Estimating a date of mixture of ancestral South Asian populations.
Linguistic and genetic studies have shown that most Indian groups have ancestry from two genetically divergent populations, Ancestral North Indians (ANI) and Ancestral South Indians (ASI). However, the date of mixture still remains unknown. We analyze genome-wide data from about 60 South Asian groups using a newly developed method that utilizes information related to admixture linkage disequilibrium to estimate mixture dates. Our analyses suggest that major ANI-ASI mixture occurred in the ancestors of both northern and southern Indians 1,200-3,500 years ago, overlapping the time when Indo-European languages first began to be spoken in the subcontinent. These results suggest that this formative period of Indian history was accompanied by mixtures between two highly diverged populations, although our results do not rule other, older ANI-ASI admixture events. A cultural shift subsequently led to widespread endogamy, which decreased the rate of additional population mixtures.
I would be very interested in reading that paper. Also, I wonder how many new samples did they genotype beyond the ones in Reich et al' Reconstructing Indian Population History and if I could get my hands on the new data.
I have a feeling that ANI (Ancestral North Indian) captures a bunch of different migrations and conquests etc, so I am not sure if it can be equated to Indo-European language movement.