Iranian Farmers. Much of the rest of Indian DNA comes from the Middle East, with some input from the Central Asian steppe. Originally, this genetic population was labeled Ancestral North Indian (ANI), since this genetic component is more prominent in North India. However, it is also a deliberate misnomer, chosen for political reasons so as not to offend Hindu nationalists, that obscures the non-Indian origin of these people. Humanity was much more diverse in terms of languages and physical features before the spread of agriculture and animal husbandry a few thousand years ago. For example, ancient Europeans had dark skin and blue eyes. But as a result of agriculture in the Near East and China, farmers fanned out from these regions, spread their languages, and displaced or assimilated the native populations of Europe, India, and Southeast Asia. Some farmers from western Iran, one of the homelands of agriculture, migrated east to the Indus Valley in modern Pakistan by 9,000-7,000 years ago, where they remained without further expansion for a few thousand of years because, according to geneticist Razib Khan, “the West Asian agricultural toolkit [crops like wheat] was serviceable in northwestern South Asia for reasons of climate and ecology, but could not expand further east and south.”