This is a follow-up article on our previous article which presented recent genetic evidence to refute AIT. We will point out common misconceptions prevalent on the internet which stem from the fact that either AIT enthusiasts wilfully ignore new evidence or cherry-pick a few studies that suit their narrative.
This is a recent but long-winding article by MT which mixes various evidences. It makes sense to stick to genetic studies as according to the same author, archaeology does not matter for studying population migrations — “pots don’t speak”. For now we will also stay clear of linguistic arguments as they can almost always be made either way in favour of AIT or OIT. For those who wish to read more on linguistic arguments in favour of OIT, one can follow the research work of Srikanth Talageri.
For those who find it difficult to go through this entire blog post, one can directly jump to the bibliography section at the end to understand that most of the quoted research material is old and in some cases patently wrong for explaining the genetic movement of populations. In all the cases, MT uses genetic studies which show that there is similarity between Indians and Europeans, but none of those studies put a timeline on the connection. This has unfortunately become a favourite tactic of AIT enthusiasts — to use half-baked scientific truths to peddle their outdated fiction based on old genetic studies. This whole AIT defence was built on the assumption that migration happened only from the Caucasus to India and not from India to the Caucasus. Unfortunately, recent genetic studies are poking many holes in this theory.
The old genetic studies were limited by the resources available and could tell about shared ancestry but could not put a timeline on the direction of migration. The newer genetic studies, however, can answer both. In fact, the latest genetic studies published took full cognisance of the proposed Aryan migration into India from Russia as well as OIT. But after analysing the genetics comprehensively with larger, wider and deeper samples across all populations, the most recent genetic study came to the conclusion that the Punjabi R1a1a Y haplotype is the oldest among the Indo-European population and is likely the origin of the Indo-Europeans. The timeline of the genetics of the population is given by the SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) of the R1a1a alleles. Out of all the population groups studied from all over the world, Punjab showed the highest frequency of SNP variations — and hence is likely the oldest population group among those studied — with the frequency of variation decreasing from Punjab towards Western European population, with the lowest frequency of variations in the westernmost and northernmost Europeans. This clearly indicates that the Caucasus is not the origin of Indo-Europeans as the AIT fanboys want to believe.
Also notice that the above studies explain why North Indian populations have so much more in common with Europeans than South Indian populations — it was the North Indian population which migrated towards Europe. Also notice that North Indian population is composed of 60% ANI and 40% ASI, while South Indian population is 60% ASI and 40% ANI. This mixing creates some confusion, and AIT proponents usually use it to claim that ANI represents Aryans. But this is not true. ANI migrated into India around 45,000 years BC and ASI around 60,000 BC — and ANI and ASI are not synonymous with Aryans and Dravidians as AIT proponents want you to believe.
And this mixture would have happened before the IVC came into existence because IVC came to existence after 4000 BC — and genetics point out that no new gene flow came into India after 12,000 BC. The study by Lucotte G. points out the same fact: the Indo-European population (by virtue of frequency of variations in R1a1 SNP) is 15,000 years old in the Punjab plains, 11,000 years old in Central Asia, 11,000 years old in the Caucasus, 7,000 years old in Scandinavia and Western Europe. So all in all, AIT enthusiasts are just trying to use half information from outdated genetic studies to peddle their outdated fiction — explaining the genetic similarity between North Indians and Europeans, when such similarity is equally explained by North Indians migrating to Europe. And unlike AIT, this theory actually has newer genetic evidence to back it up without having to go through the logic fallacy of why Europeans would migrate towards India just when the ice age was ending, while Indians could have migrated north as the north got warmer.
Another common mistake repeated in the above blog is using two parameters — lactose tolerance and the tallness gene — to somehow corroborate AIT. This is patently absurd as both lactose tolerance and tallness genes result in survival advantages to the population and hence cannot be used for studying natural flow of population. All genetic migration studies use SNP, which don’t give any survival advantage, instead of genes which do give some advantage. Does it come as a surprise that all genetic studies use SNPs?
Let’s say a population of mixed tall and short individuals from Punjab crosses the Steppes of Central Asia to go to Europe. The Steppes, being a more hostile environment, would have huge selection pressure towards taller individuals. So when the population crosses the Steppes, the tall population would be selected against the short — and when the population reaches Europe, it would be almost entirely tall. Now let’s reverse the scenario where Europe is the origin of the tallness gene and it crosses the Steppes into Punjab. Since most of the population in Punjab is already short or mixed (as per AIT), the invading migrants with their tall genes would mix with the short Punjab people. Punjab plains being less hostile than the Steppes might not have the same selection pressure, and so the tall genes would get diluted by mixing. In both scenarios, Punjab has a mixture of short and tall and Europe has tall — so tallness gene distribution cannot provide a definitive answer to the direction of movement. This is why population genetics and migration studies are done using SNPs which don’t confer or alter survival benefits.
All in all, AIT enthusiasts have limited time left to enjoy their falsehoods as new genetic studies will settle this debate once and for all. The fact that AIT was broadly accepted forced earlier genetic studies to match their findings and present results to corroborate the existing consensus. This happened as genetics could not speak about migration direction ten years ago. But it has changed now and we should see definitive and conclusive answers in the future.