title: Tamil merchant in ancient Mesopotamia.
abstract: Recent analyses of ancient Mesopotamian mitochondrial genomes have suggested a genetic link between the Indian subcontinent and Mesopotamian civilization. There is no consensus on the origin of the ancient Mesopotamians. They may be descendants of migrants, who founded regional Mesopotamian groups like that of Terqa or they may be merchants who were involved in trans Mesopotamia trade. To identify the Indian source population showing linkage to the ancient Mesopotamians, we screened a total of 15,751 mitochondrial DNAs (11,432 from the literature and 4,319 from this study) representing all major populations of India. Our results although suggest that south India (Tamil Nadu) and northeast India served as the source of the ancient Mesopotamian mtDNA gene pool, mtDNA of these ancient Mesopotamians probably contributed by Tamil merchants who were involved in the Indo-Roman trade.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Conservation and Utilization of Bioresources, Yunnan University, Kunming, China.
authors.forename: Malliya Gounder
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Palanichamy
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Conservation and Utilization of Bioresources, Yunnan University, Kunming, China; Cellular Immunology Laboratory, University of North Bengal, Raja Rammohanpur, Darjeeling, India.
authors.forename: Bikash
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Mitra
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China.
authors.forename: Monojit
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Debnath
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Genetics, Sanjay Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow, India.
authors.forename: Suraksha
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Agrawal
authors.affiliation: Cellular Immunology Laboratory, University of North Bengal, Raja Rammohanpur, Darjeeling, India.
authors.forename: Tapas Kumar
authors.initials: TK
authors.lastname: Chaudhuri
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Conservation and Utilization of Bioresources, Yunnan University, Kunming, China; State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China.
authors.forename: Ya-Ping
authors.initials: YP
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D044466:Asian People / Q000235:genetics*; D002962:Civilization; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics*; D005788:Gene Pool; D014644:Genetic Variation / Q000235:genetics*; D005828:Genetics, Population / Q000379:methods; D005843:Geography; D006239:Haplotypes / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D064867:Mesopotamia; D010802:Phylogeny
chemical_list: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial