Origins of Indians: Vesion 8.4.3

According to Pontus Skoglunda and Mattias Jakobssona, in their paper Archaic human ancestry in East Asia;

The genetic difference between Neandertals and Denisovans is roughly as great as the maximal level of variation among us modern humans.

I suppose that further supports the opinion that the Denisovan remains found was actually predominantly Neanderthal.

Via Science Daily

Origins of Indians: Version 8.4.2

Coastal Migration Theory and I:
A new paper by Reich et al. (2011) has made the following conclusions:

• Denisovans interbred with modern humans in Southeast Asia at least 44,000 years ago before the time of the separation of the Australians and New Guineans.
• Southeast Asia was first colonized by modern humans unrelated to present-day Chinese and Indonesians, and that these and other East Asians arrived in later migrations. This "southern route" hypothesis has previously been supported by archaeological evidence, but has never had strong genetic support.

According to them Denisovans were spread from Siberia to S E Asia until 30000 years ago. As of now, this is an unbelievable idea considering;
- Until now Denisovans remains were found in Siberia only
- All remains that were found in East Asia and SE Asia belonged H.erectus branches.
- A recent study has calculated that all these erectus branches were vanished from East Asia long before modern Humans moved to those lands

As we can see from the above points, we have a situation where archeologists could find remains of older hominins that perished around 400k years ago and probably more restricted East Asian regions but not those of Denisovans spread even wider area and lived at least until 40k years ago.

According to the article:

Their analysis shows that, in addition to New Guineans, Denisovans contributed genetic material to Australian aborigines, a Philippine "Negrito" group called Mamanwa, and several other populations in eastern Southeast Asia and Oceania. However, groups in the west or northwest, including other Negrito groups such as the Onge in the Andaman Islands and the Jehai in Malaysia, as well as mainland East Asians, did not interbreed with Denisovans.

I think Y-Haplogroup lines C2, C4 and C6 ( in fact their female counter parts of a human tribe with node haplogroup line of these) could have mated with Denisovans in north-western East Asia and moved to SE Asia.

Via Science Daily

Origins of Indians: Version 8.4.1

Coastal Migration Theory and I:
In my previous post on the subject, I discussed how a new finding of admixture between Homo Sapiens and the Denisovans in Siberia bolster my claims of the northern route (that didn't touch India) of early Homo Sapiens. A new study has now completely discarded the idea of Modern Humans mating with an Erectus branch in SE Asia thus further strengthening the fact that all admixture in Melanesians can only be attributed to their Neanderthal infested northern route than to the Erectus infested southern route.

From the study:

Homo erectus went extinct in Africa and much of Asia by about 500,000 years ago, but appeared to have survived in Indonesia until about 35,000 to 50,000 years ago at the site of Ngandong on the Solo River. These late members of Homo erectus would have shared the environment with early members of our own species, Homo sapiens, who arrived in Indonesia by about 40,000 years ago.

The existence of the two species simultaneously has important implications for models about the origins of modern humans. One of the models, the Out of Africa or replacement model, predicts such overlap. However, another, the multiregional model, which posits that modern humans originated as a result of genetic contributions from hominin populations all around the Old World (Africa, Asia, Europe), does not. The late survival of Homo erectus in Indonesia has been used as one line of support for the Out of Africa model.

However, findings by the SoRT Project show that Homo erectus' time in the region ended before modern humans arrived there. The analyses suggest that Homo erectus was gone by at least 143,000 years ago -- and likely by more than 550,000 years ago. This means the demise of Homo erectus occurred long before the arrival of Homo sapiens.

"Thus, Homo erectus probably did not share habitats with modern humans," said Indriati.

Origins of Indians: Version 8.4

Coastal Migration Theory and I:
A new paper on another archaic hominin species and their admixture in Homo Sapiens is out[2]. According to the study, hominin species labeled as 'Denisovans', remains of whom found in Siberia, were related to Neanderthals. Let me call our old friend Neanderthals as N. Euskaria and these Denisovans as N. Siberia.

A previous study found N. Euskaria admixture in all of Eurasian Sapiens but not in African Sapiens[3]. This was considered as a proof of early Sapiens meeting with N. Euskaria in middle east and their subsequent dispersal to all over the world.

Now the new study has found N. Siberia admixture in Melanesians but which supposedly missing in other Euraisans and Africans. These two studies have a bearing on my model of the northern route migration of Homo Sapiens.

Until now I have based my opposition to the coastal migration theory on two counts.
- Lack of common sense in the model considering India is a tropical country like Sapiens' original home in Africa and there was no pressing need for further migrations to SE Asia and Oceania. I have proposed that the movement thro' temperate landscape would develop the wanderlust that our ancestors have been famous for in occupying the whole of Eurasia in a quick time. They migrated in search of a tropical climate until they reached SE Asia.

- The second factor is genetic. The lack of uniparental lineage Y-Haplogroup D, associated with the coastal migration, in India and the uniform distribution of Y-Haplogroup C (which is now strangely considered as "intrusive" Ancient North Indian or not part of the original gene pool -which has been called Ancient South Indian- in a recent study[4]) cannot be overlooked. Along with the fact that India's so-called oldest mtDNA lineage M2 is mostly observed in East India. This of course gives evidence for migration from SE Asia to India (and then further into Middle East and Europe).

Probably, I need to give add one more factor or probably replace the common sense approach to more circumspect scenario.

Now we know that N. Euskaria and N. Siberia interbred with us. We also know that we don't have N. Euskaria an N. Siberia Y-Haplogroup or mtDNA lineages.  There could be two scenarios.
1. Male Sapiens and Female Neanderthal species mated and produced only fertile males and sterile females. Therefore, only Sapiens' uniparental lineage survived.
2. Female Sapiens and Male Neanderthal species mated and produced only fertile females and sterile males. Therefore, only Sapiens' uniparental lineage survived.

We really don't know whether both scenarios were in vogue or only one of them had occurred. But since both N. Euskaria and N. Siberia were Neanderthal species we could see that above two scenarios have been found consistently true.

I would propose the reason for Sapiens' rapid migration along northern route from middle east to Siberia and from there to SE Asia along western east Asia is related to the second scenario.

It has been observed that Neanderthal communities always had lower percentage of females or lacked enough females so all males could have sex and/or procreate, a situation similar to Haryanvis. It was a common practice for a Neanderthal group to abduct females[5]. In contrast the oldest Sapiens had excess females[1]. So what would happen when a Hominin with enough females meet another Hominin that has scarcity.

Evidently there was a very strong evolutionary pressure on Neanderthals to abduct Sapien females than vice versa. This had resulted in Sapiens' rapid migration from middle east to central Asia to escape from N.Euskaria. But unfortunately for them there they would meet N.Siberia who had similar evolutionary pressure since they were also a branch of Neanderthals.

So, we do see Siberia admixture among one of the Y-Haplogroup C population in Oceania, Melanesians. Since the admixture is clearly because of a species related to Neanderthals and not any Erectus branch in SE Asia,  we can say that northern route was taken by the early Sapiens.

References:
1. Estimators of the Human Effective Sex Ratio Detect Sex Biases on Different Timescales
  - Emery et al. (2010)
2.Genetic history of an archaic hominin group from Denisova Cave in Siberia
  - Reich et al (2010)
3. A Draft Sequence of the Neandertal Genome
  - Richard E Green et al. (2010)
4. Reconstructing Indian population history
  - Reich et al (2009)
5. The documentary I saw either on Discovery or National Geographic channel

Origins of Indians: Version 8.3

Coastal Migration Theory and I:
I have always opposed the Coastal Migration theory. The theory appears to tell either the early humans were such an idiots that they moved quickly via hospitable regions of South Asia, SE Asia to Australia from their original homeland in Africa or people who have come up with this theory have no commonsense.

A new study that examines bacterial spread from Africa to Oceania and appear to support the Northern Route (that I haven't championed much, as I don't have much evidences). Check the figure given in the paper, " The Peopling of the Pacific from a Bacterial Perspective"(Link debt to  Gernan Dziebel, commenter at Music 000001)

The following figure shows how humans split in northern Asia. Though it doesn't talk about South Asia much I would say, there can be an arrow from northern Asia to South Asia. 

In my opinion, there could be following migrations to the Indian subcontinent.
Initial:

1. Y-haplogroup F* from West Asia (western corridor)
2. Y-haplogroups K and C from northern Asia (eastern corridor)

Another, important thing is back migration (red line) in the figure. Does it have anything to do with Y-Haplogroup NOP?
Maybe I can also propose, at least one subclade of NOP (R-M124 or commonly known as R2).
3. R-M124 from northern Asia (eastern corridor): This at least fit the present day scenario where we find its highest frequency in eastern Indian regions and its low but widespread presence in few Siberian populations.

Origins of Indians : Version 8.2

Coastal Migration Theory and I:
I have been a skeptic of the 'Coastal Migration Theory'. In my previous post on the same topic I found the theory unreliable because of Y-haplogroup distribution pattern in India.

Evidence from mtDNA:
A new study says (Via my discussion forum) not only mtDNA N is older than M but also M in East Asia is older than South Asia. At least one study before this also found that M in East Asia and Oceania is older than South Asia. These facts coupled with our stereotypical knowledge of India at the receiving end of most of the migrations from East or West goes against the legend of the Coastal Migration.

Sanity is restored:
The argument put forth for the Coastal Migration which I found rather bizarre is;
"It is easy to move along the coast and colonize the whole world than it is possible in any other way"
I don't understand why early man should have the explorer's zeal. The coastal areas of India are generally abundant with food supplies. Why would any population leave that region?

Another argument is northern East Asia, an alternative root to colonize SE Asia and Oceania( and has been the stereotypical case in the known past), because of inhospitable mountainous and cold environment early humans might not have moved to those regions.

But I would think man moved when he found imposing mountain but not the other way round. I would propose another hypothesis for the rapid movement of early humans.

Quest for warmth:
Since Homo Sapiens Migrated from hot African regions, they might have always preferred to live in tropical regions than temperate regions. The reason we don't find many older haplogroups in Europe and Central Asia because those were cooler regions unlike Africa. Early humans were in constant motion in search of summers. Most likely the early movement that gave rise to early Australians is;

Europe-> Central Asia->northern East Asia->western East Asia->SE Asia->Australia.

Note it's all thro' inhospitable regions never touching the coastal regions. Some of them(Y-haplogroup C and D) did adjuste to northern East Asia. Some continued south until they reached mostly hotter SE Asia and Oceania.

Another wave that moved South Asia took West Asia (where you find mtDNA M1) route. South Asia gave warmth and hospitable region leading to stagnation.

The Origins of Indians: Version 8.1

Coastal Migration Theory and I:
As I have mentioned before I am skeptical about Coastal Migration Theory. This theory proposes a set of Homo Sapiens after leaving Africa rapidly colonized South Asia, SE Asia and Australia moving rapidly along the coastal regions. Y-Haplogroup C is generally considered as the marker of that coastal migration.

One of the C's in India belong to subclade C5 is distributed across India. However, there are C* in South India that might be the legacy of coastal migration. I compared the tribes and castes that carry this lineage and I observed a strange pattern in its association with other haplogroups.

I make the following assumption before coming to my conclusions.

If a haplogroup is observed in more than one endogamous tribe/caste then its uncharacteristic presence in any group cannot be explained with genetic drift or bottleneck or founder effect.

That haplogroup in the below table is R1a1. As far as I can see C* is observed in conjunction with R1a1.

Tribe/Caste: Observed Haplogroups - Region
Koya Dora/Konda Reddy - F, H, O2a - South - East
Kurumba - F, H, R2, L1 - South - West
Kamar - F, H, L1, O2a - South - East
Yerava - F, H, C*, R1a1 - South - West
Koraga - H, R2, YAP - South - West
Toda - L1, J2a, R1a1, C* - South - West
Pallar - F, H, R1a1, C*, J2b- South - West
L1, R2

Based on the above data I propose the following pre-neolithic migrations.
1. Africa-Middle East-South Asia : F, H
2. ? -> East India : O2a
3. Central Asia - south west coastal India : R1a1, C* (one of the first migrations of R1a1)
4. ? -> south-west India: L1
5. ? -> south-west India: R2

I don't see the possibility of coastal migration with this scenario.

Sources:
1. Cordaux et al. 2004
2. Sengupta et al. 2006

The Origins of Indians: Version 8.0

Coastal Migration Hypothesis and I:
I am rejecting coastal migration hypothesis for the following reasons;
1. The earliest remains of modern humans in South Asia(from Sri Lanka) are dated around 31000BP.
2. There is no proof of Y-Haplogroup D, the fellow traveller of Y-Haplogroup C in the coastal migration out of Africa, in India.
3. As of now, Y-Haplogroup C* clan is mostly observed in tribes that also have F* and H* in high frequencies. Whereas, Y-Haplogroup C5 shows mostly non-tribal distribution. I would consider C* being part of the first major colonization of South Asia along with F* and H*.

Migrations to the subcontinent:
1. The first migration :
Y-C*,F*,H*
mtDNA-M*,U*
around 40000-35000BP
from southern-central Asia
unknown language
2. Austro-Asiatic migration:
Y-O2a
mtDNA - X?
unknown period of migration
unknown place of origin
Munda, Khasi languages
3. Identity less migration:
Y-R2*, R1a1*, J2a*
mtDNA R*, W*, N*
from 20000 to 10000BP
from southern-central Asia
Proto-Sino-Caucasian?
4. IE migration:
Y-R1a1*
mtDNA H*
from 4000BP-500CE
from Kurgan lands

4. Dravidian migration :
Y-J2b*, L1*, K*
mtDNA J*, T*
around 3000 BP
from southern Iran

5. Aryan migration:
Y-J2a*, G2*
mtDNA H*
around 3500 BP
from northern Iran, Afghanistan, southern Caucasus
Originally, Caucasian speakers later Indo-Aryan.