Goan Catholics, Gaur Saraswats linked: Study

Hyderabad, Aug. 26: A majority of the Roman Catholic population in Goa and Mangaluru regions are genetically close to the early lineage of Gaur Saraswats, a new study has found.

The study was conducted by the CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad, Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences (BSIOP) in Lucknow, and others, a CCMB said.

It said the the west coast had a rich diversity of ethno-linguistic human population groups. The Roman Catholics form one such distinct group, whose origin is much debated, it said.

Some historians and anthropologists relate them to ancient group of Gaur Saraswat. Others believe they are members of the Jews Lost Tribes in the first century migration to India, it said.

Till date, no genetic study was done on this group to study their origin and genetic history.

The first “high throughput” study was conducted by Kumarasamy Thangaraj, Chief Scientist, CCMB, and Niraj Rai, senior scientist, BSIP.

The researchers analysed DNA of 110 individuals from Roman Catholic community of Goa, Kumta and Manguluru. They compared this genetic information with previously published DNA data from India and West Eurasia. They put this information alongside archaeological, linguistic and historical records.

This helped the researchers fill in many of the key details about the demographic changes and history of the Roman Catholic population of southwest India.