ties in very beautifully

together but my first question Still Remains how do we now know for sure that this is a migration and not an invasion

what part of this entire Theory or this entire research disproves The Invasion part we don't see evidence that should

have been there if it was an invasion okay there are no no large numbers of massacred victims as would happen at the

end of a war there is no large scale destruction of property what we see is more consistent with a gradual decline

over centuries okay no sudden DNA changes when a foreign power comes in and takes over there is a sudden change

in DNA but here everything was very gradual correct and because generally back in those days uh any foreign power

coming in trying to invade would basically be committing genocide be LGE scale deaths and massacres and entire

DNA line lineages wiped out correct another thing is no sudden changes in material culture like the pottery and

the implements and the tools those also changed very gradually correct and no Sudden Change in languages right you

know otherwise when muls came in suddenly you're switching over to Persian right but instead here there was

just a very gradual change in languages so all of this points to it being a gradual change and second is if you look

at the DNA evidence the so-called Arians the step herders ultimately were only like a small percent of the DNA correct

right so two things to keep in mind right so that explains why it's not an invasion this entire episode just

explained why it is not out of India and the Aran migration into India rather than invasion of India makes more sense

a completely new outlook into the whole theory that we've been learning half and half since school and lots to think

about lots to take home drop your thoughts in the comments for sure which I'm guessing you must be itching to do

by now Shri Kant naven future IQ