Thursday 17 December 2020

Origins and history of Y DNA Haplogroup J2

This short paper by Maciano Hay provides a good insight into the origin and distribution of this Y DNA Haplogroup to which I belong.

https://www.academia.edu/6089464/Origins_and_history_of_Haplogroup_J2_Y_DNA_?auto=download&email_work_card=download-paper

Wednesday 9 December 2020

Sanauli's Mysterious Warriors by Disha Ahluwalia: a symbiosys of IVC and Steppe warriors?


 The Sanaulians coexisted with the late Harappan (Indus Valley Civilisation IVC) and I am of the opinion that this society was a symbiosys of IVC and the warriors from the Steppes.

Tuesday 17 November 2020

Recommended literature on DNA and genetic genealogy, some free, other available on Amazon as well as to understand the mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines

1. Family Tree DNA Learning Center, Glossaryhttps://learn.familytreedna.com/glossary/

2. International Society of Genetic Genealogy Glossaryhttps://isogg.org/wiki/Genetics_Glossary

3. Emily D. Aulicino, Genetic Genealogy: The Basics and Beyond 

4. Calladine, Horace R. Drew, “Understanding DNA, The molecule and how it works” 

5. Y-DNA Haplogroup Tree: International Society of Genetic Genealogy ISOGG, Y- DNA Haplogroup 

6. mtDNA Haplogroup Tree, PhyloTree mt, van Oven M, Kayser M. 2009. Updated comprehensive 
   phylogenetic tree of global human mitochondrial DNA variation. Hum Mutat 30(2):E386-E394. 
   http://www.phylotree.org. doi:10.1002/humu.20921

7. David Reich, “Who We Are and How We Got Here. Ancient DNA and the new science of the human 
    past”

8. Narasimhan et al. “The formation of human populations in South and Central Asia”,  

9.  Messenger RNAhttps://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/pharmacology-toxicology-and- 
     pharmaceutical-science/messenger-rna

10. CRISPR: Jennifer Doudna, Samuel H. Sternberg: “A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the 
      Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution”. 
      Jennifer Doudna was awarded the 2020 Nobel prize in chemistry

The last two on mRNA (9) and CRISPR-CAS9 (10) are very helpful to better understand the development of the BioNTech/Pfizer and MODERNA/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines.

Monday 31 August 2020

Thanks to DNA, wrongly accused man released after 37 years in Florida jail, some of those years on death row

A Florida man who spent the last 37 years in prison on a rape and murder charge was released Thursday, hours after officials revealed dramatic new evidence that proved his innocence.

Robert DuBoise walked out of the Hardee Correctional Institution in Bowling Green, Florida, shortly after 2 p.m. With him were his mother and sister.

“It’s an overwhelming sense of relief,” Robert DuBoise told reporters outside the prison. “I prayed to God every day and hoped for it.”

The 56-year-old was serving a life sentence, having been convicted in 1983 for the murder of 19-year-old Barbara Grams. She had been raped and beaten while walking home from her job at a Tampa mall.

Read the story using the link below:

https://www.winknews.com/2020/08/28/innocent-florida-inmate-released-after-37-years/

Saturday 22 August 2020

Ancestral South Indians ASI and Ancestral North Indians ANI

The past belief that Dravidians inhabited India and were chased away to the South by Aryans who came from the North is no longer sustainable. The genetics of Indians is far more complex and in its simplest form can be expressed as a mixture of Ancestral South Indians ASI and Ancestral North Indians ANI in differing proportions. The ASI and ANI were themselves mixtures of other populations. The following article is a MUST READ for anyone who is interested in how genetics has discovered who Indians really are. Alternately, read my book for more details!!!

https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/vagheesh/files/eaat7487.full_.pdf

Tuesday 11 August 2020

History of Khazan land management in Goa: ecological, economic and political perspective by Prof. Nandkumar Kamat

My ancestors, the Prabhu clan, were invited to initiate the 4th vangad of Aldona's gaunkari system (comunidade) because of their expertise in reclaiming land and building sluice gates. The following excellent paper by Goa University Professor Nandkumar Kamat explains in clear language and terminology everything we need to know on Khazan (or Khajan) land. This article is a must read for every Goan and everyone else who is interested in Goa's history:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283475605_History_of_Khazan_land_management_in_Goa_ecological_economic_and_political_perspective

Wednesday 15 July 2020

The Pre-historic People of Goa's Usgalimal: Ancient Ancestral South Indians

The Pre-historic People of Usgalimal

Outside the Goan village of Usgalimal, on the banks of the river Kushavati, local villagers were always aware of the existence of petroglyphs or rock art comprising more than 100 images including of bulls and humans carved on laterite stone. In 1993, the locals revealed these petroglyphs to archaeologists and the site has since become a tourist destination
(Thermistocles D’Silva, https://goaprehistory.files.wordpress.com/2018/09/rock-art-at-usgalimal-goa.pdf;
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usgalimal_rock_engravings).

According to the Indian Archaeological Society, these engravings are 20’000 to 30’000 years old. I have unfortunately not had the opportunity to witness the engravings personally but plan to do so the next time I visit Goa. Rock art can be found in many parts of the world; in India, paintings on the walls of caves have been found in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala, Bihar and Uttarakhand (https://www.openart.in/history/rock-art-from-india/).

Who were the people living in Usgalimal more than 20’000 years before present (ybp)? Genetics provides a clue about who these inhabitants could be.

David Reich, V. S. Shinde and other researchers have shown (Narasimhan et al., The Genomic Formation of South and Central Asia, https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6457/eaat7487) that the Indian population consists of a mixture of Ancestral South Indians ASI and Ancestral North Indians ANI in varying proportions. The ASI who created the Indus Valley Civilisation - starting around 7000 ybp - arose when Iranians from the Zagros mountains migrated to the region and mixed with the local population tagged as Ancient Ancestral South Indians AASI. It is these AASI or a population closely related to them, therefore, who inhabited Usgalimal 20’000 ybp and have left behind their art for posterity.

Genetic studies carried out by Harvard professor Reich have linked the AASI to the Onge, an ethnic group of the Andaman Islands. Along with the Great Andamanese, the Jarawas, the Shompen, the Nicobarese and the Sentinelese, the Onge are one of the six native and often reclusive peoples of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and are classified as belonging to the Negrito family. It is possible that the other five are also linked to the AASI but their genetic ancestry is not known.

These people are hunter gatherers, adept at using the bow and arrow. The Sentinelese are particularly intriguing because very little is known about them. They are protected by the Government of India and the island is off limits even for the Indian navy for fear that any close contacts with outsiders may infect the tribe with disease and wipe out the few remaining Sentinelese (https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/worldnews/7795188/worlds-most-ruthless-tribe-that-killed-us-tourist-and-anyone-who-approaches-their-island-love-having-beach-orgies/). And yet, the Sentinelese may be able to provide clues as to how the people of Usgalimal lived their lives, their culture, their food, their sexual habits and rituals or their art.

Friday 29 May 2020

Review on Amazon.com by Michael Fonseca

https://www.facebook.com/michael.fonseca.102361/posts/120546569668103

Bernardo's book (The last Prabhu) is well written. Here is my take (on Amazon review a couple of days ago).
I believe that this book will be used as a reference and guide for years to come. Bernardo has used his scientific background to succinctly walk the reader through the science of DNA for laymen like myself. In this book, the author has used quantitative research, however due to his love for history and tertiary interests, he has combined qualitative and mixed methods to provide another lens of history. Some of the narratives make me reminisce the times I spent in Goa. There are numerous facts regarding the upheavals in Goa and village life that makes the reader want to learn more. I for one will try to find the communidade details of my family from the various villages in Goa.
Whist our ancestors meandered with purpose through Africa, Europe and Asia, I was always proud that I could identify myself as a Goan for at least 6 generations. Even though my great grandfather lived most of his life in Ahmedabad, his siblings in Pune and East Africa and his descendants in Bombay, his relatives and other family in Karachi, Calcutta and some mofussil areas in and around central India, yet we all call ourselves Goans. Now on Gedmatch and 23&me I see that I have more cousins from Mangalore rather than from Goa. For the last couple of generations we (Goans) have migrated to New Zealand, Canada and so many places in between. We are now marrying way outside our ancestors wildest imaginations. With the magic of the internet and various ancestry websites, there is a great interest to find one's roots, know who you are and make connections. And to me this is the significance and importance of this book. As the field of genetics takes giant steps forward, as it must, I am eagerly looking forward to the 3rd edition.

Monday 25 May 2020

Review of The Last Prabhu by Dr. Sandra Fonseca

This review was published of 24 May 2020 on Goanet Reader. Many thanks to Dr. Sandra Fonseca for her insightful review and the enormous amount of time she has invested to meticulously read and analyse The Last Prabhu.

The Last Prabhu, A Hunt for roots: DNA, ancient documents
and migration in Goa
Second Revised Edition
Bernardo Elvino de Sousa
--
Review by Dr Sandra Fonseca
sfons073@uottawa.ca

"Undra mojea mama, ani aum sangtam tuca...  ani mazorechea
piliean taca eka gansan khailo." These are words of a
popular, well-loved Goan song, sung even today at every Goan
get-together.  Yet many Goans probably don't dwell on the
meaning and significance of the words of the song.  In his
well-researched 2020 scientific treatise, "The Last Prabhu, A
Hunt for roots: DNA, ancient documents and migration in Goa",
the author Dr Bernardo Elvino de Sousa sheds light on the
meaning of this song, explaining how and why the Portuguese
conquerors were able to capture Goa.

          The author traces the history of his ancestors
          through a multidisciplinary approach utilising
          revolutionary developments in genetics, deep
          ancestry DNA test results, written documentary
          evidence and orally transmitted history.

With his amazing skill in deciphering scripts and translating
languages -- Konkani, Marathi and Portuguese, de Sousa puts
together pieces of the puzzle of the peopling of Goa and
India in painstaking, precise detail.

In a personal search for his own ancestral roots in the
village of Aldona (in Bardez, Goa), de Sousa provides a
glimpse into the migratory paths and the history of the life
of people in the villages of Goa in the late 16th and early
17th century.  The book also reveals the origins of the
church and the circumstances around conversions to
Christianity, the condition of women, and the caste system.

Although de Sousa explains the complexity of DNA in plain,
simple terms using analogies and examples in his multifaceted
book written through the lens of history, geography,
literature and science, it is a book that requires several
re-reads as the readers are taken on a mind-boggling
chronological journey of migration patterns of early Goan
settlers, an analysis of haplogroups and mitochondrial DNA
and the realities of the life and death decisions made under
the Portuguese rule of Goa.

Based on scientific evidence, de Sousa traces his ancestry to
the Indus Valley Civilisation population as well as the
Yamnaya and Sintashta cultures in the Steppes that migrated
through the Fertile Crescent to Goa around 700 BCE.

de Sousa also demonstrates that "all Indians irrespective of
their caste consist of ANI [Ancestral North Indian] and ASI
[Ancestral South Indian] mixtures in different proportions
belonging to different haplogroups, resulting from ancestors
who migrated out of Africa through different routes and
different epochs." (p.128).

          In his search to understand how the people of Goa
          were so easily conquered and ruled by foreign
          invaders, de Sousa uncovers the covert help given
          by the Hindus to the Portuguese to avoid the
          excessive tax demands of Adil Shahi that sounded
          the death knell for Goa.  In the process, de Sousa
          discovers that his ancestors were self-governing,
          skilled, sophisticated, literate in Sanskrit,
          experienced agriculturalists, environmentalists --
          a people resilient in the face of enormous
          challenges and limited choices offered by their
          conquerors.

In a rendering of the truth, while de Sousa describes the
brutality of the Portuguese conquerors, the forced
conversions to Christianity, explaining how "the fury of the
Inquisition spared no one -- women, children nor the
deceased" (p.163), he also sheds light on other uncomfortable
truths such as the deplorable condition of Brahmin women
under a dominant patriarchal system and the rigidity of the
caste system.

Meetings in the 1600s

The descriptions of the meetings recorded in the Tombo de
Aldona are detailed and vivid transporting the reader back to
the 1600s where one can visualize the meetings that took
place under the shade of a banyan tree in the village of
Aldona.  For any Goan interested in tracing their ancestral
roots, the book offers details on pre-conversion ancestral
Hindu names, vangads, and gotras and a fascinating account of
the efficient functioning of the gaunkari system and the
comunidades.

At a broader level, the book is a story of migration
triggered by climatic changes and a quest of human survival,
a quintessential story of human migration.  de Sousa reveals
how historically migrants have brought expertise, new ideas
and skills that foster innovation and progress and history
has demonstrated time and again that those countries that
recognize and utilize this tremendous human capital will
flourish and thrive. de Sousa offers important cautionary
lessons here for nations and peoples about the need to
embrace new ideas and innovation to prosper.

Goa, not the same

          As de Sousa relates, "Goa of today is not the same
          as Goa of the past and will not be the Goa of the
          future." (p.175).  He states that the fast pace and
          rate of change with emigration to Goa is inevitable
          unless living conditions in other places also
          improve.  This sentiment is echoed in the reasons
          for migration around the world as people are forced
          to leave their homes seeking refuge, stability and
          better lives.

To persevere in the writing of this book despite so much of
the evidence being lost and fragmented is a commendable feat
by the author.

In the search for his descendants and in tracing his
ancestral roots that lead de Sousa to his identity as a
descendant of Ramu Prabhu and to "The Last Prabhu", he
provides a glimpse of a rich history of the peopling of Goa
that is a story of a people with a strong intellect and
tremendous resilience who survived oppression and fought for
self-preservation against great odds. It is a great gift
that future generations of Goans can add and build upon.

I would encourage the reader to reach out to the author at
his blog http://thelastprabhu.blogspot.com with any questions
or to leave a comment.

[The ebook version is available at amazon.com]
--
Goanet Reader is compiled and edited by Frederick Noronha
WhatsApp +91-9822122436.

Thursday 21 May 2020

Modelling predicts that specific HLA alleles respond better to Covid-19 than other alleles.

Modelling predicts that our Human Leukocyte antigen HLA system has an influence on our immune response to Covid-19, depending on the HLA allele of the person.

https://theconversation.com/your-genes-could-determine-whether-the-coronavirus-puts-you-in-the-hospital-and-were-starting-to-unravel-which-ones-matter-137145

Covid-19: Can genetics unravel the mystery of why some individuals get only mild symptoms and others end up in hospital?

https://www.statnews.com/2020/05/13/23andme-study-to-recruit-sickest-covid-19-patients-in-bid-to-unravel-role-of-genetics-in-disease/

Tuesday 18 February 2020

Designing the cover of The Last Prabhu

Designing the cover of The Last Prabhu

How did the cover of The Last Prabhu come to be?

There are several elements that I wanted the cover to reflect:
   1. Migration: This is represented by the image of the pilgrim that takes up a big amount of space on the cover. The book is a story of the migration of my ancestors and I wanted this to be clearly represented. The image in my mind is that of a group of pilgrims who migrated all the way from the North of India to Goa, bringing with them their language, culture, religion, beliefs, deities, food habits.
   2. DNA: The primary instrument to research the migration of my ancestors was a deep and thorough analysis of my DNA with state of the art tests. This is reflected by the DNA double helix. In fact, there are 3 of these images to reflect the fact that they mutate and thus enable us to discover the migration patterns.
   3. Ancient documents: These are represented by an image of a page from the minutes of a meeting of Aldona’s comunidade written in the Goykannada script that can be seen in the background.
   4. Goa: At the left hand corner, I have placed a photo of a typical Goan window with a view of the river made in the ancestral home of my wife in Badem, Salvador do Mundo. Another element that represents Goa is the color of the cover, that reminds the reader of Goa’s red laterite soil that my ancestors first treaded when they arrived in Goa.

   The cover was designed by collating these 4 images using the photoshop programme Affinity Photo.

Saturday 25 January 2020

Publishing in India

Publishing in India
   Amazon.com offers Kindle eBooks worldwide but when I realized that it does not offer a book in paperback format in India, I was disappointed. Many readers wish to hold a hard copy in their hands rather than read a eBook on an iPad. I therefore needed to find a publisher who could deliver The Last Prabhu in paperback format in India. From the several options that I discovered through Google (see for example https://indiablooms.com/finance-details/8164/five-popular-self-publishing-companies-of-india.html), I chose pothi.com because the processes the company uses are very similar to amazon.com that I was already familiar with.
   How does it work? It is quite simple. You first register yourself with a user name, email and a new password. You then format your manuscript according to the guidelines that are clearly described by the publishing company and save it as a pdf file. Since I use a mac, I used Pages, Apple’s equivalent of Microsoft Word, to write the text.
   Next, you prepare your cover; pothi.com offers a cover design wizard tool that can be used for the purpose.
   It is important to ensure that the pdf text file and the cover dimensions are compatible. I had decided to use a 6 by 9 inch size. I resized the pdf text file to  6 x 9 using a free tool available on the internet (e.g.https://docupub.com/pdfresize/). To resize the cover, you can use any photoshop programme e.g. the free tool GIMP or the more comfortable Adobe or Affinity that you will have to pay for. I used the tool Affinity photo both to prepare the cover and resize it.
   Now all you need to do is to go to the pothi.com website, key in the details such as author’s name, book title name etc. and upload the files. That’s it.
   My experience with pothi.com has been excellent: when I had difficulties uploading the files, customer service responded to my query within 12 hours,  immediately pinpointed the error (incompatible file sizes) with suggestions on how to correct the issue and even offered to do it for me if I so desired. Since I do not have any experience with the other self-publishing companies in India, I cannot comment on them or compare them with pothi.com but I assume they must also be good and efficient.
   There are several advantages of using a self-publishing company over a traditional publisher. Pothi publishes on demand and there is therefore no need to print a pre-determined number of books and block storage space in your cellar and wonder what to do if there are unsold copies lying around. Since orders are placed directly with the company who also delivers the books, the author is freed from the task of processing orders and deliveries.
   Another important decision that the author has to make is on pricing. There are 3 cost items to consider: printing costs, royalty of the publishing company and royalty of the author. GST is deducted from the author’s royalty. Additionally, if the author does not reside in India as in my case, the author’s royalty is transferred via paypal and therefore currency conversion fees as well as paypal’s fees will be deducted. In short, do not expect to get rich but the pleasure of being able to publish your book easily and without any hassles, reach the audience that you wish to reach and spread the message that you wish to spread more than compensates for it.
   As always, please send me your comments or questions on this blog: thelastprabhu.blogspot.com

Wednesday 15 January 2020

The Last Prabhu, second completely revised edition has now been published on Amazon and Pothi.com

Dear readers

It gives me great pleasure to inform you that the second completely revised edition of The Last Prabhu has now been published and can be ordered in both Kindle eBook as well as paperback formats from the Amazon.com store.

Please note that unlike the Kindle eBook format that is available worldwide, Amazon.com paperback formats are not available in India. For this reason, the paperback format of The Last Prabhu has also been published in India by Pothi.com and is now available on Pothi.com's store at https://pothi.com/pothi/node/200628

Comments and questions can be addressed to me on this blog.

Please share this information with any reader who may be interested in books on Goa or genetic genealogy. Many thanks.

Kind regards
Bernardo