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    Genetic Evidence on the Origins of Indian Caste Populations

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    Issue Date
    2001-11-01
    Author
    Bamshad, Michael
    Kivisild, Toomas
    Watkins, W. Scott
    Dixon, Mary E.
    Ricker, Chris E.
    Rao, Baskara B.
    Naidu, J. Mastan
    Prasad, B. V. Ravi
    Reddy, P. Govinda
    Rasanayagam, Arani
    Papiha, Surinder S.
    Villems, Richard
    Redd, Alan J.
    Hammer, Michael F.
    Nguyen, Son V.
    Carroll, Marion L.
    Batzer, Mark A.
    Jorde, Lynn B.
    Publisher
    Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press
    Type
    Article
    Article Version
    Scholarly/refereed, publisher version
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    Abstract
    The origins and affinities of the ∼1 billion people living on the subcontinent of India have long been contested. This is owing, in part, to the many different waves of immigrants that have influenced the genetic structure of India. In the most recent of these waves, Indo-European-speaking people from West Eurasia entered India from the Northwest and diffused throughout the subcontinent. They purportedly admixed with or displaced indigenous Dravidic-speaking populations. Subsequently they may have established the Hindu caste system and placed themselves primarily in castes of higher rank. To explore the impact of West Eurasians on contemporary Indian caste populations, we compared mtDNA (400 bp of hypervariable region 1 and 14 restriction site polymorphisms) and Y-chromosome (20 biallelic polymorphisms and 5 short tandem repeats) variation in ∼265 males from eight castes of different rank to ∼750 Africans, Asians, Europeans, and other Indians. For maternally inherited mtDNA, each caste is most similar to Asians. However, 20%–30% of Indian mtDNA haplotypes belong to West Eurasian haplogroups, and the frequency of these haplotypes is proportional to caste rank, the highest frequency of West Eurasian haplotypes being found in the upper castes. In contrast, for paternally inherited Y-chromosome variation each caste is more similar to Europeans than to Asians. Moreover, the affinity to Europeans is proportionate to caste rank, the upper castes being most similar to Europeans, particularly East Europeans. These findings are consistent with greater West Eurasian male admixture with castes of higher rank. Nevertheless, the mitochondrial genome and the Y chromosome each represents only a single haploid locus and is more susceptible to large stochastic variation, bottlenecks, and selective sweeps. Thus, to increase the power of our analysis, we assayed 40 independent, biparentally inherited autosomal loci (1 LINE-1 and 39 Alu elements) in all of the caste and continental populations (∼600 individuals). Analysis of these data demonstrated that the upper castes have a higher affinity to Europeans than to Asians, and the upper castes are significantly more similar to Europeans than are the lower castes. Collectively, all five datasets show a trend toward upper castes being more similar to Europeans, whereas lower castes are more similar to Asians. We conclude that Indian castes are most likely to be of proto-Asian origin with West Eurasian admixture resulting in rank-related and sex-specific differences in the genetic affinities of castes to Asians and Europeans.
    Description
    This is the published version, also available here: http://www.dx.doi.org/10.1101/gr.173301.
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/1808/16276
    DOI
    https://doi.org/10.1101/gr.173301
    Collections
    • Anthropology Scholarly Works [206]
    Citation
    Bamshad, M., Kivisild, T., Watkins, W. S., Dixon, M. E., Ricker, C. E., Rao, B. B., Naidu, J. M., Prasad, B. V. R., Reddy, P. G., Rasanayagam, A., Papiha, S. S., Villem, R., Redd, A. J., Hammer, M. F., Nguyen, S. V., Carroll, M. L., Batzer, M. A., Jorde, L. B. "Genetic evidence on the origins of Indian caste populations" Genome Research. (2001). 11, 6. 994-1004. http://www.dx.doi.org/10.1101/gr.173301.

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    KU Libraries
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    Contact KU ScholarWorks
    785-864-8983
    KU Libraries
    1425 Jayhawk Blvd
    Lawrence, KS 66045
    785-864-8983

    KU Libraries
    1425 Jayhawk Blvd
    Lawrence, KS 66045
    Image Credits
     

     

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