Indo-Aryan migration

Archaeogenetics and physical anthropology

Kenneth Kennedy (1984), who examined 300 skeletons from the Indus Valley civilization, concludes that the ancient Harappans “are not markedly different in their skeletal biology from the present-day inhabitants of Northwestern India and Pakistan”(p.102).

A later study finds no evidence of discontinuities in the skeletal record during and immediately after the decline of the Indus Valley Civilization. The two discontinuities that Kennedy finds in the prehistoric skeletal record do not correspond to the second millennium BCE. The first of these discontinuities occurred between 6000-4500 BCE (a separation of the Neolithic and Chalcolithic inhabitants of Mehrgarh), and the second occurred after 800 BCE (between 800-200 BCE). He concludes that "there is no evidence of demographic disruptions in the north-western sector of the subcontinent during and immediately after the decline of the Harappan culture. If Vedic Aryans were a biological entity represented by the skeletons from Timargarha, then their biological features of cranial and dental anatomy were not distinct to a marked degree from what we encountered in the ancient Harappans.” (1995: 54). Comparing the Harappan and Gandhara cultures, Kennedy remarks that: “Our multivariate approach does not define the biological identity of an ancient Aryan population, but it does indicate that the Indus Valley and Gandhara peoples shared a number of craniometric, odontometric and discrete traits that point to a high degree of biological affinity.” (1995: 49). The craniometric variables of prehistoric and living South Asians also showed an "obvious separation" from the prehistoric people of the Iranian plateau and western Asia (1995: 49).

Brian E. Hemphill and Alexander F. Christensen's study (1994) of the migration of genetic traits does not support a movement of Aryan speakers into the Indus Valley around 1500 BC. According to Hemphill's study, "Gene flow from Bactria occurs much later, and does not impact Indus Valley gene pools until the dawn of the Christian era." In a more recent study, Hemphill concludes that "the data provide no support for any model of massive migration and gene flow between the oases of Bactria and the Indus Valley. Rather, patterns of phenetic affinity best conform to a pattern of long-standing, but low-level bidirectional mutual exchange.