Abstract
The archipelago of Lakshadweep is considered as a stopover to the maritime route since ancient time. It is not very clear when the human first occupied these islands, however in the long history of the islands, the local legends suggest that Lakshadweep has been ruled by different kingdoms. To have a better understanding of peopling of Lakshadweep, we have analysed 557 individuals from eight major islands for mitochondrial DNA and 166 individuals for Y chromosome markers. We found a strong founder effect for both paternal and maternal lineages. Moreover, we report a close genetic link of Lakshadweep islanders with the Maldives, Sri Lanka and India. Most of the Lakshadweep islands share the haplogroups specific to South Asia and West Eurasia, except Minicoy Island that also shares haplogroups of East Eurasia. The paternal and maternal ancestries of the majority of island populations suggest their arrival from distinct sources. We found that the maternal ancestry was closer to South Indian populations, whereas the paternal ancestry was overwhelmed with the haplogroups, more common in the Maldives and North of India. In conclusion, our first genetic data suggest that the majority of human ancestry in Lakshadweep is largely derived from South Asia with minor influences from East and West Eurasia.
Highlights
Lakshadweep is an archipelago of about thirty-five islands, scattered over approximately 78,000 square km of the Arabian Sea, 200–440 kms off the south-western coast of India[1,2]
Our analysis on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) has revealed that nearly 56% of the maternal lineages of Lakshadweep islands belong to three major haplogroups (M2b2, M30 and R30) (Table 1 and Supplementary Fig. 2)
The principle component analysis (PCA) of maternal ancestry including South Asian major regions formed a distinct cline of Lakshadweep populations, which is likely due to drift created by strong founder effect seen in www.nature.com/scientificreports their maternal ancestry (Fig. 2)
Summary
The archipelago of Lakshadweep is considered as a stopover to the maritime route since ancient time It is not very clear when the human first occupied these islands, in the long history of the islands, the local legends suggest that Lakshadweep has been ruled by different kingdoms. The paternal and maternal ancestries of the majority of island populations suggest their arrival from distinct sources. Due to its geographical location, the present day Lakshadweep populations may offer a unique insight into historic migration events The exposure of these islands to people from pan-world ethnicity might have created a mosaic like pattern in their genomic ancestry, no genetic study so far has been done on populations living in these islands. We looked for the composition of various haplogroups (hg) present in these islands and their intra and inter-relations to the surrounding populations
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