New Theories Place Ancient Humans in India

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Africa to Andamans: Gujarat, Kerala 1st stops, says study

 

HYDERABAD: In a new twist to the theory of evolution of modern man,

researchers have found two tribes in India who could be the

descendants of the biological Adam and Eve who lived in Africa over

100,000 years ago.

 

Researchers at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB)

here say they have with them the genetic `black boxes' which indicate

that a tribe in Kerala and another in Gujarat could be the

descendants of the first people ever to set foot in Asia.

 

The new finding negates the widely-held belief in the scientific

community that the first people to land in Asia belonged to a branch

of the migratory population that exploded out of Africa over 60,000

years ago. The CCMB study shows that the two tribal groups may have

settled much before the Asian branch reached the subcontinent, just

before the last Ice Age.

 

The researchers say the two tribes are the oldest so far discovered

genetically and may have landed from Africa in Gujarat, migrated to

Kerala and then to the Andamans where they got trapped by the sea and

warped in time.

 

The new theory also establishes that the enigmatic tribes of the

Andamans are the descendants of a tribal population of Asia and not

Africa. Western studies have tried to link the Andamanese tribals to

the African pygmies, but DNA analysis shows that this may not be true.

 

The Andamanese tribals are short in stature, have ebony-black skin,

peppercorn hair and large buttocks, making them a mirror image of the

African pygmies. But the new study published in Current Biology dumps

the western pygmy model to assert that the tribals are actually

genetically closer to Asian than to African populations

 

The two tribal populations in India were discovered when CCMB Prof Lalji Singh and his team did the first genetic analysis

of the Jarawa and Onge tribals of the Andamans. He then tried to

compare the DNA signatures with a few of the 532 tribal populations

in the mainland and found a match in a community in Kerala and

Gujarat. But to his surprise, he found that these tribals in the

mainland were much older than the Onges and Jarawas.

 

Singh, however, refused to reveal the names of the two tribals groups

in India for fear of their population being `hunted' for their genes.

 

Of the dozen tribes, who populated the islands since ages, only four

survive _ the Sentinelese, Jarawas, Great Andamanese and Onge. While

there has been no contact with the Sentinelese so far, the Jarawas

still live in the forest and the Onges have started joining the

mainstream.

 

``Our results show that the native Andamanese belong to a unique

group not previously identified anywhere else in the world,'' Singh

told reporters.

 

The CCMB finding was the result of the analysis of mitochondria DNA,

a genetic element passed down only through women. This showed that

the Onges and Jarawas belong to a lineage known as M that is common

throughout Asia. This establishes them as Asians, not Africans, among

whom a different mitochondria lineage, called I, is dominant.

 

The researchers then looked at the Y chromosome, which is passed down

only through men and often gives a more detailed picture of genetic

history than the mitochondria DNA. The Onge and Jarawa men turned out

to carry a special change or mutation in the DNA of their Y

chromosome that is thought to be indicative of the Palaeolithic

population of Asia, the hunters and gatherers who preceded the first

human settlements.

 

The discovery of Marker 174 among the Andamanese suggests that they

too are part of the relic Palaeolithic population, descended from the

first modern humans to leave Africa.

 

No archaeological record of these epic journeys has been found,

perhaps because the world's oceans were 120 meters lower during the

last Ice Age and the evidence of early human passage is under water,

says Singh.

 

The study was done by Singh and his colleagues at CCMB with their o-

workers in the US, New Zealand and Norway. Other Indian scientists

involved in the study are K Thankaraj and Alla Reddy of CCMB, V

Raghavendra Rao of the Anthropological Survey and Subhash Sehgal of

Port Blair.