Population History of the Gond: The Largest Tribal Population of South Asia • Sex-specific Markers Differentiate the Gond Significantly from Munda Speakers • Acknowledgements (original) (raw)

Although the tribal populations represent a fraction of the South Asian population, there are only very few tribal populations ranging in the millions. The Central Indian tribal population Gond is one of them, with a census size of approximately 12 million people. Various disciplines of the humanities have drawn conflicting conclusions with regard to their origin. Therefore, in our previous study, we analysed hundreds of thousands of autosomal markers and found out that Gonds share their closest genetic similarity with the Aus-troasiatic (Munda) populations. While our findings support our previous contention, the current analysis has revealed that the Gonds occupy a transitional position between Dravidian and Munda groups. Sex-specific markers also differentiate the Gond substantially from the Indian Austroasiatic (Munda) and Dravidian (Telugu) speakers. Taken together, we suggest a unique and distinct genetic ancestry of the Gond population of South Asia.