Invasion Myths and DNA

It is not only in relation to the origins of the Israelites that DNA evidence has the potential to solve longstanding mysteries about the origins of a people group. Since the colonial era, when light-skinned Europeans took control of India, it has seemed plausible to many European scholars to interpret the Vedas as reflecting the culture of a people who, like their European cousins, invaded India and took control of it away from other, darker-skinned human beings. Although challenges to this scenario have often been raised, these have themselves been suspicious, since many supporters of the indigenous Aryan scenario were themselves motivated by nationalism and other concerns.

Now, however, studies of both Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA markers are pointing in the same direction: the Aryans were, most probably, well-established in India long before the purported Aryan invasion would allegedly have occurred.