* (7) Give details of the Aryan and the
Dravidian culture. OR
Give information about the most-ancient
people belonging to the Aryan and Dravidian
races.
Answers
The origin of Dravidians, one of the most important components of South Asian ancestry, is generally linked to the neolithic “Zagros farmer population” from modern day Iran (but not modern Iranians, although modern Iranians still have Zagros farmer ancestry as well), which migrated and conquered/displaced most of the outnumbered native hunter gatherers of South Asia about 8,000 years ago.
Interestingly, recent evidence suggest that there was a native West-Eurasian related population in India (most likely in Northwest India) or that this population lived in India since at least 40,000 years and coexisted with the Andamanese-related Negrito hunter gatherers (largely unmixed). This population is either ancestry to Dravidians or the more ancient Vedda-related populations (which are sometimes described as “archaic Caucasoids”. See: )
These Proto-Dravidians were a Caucasoid (or West-Eurasian) population and possibly closely related to the Elamites of Iran and Iraq.
I will now summarize some known facts:
About the Proto-Dravidians:
The proto-Dravidians are genetically and linguistically linked to early agriculturalists from modern day Iran (the Iranian plateau). These agriculturalists are known as “Zagros mountain farmers”. They were a neolithic population and practiced early agriculture. The same population is also likely linked to the later Elamites, which created one of the oldest civilizations of the Middle East. They also influenced the BMAC culture in modern day Turkmenistan/Tajikistan before the Indo-Aryan migration there.
The ancient proto-Dravidian language originated somewhere in southern Iran or nearby regions.
These Zagros farmers from Iran started a large scale migration into India about 8,000 years ago and brought the proto-Dravidian language with them.
In India, they largely replaced the local hunter gatherers. (Some mixing happened between male Dravidians and female locals.)
The ancient Dravidians are also suggested to have created the Indus Valley culture. DNA analyses show that the majority of ancient Indus Valley samples have in average 80% to 98% Iranian farmer-related DNA, which is linked to the early Dravidians. Similarly Narasimhan et al. 2018 and 2019 notes that the “Iranian” or “Zagros farmers” are directly linked to the Dravidians and formed the predominant main ancestry of the Indus civilization and South Asians.
After time, the Indo-Aryans started to migrate from Central Asia into parts of India and local populations started partially to adopt their language. We see Dravidian loanwords and influence in early Vedic Sanskrit which supports that Dravidian was strongly present in northern India and Pakistan.
Now some recent studies:
A study from 2015 concluded: “The present study deconstructs the clustering of west Eurasian mtDNA lineages into Indian-specific subfounders and resolves the competing hypotheses that describe the Indo-Aryan migration, the spread of the Dravidian language, and the origins of the caste system. The presence of mtDNA haplogroups (HV14 and U1a) and Y-chromosome haplogroup (L1) in Dravidian populations indicates the spread of the Dravidian language into India from west Asia (Sengupta et al. 2006; Sahoo et al. 2006; Derenko et al. 2014).”
A genetic and biogeographical study from Das et al. 2016 concluded an ancient Western Asian origin for the Dravidian peoples and support a Caucasoid (West-Eurasian) origin of proto-Dravidians which form the main stock of modern Indians. According to the study, these proto-Dravidians migrated into India around 4,000 BC from a region later known as Elam in modern day Iran. The authors suggest that this results support the Elamo-Dravidian hypothesis.
Another study published in 2018 again confirmed that Dravidians are linked to Neolithic Zagros Mountain farmers, and that this West Asian population builds the main ancestor of modern South Asians.