The Munda peoples of eastern and central parts of the Indian subcontinent are any of several Munda speaking ethno-linguistic groups of Austro-asiatic language family, formerly also known as Kolarian, and spoken by about nine million people.
According to linguist Paul Sidwell, pre-Munda languages arrived on the coast of Odisha from Southeast Asia about 4000-3500 years ago (c. 2000 – c. 1500 BCE),[1][2] during the late Bronze Age, at the time of decline of the Indus Valley Civilization in Northwest India. The Munda people spread from Southeast Asia and mixed extensively with local Indian populations.[3] Robert Parkin notes that the term "Munda" did not belong to the Austroasiatic lexis and is of Sanskrit origin.[4]
Mitsuru Sakitani suggests that Haplogroup O1b1, which is common in Austroasiatic people and some other ethnic groups in southern China, and haplogroup O1b2, which is common in today Japanese, Koreans and some Manchu, are the carriers of Yangtze civilization (Baiyue).[5] Another study suggests that the haplogroup O1b1 is the major Austroasiatic paternal lineage and O1b2 the “para-Austroasiatic” lineage of the Yayoi people.[6]
According to Chaubey et al., "Austro-Asiatic speakers in India today are derived from dispersal from Southeast Asia, followed by extensive sex-specific admixture with local Indian populations."[7] According to Riccio et al., the Munda people are likely descended from Austroasiatic migrants from Southeast Asia.[8][9]
According to Zhang et al., Austroasiatic migrations from Southeast Asia into India took place after the last Glacial maximum, circa 10,000 years ago.[10] Arunkumar et al. suggest Austroasiatic migrations from Southeast Asia occurred into Northeast India 5.2 ± 0.6 kya and into East India 4.3 ± 0.2 kya.[11]
Tätte et al. 2019 estimated that the Austroasiatic language speaking people admixed with Indian population about 2000-3800 year ago which may suggest arrival of south-east Asian genetic component in the area. Munda-speaking people have high amount of East Asian paternal lineages O1b1 (~75%) and D1a1 (~6%), which is absent from other Indian groups. They found that the modern Munda-speaking people have about 29% East/Southeast Asian , 15.5% West Asian and 55.5% South Asian ancestry on average. The authors concluded that there was a mostly male-dominated migration into India from Southeast Asia. Modern people in Laos, Cambodia and Malaysia were found to represent the ancestral group, which migrated into India, and spread the Austroasiatic languages.[12] Munda peoples are genetically closely related to Mah Meri and Temuan people of Malaysia.[13]
^Parkin, Robert (1993). "Second Reply to Pfeffer"(PDF). University of Oxford. p. 161. Retrieved December 18, 2020. The term 'Munda' is of Sanskritic origin and therefore not original in any sense to Austroasiatic speakers, although it has come to be used by one tribe as an alternative to their own term 'Horo' (Le. Roy's group; cf. Pfeffer above, p. 154; also Parkin 1990: 17, 23).
^Riccio, M. E.; et al. (2011). "The Austroasiatic Munda population from India and Its enigmatic origin: a HLA diversity study". Human Biology. 83 (3): 405–435. doi:10.3378/027.083.0306. PMID21740156. S2CID39428816.
^Chaubey, Gyaneshwer; Tamang, Rakesh; Pennarun, Erwan; Dubey, Pavan; Rai, Niraj; Upadhyay, Rakesh Kumar; Meena, Rajendra Prasad; Patel, Jayanti R; van Driem, George; Thangaraj, Kumarasamy; Metspalu, Mait (12 October 2017). "Erratum: Reconstructing the population history of the largest tribe of India: the Dravidian speaking Gond". European Journal of Human Genetics. 25 (11): 1291. doi:10.1038/ejhg.2017.46. ISSN1018-4813. PMC5643977. PMID29023439. S2CID7755962. "By considering the case of language shift we modelled the scenario considering Gond originally as an Austroasiatic population, which has recently changed its language to Dravidian. In this case, we should expect a largely similar amount of chunks donated by an outlier distant Austroasiatic population (Bonda) to Gonds and their present Austroasiatic (both North and South Munda) neighbours. However, this was not the case in our analysis, and we observed significantly higher Bonda chunks among North and South Munda neighbours than any Gond group."
