- The study published in the journal Cell, which is based on DNA from skeletal remains excavated from the Harappan cemetery at Rakhigarhi, argues that hunter-gatherers of South Asia had an independent origin, and authored the settled way of life in this part of the world.
- The researchers who conducted the study contend that the theory of the Harappans having Steppe pastoral or ancient Iranian farmer ancestry thus stands refuted.
- The study — titled ‘An ancient Harappan genome lacks ancestry from Steppe pastoralists or Iranian farmers’ — examined the DNA of the skeletal remains of an individual in Rakhigarhi dating back to around 2500 BC, which was part of the ‘mature Harappan civilisation’ or the Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC).
- The study also negates the hypothesis about mass migration during Harappan times from outside South Asia, they argue.
- The study has found no traces of the R1a1 gene or Central Asian ‘steppe’ genes, loosely termed as the ‘Aryan gene’. In this way the study has challenged the theory of an “Aryan invasion” ending Harrapan .
- Vasant Shinde, the professor who headed the Rakhigarhi Project, said that researchers had successfully sequenced the first genome of an individual from Harappa and combining it with archaeological data,
- The researchers also suggest that there was a movement of people from east to west as the Harappan people’s presence is evident at sites like Gonur in Turkmenistan and Sahr-i-Sokhta in Iran.
