Malana (Himachal Pradesh) autosomal and Y-chromosome study

It would be risky to draw too many conclusions from this: all I can say is that a fairly isolated sample from north India which turns out to be J2- and R1a-dominated is not inconsistent with my own past speculations.

UPDATE

From the paper:

Malana, a remote plateau in the upper reaches (Altitude 2,633 meters) of Parvati valley in Kullu district of Himachal Pradesh, India is an abode to mysterious group of people commonly known as Malanis. Rosser (1955) describes Malana as a hermit village with an aspect of cohesiveness and intense group loyalty that sustains a virulent and suspicious community attitude towards outsiders. Formidable mountain barriers namely Chandrakhani (3,677m); Deo-Tibba (3,732 m) and Rashol Jot (3,238 m) on three sides coupled with the curious efforts of the people to retain their cultural and social uniqueness have ensured virtual biological isolation of the village from the surrounding societies.

and:

We predicted Y chromosome haplogroups from Y-STR data by the use of the Haplogroup Predictor program. The observed haplotypes, predicted haplogroups of the Malana population and the Bayesian probability are reported in Table 4. We found only four haplogroups in the Malana population. Haplogroup J2a1h accounted for 60% of all Y chromosomes. Other haplogroups were R1a (~27%), H (10%) and L (3%). The Bayesian probability was greater than 62% in all the samples.

Hum Biol. 2010 Apr;82(2):123-41.

The Most Ancient Democracy in the World is a Genetic Isolate: An Autosomal and Y-Chromosome Study of the Hermit Village of Malana (Himachal Pradesh, India).

Giroti R, Talwar I.

Abstract

Malana, a small village in Kullu District of Himachal Pradesh, India, has historically been considered a hermit village. Today it has a census size of 1,101 individuals. Geographic, linguistic, and population barriers have contributed to its seclusion. Little is known about the extent to which the population genetically differentiated during the years of isolation. To address this issue, we genotyped 48 Malani individuals at 15 highly polymorphic autosomal STR loci. We found that Malanis have lost some genetic variability compared with the present-day cosmopolitan caste populations and highly mobile pastoral cultures of India. But there is no evidence that they have gone through a severe bottleneck; the average population still shows a mean of 6.86 alleles per locus compared to a mean of 7.80-8.93 for nonisolated populations. An analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) differentiates Malanis from the rest of the comparison populations. The population structure revealed by multidimensional scaling analysis of standard genetic distances lends support to the AMOVA. Our results are consistent with the social heterogeneity of the Malanis. We also analyzed 17 Y-chromosome STRs in 30 individuals to assess the paternal gene pool. The Malanis are characterized by a generally low Y-chromosome haplotype diversity. A network analysis indicates that two closely related haplotypes account for a large proportion of Malani Y chromosomes. We predicted Y-chromosome haplogroups and found that J2 and R1a were the most prevalent. Genetic drift and limited gene flow leading to reduced genetic diversity were important in determining the present genetic structure of the highly endogamous Malana village.

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