Early Indians: The Story of Our Ancestors and Where We Came From

by Tony Joseph

The study says there was indeed a southward migration of pastoralists from the Kazakh Steppe – first towards southern central Asian regions, that is, present-day Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, after 2100 BCE; and then towards south Asia throughout the second millennium BCE (2000 BCE to 1000 BCE). On their way, they impacted the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC, a civilization that thrived between 2300 BCE and 1700 BCE, centred on the Oxus river and covering today’s northern Afghanistan, southern Uzbekistan and western Tajikistan), but mostly bypassed it to move further down towards south Asia. Here they mixed with the existing people of the Harappan Civilization, thus creating one of the two main sources of population in India today: Ancestral North Indians, or ANI, the other being Ancestral South Indians, or ASI, who were formed by the mixing of the people of the Harappan Civilization with the First Indians in southern India around the same time. The study arrived at these conclusions after detecting signals of the migrations in the ancient DNA. To quote: ‘Our analysis shows no evidence of Steppe pastoralist ancestry in groups surrounding BMAC sites prior to 2100 BCE, but suggests that between 2100 to 1700 BCE, the BMAC communities were surrounded by peoples carrying such ancestry.’ This shows there was a migration of the people of the Steppe to the BMAC region around 2100 BCE.