Why the Rakhigarhi site is the source of heated debate about our origins

Genetic material from the Harappan site of Rakhigarhi has given rise to conflicting theories about our origins. Ritwik Sharma examines the debate

“What are these stars on the ground?” our guide in Rakhigarhi village in Haryana quizzes us. The tiny “stars” are shining bright as the midday sun beats down on the barren mounds under which lie remnants of India's first urban civilisation. Before we can guess, he tells us they are shards of human skeletons.
 

When unbroken skeletons are exhumed from the necropolis of the ancient Harappan city and studied, as that of one woman buried over four millennia ago recently testified, they can reveal a great deal. And lend further fuel to the debate centering around which of us can