Y-DNA Claims Purporting To Support The Elamo-Dravidian Linguistic Hypothesis

I've long been unimpressed with the lingustic Elamo-Dravidian hypothesis, but there is a paper trying to make that case from Y-DNA that I'll note for balance, although I still don't find the claim to be convincing. It isn't clear that Elamite was a language in the L1-M22 population when it migrated to South Asia, nor is it clear that their language became dominant in South Asia after they arrived by the time it expanded 2,000 to 4,000 years later after stasis in the interim period.

West and South Asian populations profoundly influenced Eurasian genetic and cultural diversity. We investigate the genetic history of the Y chromosome haplogroup L1-M22, which, while prevalent in these regions, lacks in-depth study. 

Robust Bayesian analyses of 165 high-coverage Y chromosomes favor a West Asian origin for L1-M22 ∼20.6 thousand years ago (kya). Moreover, this haplogroup parallels the genome-wide genetic ancestry of hunter-gatherers from the Iranian Plateau and the Caucasus.

We characterized two L1-M22 harboring population groups during the Early Holocene. One expanded with the West Asian Neolithic transition. The other moved to South Asia ∼8-6 kya but showed no expansion. This group likely participated in the spread of Dravidian languages. These South Asian L1-M22 lineages expanded ∼4-3 kya, coinciding with the Steppe ancestry introduction.

Our findings advance the current understanding of Eurasian historical dynamics, emphasizing L1-M22’s West Asian origin, associated population movements, and possible linguistic impacts.

Ajai Kumar Pathak, et al., "Human Y chromosome haplogroup L1-M22 traces Neolithic expansion in West Asia and supports the Elamite and Dravidian connection" 27(6) Cell 110016 (May 16, 2024 published in journal on June 21, 2024) (open access) DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2024.110016 (the paper also notably acknowledges ChatGPT 3.5 editing assistance).