Abstract
The quest to discover the geographic origins of human populations has been an age-old undertaking for academics. Because written language is a recent development, there are no records of the ancient past. Although archaeologists and anthropologists have made impressive advancements in assessing the past, the record is still incomplete. Several recent studies have used the science of genetics to assess large historical migrations of people and identified the geographic areas they emerged from. But the ancient origins of many smaller ethnic groups of the subcontinent have not been studied in much detail.
The main objective of this research was to exploit recent developments in genetics and identify the ancient geographic origins from genetic markers on the Y-DNA phylogenetic tree and published sources. The research project explored the ancient geographical origins of fifty key ethnic groups of the Indian subcontinent, with special attention to the geographic origins of the Jats, which is one of the largest ethnic groups in the subcontinent.
The results provided genomic evidence that every ethnic group had representation in more than one haplogroup, indicating multiple geographic origins. Even with their outward differences , the ethnic groups shared common ancestors because of admixture in the past.