While growing up in India, we were taught that we in the northern part of the country are Aryans and those in the southern part, Dravidians. They speak languages that were very different from our Sanskrit based languages. Sanskrit is a member of a vast family of languages---the Indo European languages---which include German, Latin, Persian, as well as Slavic and Celtic languages. That means, we of the Northern part of India are members of a vast group of people who populate Europe and Middle East.
A book I read recently, “Early Indians” by Tony Joseph, confirmed these beliefs but added layers of nuances that I was not entirely aware of. Here is a brief summary.
A group of Homo Sapiens, or modern humans, emerged in Africa and ventured outside that continent some 70,000 years ago. Modern DNA analysis shows that all people outside Africa are descendants of that group. Not only that, the ancestry of all of us non-Africans can be traced to a single African woman and man from that group…the original Adam and Eve!
Travelling along the coast, the first group of modern humans arrived in India 65,000 years ago, becoming the First Indians. These folks took two routes, a sub-Himalayan one and the other coastal one. This way they avoided the archaic humans (cousins of Homo Sapiens who are now extinct) in the region.
About 35,000 years ago, climate deteriorated. However, the First Indians had developed technology to hunt down their prey and beat the rivals, the archaic humans. They expanded their range and moved deeper into the Indian Peninsula, thereby becoming the first South Indians.
These folks were hunter-gatherers, who could sustain themselves but could not develop what we would call a civilization. For that, they had to learn farming. Only then, they could settle in one place, and have a larger percentage of population do other things besides gathering food---such as make potteries, develop written language, and create art.
For Indians, that came about in the form of Harappan Civilization. To get that going, the First Indians got help from people living around Zagros region in what is modern day Iran. These Iranian agriculturalists helped Indians create one of the greatest civilizations of all time starting about 9000 years ago in Balochistan (now in Pakistan).
At its peak, the Harappan Civilization (also called the “Indus Valley” Civilization) covered much of Pakistan, northeastern Afghanistan and Western India (Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and, my state, Gujarat)…a million square kilometers in all. Mohenjo-Daro, in Pakistan is one of the finest examples of archeological sites of this civilization, but there are plenty others. These cities were well planned, with excellent water management systems.
The Zagrosians also brought their language, Proto-Elamite, which is found to be closely related to the Dravidian languages. So, the Indus Civilization was Dravidian, even though the speakers of these languages now reside in South India, far from Indus Valley. Unfortunately, the Harappan writing has not been deciphered, so some of the details are still in dispute.
The Harappan Civilization eventually declined around 4000 years ago and about the same time new migrants arrived in northwestern India. These migrants from the Eurasian Steppe region (present day Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan) called themselves Aryans and spoke Indo-European languages. They mixed with the Harappans to create a new genetic cluster called Ancestral North Indians (ANI). Pushed to the south by the new arrivals, the Harappans mixed with the descendents of the First Indians to create a new genetic cluster Ancestral South Indians (ASI). This was the bedrock of Indian population.
There were many others who came to India subsequently. The Greeks (Alexander the Great), the Jews, the Huns, the Parsis (Zoroastrians from Iran escaping persecution), the Mughals, the Portuguese, and the British, all of whom have contributed to our ancestry, although not to the same extent as the First Indians, the Zagrosians or the Aryans.
So, that in a nutshell is what I gathered from the book “Early Indians”. It is a very well written book that is highly recommended.
PS: The term Aryans may sound strange and even offensive. Attribute that to Hitler, who stole the term to refer to his image of perfect humans, the blond blue eyed Germans. He also stole Swastika, which was, and still is, a religious symbol of the Aryans who came to India.
