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PaperclipPerfector  2yr ago (text post)   32532 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023

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but it's still too low to resemble anything you would call a direct descendant, in the way you wouldn't call a mestizo a direct descendant of Europeans

What does “it’s still too low” mean in this context?

It means it's a mixed population, at least in the present day:

To explore the impact of West Eurasians on contemporary Indian caste populations, we compared mtDNA and Y-chromosome ...variation in ∼265 males from eight castes of different rank to ∼750 Africans, Asians, Europeans, and other Indians. For maternally inherited mtDNA, each caste is most similar to Asians. However, 20%–30% of Indian mtDNA haplotypes belong to West Eurasian haplogroups, and the frequency of these haplotypes is proportional to caste rank, the highest frequency of West Eurasian haplotypes being found in the upper castes. In contrast, for paternally inherited Y-chromosome variation each caste is more similar to Europeans than to Asians. Moreover, the affinity to Europeans is proportionate to caste rank, the upper castes being most similar to Europeans, particularly East Europeans. These findings are consistent with greater West Eurasian male admixture with castes of higher rank.

...

Our analysis of 40 autosomal markers indicates clearly that the upper castes have a higher affinity to Europeans than to Asians. The high affinity of caste Y chromosomes with those of Europeans suggests that the majority of immigrating West Eurasians may have been males. As might be expected if West Eurasian males appropriated the highest positions in the caste system, the upper caste group exhibits a lower genetic distance to Europeans than the middle or lower castes. This is underscored by the observation that the Kshatriya (an upper caste), whose members served as warriors, are closer to Europeans than any other caste (data not shown). Furthermore, the 32-bp deletion polymorphism in CC chemokine receptor 5, whose frequency peaks in populations of Eastern Europe, is found only in two Brahmin males (M. Bamshad and S.K. Ahuja, unpubl.). The stratification of Y-chromosome distances with Europeans could also be caused by male-specific gene flow among caste populations of different rank.

In that way modern western europeans aren't "Aryans" either, they have significant admixture from Anatolian farmers.

True, but the Yamnaya themselves had admixture from European Hunter-Gatherers and Anatolian Farmers (to a lesser extent). Norwegians/Finns have the most Yamnaya admixture IIRC (funny enough the Nazis were right about that).

But I'll fully admit that there's a mythological component to a name or racial identity. Modern Jews are admixed descendants (at best) from the Hebrews of the bible. I'm not adamant about the term "Aryan" but it contains the right ingredients of historicity and mythology to formulate a pan-European identity. If not that term, there must be a term that is better, but there is not so far as I can tell. "White" would be the closest but it has a lot of downsides. The biggest downside of "Aryan" is that that term is taboo, but that also gives it a sort of power. It invokes a feeling when people say it or hear it, and that might be the most important feature of the word.

I of course do not discount the Aryan contribution to Indian religion, language, culture, and civilization. Buddha is White by the way, don't @ me.

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