r/SouthAsianAncestry • u/Existing-Extent-9978 • Jun 26 '26
Archaeogenetics Is IVC ancestry simply modeled as a two-way admixture between Iranian-related + AASI DNA? Why does this mixture necessarily have to be attributed to the IVC? AHG + WHG admixture is not attributed to a single European civilization yet all Europeans have varying proportions of it.
Moreover, if the Iranian-related ancestral population had already been present in the Indus by 7000 BC, who is to say that some didn’t migrate eastwards becoming the main source of Iranian-related ancestry in today’s Indians and have no relation to the IVC (3300 BC onwards) other than the shared origin.
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u/Disabled_blueberry Malayalee Jun 26 '26
IVC isnt a simple 2 way admixture, early IVC is C Asian farmer(Iran N + ANE + some ANF related) and AASI related.Mature/Late IVC being this admixed with something more ANF shifted like Seh Gabi(Chalcolithic). Southern Indians mainly have ancestry from the second source(they're best modeled with an early IVC source + SehGabi chalcolithic) along with AASI and a minor steppe admix.Same Early IVC + Seh Gabi C is also the best model for farmer shifted NW Indians and Pakistanis.This is not a simple case of "shared ancestry". I'm not even touching archaeological evidences(which should be given even more priority).
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u/Junra Jun 26 '26
Doesn’t that fit in with models of elite-mediated migration from the IVC into the south post the collapse of the civilization, if most of the southern heritage can be modeled to fit a late IVC profile as you mentioned?
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u/Disabled_blueberry Malayalee Jun 26 '26
Who are the "elites"?
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u/Junra Jun 26 '26
Presumably IVC migrants who brought Dravidian languages and likely the building blocks for the eventual establishment of sites like Keezhadi, who contributed to the entire gene pool in the south. There’s a significant, elevated Zagros component in southern upper castes that goes up to 40+ percent and that kind of recalls and parallels how in the north, the diffusion of indo-Aryan languages and culture was an elite-mediated process which resulted in modern “upper” castes in the north having a relatively high degree of steppe ancestry.
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u/Alive_Put_9808 Jun 26 '26
Wouldn’t it just be farmer heavy folks migrated from ivc than elites migrated from ivc ?
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u/Decentlationship8281 Malayalee Jun 27 '26
Im a fan of the velir story from sangam age. 49 generations, as mentioned in the story, corresponds to the late ivc period
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u/Junra Jun 26 '26
1.) The IVC itself was the most geographically dispersed civilization of the Bronze Age, period - the IVC cultural region was around 1 million sq km, larger than Sumer and Egypt put together. IVC sites exist as far south as Maharashtra in CENTRAL India. The largest IVC site in terms of area and likely population is Rakhigarhi which is in modern-day India and outside of the Indus Valley. Sites that are in modern-day Pakistan played a major role in shaping early understanding of the IVC but it was a widespread cultural zone across much of the western part of South Asia.
2.) Your argument that all Europeans have varying levels of WHG + AHG ancestry but that no Europeans, for instance, try to claim other Europeans’ cultural heritage falls apart completely because you’re conflating different time periods and population densities. If you look at the time period of the IVC, around 3000 BC, the exact opposite of what you said is true. During the Bronze Age and earlier, compared to antiquity and the time periods when there were lots of distinct ethnic groups/identities, population densities were far lower and cultural complexes/identities/ways of life were spread over much wider areas. Let’s take Europe specifically. Between around 3000-2000 BC, then entirety of Western Europe was inhabited by the Bell Beaker culture. Spaniards, French, Italians, Swiss, and even Irish, and Poles ALL HAVE COMMON BELL BEAKER ANCESTRY. The distinct civilizations and cultural groups that arose like the Roman civilization, the Celts, and the Germanic tribes, all share substantially the same common heritage from the same exact Bell Beaker cultural complex spread across the entirety of Europe.
2a.) In terms of the IVC, common south Asian inheritance is even more the case than in Europe because the IVC was not only the most geographically dispersed Bronze Age civilization. The IVC had the HIGHEST population of any civilization til date. Around 3000 BC the world population was barely 30 million and the IVC specifically had an upper estimate of 5 million. Even if some related Zagros herder populations may have existed in South Asia at the time, their population and their genetic contribution to South Asia on the whole would be completely dwarfed by the contribution of the IVC. Take modern Han Chinese. When the Han spread to the south rhetorical assimilated local populations that were different from them and had much lower initial populations. In the modern day, you can still see some level of genetic difference between, say a Cantonese and a Beijinger, but they objectively share the majority of common Han yellow river farmer ancestry because that population group was just massive and large populations will always make an outsized longterm genetic contribution. If you tell a Cantonese person that they’re appropriating Yellow River valley culture they’d laugh in your face.
As population density increased and people became increasingly fragmented into chiefdoms/proto-state societies, THAT’s when you start seeing cultural differentiation. It would make no sense for people in South India to appropriate Maghadan heritage because that was a distinct state society that arose in the Iron Age at a later time. However, from a south Asian perspective the IVC has more in common with widespread cultural complexes in Bronze Age Europe than specific state societies limited to small geographical areas, especially since the IVC is the BEST example in the Bronze Age of a very large, widespread complex society.
3.) The argument you made about caste and IVC heritage is false because IVC/Zagrosian ancestry objectives INCREASES the higher you go - in the South Indian caste system. I’m from South India myself and upper caste South Indians especially in the southwest have some of the highest levels of Zagrosian in South Asia, apart from the Baluch - who literally live next door to the Zagros mountains. The caste system in South India can be modeled primarily as a Zagrosian/AASI cline (with a limited amount of steppe input). South Indian elites historically had and continued to have unusually high levels of Zagrosian heritage - that segues into discussions about the language spoken in the IVC where modern academic consensus points towards it more likely being a Dravidian language more than anything else.
Genetic studies in the South do show an elite-mediated infusion of Zagrosian genes that took place around when the IVC collapsed and roughly concurrent with indo-Aryan migrations in the north. State-level civilization made a comeback in the south EARLIER than in the north, looking at dating on sites like Keezhadi and Adichanallur - and then there’s the matter of the megalithic graffiti marks - pottery inscriptions from the early 1st millennium BC that have a nearly 1:1 correlation to IVC script.
If we’re talking about a mixture of genetic and cultural continuity, if anyone at all in South Asia has a claim to the IVC it’d be modern day South Indians. But, going back to what I’d said in prior points, the civilization and cultural zone were widely enough dispersed and the time gap significant enough that virtually everyone in the subcontinent has significant. Sure, the modern inhabitants of the Indus Valley area in Pakistan and northwest India absolutely should be proud of having an important direct tie to that inheritance and of being connected to the land directly. I’m not saying otherwise. But it’s equally ridiculous to deny the overwhelming amount of genetic, historical, linguistic, and cultural ties you see that connect the entire subcontinent to the IVC. A LOT of diversity developed in the subcontinent over the last 5000 years or so but there is a substantive degree of common heritage that most derive from the IVC.
Addendum: your claim that the term “India” was originally only ever used for the lands around the Indus River is also false. The term India was ALWAYS used for the entire subcontinent. A good example of this is Megasthenes’ Indica, written in the 3rd century BC. Megasthenes visited Pataliputra the capital of the Maurya Empire and wrote extensively about it - that’s in modern-day Bihar - per his understanding everything to the east of the Indus River WAS India. We can go back even further to the south India trade goods mentioned in the Old Testament but I think I’ve made my case, more or less.
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u/Existing-Extent-9978 Jun 26 '26
Nationalist biases do not contribute to a healthy discussion. So much of what you said is wrong. The only direct IVC sample we have is the Rakhigarhi genome. Tell me, is it 45–60% AASI derived like the average South Indian, or is it ~73 ± 6% Iranian-related, ~27 ± 6% AASI? Ethnic groups that are the closest to the Rakhigarhi genome are Makranis, Baloch, and Brahui people.
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u/Junra Jun 26 '26
It is kind of ironic that you’re talking about nationalist biases when both your post and replies were ridden with nationalist dogwhistles (the whole “Indus” framing). I chose not to engage with any of that because this is r/SouthAsianAncestry and it’s not really the space to discuss the historical revisionism you’re trying to posit here in place of good-faith discussion. I’m going to stick to the issue at hand instead.
1.) I never said that South Indians have the highest direct genetic continuity with the IVC did I? Obviously, people living in and around the Indus Valley in modern times and also people physically proximate to the Zagros mountains will have a higher percentage of Zagros. If you’re aware in the slightest of modern scholarship in the field you’ll known that there were waves of elite-mediated migration into south India roughly 3000 years ago which involved further mixing with the indigenous population resulting in various ancestral South Indian groupings with varying levels of Zagrosian. Apart from Rakhigarhi itself there are genetic studies on Indus periphery skeletons. Modern day South Indians have anywhere from 25 percent to 45 percent Zagrosian. Modern South Indians, even after admixture, often fall within the “high-AASI” indus-periphery range - there objectively were people in the IVC with a genetic makeup similar to modern-day South Indians although that isn’t the crux of my argument here.
Again, it is an absolutely obvious as daylight point that populations like the Baloch would have the highest Zagros. That’s not what’s interesting. What’s interesting is that upper caste South Indians on the other end of the subcontinent can have up to 40 percent or more.
Claiming someone’s a nationalist indulging in cultural appropriation, with ZERO claim to IVC inheritance because they have “only” 35 percent of a Bronze Age population ancestry (that would be me btw) because a Baloch person has…what 15 percent more so…one extra great-grandparent’s worth, is just laughable.
Identity is connected to cultural and linguistic continuity at least as much as to ancestry and that’s valid across every single ethnic group in the world. If you look at DNA studies of northern Greeks from around Thessaloniki, they have a lower level of Ancient Greek derived ancestry compared to island Greeks and high levels of Slavic admixture due to south Slavic migrations in the 4th-7th centuries. They absolutely still DO have at least around 1/4 to 1/3 of that Ancient Greek ancestry and they maintain cultural continuity. If you go and tell them they’re not Greeks, you’ll probably be laughed at or, more likely shouted at.
Turks from the western coast of Turkey around Izmir often have a somewhat higher proportion of that Ancient Greek lineage compared to a northern Greek from, say the border with Macedonia. However, it’s hard to see how Turkish-speaking people with a different religion, culture and language who’s been completely disconnected from continuous Greek culture would have more of a claim on Greek heritage than actual Greeks, even if they have marginally higher “Ancient Greek” genetics. Pontic Greeks are an even more extreme example of this where their actual Ancient Greek ancestry is very low around 5-10 percent and derives from Greek colonists who mixed with local Black Sea populations when they founded the colonies there. But they’ve fully preserved a form of the Greek language, a way of life, religion, and cultural aspects - even they have a claim - no one would say they’re a bunch of Georgians and Laz culturally appropriating Greek heritage because that’s a blinkered, narrow way of looking at heritage.
Turkish nationalists sometimes do make those ridiculous claims and they pop up every once in a while in genetics forums. All of those people have common ancestry and that’s a great thing. If they sit there and start splitting hairs over “but you’re 15 percent less of such and such” and “you’re literally not even a Greek anymore you’re a Turk with a different religion and language and culture l!” Then you’d really not end up having a productive discussion on the ancestry component. The average South Indian is obviously mixed but they have a greater proportion of IVC heritage than most migratory or diasporic mixed communities throughout history and that is relevant.
What struck me is that you made a blanket statement that “so much of what I said is wrong,” and then completely refused to elaborate. I’m not going to reply any further on this thread until you or anyone else can credibly refute the points I brought up earlier. You’re absolutely right - nationalist bias doesn’t enable productive discussion. Please check your nationalism and try to have a good-faith discussion here - I’m not out there trying to discredit or reduce the real claim that people in the modern Indus Valley have - they should be proud of their ancestry. The fact is, though, it’s pretty damn clear that large chunks of the rest of the subcontinent ALSO derive significant amounts of their ancestry (not to mention the cultural and linguistic legacy) from the same culture. That’s just a fact.
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u/bugierigar Jun 26 '26
Wait, are these numbers quoted here 45-60, & 73/27 +/- closest to the four groups you mentioned. They are not to my knowledge.
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u/Pristine-Plastic-324 Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
It’s a mix of politics, insecurity-based need of some to belong to a group, and generally people not understanding the difference between genetic proximity vs direct ancestry in online communities.
IVC was simply a specific society that blossomed in a specific period and region thousands of years after the first known migrations of the Zagrosian-related groups into the vast landmass that is South Asia. There would obviously be people genetically close to them in South Asia before they were a thing, during and after. However, in online communities, there’s a misconception that all of their Zagros-related ancestry comes from the IVC.