A new genetic study on the people belonging to the Tai-Ahom dynasty which once ruled Assam has shown that they share a closer affinity to the indigenous Kusunda group of Nepal and the Khasis of Meghalaya than their original ancestry to Thailand.
The Ahoms had migrated from Thailand to eastern India via the Patkai mountains. Chaolung Sukaphaa, the Shaan prince of Mong Mao, was the leader of the Ahoms and is credited to have established the dynasty in Assam in the 13th century. Along with eight nobles, 9,000 people – mostly men – two elephants and 300 horses, Sukaphaa settled in Charaideo in upper Assam. They ruled Assam during 1228-1826.
The Ahoms believed in God, followed burial practices similar to the Hindus and adopted the Assamese language. They would build large graves known as moidams. Since many who migrated from Thailand were men and they adopted the local culture and language of Assam, Ahom men interacted with and married women from the local communities.
“People of the Ahom community mixed and assimilated with various Trans-Himalayan populations inhabiting this region, post migration,” said Sachin Kumar Srivastava, lead author from the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences (BSIP), Lucknow.
The study, published in the journal of Human Molecular Genetics, was jointly conducted by archaeologists and zoologists across BSIP, Banaras Hindu University, Deccan College and Post Graduate Research Institute, Pune, Mangalore University, Nagpur-based Archaeological Survey of India and the Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research, Ghaziabad.
For the study, blood samples of 10 individuals from the Ahom population living in Assam were collected. Later, its DNA genotyping was performed and over 6.12 lakh autosomal markers were obtained and studied in detail.
“The high-resolution haplotype-based analysis showed links of the Ahom dynasty individuals to the Kusunda group and the Khasis, an Austroasiatic population of Meghalaya,” said Niraj Rai, head of the Ancient DNA lab at BSIP.
During their six centuries of ruling and admixture with the local communities, the Ahoms significantly deviated from their Thai-based ancestry and assimilated well with the local South Asian population, the study noted.
The Indo-Burmese and Trans-Himalayan genetic ancestry found in later generations was due to the domination post the admixtures, thereby shedding the original Southeast Asian ancestry and adopting the South Asian ones, the experts explained.
Such genetic studies further establish the history of migration of various populations that amalgamated in northeast India, a region that is a mixture of various ethnic and indigenous populations with multiple ancestors from the South Asia region, noted Gyaneshwar Choubey, the paper’s co-author and population geneticist from BHU.
