DNA & the human past

RECENT FINDINGS about migrations of human populations in ancient times based on genetics have the potential to significantly alter our understanding of history and prehistory. Much of the research is focused on India and surrounding regions, as India has maintained the most ancient literary records and also has extensive archaeological remains. Another reason is that unlike other ancient civilisations _ Egypt and Sumeria for example _ India has also preserved continuity in its religious and other traditions going back to the Vedic Age.

Out of Africa

The genetic picture that emerges from recent studies holds a few surprises. To begin with, there is no record of any major intrusion of population into India three or four thousand years ago. According to the most comprehensive study on the subject carried out at the Estonian Biocentre, a leading centre for population genetics, all modern humans can be traced back to movements out of East Africa, possibly just 50,000 years ago, and certainly not more than 200,000 years ago. Spreading out from the area near modern Ethiopia, they went north to Europe and east to India, and then on to China and Australia. For reasons that are as yet unexplained, they completely replaced the existing archaic humans who themselves had spread out of Africa some two million years ago. It is always possible that future discoveries could disrupt some of these findings, but they seem to rule out the possibility of explaining history, languages and population groups in terms of recent migrations.

"There is only a small difference between the pools of maternal lineages between Indians," explained Dr. Richard Villems, one of the leaders of the study, when asked about the differences between speakers of Indo-European languages and Dravidic languages of the south. "Also, the maternal genetic lineages of the Indian tribal populations are the same as the rest of the population." This contradicts the belief that the tribals constituted the "original" population displaced by the latecomers. All of them can be traced to African ancestors between 50,000 and 200,000 years ago. Dr. Villems also said that the time horizon of linguists is too short _ no more than 8,000 years _ to explain such phenomenon. A time span of over 50,000 years, however, explains the great diversity in physical appearance among Indians. It may be attributed to adaptation to the environment by natural selection.

When asked about the Aryan invasion theory, Dr. Villems (and other researchers) showed awareness of it, but attached it no importance. "I am aware of the problem of the Aryan invasion, and although some of my colleagues still want to see its influence in the Indian maternal lineages, we are very sceptical about it. I think the Aryan invasion theory, in its classical form, is dead already," Dr. Villems concluded. According to him and other researchers in the field, if we want to look for any migration, we need to go back over 50,000 years ago _ and to East Africa.

Earlier migrations

Returning to migrations out of Africa, the remarkable thing is, though ancient, this migration 50,000 to 200,000 years ago is not the earliest recorded. Other studies shed further light on the scenario, on previous migrations out of Africa possibly a million or so years earlier. Researchers are also finding that humans had mastered the art of seafaring very much earlier than they had been given credit for. Writing in a recent (June 29, 2001) issue of the American journal Science, Brooks Hanson observed:

"The precise date of migration of early humans into Indonesia bears on questions of when and which humans migrated from Africa and also relates to the development of technology and perhaps language. Recent dating from Java in western Indonesia indicates that humans may have arrived there considerably more than 1 million years ago; periodically, Java has been connected by land to the Asian mainland when sea level has dropped."

During the Ice Ages, sea levels were significantly lower than it is today, which means that Indonesian islands were linked by land to the Asian mainland, including India. Hanson also observed that other researchers like O'Sullivan "have studied an extensive series of fission track dates of sites containing stone artefacts. These dates show that early humans migrated to Flores, in eastern Indonesia, by at least 840,000 years ago. Colonisation of Flores would have required an open-water journey of at least several tens of kilometres, implying that seafaring technology had arisen by then." This bears on India also, as India and Southeast Asia are closely linked in terms of climate, flora and fauna, and populations.

New model of civilisation?

History books today tell us that civilisation began in the river valleys of Mesopotamia some five to six thousand years ago. Many independent scholars are beginning to question this academic theory as inadequate. They feel that the time horizon is too short to explain the enormous complexity of even ancient civilisations. Further, it shows a heavy bias in favour of land- based activity, while ignoring the maritime. It is undeniable that the records left behind by many ancient people have ocean related myths. Based on some recent discoveries, these scholars suggest that the origins of what we call civilisation may be traced to a maritime civilisation that existed during the last Ice Age. The Ice Age ended about ten thousand years ago, making human habitation possible in many parts of the Northern Hemisphere, including North India. Maritime origins of the Vedic civilisation are indicated by the pervasive oceanic symbolism in the Rig Veda.

All this argues for the need to bring a fundamentally new approach to the study of ancient history and prehistory, especially the origins of civilisation. Instead of looking to the river valleys of Mesopotamia, increasing attention needs to be paid also to maritime life in the tropics during the last Ice Age as a possible source of civilisation.

N. S. RAJARAM

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