chariot, and also brought Indo-Aryan languages into the Levant and possibly Inner
Asia.[11] Another group of the Indo-Aryans migrated further westward and founded
the Mitanni kingdom in northern Syria;[12] (c. 1500–1300 BC) the other group were the
Vedic people.[13] Christopher I. Beckwith suggests that the Wusun, an Indo-
European Caucasian people of Inner Asia in antiquity, were also of Indo-Aryan origin.[14]
The Proto-Indo-Iranians, from which the Indo-Aryans developed, are identified with
the Sintashta culture (2100–1800 BCE),[15][16] and the Andronovo culture,[11] which
flourished ca. 1800–1400 BCE in the steppes around the Aral Sea, present-day
Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The Proto-Indo-Aryan split off around 1800–
1600 BCE from the Iranians,[17] moved south through the Bactria-Margiana Culture, south
of the Andronovo culture, borrowing some of their distinctive religious beliefs and
practices from the BMAC, and then migrated further south into the Levant and north-
western India.[18][5] The migration of the Indo-Aryans was part of the larger diffusion
of Indo-European languages from the Proto-Indo-European homeland at the Pontic–
Caspian steppe which started in the 4th millennia BCE.[5][19][20] The GGC, Cemetery
H, Copper Hoard, OCP, and PGW cultures are candidates for cultures associated with
Indo-Aryans.
The Indo-Aryans were united by shared cultural norms and language, referred to
as aryā 'noble'. Over the last four millennia, the Indo-Aryan culture
has evolved particularly inside India itself, but its origins are in the conflation of values
and heritage of the Indo-Aryan and indigenous people groups of India.[21] Diffusion of this
culture and language took place by patron-client systems, which allowed for the
absorption and acculturation of other groups into this culture, and explains the strong
influence on other cultures with which it interacted.
While the Indo-Aryan linguistic group occupies mainly northern parts of India,
genetically, all South Asians across the Indian subcontinent are descendants of a mix of
South Asian hunter-gatherers, Iranian hunter-gatherers, and Central Asian steppe
pastoralists in varying proportion.[22][23] Additionally, Austroasiatic and Tibeto-Burmese
speaking people contributed to the genetic make-up of South Asia.[24]