New Delhi, June 27 -- Modern-day Indians may have descended from three ancestral groups related to Iranian and Central Asian cultures, according to a new study. These groups include new stone age Iranian farmers, Eurasian Steppe pastoralists and South Asian hunter-gatherers, the study published in the journal Cell noted.

"Most individuals in north and south India show evidence of this three-way mixture related to Neolithic Iranian farmers, Eurasian Steppe pastoralists and South Asian hunter-gatherers," Priya Moorjani, assistant professor at the Center for Computational Biology, University of California, Berkeley, told Down To Earth.

"In India, genetic and linguistic variation often go hand in hand, shaped by ancient migrations and socia...