Indians: TheStoryof Our
AncestorsandWhereWe
CameFromis a bookthat
willeminentlyqualify for
sucha description.No,it is
not about the putative
“Aryanrace”or its original
home.It is abouttheeth-
nic foundationsof theIn-
dian people.It seeks to
raiseandanswertwobasic
questions:Who are we?
andWheredo wecome
from?“We”hereincludes
all peopleof Indiafromthe
earliest known period
down to the present,
peopleinhabitingthissub-
continent irrespective of
caste,creedor religion.
Andthe answeris com-
plex,particularly because
theancestryof different
sectionsof the Indian pop-
ulationis so intermixed,
withstrandsdrawnfrom
different sources. Joseph
summarises thiscomplex
answer in two simple
(grammatically, that is)
sentences:“Weareall In-
dians.Andwe areall mi-
grants”(page221).
Oneof themoreim-
portantrevelationsin re-
centyearsin thefieldof
humanprehistory results
fromthescienceof genet-
ics.Thedevelopmentsin
that discipline over the
past decade are nothing
shortof explosive.OUTOFAFRICA
Although evolutionary sci-
ence hadrecognised the
importanceof distinguish-
ing amongthe different
speciesof earlyman,it is
onlyin recent yearsthatan
Out-of-Africa (OoA)thesis
of the migration of the
anatomicallymodernhu-
mans,theHomo sapiens,
was established unequi-
vocally.Analysis of DNA
made that possible. But
morerecently, the analysis
of ancient DNA(aDNA)
has given the scientist
greaterconfidenceto talk
aboutthevariousstrands
thatgo intothe makingof
the ancestryof individuals,
groupsof peopleandeven
whole populations. The
realisationthatthe human
population theworld overdescended from a few
Homo sapiens who mi-
gratedfromAfrica some
70 thousand years ago
tooktheworldby storm.
Evidenceof “human”life
and operations before—
longbefore—thatwasex-
plained as belonging to the
near-humanspecies such
as Homo erectus, Homo
heidelbergensis, Homo
neanderthalensis, and so
on,buttheweakerHomo
sapienssucceededin the
racefor survival, largely on
accountof better tactics
andsuperior technology.
Thatmadesense.
After making the
methodology andlogicof
genetics, particularly the
study relatedto DNA,clear
to thelayreader,Joseph
raises, andproposes his
answers to, the questionof
peoplingIndia. Although
evidence of near-human
speciesis availablefrom
3,00,000 years ago, the
earliestfossilof an ana-
tomicallymodern human
outsideAfrica, discovered
at a rockshelterin north-ernIsrael, is onlyaround
1,80,000 years old. And
eventhatis onlyan isol-
atedinstance. Thesuccess-
ful OoA migration
occurred another1,10,000
yearslater,around70,000
years ago.Although hu-
mans or near-humans
werearoundlongbefore
that,thereis no traceof
their having left behind
successors.TheOoAmi-
grationof modernhumans
arrived in India around
65,000 years ago. They
may have come across
earliernear-humanswho
were probably stronger
thanthem. TheOoAmi-
grantsavoidedthese phys-
ically strongerpeople to
begin with and, later,
equipped withbettertech-
nology, suchas the micro-
liths, overpowered them.
To be sure,theOoAmi-
grantshadgoneto other
partsof the worldas well.
As thedifferentparts
of theglobe werebeing
populated,the OoA mi-
grantswerealsoundergo-
ing mutations in their
geneson accountof the
conditions under which
they lived. While each
group retained most of
whatit inherited, tracesof
new ones were making
theirappearance.Thatis
how there are so many
variationsamong thedes-
cendants of theOoAmi-
grants. These
hunter-gatherers, with
technological advances
graduatingfromthemi-
croliths of theMesolithic
Ageto thepolishedhand-
axesof theNeolithicAge,
startedall thatwent with
thetransition:whatGor-
donChildecalledthe Neo-
lithicRevolution.
By 7000BCE,a new
agricultural settlement
emergedat thefootof the
BolanHillsin Baluchistan,ATBINJORin Rajasthan, the 4MSRarchaeologicalsite nearthe international border
with Pakistan’s Punjab.It has both Early and MatureHarappan characteristics. Evidence
of the Harappan civilisationin the 1920sgave thefirst jolt to the idea that the “Aryans”
werefoundationalto Indiancivilisation.
V.V.KRISHNAN