Berkley, United States

Researchers carried out a new study to trace back the footprints of human civilization in India - the most populous country in the world - with the help of genes.

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The new study has tried to understand the scenario 50,000 years ago by analysing thousands of genomes. The DNA samples of 2,762 Indians - belonged to people from various geographic locations, caste and tribe groups and those speaking different languages - were sequenced by the University of California, Berkley population geneticist Elise Kerdoncuff and his colleagues.

Speaking about the study, Kerdoncuff and colleagues wrote in their preprint, "These analyses provide a detailed view of the population history of India and underscore the value of expanding genomic surveys to diverse groups outside Europe."

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In the earlier studies carried out, it was hinted that Indians derive ancestry from ancient Iranian farmers, herders from the Eurasian steppe and indigenous South Asian hunter-gatherers.

It was found by Kerdoncuff and colleagues that ancestry to those three groups varied among modern individuals in India.

In the study, the researchers also found that the ancient Iranian farmers were most likely part of the influx of farmers from Sarazm, which is an ancient agricultural hub in what is known as Tajikistan.

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"Societies were far more connected in deep time than most have given them credit for," said Michael Frachetti, an archaeologist at Washington University in St Louis, while speaking to Science.

Indian genomes contain diverse Neanderthal and Denisovan genes 

It was further found by Kerdoncuff and colleagues that one to two per cent ancestry is derived in modern Indians from archaic hominins, Neanderthals and Denisovans.

The researchers, in a surprise discovery, found that the analysed genomes had a wide variety of Neanderthal and Denisovan genes, in comparison to other sampled populations.

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"Strikingly, [about] 90.7 per cent of worldwide Neanderthal sequences are seen in India" and "around 51 per cent of Denisovan sequences are unique to India," wrote Kerdoncuff and colleagues.

Finally, they found out that most of the genetic variation in Indians came from one major migration from Africa which took place around 50,000 years ago, while the earlier migration waves also contributed little genetic material to today's population in India.

(With inputs from agencies)