Friday, August 23, 2019

Bengali ancestry of Sri Lankan Tamils

SL Tamil y-chromosomes from the 1000genomes project have been uploaded to YTree, an internationally recognised Y-DNA phylogenetic tree.

Some new, unique subclades have been discovered as a result, which prove paternal ancestry among the SL Tamils from both North and South India.

The most interesting haplotype discovered is J-Z7255, an unique subclade that has only been found in Bengal and Sri Lanka:


The time to most recent common ancestor (TMRCA) of all three individuals has been calculated to around 1000 B.C. This would place it in Bengal's protohistoric period (ancient Vanga).

How did a Bengali Y-chromosome end up in Jaffna?

The most likely explanation is this SL Tamil had a Sinhala paternal ancestor who assimilated into the Tamil identity during the South Indian conquests of North-East Sri Lanka.

Interestingly, the myth of Bengali prince Vijaya migrating to Sri Lanka has been preserved in Sri Lankan Tamil folktales and chronicles, but in a garbled form.

Prof. Indrapala, the foremost expert on the history of SL Tamils states the following:

"The manner in which the Sinhalese legend came to assume this position in the traditional history of the Tamils may not be difficult to explain.

The Sinhalese of the Jaffna district as we have already seen, were at no time completely dislodged by the Tamils. Many of them probably became assimilated to the Tamil population in due course. The story of Vijaya would have been current among these people at the time of Tamil settlements. When the Sinhalese became assimilated into the Tamil population, a garbled version of the Vijaya legend would have still lingered in their memory.

At at time when their origins were forgotten, these people may have used the legend to explain the origin of the Tamil kingdom instead of that of the Sinhalese kingdom."

Other unique haplotypes shared by SL Tamils also suggest paternal ancestry from ancient Gujarat and Kerala:




Both these unique haplotypes trace their time to most recent common ancestor (TMRCA) to 700 B.C.  The migration of men carrying these unique haplogroups into Sri Lanka could have occurred at any time period after that.





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