Mone on the Genetic Origins of the Gypsies

From The New York Times

Genomic Study Traces Roma to Northern India

By SINDYA N. BHANOO

Published: December 10, 2012

 

The Roma people of Europe, often called Gypsies, are long thought to have originated in India because of similarities between Roma and Indian languages. But historical records are scanty.

 

Now a wide-ranging genomic study appears to confirm that the Roma came from a single group that left northwestern India about 1,500 years ago.

      

“Some genetic studies have also pointed to India before, but it was not clear what part of India,” said an author of the study, David Comas, an evolutionary biologist at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona.

      

Dr. Comas led the study with Manfred Kayser from Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands. They and other colleagues report their findings in a recent issue of Current Biology.

      

The researchers studied 800,000 genetic markers in more than 150 Roma from 13 groups and compared them with people from other ethnic groups. Dr. Comas and his colleagues found that the Roma are also genetically similar to other Europeans.

      

“Fifteen hundred years ago these people went to the Balkans and then spread all over Europe,” Dr. Comas said. “And they have mixed with Europeans during different periods throughout.”

      

At about 11 million, the Roma are Europe’s largest minority, and are frequently the subject of political dispute in the European Union. The marginalized group is still nomadic, often building illegal camps.

      

“This is an example of one minority that has been ignored in most genetic studies,” Dr. Comas said. “What we have now is an idea of the origins and genetic structure of this population.”         

DNA Proves Romany Originated in NW India or Pakistan

So, the "Gypsies" aren't from ancient Egypt after all.  That blows up a lot of hypotheses favored by some.

European Romani Exodus Began 1,500 Years Ago, DNA Evidence Shows

Dec. 6, 2012 — Despite their modern-day diversity of language, lifestyle, and religion, Europe's widespread Romani population shares a common, if complex, past. It all began in northwestern India about 1,500 years ago, according to a study reported on December 6th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, that offers the first genome-wide perspective on Romani origins and demographic history.

The Romani represent the largest minority group in Europe, consisting of approximately 11 million people. That means the size of the Romani population rivals that of several European countries, including Greece, Portugal, and Belgium.

"We were interested in exploring the population history of European Romani because they constitute an important fraction of the European population, but their marginalized situation in many countries also seems to have affected their visibility in scientific studies," said David Comas of the Institut de Biologia Evolutiva at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Spain.

The Romani people lack written historical records on their origins and dispersal. To fill in the gaps in the new study, Comas and Manfred Kayser from Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands, together with their international European colleagues, gathered genome-wide data from 13 Romani groups collected across Europe to confirm an Indian origin for European Romani, consistent with earlier linguistic studies.

The genome-wide evidence specified the geographic origin toward the north or northwestern parts of India and provided a date of origin of about 1,500 years ago. While the Middle East and Caucasus regions are known to have had an important influence on Romani language, the researchers saw limited evidence for shared genetic ancestry between the European Romani and those who live in those regions of the world today. Once in Europe, Romani people began settling in various locations, likely spreading across Europe via the Balkan region about 900 years ago.

"From a genome-wide perspective, Romani people share a common and unique history that consists of two elements: the roots in northwestern India and the admixture with non-Romani Europeans accumulating with different magnitudes during the out-of-India migration across Europe," Kayser said. "Our study clearly illustrates that understanding the Romani's genetic legacy is necessary to complete the genetic characterization of Europeans as a whole, with implications for various fields, from human evolution to the health sciences."