316 / VEDIC VENUES

Of Mice and Men: DNA, Archaeological

and Linguistic correlation of the
two linked journeys of mice and men
Premendra Priyadarshi, (Dr)
email: priyadarshi101@hotmail.com

Abstract:
The domestic mouse and the house rat are two human
commensal species which originated in India. The
domestication of the two had occurred in India before they
migrated out about 15,000 and 20,000 years back
respectively. It is generally held that these species migrated
with farming related human migrations. The DNA analysis of
the mice (Mus musculus) informs us that the domesticus sub-
species left India, entered Iran, reached West Asia and from
there Southeast Europe. The other sub-species musculus
musculus entered Central Asia from India to disperse in the
Russian steppe and further west.
These routes of migration of commensal mice overlap the
routes and times of human migration as deciphered more
recently by human DNA studies (musculus R1a1a: Central
Asia, Russia, Europe; domesticus J2b: Iran, Fertile Crescent,
South Europe).
It was found earlier that male DNA lineage J2b (M12;
M102), distributed from India to South Europe, was associated
with the migration of Indo-European language and farming in
West Asia and Southern Europe. J2b samples were only lately
studied in India. Data for age of this lineage in India, Iran,
Anatolia and the Balkans, obtained from different published
papers show that this lineage too originated in India and then
 OF MICE AND MEN / 317
migrated to Europe through Iran and West Asia. Our study
rules out Seminoís claim of origin of this lineage in West Asia
or North Africa, and notes that Semino (2004:1026 fig 2D) got
his result wrong only because he had excluded DNA samples
from South Asia east of Pakistan.
We thus find that the mice and human Y-chromosomal
lineages migrated out from India with farming and Indo-
European languages by two routes, one northern and the other
southern, both meeting again in the Central and Western
Europe.

Archaeology and Ecology of Commensalism and

Mice Migration
Domestic mice and house rats are commensals of man,
subsisting on human food debris, although they also steal food
from farms and storage. It has been found that these species of
mice and rats migrated with agricultural migrations taking
place after the Last Glacial Maximum; however, non-
commensal species migrated earlier independently of human
migration.
It became known even before the arrival of DNA
technology that India was the original home of all mice and
rats, collectively called the murids. Early on G. Tate noted, on
the basis of bones, feet and other morphological features of the
murids, that India was undoubtedly the home of these rodents
(1936:506, n2). A genus of rat, Bandicota, found in Malaysia
and Java, was noted to have its headquarters in India
(ibid:512). Genus Rattus, which has a global distribution
today, too was noted to have its home in India (ibid).
However, some wild members of genus Rattus migrated to the
Islands of East India quite early, where they evolved into
further species adapted to those areas (ibid). From Burma,
some Rattus members entered China.
Mus originated in India, and its commensal species (Mus
musculus) evolved and lived only in north India until 15,000
years back. Ferris et al, on the basis of DNA analysis of
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domestic varieties of Mus, estimated that ìthe commensal

association between mice and our ancestors began more than a
million years ago, i.e., at an early stage in the evolution of
Homo erectusî (1983:Abstract). This commensal relation
between Homo erectus and some species of Mus is indirect
evidence that Homo erectus lived in India during most of this
period, because we know that commensal species of Mus did
not live anywhere beyond India then.
When Homo sapiens sapiens arrived in India in about
100,000 ybp or earlier, domestic mice became adapted to live
in and around human dwellings. Boursot noted that the
domestic mouseís ìexpansion to the periphery of Eurasian
range, and more recently to the rest of the world, is related to
human activityî (1993:119). Searle (2009) too noted that
phylogeography of the house mice should reflect patterns of
human movement in the past.
The house mouse Mus musculus was one of the early
species of Mus. Mus musculus diverged into three principal
sub-species, viz. Mus musculus domesticus, M. musculus
musculus and M. musculus castaneus about 500,000 years
back (Geraldis, 2008; Din, 1996; Boursot, 1993), and all of
these three commensal sub-species, continued to live in India
until about 15,000 years back.
However, it has been noted that there are many Mus species
in Europe and West Asia, which have no affinity with human
dwellings. These ëfree-livingí (not dependent on human
dwellings) species, such as Mus macedonicus, Mus spicilegus
and Mus cypriacus, too originated in India, but they left India
much earlier, about 700,000 to 500,000 years back, and have
been living in Europe and West Asia independently of man
since then (Macholan et al, 2007). However, the three
branches of the commensal species Mus musculus did not
leave India when man left India during the Upper Paleolithic
(between 70,000 and 25,000 ybp) for Southeast Asia,
Central Asia or West Asia. Domestic Mice left India with man
only when the Neolithic era arrived, about 15,000 to 10,000
years back.
 OF MICE AND MEN / 319
This raises a question as to why the domestic mice preferred
to stay in India, and not venture out with man during the Upper
Paleolithic. This implies that even before farming was adopted
by man in India, there had been surplus food gathered by man
from wild Indian paddy fields and other sources. Some works
analyzing domestic mice migration from West Asia to West
Europe provide insight into this question.
Auffray and colleagues (1990) studied mice fossils from
West Asia and Europe vis-à-vis archaeological remains. They
noted that although many wild species of mice had entered
West Asia and Europe since much earlier times, the house
mouse (Mus musculus domesticus) appeared at the
easternmost Mediterranean Basin at the endpoint of the
Pleistocene, i.e. about 10,000 years before present (ybp). It did
not spread further west for many thousand years. Bones of this
species were found from the western Mediterranean Basin
from the Bronze Age layer, and in north-west Europe from the
Iron Age layer, but not earlier when the Neolithic first arrived
into these areas. On the other hand musculus sub-species of
the house mice (Mus musculus musculus) reached Central
Europe and then Northwest Europe through Russia earlier than
the domesticus subspecies, at a time when the latter was
confined to the Levant or East Mediterranean basin.
Aufray et al note that this archaeological survey is in
agreement with genetic data of mice which provide indications
as to the speed, steps and pathways of progression of the
house mouse populations in western Eurasia. It is interesting to
note that the spread of the domesticus corresponds with the
spread of human male lineage J2b in West Asia and Europe,
while that of musculus musculus sub-species with that
of human male lineage R1a in Central Asia and Europe
(vide infra).
Cucchi, Aufray and Vigne raise this question, ìWhy did
colonization by house mice in the Western Mediterranean not
occur until the Iron Age, when it would have been expected
that the species would have benefited from ecological transfer
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and passive transportation during Neolithic migrations ?î Why

domesticus mice remained stationed at West Asia for many
thousand years without making any westward progression into
Western Europe? What prevented their westward diffusion
they ask (2005:436).
In a bid to find the answers, they examine the matter further.
ìAccording to the biological definition of commensalism, the
house mouse relationship with humans should depend only on
food supply and possible protection against climatic variations
and predation, without either harm or benefit from the latter.î
Mice must have felt safer in human vicinity. Tsutim et al
(2008) found that human environment gives protection to
sparrows from being predated by carnivorous birds and
animals. The same must have been applicable to the mice.
It is well accepted that the existence of the house mice was
so much dependant on human food that they migrated with
man as a passive migrant. ìOne of the most characteristic
features of house mice life history is probably its
commensalism in relation to humans. The worldwide
colonization by this species is mainly due to passive transport
by humans and is a consequence of its ecological dependence
on humansî wrote ecologists Wilson and Reeder (2005:1401).
However, a particular threshold of density of human
population was required to generate enough food-debris for
the survival of a colony of mice. Searle et al (2009) noted that
the mice lineages established in the western and northern parts
of British Islands were results of Viking arrivals. ìTo form
viable populations, house mice would have required large
human settlements such as the Norwegian Vikings foundedî,
they noted. Mice lineages found in other parts of British
Islands reflect earlier development of larger human
settlements during the Iron Age movement of man from
Germany into Britain (ibid.).
Moreover any house mouse migration to a new area could
not have taken place until the humans of the new area had
been advanced enough to stop small game hunting. For this to
 OF MICE AND MEN / 321
have happened, the mere arrival of farming into the area was
not enough. Man of that area needed to be very highly
dependent on farming, so as to spare the small animal from
hunting.
This gives us an answer as to why mice migration from the
Eastern Mediterranean region to West Europe did not take
place until a particular point of time. Or, why domestic mice
migration from India to West Asia did not take place until
12,000 or 10,000 ybp. Thus we can explain the house mice
migration on the basis of source-sink theory of Dias (1996).
Human population of source area needs to have some specific
features, like generation of enough food debris or surplus
food, and that of the sink area should lack those supporting
features and should have features hostile to the new-comers,
leading to death of new arrivals. It may be assumed
that because of smallness of fertile area in the Middle East,
even arrival of the Neolithic could not generate a very large
human population there to have acted as a source of large
number of mice for passive export or migration to Western
Mediterranean.
Munro, on the basis of archeological evidence found that
during the Natufian period (about 12,000 ybp), West Asian
people hunted fast-running small games, even though a
sedentary life had been established (2003:53). Similar
aggressive small game hunting was practiced in Europe too at
that time, where from a single site in Portugal dating 12,000
ybp, 9000 rabbit bones have been recovered (Hockette).
Probably such conditions prevailed in the northwestern
Europe until the first millennium BCE when the Iron Age took
off there. Hence before the Iron Age in northwest Europe and
the Bronze Age in southwest Europe, house mice could not
have thrived as commensal.
Cucchi et al analyse the whole thing in the following way,
ìTchernov (1984, 1991) has demonstrated, through the first
sedentary settlements in the Natufian period, that
commensalism is a consequence of both intensive human
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pressure on natural habitats and increases in plant usage

leading to the creation of a new ecological niche available for
anthropophilous 1 species. This anthropization of the
environment should have provided a decrease of predation
and of interspecific competition. It should also have increased
the food availability for mice and provided protection against
meteorological variation and climatic change.î (2005:437)
Thus the mere arrival of farming was not sufficient to lead to
the ìanthropizationî of Europe until the Bronze Age in Central
Europe and the Iron Age in Northwest Europe. There was little
anthropization of Western Europe until Iron Age, as compared
to the Neolithic period large villages or towns of the Eastern
Mediterranean, Iran and India (ibid). Thus Cucchi et al take
help of the source-sink theory (of Dias) considering that the
western and north-western European environments acted like
sinks for mice, until the first millennium BC (ibid:439-440).
This ecological discussion (and source-sink theory) can be
applied to human migrations also, and that makes it clear that
the West Asian ecosystem was not large enough to have acted
as a human linguistic source to a much larger and already
more densely populated area such as north India. Moreover
creating an elite-dominance by a tiny ìsourceî linguistic-
population over a huge ìsinkî linguistic-population was not
possible by any West Asians arriving at northern India.
Human migration from West Asia to Iran and India claimed by
Renfrew (2004:80) is further ruled out by Groubeís (1996)
analysis, which rejects this possibility after taking into account
all the various ecological factors. He finds that population
expansion after glacial periods starts in southern latitudes first,
and when the ëCarrying Capacityí of area reaches saturation,
then migrations take place to the north. In the West Asian case,
no post-glacial migration either to the east or south could have
taken place and human migrations must have taken place only
to the west and north, he concludes (ibid:105).

1
Anthropophilus, literally meaning ëman lovingí. In ecology, it means living
beings which live near man or human dwellings.
 OF MICE AND MEN / 323

Fig.1 (from Renfrew 2004:80, fig. 5.1). Renfrewís flawed scheme of origin
of 1) Afro-Asiatic (Semitic), 2) Elamo-Dravidian, 3) Indo-Aryan and 4)
Altaic language families from the hypothetical nuclear area (West Asia)
where four major language families originated without any geographical
isolation from each other. Routes 2 and 4 are not supported by DNA
findings for man and mouse. DNA flow is from east to west.

We thus know from archaeology and ecology that

people outside India, like those in Central Asia, Iran and West
Asia, stopped the hunting mode of life and started subsisting
largely on cereals in a sedentary lifestyle several thousand
years after the Last Glacial Maximum. There is certainty in
archaeological evidence for the appearance of the domestic
mice and the Neolithic together in West Asia and
Mediterranean basin (Bonhomme 2010:6-7, web version).
Domestic mice, sedentary living, the decreased hunting of
small animals and the Neolithic appear at West Asia as a
package suddenly, giving certainty to inevitable conclusion
that the two arrived together. On the other hand Indian
Neolithic evolved gradually over time. It is because of this
ëpackagedí nature of West Asian Neolithic that many
authorities believe the Neolithic was imported to West Asia
from somewhere else.
Although, recent researches have revealed that modern
324 / VEDIC VENUES

human behavior originated for the first time in India (James

and Petraglia, 2005:S7; James, 2009; Petraglia et al, 2009),
there has been a lot of resistance from archeologists, linguists
and historians to this fact. In the past, historians usually tended
to date all advanced cultural remains within the Biblical time
limit of 6000 ybp.
Kivisild impugns this bias in favour of West Asia in the
following words, ìThe heart of the matter is an understanding
and reevaluation of some of the basic concepts of South Asian
archaeology in a global context, including modern human
behavior, the cultural shift(s) toward it, and the geographic
spread of its manifestations. According to the ìclassicalî view,
blade technology in India is classified as Upper Palaeolithic,
with the implicit assumption that it is derived from the culture
arising first in the Near East and expanding approximately
40,000 years ago toward Europe.î (2005:S18)
Kivisild supports James and Petragliaís theory of the South
Asian origin of modern human behavior: ìJames and Petraglia
argue, on the basis of the wide diversity of Late Pleistocene
lithic tools in South Asia, the continuity of Middle and Upper
Palaeolithic sites, and their distinctiveness from the
contemporary artifacts of the Near East and Europe, that the
South Asian ëUpper Palaeolithicí developed largely from local
roots.î (ibid). He rejects the West Asian origin of modern
human behavior, because it suddenly appears as a package in
West Asia, and that implies transfer of cultural package from
somewhere to West Asia, India being the most likely place for
origin of such package.
A similar view is held by Bar-Yosef (2007) too regarding
West Asia. He attributes the new successful technologies
observed in the Eurasian Upper Palaeolithic to social processes
and economic innovations by Middle Palaeolithic of ësome
particularí region from where this spread as a package to the
West Asia and the rest of world. He rejects West Asia,
and suggests Africa to be the source of farming culture.
 OF MICE AND MEN / 325
Although later genetic studies reject Bar-Yosefís suggestion of
Africa as a source of human population for West Asia, yet his
arguments against West Asia being the place of origin of
farming remain valid.
Tchernov (1997) by a detailed analysis had earlier proved
that there was no correlation between climatic changes and
cultural revolution in West Asia. Bar-Yosef too refuted any
correlation between climatic change and cultural revolution in
West Asia (1998:164). The West Asian cultural revolution is a
sudden appearance of farming, pottery and sedentism,
imported from outside. But such cultural changes in India,
South China and Southeast Asia have evolved slowly in situ
over a long period of time, although influenced by climate.
Hence correlation between climate change and cultural
evolution exists in India, but not in the case of West Asia
(Kivisild, 2005; James and Petraglia, 2005). Thus the
evidence-based opinion of experts on this particular issue is
that the West Asian Neolithic was not indigenous to the West
Asia but was imported there from somewhere else. Recent
findings of Ganga Valley Pottery Neolithic and Mehrgarh
Neolithic provide source or missing link for the West Asian
Neolithic (Priyadarshi 2011b).
If farming did not evolve in situ in West Asia then from
where did it arrive to the West Asia? It remained a matter of
guess for most of the authors. The Bar-Yosef guess ëNorth
Africaí was not supported by any. James and Petraglia firmly
believe that the source of modern behaviour of West Asian
cultures was India. Kivisild also supports this view.
Dennel (2005) supports such a view affirming that
ìmodernity was indigenous to South Asiaî. James (2009)
further buttresses the view. The comparative study of
literature, mythology and linguistics by Kazanas (2009b) too
supports an Indian origin of the ancient West Asian cultures.
Thus ecology, ancient literature and mythology rule out
Renfrewís and Bellwoodís theories of human migration from
West Asia to India.
326 / VEDIC VENUES

This discussion leads us to concluding that the house mice

had a commensal relationship with humans in India since
much before invention of farming. This implies:

i) That human population was quite dense in India, even

before the Neolithic. Hence there was sufficient
ìanthropizationî of the country since very early days.
We know from other works that India had the highest
human population density during much of prehistory
(Petraglia, 2009:1, pdf).
ii) Indians were not aggressive small game hunters
(possibly because of availability of better food like
wild paddy, barley, millets, fruits, tubers and larger
game animals); and
iii) There was a food surplus in India, even before shifting
to farming, to have resulted in waste food and food
debris, for consumption by mice. There were wild
paddy fields in India, which were infested with foxes,
jackals and snakes. However, if there was a human
settlement near the paddy fields, even if man did not
cultivate paddy actively, he must have protected these
fields from being destroyed by jackals, foxes etc. This
effect must have provided sanctuary to the mice in
fields located near human settlements.

House Mice Migrations out of India

It is now generally accepted that man migrated not only
with his own DNA, but also carrying along with him pests,
commensals and infective microorganisms.2 It has been found
that study of domestic mice and rats can be a powerful tool to
know the human prehistory. Such studies have been made for

2
Pests like lice and infective micro-organisms like H. pylori infested and
travelled with man over a long period and longdistances. Today, their DNAs serve
to trace human prehistory. For lice: Toups 2011; for gut bacterium H. pylori: Falush
2003 and Linz, 2007.
 OF MICE AND MEN / 327
West Asia, Europe, Southeast Asia and Polynesia (Rajabi-
Maham, 2007; Cucchi, 2006). However no such study of
human migration, migration of farming and migration
of murids in an Indian context has so far been attempted by
any researcher, largely because of a generally held erroneous
notion that India was not a source of agriculture,
Y-chromosomal (male) lineages, or any language family.
For the same reasons, the Indian human DNA pool too has
not been studied by evolutionary biologists until quite late
(only a couple of exclusive articles exist).3 Yet with the help of
the meager DNA studies of Indians available, we are in a
position to examine whether or not domestic mice migration
occurred with human Y-chromosomal DNAs in the South
Asian context too.
Groves (1984, 1995) surveyed a large number of murids
morphologically and found that many non-commensal as well
as commensal species were introduced into Island and
Mainland Southeast Asia (ISA, MSA) from India together
with rice agriculture. Non-commensal species Mus caroli and
Mus cervicolor, non-commensal murids invariably restricted
to the rice farming areas, originated in India, and today they
are widely distributed in MSA north of the Malay, but
distributed only spottily in the archipelago (Fig. 2). Mus dunni,
a small mouse, native of northeast India, is a rice-field pest of
Indonesia (Groves 1995). Migration of the rice-field pests
from India is consistent with some of more recent views that
rice-farming may have originated in India (Tewari 2006; Sang
2009). The commensal sub-species of domestic mice in the
SEA is Mus musculus casteneus. It is also found in India, its
place of origin.

3
Evolutionary biologist Rosenburg (2006:2052) noted, ìAlthough India
comprises more than one sixth of the worldís human population, it has largely been
omitted fromgenomic surveys that provide the backdrop for association studies
of genetic disease.î
328 / VEDIC VENUES

Fig.2. Distribution of Mus cervicolor in rice fields in the SEA,

from Groves 1984.

Most of the species of genus Mus, whether commensal or

non-commensal, are found in India. Wilson and Reeder noted
about the three subspecies of commensal mice, ìGenetic data
indicated that ranges of musculus, castaneous and domesticus likely
correspond to three distinct paths of expansion from the Indian
cradle.î (2005:1409; also Bourset 1993:128) In fact later discovery of
migration routes and distribution ranges of human male lineages (Y-
DNA) R1a1a (Underhill 2010); O2a (Kumar 2007) and J2b
(Sengupta 2006; Priyadarshi 2011a) exactly overlap those of the
three Mus musculus sub-species respectively.

Fig.3. Routes of mice migration out of India. The route marked ëdí (for
domesticus) overlaps the route of human migration of male lineage
haplogroup J2b. The route ëmí (for musculus) overlies the route of
human migration for R1a1a (M17; old name R1a). J2 (which includes
J2b) has been identified as a lineage carrying Indo-European language
and farming into West Asia and South Europe. On the other hand, R1a1a
was identified as a marker of Aryan migration (Wells 2001). Figure from
Boursot et al 1996.
 OF MICE AND MEN / 329

Fig.4. Showing farming and Austro-Asiatic language migration to the

Southeast Asia as male lineage (Y-Chr) O2a. This migration overlaps
mice migration of castaneus sub-sp. (Source: Kumar et al 2007).

Darvish et al (2006) studied DNA of the house mice from

Eastern Iran and drew a lineage map or dendrogram by
comparing it with similar data from other parts of the world.
It showed that the North Indian house mice occupied a central
ancestral place, from where all the three branches or
subspecies of the house mice had originated. One branch
dispersed to South India and Indonesia as castaneous
subspecies. The second branch musculus subspecies passed
from north India to Pakistan, then to Birdjand, Kakhk and
Mashhad (of Khorasan province of northeast Iran), wherefrom
entering Central Asia through Turkmenistan, ultimately
reaching Russia, from where a branch reached Romania. The
domesticus sub-species moved westward from India through
Iran, ultimately reaching Israel and France. All these all
dispersals occurred between 15,000 ybp and 10,000 ybp, after
the Last Glacial Maximum had receded.
330 / VEDIC VENUES

Fig.5. DNA dendrogram showing the house mice origin from India.
Source: Darvish, Bonhomme and Orth 2006.

Mus m. musculus and domesticus species reached the

Arabian coast (Yemen and Oman) from Pakistan, quite early,
from where they migrated along the African coast and in boats
to Madagascar. Duplantier and colleagues noted ìHowever,
the kinship between the Yemeni mice and those from
Madagascar argues in favour of importation along the African
coast and from the islands of Pemba, Zanzibar and the
Comoros, as previously described for the shrew Suncus
murinus by Hutterer and Tranier (1990). This shrew originated
from Asia: it is naturally present from Pakistan to Japan.
Its expansion westwards, to the Arabian peninsula, the coast of
East Africa and the islands of the Indian Ocean is the result of
importations by humansî (Duplantier 2002:156). It is not
irrelevant to mention here that Asian House Shrew is another
commensal mammal, which subsists on insects growing in
domestic drains and food debris. It is found mainly in South
Asia and Southeast Asia. It is called chuchunder in Hindi.
Its Sanskrit is shalyaka-vata which may be a source of English
 OF MICE AND MEN / 331
ëshrewí, however there are no cognate words for shrew in the
Germanic languages.
In fact these authors find absolutely no evidence of any
subspecies of mice having arrived to Madagascar from
Indonesia, thus raising serious doubts over Bellwoodís
hypothesis of human migration from Indonesia to Madagascar
(ibid:157). It is important to correlate here that Underhill et al
(2010) found that there was a sea mediated migration of
human male lineage R1a1a7 (a branch of R1a1a; M17) from
Sind (Pakistan coast) to the Arabian coast (Yemen and Oman).
Rajabi-Maham et al (2008) found that from the Fertile
Crescent mice expansion toward Europe and Asia Minor
took at least two routes, tentatively termed the Mediterranean
and the Bosphorus/Black Sea routes, 12,000 years ago.
However, this date is a bit earlier than what has been
calculated by other authors.
The domestic mice (and the domestic rats) are the only
animal which stayed in India for over 900,000 years without
leaving this country until dispersal of farming started. Given
the fact that there was an advanced pottery Neolithic in the
Ganga Valley at 10,000 ybp (Tewari 2008), we may safely
assume the presence of Pre-Pottery Neolithic in India roughly
about 13,000 ybp to 14,000 ybp, because 3000 years is the
time generally required for transition from non-pottery to
pottery stage of Neolithic in other parts of world like
West Asia. Mus domesticus reached the Eastern Mediterranean
basin in about 10,000 ybp (Cucchi et al 2005). We can
corroborate these two findings and say that 3000 years was the
time required for the migration of mice from India to
West Asia.
Logical inference is that proto-agriculture 4 began first in
India, possibly much earlier than we imagine which kept mice

4
Sedentary settled life, cattle domestication, harvesting and storing from the
wild growths of paddy and other grains, food processing like cooking, milling,
roasting, barbequing etc.
332 / VEDIC VENUES

dependent on Indian human population for ages until finally

agriculture itself evolved and migrated out of India. The route
map of mice migration as mapped by the geneticists is exactly
the same as that of human migrations.

Fig.6. Route map of dispersal of domestic mice. The Mus musculus

domesticus migration, which occurred about 15,000 to 10,000 ybp,
exactly mimics the distribution map of haplogroup J2b to the west of
India, while that of M. musculus musculus mimics that of R1a1a (Figure
from Bonhomme et al 2007).

Migration of Rats
Rattus rattus (black rat, ship rat, roof rat) is another murid
species which originated in India and then migrated to the rest
of the world. From India it migrated to the West Asia and then
to Europe. Rattus reached West Asia by 20,000 years before
present, a date earlier than the domestic mouse migration
(Aplin 2008; CSIRO 2008; Jones 2008). Migration of this
species also took place from India to Madagascar and Western
Indian Ocean through Arabian coast (Yemen, Oman) and
boats, in parallel with that of Mus musculus domesticus
(Tollenaere, 2010).
 OF MICE AND MEN / 333

Fig. 7. Migration route of domestic black rat and domestic cattle as

suggested by Dorian Fuller and Boivin Nicole (2009). Their date for
Indo-African migration are much later than the dates suggested by
available genetic studies.

From DNA studies, Ken Aplin (2008) was able to identify a

total of six house rat (Rattus rattus) lineages in the world.
Although all of them originated in India, they thrived further
as six different lineages in six regions viz. India, East Asia, the
Himalayas, Thailand, the Mekong Delta, and Indonesia. The
Indian lineage spread to the Middle-East around 20,000 years
ago, then later to Europe. It reached Africa, the Americas and
Australia during the Age of Exploration. The migrations were
results of human migrations to these regions from India. ìOur
findings also show a good match between the historic spread
of each lineage and ancient routes of human migration and
trade, but there are a few surprises that raise new questions
about human prehistory,î noted Aplin.
334 / VEDIC VENUES

Fig.7. Routes of migration of six different DNA lineages of Rattus rattus,

as found in the DNA study by Aplin (2008) (Source: CSIRO 2008).

Tollenaere noted, ìPhylogeographic patterns supported the

hypothesis of human-mediated colonization of R. rattus from
source populations in either the native area (India) or anciently
colonized regions (the Arabian Peninsula) to islands of the
western Indian Ocean.î (2010:Abstract) This was possibly
because some early Indian proto-farmers may have migrated
to Arabian and Western Indian Ocean shores at 20,000 ybp, a
date earlier than the supposed date of agriculture in West Asia.
Human migration from India to East Africa through Yemen
has not been studied so far at DNA level. Yet two things point
to such a human migration. One is the presence of
 OF MICE AND MEN / 335
Y-chromosomal haplogroups H1, T (K2) and mitochondrial
DNA haplogroups M1, M6, M3, M4a in East and Central
Africa. The other is common words for many crop products
and domesticated animals in Indian and African languages.5
In fact now strong evidence has emerged for an Indian cultural
migration to Africa round the Last Glacial maximum (Kearsley
2010). Migration histories of zebu (cow) and dog, as revealed
by DNA studies, are consistent with the migration history of
rats, man and proto-farming from India to East Africa, and
from there to West Asia along Red Sea and Nile (Priyadarshi
2011b), but discussing them is beyond the scope of this article.
Rattus norvegicus (brown rat, sewer rat) is a partially
commensal (also exists as free-living or non-commensal)
species in northern Europe (Yoshida, 1980), which migrated
there in large numbers from northeast China in 1727, although
there is evidence of earlier presence of this rat in Europe from
ninth century AD. It had reached China from India, before
Neolithic evolution. This species had evolved for a long time
in China. It is important to note that this species takes
to hunting and preying on mollusks and fish-lings in ponds
and rivers, if faced by any inadequacy of food, while black
rat is not a hunter under any circumstance (Galef Jr. and
Bennett 1980). Norvegicus colonizes colder, moister places,
like basements, banks of rivers and sewer channels etc
(Bajomi 1999).
On the other hand the Rattus rattus of Indian origin has
developed full commensalism and complete dependence on
human food and environment. It does not hunt. It stores food
stolen from human households. In contrast to norvegicus, R.
rattus prefers to live at higher, drier and warmer places like
attics and thatched roofs (Harpar 2005). This is another
behavioral adaptation owing to living within human dwellings

5
Although Wintersís (2007, 2008, 2010a, 2010b) assumption that Dravidian
speakers came to India from Africa is not proved correct by his articles, these
inadvertently supply enough evidence, both linguistic and genetic, to prove the
reverse i.e. there was a farming related migration from India to East Africa.
336 / VEDIC VENUES

in Upper Paleolithic India, because dogs necessarily lived in or

about human dwellings at that time, forcing the black rats to
occupy the roofs as safe home.
From the difference of habitat and habit, it can be inferred
that contact of Chinese rat (Rattus norvegicus) with farming
society and cereal diet is very late, and this rat has retained
much of its predator or wild habits, which is a legacy of
its living in the non-farming surrounding of China till lateóan
indirect evidence of the late arrival of rice-farming in northeast
China.
There are non-domestic rice-field pest rat species, which are
found in India and SEA. They too originated in India and have
migrated with rice-farming to SEA rice-fields. Rattus nitidus
(a native of Nepal), Rattus argentiventer and Bandicoot-rat
(Bandicota bengalensis, a native of Mahanadi delta, lives in
association with buffalo) are some of the examples (Groves
1984 & 1995). It may be noted that buffalo too was
domesticated first in India from where its domesticated
lineages migrated to SEA and Egypt (Groves 1995). Origin of
these rice-field pests in India and their subsequent migration to
Southeast Asia is indirect evidence that India is the older
natural home of rice. There is enough DNA evidence for the
first domestication of rice in India (Priyadarshi 2011b),
discussing which is beyond the scope of this article.

Human Migration from India

Y-Chromosomal Lineage J2b (M12, M102)

The male human lineage (Y-chromosonal haplogroup) J2b
quite intriguingly overlaps the route map of Mus m.
domesticus. Priyadarshi (2011a) found that the age of this
lineage given by different authors for different parts of
Eurasia, if tabulated, lead to the conclusion that this DNA
lineage originated in India about 14,000 or 15,000 ybp, and
then migrated to West Asia, and from there to the Southeast
Europe (Tables 1 and 2; Fig.7).
 OF MICE AND MEN / 337

Table 1: STR Variance of Y chromosomal

Haplogroups J2b and J2
Haplogroup India Iran West Asia/ Balkans/
(South Anatolia Europe
west
Asia)
J2b (M12) 0.436 0.337 0.248 0.1919
J2 (M172) 0.8410 0.5211

STR Variance of Y-Chromosomal Haplogroups (Greater

variance indicates older age of DNA lineage at that place)

Table 2
Haplogroup India Iran West Asia/ Balkans/
Anatolia Europe
J2 (M172) Not Not 18,600
available available years12
J2b (M12; Not Not 8,600 12,300 years
also M102) available available years13 in Battagliaís
This is a study; 14 6,700
descendant of years at
J2 (above) Nekomedeia
(Macedonia)15

6
Sengupta 2006:212, Fig. 4.
7
Data from Cinnioglu 2004, quoted by Sengupta, 2006:216.
8
Cinnioglu 2004:131, Table 2.J2b has been named J2e in this article.
9
Battaglia 2009:7 (web version), Table 1. Also, figure from Pericic et al. 2005,
quoted by Sengupta 2006:216.
10
Thanseem 2006:6, web version, Fig. 2.
11
Cinnioglu 2004:131, Table 2.
12
Ibid
13
Ibid.
14
Battaglia, V. et al, Y-chromosomal evidence of the cultural diffusion of
agriculture in southeast Europe, European Journal of Human Genetics (2009) 17,
820-830; Table 1, p. 826.
15
King, R. J. et al, Differential Y-chromosome Anatolian Influences on the
Greek and Cretan Neolithic, Annals of Human Genetics 2008, 72,205ñ214;
Table 2, page 210.
338 / VEDIC VENUES

Haplogroup India Iran West Asia/ Balkans/

Anatolia Europe
J2b2 (M241 13,800 Not 10,100 5,800 years
This is a years16 available years17 (Central
descendant of Italy);
J2b (above) 5,400 years
(Albania);
2,900 years
(Greece);18
4,800 years19

Table showing age of Y-Chromosomal Haplogroups J2b and

J2 in different areas (data pooled from several studies). It has
been proposed that J2b did not reach the Balkans from
Anatolia, but used sea coastal route to reach the Balkans and
Italy (Di Giakomo 2004:367, last line of conclusion). Tables
are from Priyadarshi, 2011a.
The migration map of J2b corresponds to the Mus m.
domesticus spread route not only grossly, but in finer detail
too. Thus the J2b reached southeast Anatolia, and then did not
penetrate rest of Anatolia, but took sea route to reach the
Balkans and Cyprus (Di Giakomo). Crete was not populated
by J2b lineage, but by another lineage (J2a) which dominated
the western and northern Anatolia (King 2008).
DNA studies have revealed that lineage J2, of which J2b is a
segment, is associated with spread of Indo-European language
and farming in West Asia and Southeast Europe. It was noted
by King and Underhill (2002) that in Europe and Levant,
Turkey, Iraq and Iran this haplogroup is found in those areas
which also have archaeological evidence of early farming,
figurine, clay sealing stamps and painted pottery. Chiaroni

16
Sengupta, p. 216.
17
Battaglia, V. et al, Y-chromosomal evidence of the cultural diffusion of
agriculture in southeast Europe, European Journal of Human Genetics (2009) 17,
820-830; Table 2, p. 826.
18
Ibid.
19
Ibid.
 OF MICE AND MEN / 339
et al (2008) showed that the haplogroup J2 is found
principally in those areas of West Asia which have a good
rainfall. Burbujani (1995) noted that specific DNAs,
Indo-European language and farming culture had migrated
together in Europe.
Piazza (1995) too found that certain DNA, Indo-European
languages and Neolithic had spread together into Europe. He
however noted that there were distinctly two branches of Indo-
European entering into Europe, one from the Kurgan area in
the northeast Europe, and the other in the Balkans from West
Asia. However he could not locate the common source of both
the branches of Indo-European.
Today, scientists, linguists and archaeologists of Europe by
and large hold that the J2 spread in South Europe was
associated with Indo-European linguistic migration (Piazza
1995; Burbujani 1995; Renfrew, 2004; Bellwood, 2002; Gray
and Atkinson, 2003). Hence such a view should not now be
dropped only because it has become obvious recently that J2,
in all likelihood, originated from India.

Fig.8. Distribution of J2b. (Source: Family tree DNA: History Unearthed

Daily, M102 Project)
340 / VEDIC VENUES

Cucchi notes that the Neolithic too does not enter into
Anatolia beyond the southeastern and central regions of the
peninsula (2005b:434). Rather it takes a sea route to reach the
Aegean, Balkan and Italian-Adriatic areas in the next couple
of millennia (Fig.7 too corroborates this finding). And
Mus m. domesticus too does not enter into Anatolia beyond its
southeastern region, reaches Cyprus by sea (2005b:437-8;
2005a:61-77) and spares Crete (2005b:434). Thus farming,
house mice and J2b (and J2b2) all the three do not penetrate
Anatolia beyond a certain point and prefer to move together
by sea route to Cyprus, Balkans, Greece and Italy.
Not only this, the distribution of the two European
sub-species of domestic mice domesticus and musculus
overlaps the distribution of language families and human
Y-chromosomal lineages, in such a way that Bulgaria acts as a
break zone between the two sub-species of the domestic mice
(Vanlerberghe et al), the South European and East European
languages and the human Y-chromosomal lineages J2 and
R1a1a. However, this overlap of the three does not occur in
West and Northwest Europe because the advent of mice into
these areas was delayed until the Iron Age. Thus the western
coast of Europe has been captured by the southern subspecies
of mice domestucus, which reaches up to Sweden and
Denmark (Bozikova:364).

Y-Chromosomal Lineage R1a1a or M17 (Old names EU19,

R1a, R1a1)
We note in Underhillís map (2010) that the male human
lineage R1a1a (M17) originates from Gujarat-Sind in India
15000 years back and then moves north, enters Central Asia,
then reaches steppe region, north of Caspian Sea, then moves
west to north Pontic area, spreads in Russia, then Central
Europe (Colour Fig.3).
 OF MICE AND MEN / 341

Fig.9. Y chromosomal DNA marker R1a1a (M17) distribution.

It overlaps the range of Mus m. musculus. The inset picture gives the age
of this lineage at different places (Source: Underhill 2010).

On the origin of R1a1* 20 Underhill noted: ìAnalysis of

associated STR diversity profiles revealed that among the
R1a1a*(xM458) chromosomes the highest diversity is
observed among populations of the Indus Valley yielding
coalescent times above 14 KYA (thousands of years ago),
whereas the R1a1a* diversity declines toward Europe where
its maximum diversity and coalescent times of 11.2 KYA are
observed in Poland, Slovakia and Crete. As islands such as
Crete have been subject to multiple episodes of colonization
from different source regions, it is not inconsistent that R1a1a*
Td predates the date of its first colonization by the first farmers
approximately 9 KYA. Also noteworthy is the drop in R1a1a*
diversity away from the Indus Valley toward central Asia
(Kyrgyzstan 5.6 KYA) and the Altai region (8.1 KYA) that
marks the eastern boundary of significant R1a1a* spread.î
(2010:2 pdf version).

20
(*) is added to indicate the original non-mutated form of the DNA
haplogroups. The STR ëdiversityí of a DNAhaplogroup in any area is marker of
age of the haplogroup in that area.
342 / VEDIC VENUES

Thus Crete and Turkey received Indian migrations by two

routes and at two different times. The earlier one was the wave
of R1a1a reaching there round the Caspian Sea, and the much
later one (with farming) was J2b. A third migration to these
places by J2a too took place although its source and time has
not yet been decided.
We can see in Figs. 3 and 4, and Colour Fig. 3 that exactly
the same route as the R1a1a has been adopted by
Mus musculus musculus. We have already noticed that this
mouse sub-species had reached west and north Europe before
domesticus. R1a1a too reached Europe before J2b, as noticed
by Underhill (supra).
This whole area of R1a1a dispersal is inhabited today by
Indo-European speakers, except a tract in the Central Asia.
However, it has been found that this area too had been
inhabited by Indo-European (Tocharian) speakers until a
thousand years back. Males of the 4000 years old mummies
recovered from Tarim Basin have all revealed the R1a1a DNA
(Chunxiang Li 2010). Tarim mummies have been interpreted
by Eurocentric minds as White European invasion of Central
Asia (Mallory 2008; Light 1999; Hemphill 2004).
Thus we note that this male lineage of Indian origin (R1a1a)
is associated with Indo-European languages, and also with
migrating mouse Mus m. musculus. Thus although Wells
(2001) and Passarino (2001) had postulated a wrong direction
of DNA migration (from Central Asia to India), Wellsís
identification of this lineage as a marker of speakers of Indo-
European language is true as far as the tract of land spreading
from Northwest India to Europe via Central Asia and Russia is
concerned.
Cognate words for ëmouseí are found exclusively within the
Indo-European family of languages. Dr Nicholas Kazanas has
noted the philological distribution and variation of mus which
in fact correlate well with the archaeological findings
(Kazanas 2009a:162-163, n29). He examines the cognates for
 OF MICE AND MEN / 343
ëmouseí in the Indo-European family of languages and notes
that Celtic and Baltic languages do not have a cognate word
for mus. He writes, ìOf the animals, a most revealing case is
the mouse (208). The cogn stem does not appear in C and B;
S has mµus, Gk mµus, L mµus, Gmc mus, Sl my|sµu, Alb m∂ and Arm
mu-kn. These stems hang isolated in all these languages. In S
again we find a full vb √ mu¶ > mu¶-nå-ti ëstealsí and a large
family of related words: mµu¶-aka ëstealer, mouseí (cf √ car
ëmoveí > caraka ; √ yåc ëaskí > yåcaka); mu¶-∂van(t) ërobberí,
mu¶ka(ra) ëtesticleí; mu¶¢i ëclenched fistí; etc. Again
S displays O[rganic] C[oherence] whereas the others show
breakdown and heavy loss(es).î21 (square brackets added).
This is consistent with the archaeological finding that mice
did not arrive in the western and northwestern regions of
Europe with the wave of advance of the Neolithic culture per
se, and its associated Indo-European language (vide supra).
Thus, Indo-European languages reached Baltic and Celtic
areas without mice. This led to the ìlossî of cognates meaning
ëmouseí from these languages. Several thousand years later
when the mouse arrived into these areas, fresh words had to be
coined in these languages to mean ëmouseí.22 Hence there is
an absence of cognates of mus in these two language families.
The diversity of the derived words from mus in Sanskrit, as
discussed by Kazanas, is an indicator of longer association of
Sanskrit with the mouse. We may remember here that in
genetics, the place which shows maximum diversity of
derived lineages of any DNA haplogroup is considered the
home or place of origin of that lineage. And linguistics claims
that it follows the laws of genetics and evolution.
It will not be out of place to mention here the findings of
Gray and Atkinson (2003). They found by computer
21
Abbreviations: cogn=cognate; C=Celtic; B=Baltic; S=Sanskrit; Sl=Slavic,
L=Latin; Gk=Greek; Gmc=Germanic; Alb=Albanian; Arm=Armenian.
22
Proto-Celtic *lukot-, which may have derived from Proto-Celtic *luko-
meaning ëblackí; Lithuanian and Latvian pele.
344 / VEDIC VENUES

generated results that the time of divergence for branches of

Indo-European family should be about 9000 ybp to 7,500
ybp. 12,000 years back is precisely the time when the R1a1a
left India for Central AsiaóRussiaóGermany, and a couple
of thousand years after that J2b left India for IranóWest
AsiaóSouth Europe. Clearly this is consistent with the time of
migration of R1a1a to Russia and Germany and J2b to Iran
from India, and fixes the date of PIE before 10,000 ybp.
It is worthwhile reminding ourselves though, the fallacies of
the linguistic methods, which Dixon (1997) epitomized with
his assertion, based on the linguistic data, that the age of Indo-
European ëcould be anything ó 4,000 years BP or 40,000
years BP or any date in between. Dixon also noted that the
family tree method could not be generalized, and cannot be
applicable everywhere. Similar were the views of Swadesh,
the father of the linguistic dating method, about uncertainties
of the dates from this method (Crystal:331).
Conclusion: The story of the migration of mice provides a
valuable insight into the story of human, and thereby
linguistic, migration. If combined with human genetic studies,
archaeology and ëobjectiveí philology, similar ancillary
studies may serve as a powerful tool to knowing our past.

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