The Rakhigarhi DNA lacked the steppeland genes that are strongly associated with high-caste North Indian populations today. (Photo courtesy: 2018 © Shinde et al)

Were the Harappans, the ancient people of the Indus Valley civilisation, the source of Vedic Hinduism?

"No" is the implication of genetic findings made during an 2015 excavation in Haryana's Rakhigarhi, whose results are expected to feature in the journal Science. They are also the focus of this week's edition of India Today magazine. You can read the story here.

Here's your ten-point briefing on these discoveries.

WHY THE FINDINGS ARE CONTROVERSIAL

Since coming to power, the Hindutva lobby has accelerated its project of rewriting Indian history to backdate the accepted chronology of the most ancient Hindu texts (the Vedas) and project the Indus Valley Civilisation as 'Vedic'.

DNA samples from the 4,500-year-old Rakhigarhi skeletons belonging to the Indus Valley Civilisation undermine such projections.

The skeleton's DNA showed that the people of ancient Rakhigarhi were a mix of 'Ancient Ancestral South Indian' and 'Iranian Agriculturalist' populations.

What the Rakhigarhi DNA lacked was the steppeland genes that are strongly associated with high-caste North Indian populations today.

This comes as further evidence that a post-Indus population of migrants from the steppe were associated with the beginnings of Vedic Hinduism.

It suggests a rupture rather than a cultural continuum.

The Rakhigarhi findings reinforce the conclusions of experts that date the earliest Vedas to c. 1500 BC -- a period after the collapse of Indus Valley cities and associated with a significant migration into India of a population from the steppelands to the northwest.

In other words, the people and culture of the Indus Valley Civilisation were distinct from the population apparently associated with the beginnings of Vedic (Hindu) civilisation.

The close match of Rakhigarhi DNA with South Indian tribal populations also suggests that the Indus valley culture probably spoke an early Dravidian language.