SV: [Y-Indology] Indian Express Article today

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mmdesh [sMTP:mmdesh] skrev 15. mai 2001 23:25:

>Here is an article in today's Indian Express. I would like some person

who knows about these things to comment on it.

>

> Madhav Deshpande

 

I would not claim that I am a person who "knows about these things", but

I'll comment anyway.

 

Apparently, the conclusions in this article very nicely fit into the

picture painted by linguists for some 150 years now. It does of course not

give any basis for supporting an "invasion" versus a "migration" model.

However, there are some questions that are not addressed in the Newsletter

on Genome which are of interest.

When exactly did those European-like people arrive?

They did not necessarily all arrive from the original "Urheimat" 4000

years ago. It has been pointed out that people arrived in India over an

extended period of time, and we should reckon with possible population

movements untill the introduction of Islam. Muslims did not enter the

Indian caste system, so European-like genetic material in Indian upper

castes must at least be pre-Islamic. People arriving in India before

Islamic times could also come from other areas in the vicinity of India

with an old Indo-European population. We would therefore need studies not

only of Europeans and low-caste Indians as well as Africans, but also of

populations along India's perimeter, such as (evidently) the Iranian

population(s). In other words: we need follow-up studies that

systematically look at populations close to India as well as more studies

of the Indian population itself. This particular Genome study is not the

whole puzzle, only a piece of the puzzle.

 

Lars Martin Fosse

 

Dr. art. Lars Martin Fosse

Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114,

0674 Oslo

Norway

Phone: +47 22 32 12 19

Mobile phone: +47 90 91 91 45

Fax 1: +47 22 32 12 19

Fax 2: +47 85 02 12 50 (InFax)

Email: lmfosse