The Most Ancient Democracy in the World is a Genetic Isolate: An Autosomal and Y-Chromosome Study of the Hermit Village of Malana (Himachal Pradesh, India)

Abstract

Malana, a small village in Kullu District of Himachal Pradesh, India, has historically been considered a hermit village. Today it has a census size of 1,101 individuals. Geographic, linguistic, and population barriers have contributed to its seclusion. Little is known about the extent to which the population genetically differentiated during the years of isolation. To address this issue, we genotyped 48 Malani individuals at 15 highly polymorphic autosomal STR loci. We found that Malanis have lost some genetic variability compared with the present-day cosmopolitan caste populations and highly mobile pastoral cultures of India. But there is no evidence that they have gone through a severe bottleneck; the average population still shows a mean of 6.86 alleles per locus compared to a mean of 7.80-8.93 for nonisolated populations. An analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) differentiates Malanis from the rest of the comparison populations. The population structure revealed by multidimensional scaling analysis of standard genetic distances lends support to the AMOVA. Our results are consistent with the social heterogeneity of the Malanis. We also analyzed 17 Y-chromosome STRs in 30 individuals to assess the paternal gene pool. The Malanis are characterized by a generally low Y-chromosome haplotype diversity. A network analysis indicates that two closely related haplotypes account for a large proportion of Malani Y chromosomes. We predicted Y-chromosome haplogroups and found that J2 and R1a were the most prevalent. Genetic drift and limited gene flow leading to reduced genetic diversity were important in determining the present genetic structure of the highly endogamous Malana village.

Y-STR Haplogroup Diversity in the Jat Population Reveals Several Different Ancient Origins

“… Henke et al ( 2001 ); Sengupta et al ( 2006 ); Nagy et al ( 2007 ); Zhao et al ( 2009 ); Giroti and Talwar ( 2010 ); Nair et al ( 2011 ); Chennakrishnaiah et al ( 2013 ); Lee et al ( 2014 ); Genographic Project (Genographic, 2016 ) . …”

“…For other ethnic groups of the Indian subcontinent, a dataset of 1,855 men representing 38 ethnic groups in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan was compiled from the Genographic Project database (Genographic, 2016 ), and published sources (Sengupta et al, 2006 ; Zhao et al, 2009 ; Giroti and Talwar, 2010 ; Nair et al, 2011 ; Chennakrishnaiah et al, 2013 ; Lee et al, 2014 ). All haplogroups for these records were predetermined at source, based on examination of SNPs in the lab with actual Y-DNA samples.…”

The Geographic Origins of Ethnic Groups in the Indian Subcontinent: Exploring Ancient Footprints with Y-DNA Haplogroups

“…A dataset of 2,504 Y chromosome profiles of 50 ethnic groups in the Indian subcontinent was compiled from eight different sources (Table 1 ). These included the Genographic Project database (Behar et al, 2007 ; Genographic, 2016 ), with permission of the National Geographic Society, and seven published sources (Sengupta et al, 2006 ; Nagy et al, 2007 ; Zhao et al, 2008 ; Giroti and Talwar, 2010 ; Nair et al, 2011 ; Chennakrishnaiah et al, 2013 ; Lee et al, 2014 ). The dataset represented 50 geographically diversified ethnic groups of the subcontinent, of which 39 groups were in India, nine were in Pakistan, and two were in Bangladesh.…”

Genetic polymorphism study at 15 autosomal locus in central Indian population

“…Due to ease of use due to multiplexing, these markers are routinely used in forensic, anthropological and medical studies. With the growing number of laboratories using STR analysis technology, more and more population STR data have been reported (Tandon et al 2002 ; Sarkar and Kashyap 2002 ; Sahoo and Kashyap 2002 ; Gaikwad and Kashyap 2002 ; Rajkumar and Kashyap 2004 ; Narkuti et al 2008 ; Dubey et al 2009 ; Ghosh et al 2011 ; Chaudhari and Dahiya 2014 ; Giroti and Talwar 2010 ; Shrivastava et al 2015a ; b ).…”