Waves of migration into South Asia

[bmoney]

Yes likely IMO.
Pretty much like Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA2 [mt U2c1, Y-J2a1h] who is from the earliest level at Shahr i Sokhta - from the timeframe of IVC.

Per Hemphill there are two discontinuities on the Indus - "The first occurs between 6000 and 4500 BCE and is reflected by the strong separation in dental non-metric characters between neolithic and chalcolithic burials at Mehrgarh. The second occurs at some point after 800 BCE but before 200 BCE. In the intervening period, while there is dental non-metric, craniometric, and cranial non-metric evidence for a degree of internal biological continuity, statistical evaluation of cranial data reveals clear indications of interaction with the West and specifically with the Iranian Plateau." https://www.harappa.com/content/biol...-age-harappans
"Harappan phase individuals possess the pattern of affinities expected under conditions of prolonged biological continuity within the Indus Valley from early chalcolithic times (4500 BC) until the early post-Harappan period (800 BC)" https://www.harappa.com/sites/defaul...haeology_2.pdf

The first is a transition from the Neolithic to the Chalcolithic. The latter seems to be post Vedic. So the 4500 BC to 800 BC period could very well be the Vedic period.

Why do you think they did not have any steppe ancestry?

[pegasus]

There was variance among the individuals, and the authors stated 22%:

Finally, we examined our Swat Valley time transect from 1200 BCE to 1 CE. While the earliest group of samples (SPGT) is genetically very similar to the Indus_Periphery samples from the sites of Gonur and Shahr-i-Sokhta, they also differ significantly in harboring Steppe_MLBA ancestry (~22%). Therefore, we examined all possible Steppe pastoralist related
4630 populations as sources along with the Indus_Periphery samples as sources for the SPGT. We
observe that only the steppe populations from the 2 4631 nd millenium BCE work as sources along
4632 with the Indus Periphery samples as a fit for the SPGT.

Digging into the supplementary materials:

provides another line of
4645 evidence that the arrival of steppe ancestry into the subcontient occurred between the dates of
4646 when the Indus periphary and the SPGT samples lived- between 1000-2000 BCE.

In the distal models (Table S3.78 and Table S3.80), we observe that we require 4 ancestral
4583 components to obtain a good fit to our data for both the early and the late Swat Valley sites.
4584 Consistent with the PCA and ADMIXTURE analyses, the later sites have about 10% more
4585 southern South Asian (present-day Irula.DG) related ancestry compared with earlier Iron Age
4586 sites, suggesting that there was additional admixture from the Subcontinent (where we expect
4587 to find populations with higher proportions of such ancestry). Strikingly, the proximal models
4588 (Table S3.79 and Table S3.81) all involve Steppe_MLBA_East or a genetically similar
4589 group, suggesting (a) that there was considerable Steppe related admixture into the
4590 Subcontinent, and (b) that the Steppe_MLBA ancestry that suffused into southern Central
Asia in the 2 4591 nd millennium affected Swat at least by the beginning of the first millennium.

some of them have more than 30% esp the ones from Barikot.

[pegasus]

That's very doubtful, the swat river and the panjkora are mentioned once and the kabul river only twice even including the late 10th mandala. On the other hand the parushni (ravi) alone is mentioned five times. The Rig Vedic people certainly knew Gandhara but they mainly lived to its South East.

The scenery , the importance of Soma, whose main constituents are Ephedra, , which does not grow on the Ganges plain , doesn't point in that direction and the genetics definitely does not. The issue with some aspects of the Vedas is that since they are oral histories they can be altered to suit new cultural zeitgeists .

[pegasus]

I'm still leaning to Swat being culturally Indus or a fusion, and later being fully R1aized/Vedicized by an Eastern source bringing the additional steppe and AASI ancestry like you proposed.

However there are insane levels of continuity in a lot of those Swat Samples and where current NW Indians, Sindhis/Lohanas etc plot

There are certainly some minor back migration from populations in the Gangetic plains , Vedic cultural centers like Taxila likely attracted people from there, but this notion that extra Steppe came from the Gangetic plains makes no sense, because that area is awash with very AASI shifted peoples , many modelling out as 80% Pania like . Even in the new samples Khana is uploading it looks like a clear demic diffusion. Some of the Gujjars even cluster very close with NW Indian Brahmin populations, which is highly telling. I would not pay too much attention to uniparental markers, most SA groups are inbred and many Brahmin groups are incredibly inbred ( ie Nepali , Kulin to name a few) , so that means they are very strong founder effects at play, which occurred later.

[Kulin]

The scenery , the importance of Soma, whose main constituents are Ephedra, , which does not grow on the Ganges plain , doesn't point in that direction and the genetics definitely does not. The issue with some aspects of the Vedas is that since they are oral histories they can be altered to suit new cultural zeitgeists .

Soma and Haoma, even though root from the same practice/culture, probably have had required use of different ingredients. Certain South Indian communities that practice "Somayajna" as part of Srauta (orthorodox) rituals that lost much of its importance in the North, uses Sarcostemma acidium, rather than Ephedra. Locally called Somalata, it grows around the foothills and valleys of the Himalayas, and is probably the actual Rigvedic Soma ingredient. Generally, in Hinduism/dharma, locations/species/motifs, around the Himalayas are quite important, like the mountains themselves, which are held be God's abode, and contain from sacred tree species such as Deodar Cedar, to sacred rivers that originate from its glaciers among others.

The onus of early Vedic civilization though of course is the Gandhara/Punjab region(s). That cannot be argued, though these regions overlap, like the Potohar plateau historically a major part of Gandhara is considered part of present day Punjab.

[soulblighter]

The scenery , the importance of Soma, whose main constituents are Ephedra, , which does not grow on the Ganges plain , doesn't point in that direction and the genetics definitely does not. The issue with some aspects of the Vedas is that since they are oral histories they can be altered to suit new cultural zeitgeists .

What is known for sure about the Rig Veda is its geography depicts the region between the Oxus and Ganges. No one knows what Soma was, there are many candidates including Psychedelic Mushrooms, Ephedra and Cannabis (Bhang is still very popular in the north). While one can make an educated guess about migration of haplogroups, using that as a cultural predictor is non-sequiter. While oral histories can be altered, the Vedas are not compatible with simple folk tales. People went to great lengths to make sure that the pronunciation, sandhi and even the melody (which is unique to each of the Vedas) was conserved from generation to generation. So while the precursor to the Rig Veda may have had extraneous origins, starting with the Rig, the location of origin is pretty clear.

[parasar]

Why do you think they did not have any steppe ancestry?

They had steppe.
I think the 4500 BC to 800 BC folk had shared steppe ancestry but not derived steppe ancestry which is very late - post 800 BC. So essentially we have to model modern South Asians as Swat IA (IV) + Steppe + AASI. The latter two being increments in a sense that IV already had them in some measure. The distinguishing feature of these later additions would be trace East Asian and Anatolian elements coming in with the Steppe and SE Asian elements with AASI.

[homosapien]

The scenery , the importance of Soma, whose main constituents are Ephedra, , which does not grow on the Ganges plain , doesn't point in that direction and the genetics definitely does not. The issue with some aspects of the Vedas is that since they are oral histories they can be altered to suit new cultural zeitgeists .

You can read about the active ingredients of "Sarcostemma acidum" from this published paper. Soma being something else other than this is without basis and pure speculation.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3656190/

[bmoney]

There are certainly some minor back migration from populations in the Gangetic plains , Vedic cultural centers like Taxila likely attracted people from there, but this notion that extra Steppe came from the Gangetic plains makes no sense, because that area is awash with very AASI shifted peoples , many modelling out as 80% Pania like . Even in the new samples Khana is uploading it looks like a clear demic diffusion. Some of the Gujjars even cluster very close with NW Indian Brahmin populations, which is highly telling. I would not pay too much attention to uniparental markers, most SA groups are inbred and many Brahmin groups are incredibly inbred ( ie Nepali , Kulin to name a few) , so that means they are very strong founder effects at play, which occurred later.

Because the Brahmins from Eastern India seem to preserve high levels of steppe, but yeah you're right numerically they wouldn't have moved the dial on late Swat

[bmoney]

They had steppe.
I think the 4500 BC to 800 BC folk had shared steppe ancestry but not derived steppe ancestry which is very late - post 800 BC. So essentially we have to model modern South Asians as Swat IA (IV) + Steppe + AASI. The latter two being increments in a sense that IV already had them in some measure. The distinguishing feature of these later additions would be trace East Asian and Anatolian elements coming in with the Steppe and SE Asian elements with AASI.

Anatolian was present in Swat (via Sintashta presumably) but not in Indus_Periphery. Therefore Swat is a much more likely candidate for the Rg Veda than InPe

If you notice Swat clusters very well with NW South Asians but SIS BA1 and 2 do not with anyone due to lacking steppe components combined with being very low AASI. BA3 clusters with Velamas and Kallars who are the stereotypical Iran_N settlers in South India

In contrast to all other Iran/Turan samples, we find that these individuals also had negligible Anatolian agriculturalist-related admixture, suggesting that they might be migrants from a population further east along the cline of decreasing Anatolian agriculturalist ancestry.

suggesting that the Iranian agriculturalist-related population that mixed into South Asia had less Anatolian agriculturalist-related ancestry than all of these.

SPGT:

SPGT
Indus_Periphery 0.692±0.042
Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA1 0.104±0.045
Sintashta_MLBA 0.204±0.015
Tail: 0.659609

The missing piece is figuring out if the additional steppe came from diffusion from various Central Asians over time (Khana suggests a Kho-like pop) and how Brahmins such as Nepali Brahmins fit into the equation.

Poi seems to be in the Burusho cluster, though this could be artificial