Chapter 17 The Genetics of Language and Farming Spread in India

Most maternal lineages of present-day Indians de-rive from a common ancestor in mtDNA haplogroup M that split into Indian, eastern Asian, Papuan, and Australian subsets 40,000-60,000 mtDNA-years ago. The second major component in Indian maternal heredity lines traces back to the split of haplogroup U into Indian, western Eurasian and northern Afri-can variants approximately at the same time. The variation in these two ancient Indian-specific sets of lineages is the main modifier in the heterogeneity landscape of Indian populations, defining the ge-netic differences between caste groups and geo-graphic regions in the sub-continent. The difference between regional caste groups is accentuated fur-thermore by the presence of a northwest to sout