An anthropological study published in the American Journal of Biological Anthropology has analyzed the genomes of five individuals from the Bronze Age site of Gumla. The findings indicate a distinct genetic pulse from the Gobi Desert region entering the Indus periphery around 2100 BCE, coinciding with a period of significant aridification.
These pastoralists carried a specific suite of genetic markers associated with high-protein lipid metabolism, allowing them to thrive on dairy-heavy diets in marginal lands. The researchers conclude that this migration was not a military conquest but a climate-driven dispersal of specialized livestock herders who integrated into the local socio-economic fabric of the late Harappan phase.