Priest-King of the Indus

“PRIEST-KING” OF THE INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION or Harappan Civilization, located in the northwest of the Indian Subcontinent during the BRONZE AGE. Their language is unknown, their distinct script has not been deciphered yet, there is no evidence of a ruling class, nor an army, and we know almost nothing about their religion. What we know is that they built huge cities made of stone and bricks, and their sewage system was ahead of their time. We also know that the Harappan Civilization existed before the people that ancient Hindu texts call the “Aryans” migrated into India. The “Aryans” are identified with the Bronze Age steppe nomads that brought into India the Indo-European language that gave origin to Sanskrit, and they also contributed to the formation of Hinduism and the Varna system (usually translated in the West as “castes”).

All modern Indians descend from a mix of three ancestral populations. The earliest anatomically modern humans that migrated from Africa to Asia evolved into separate subgroups such as the Andamanese islanders, Melanesians, Aboriginal Australians or the Ainu of Japan, but the Indian subgroup of those early Homo Sapiens are known as Ancient Ancestral South Indians (AASI). South Indian tribes with unusually high levels of AASI ancestry, such as the isolated Paniyas and Irulas of Kerala, often have black skin, kinky hair, a wide nose and thick lips. The second population that migrated into India were related to the Neolithic farmers of Iran, of “Middle Eastern” appearance and swarthy complexion, whose language may have been related to Elamite and may be a precursor to the Dravidian languages spoken today in South India. Harappans descended from these Proto-Dravidians with up to 50% of AASI admixture, an admixture like that of the Toda people of Tamil Nadu. Unlike modern Indians, Harappans didn’t have any ancestry from the Eurasian Steppe. During the Late Bronze Age, while the Harappan Civilization was gradually collapsing, the expansion of Indo-Aryan-speakers brought an influx of European-like physical features into India, which became especially prevalent in the northwest and among higher castes during the subsequent Vedic Period.