Toomas Kivisild

Toomas Kivisild (born 11 August 1969, in Tapa, Estonia) is an Estonian population geneticist.

Quotes

• This neatly fits the earlier findings of non-genetic (morphological) physical anthropology, viz. that the population type of northwestern India has remained the same for at least 8,000 years.... In deference to established Indological opinion, the biologists make a perfunctory nod toward the “supposed” Aryan invasion, only to state that they have found no evidence for this popular supposition: “Their low frequency [i.e. of the West-Asia-related genes] but still general spread all over India plus the estimated time scale does not support a recent massive Aryan invasion, at least as far as maternally inherited genetic lineages are concerned.”
  • Current Biology (London), vol.9, nrs.22 and 24, by T. Kivisild et al. (“Deep common ancestry of Indian and Western-Eurasian mitochonrdial DNA lineages”), quoted in Elst, Koenraad (2007). Asterisk in bharopiyasthan: Minor writings on the Aryan invasion debate.with quote of “Deep common ancestry of Indian and Western-Eurasian mitochonrdial DNA lineages”

• We found an extensive deep late Pleistocene genetic link between contemporary Europeans and Indians, provided by the mtDNA haplogroup U, which encompasses roughly a fifth of mtDNA lineages of both populations. Our estimate for this split [between Europeans and Indians] is close to the suggested time for the peopling of Asia and the first expansion of anatomically modern humans in Eurasia and likely pre-dates their spread to Europe.” ...the genetic affinity between the Indian subcontinent and Europe “should not be interpreted in terms of a recent admixture of western Caucasoids10 with Indians caused by a putative Indo-Aryan invasion 3,000–4,000 years BP.”
  • T. Kivisild, M. J. Bamshad, K. Kaldma, M. Metspalu, E. Metspalu, M. Reidla, S. Laos, J. Parik, W. S. Watkins, M. E. Dixon, S. S. Papiha, S. S. Mastana, M. R. Mir, V. Ferak, R. Villems, “Deep common ancestry of Indian and western-Eurasian mitochondrial DNA lineages” in Current Biology, 18 November 1999, 9(22):1331-4.
  • in GENETICS AND THE ARYAN DEBATE Michel Danino* (Published in Puratattva, Bulletin of the Indian Archaeological Society, New Delhi, No. 36, 2005-06, pp. 146-154.)

• In 2000 Kivisild and colleagues found that “even the high castes share more than 80 per cent of their maternal lineages with the lower castes and tribals.” Taking all aspects into consideration, the authors concluded that “there are now enough reasons not only to question a ‘recent Indo‐Aryan invasion’ into India some 4000 BP, but alternatively to consider India as a part of the common gene pool ancestral to the diversity of human maternal lineages in Europe” (Kivisild et al., 2000: 267–271).
  • quoted in M. Danino, in : Walimbe, S. R., & Schug, G. R. (2016). A companion to South Asia in the past. chapter 13. Aryans and the Indus Civilization: Archaeological, Skeletal, and Molecular Evidence
  • Kivisild T, Papiha SS, Rootsi S, Parik J, Kaldma K, … Villems R. 2000. An Indian ancestry: a key for understanding human diversity in Europe and beyond. In: Renfrew C, Boyle K, editors. Archaeogenetics: DNA and the population prehistory of Europe. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. pp 267–275

• “Indian and western Eurasian haplogroup U varieties differ profoundly; the split has occurred about as early as the split between the Indian and eastern Asian haplogroup M varieties. The data show that both M and U exhibited an expansion phase some 50,000 years ago, which should have happened after the corresponding splits.”... “We believe that there are now enough reasons not only to question a ‘recent Indo-Aryan invasion’ into India some 4000 BP, but alternatively to consider India as a part of the common gene pool ancestral to the diversity of human maternal lineages in Europe.”
  • Toomas Kivisild, Surinder S. Papiha, Siiri Rootsi, Jüri Parik, Katrin Kaldma, Maere Reidla, Sirle Laos, Mait Metspalu, Gerli Pielberg, Maarja Adojaan, Ene Metspalu, Sarabjit S. Mastana, Yiming Wang, Mukaddes Golge, Halil Demirtas, Eckart Schnakenberg, Gian Franco de Stefano, Tarekegn Geberhiwot, Mireille Claustres & Richard Villems, “An Indian Ancestry: a Key for Understanding Human Diversity in Europe and Beyond”, ch. 31 of Archaeogenetics: DNA and the population prehistory of Europe, ed. Colin Renfrew & Katie Boyle (Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 2000), pp. 267-275.
  • GENETICS AND THE ARYAN DEBATE Michel Danino* (Published in Puratattva, Bulletin of the Indian Archaeological Society, New Delhi, No. 36, 2005-06, pp. 146-154.)

• In 2003 Kivisild and colleagues questioned the correlation between subsistence categories and genetic difference. Their conclusions highlighted India’s genetic complexity and antiquity, since “present‐day Indians [possess] at least 90 per cent of what we think of as autoch- thonous Upper Paleolithic maternal lineages.” Significantly, “the Indian mtDNA tree in general [is] not subdivided according to linguistic (Indo‐European, Dravidian) or caste affiliations, although there may occur (sometimes drastic) population‐wise differences in frequencies of particular sub‐clusters” (Kivisild et al., 2003a: 216–221). In other words, their results found broad agreement with archaeology and anthropology in con- cluding that language and ethnicity cannot be mapped in a one‐to‐one correspondence relationship. ...
  present-day Indians [possess] at least 90 per cent of what we think of as autochthonous Upper Palaeolithic maternal lineages.... “the Indian mtDNA tree in general [is] not subdivided according to linguistic (Indo-European, Dravidian) or caste affiliations,”... the straightforward suggestion would be that both Neolithic (agriculture) and Indo-European languages arose in India and from there, spread to Europe.”
  • Toomas Kivisild, Siiri Rootsi, Mait Metspalu, Ene Metspalu, Juri Parik, Katrin Kaldma, Esien Usanga, Sarabjit Mastana, Surinder S. Papiha & Richard Villems, “The Genetics of Language and Farming Spread in India,” ch. 17 in Examining the farming/language dispersal hypothesis, eds. Peter Bellwood & Colin Renfrew (Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 2003), pp. 215–222.
  • GENETICS AND THE ARYAN DEBATE Michel Danino* (Published in Puratattva, Bulletin of the Indian Archaeological Society, New Delhi, No. 36, 2005-06, pp. 146-154.)
  • quoted in M. Danino, in : Walimbe, S. R., & Schug, G. R. (2016). A companion to South Asia in the past. chapter 13. Aryans and the Indus Civilization: Archaeological, Skeletal, and Molecular Evidence