CapitalistImperialistPig

The origins of the peoples of India has long been a contentious issue.  India has a population that looks, and is, racially diverse.  Several major language groups are represented in the hundreds of languages and dialects of India.  Notably, several of them are closely related the languages of Europe and Iran - the Indo-European languages, which are not only global in extent but probably spoken by more people than any other, with the possible exception of Chinese. These IE languages in India are clearly descended from Sanskrit, the language of the founding documents of Hinduism and Indian culture.  So a central question is who were these people who spoke something like Sanskrit, called themselves Aryans, and occupy a central role in all of Indian culture since.  German linguists appropriated the name and claimed that the Aryans were in fact Germans who had invaded India. Anthropology and especially modern genomics tells a different story.  The IE langua...

The average human has a genome that differs from the human reference genome at about 3-4 million sites (out of 3.2 billion). Asian, European, and (Native) American population groups (out of 26 population groups total; 10 Asian, 5 Eur, 6 NA, 5 African) went through extreme population bottlenecks 15-20,000 years ago where the effective population sizes of each were reduced to less than 1,500 individuals. The simultaneous African bottlenecks was a good deal less severe with effective population sizes > 4,500. Most rebounded with extreme population growth shortly thereafter.

Fifty-three hundred years ago, more or less, a European man resembling modern Sardinians was shot with an arrow(backache) and subsequently clubbed to death in the Tyrolean Alps. His misfortune was something of a boon for modern archeology, because his frozen body was preserved until the present. Analysis of his DNA showed his genetic affinity for modern Sardinians and probably neolithic European farmers. DNA analysis of his stomach contents has now shown infection with H. pylori, found in half the world's population and a cause of ulcers and stomach cancer. Humans picked up H. pylori in Africa a hundred thousand years ago, but it has subsequently evolved into different strains prevalent in different parts of the world. It's life cycle makes it a good candidate for tracing origins and migrations. Ötzi, as our protagonist has been nicknamed, was infected with a strain thought to have originated in central Asia, but now found in Europe nearly exclusively in a form highly hy...