The 11 million members of Europe's largest minority group, the Romani (pictured), are descended from a single population that left India some 1,500 years ago and dispersed across Europe through the Balkans.
David Comas at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Spain, Manfred Kayser at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and their colleagues analysed the genomes of 152 Romani individuals from across Europe and compared them with those of populations worldwide. European Romani probably originated from northern and northwestern India.
Genetic analysis suggests that, after leaving India, Romani ancestors interbred with local populations on the way to the Balkans before beginning to spread throughout Europe around 900 years ago. Since then, Romani have interbred with local populations in Europe.
Curr. Biol. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2012.10.039 (2012)
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Romani have Indian ancestry. Nature 492, 156 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/492156c
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/492156c
