Vasant Shinde

Vasant Shinde is an Indian archaeologist, who has done excavations at Rakhigarhi from 2011 to 2016. Director General, National Maritime Heritage Complex, Gandhinagar Former Professor and Vice-Chancellor at the Deccan College, Post-Graduate and Research Institute, Deemed University, Pune According to Shinde, Rakhigarhi was larger than Mohenjo-daro,

Rakhigarhi DNA

Research findings According to Avikunthak, Shinde was the first archaeologist who noticed the value of genetic research in the debate on the origins of Indo-Aryan culture in India. Initially working together with Seoul National University College of Medicine, Shinde was the main author on the long-awaited 2019 paper "An Ancient Harappan Genome Lacks Ancestry from Steppe Pastoralists or Iranian Farmers," co-authored by David Reich, and wearing his "unmistakable stamp." The paper concluded that the IVC-people lacked ancestry from Anatolia and the steppes, in line with the Indo-Aryan migration theory, which argues that the Indo-Aryan Vedic people migrated into South Asia after the height of the Indus Valley Civilisation, in the period of ca. 1900-1500 BCE. The press note stated that the research

It also stated that the research

Several media outlets followed Shinde's primer, and presented the study as a rebuttal of the established Indo-Aryan migration theory, confusing it with Mortimer Wheeler's outdated proposal, and ignoring the actual contents and conclusions of the study. In response, the Ministry of Culture issued a statement "refuting the report and said that it has no intention of conducting studies of racial purity in the country." In an open letter, "[over] a 100 leading biologists, historians, anthropologists and intellectuals" protested against the plan, warning that the term "race" is a social construct with unwarranted implications.

Works Early Settlements in the Central Tapi Basin Chalcolithic South Asia: Aspects of Crafts and Technologies Cultural Heritage of South Asia and Beyond Recent Perspective Excavations at Gilund: The Artifacts and Other Studies 2017. Ancient Indian Knowledge System : Archaeological Perspective 2022. Bharatiya Knowledge Systems 2023: New Perspectives on the Harappan Culture in Light of Recent Excavations at Rakhigarhi: 2011–2017, Volume 1: Bioarchaeological Research on the Rakhigarhi Necropolis (editor, together with Dong Hoon Shin), Archaeopress Publishing Ltd.