The genetic views on race differ in their classification of Dravidians. According to population geneticist L.L. Cavalli-Sforza of Stanford, based on work done in the 1980s, Indians are genetically Caucasian, but Lewontin rejects the label Caucasian. Cavalli-Sforza found that Indians are about three times closer to West Europeans than to East Asians. Dr. Eduardas Valaitis, in 2006, found that India is genetically closest to East and Southeast Asians with about 15% more genetic similarity than to Europeans; he also found that India could be considered very distinct from other regions. Genetic anthropologist Stanley Marion Garn considered in the 1960s that the entirety of the Indian Subcontinent to be a "race" genetically distinct from other populations. Others, such as Lynn B. Jorde and Stephen P. Wooding, claim South Indians are genetic intermediaries between Europeans and East Asians.

A number of earlier anthropologists held the view that the Dravidian peoples together were a distinct race. Comprehensive genetic studies have proven that this is not the case. The genetic studies also indicated that the origin of both Dravidian and Indo-Aryan speakers is the Indian subcontinent.
Recent studies of the distribution of alleles on the Y chromosome, microsatellite DNA, and mitochondrial DNA in India have cast overwhelmingly strong doubt for a biologically identifiable "Dravidian race" distinct from non-Dravidians in the Indian subcontinent. The only distinct ethnic groups present in South Asia, according to genetic analysis, are the Balochi, Brahui, Burusho, Hazara, Kalash, Pathan and Sindhi peoples, the vast majority of whom are found in today's Pakistan.

In a 2009 study of 132 individuals, 560,000 SNPs in 25 different Indian groups were analyzed, providing strong evidence in support of the notion that modern Indians are a hybrid population descending from two pre-historic, genetically divergent populations, one of which, referred to as the 'Ancestral North Indians', aged 40.000 years and the other, called the 'Ancestral South Indians', aged 60.000 years. The intermingling of ANI's and ASI's happened in the same period as the ANI's first appeared, 40.000 years ago. The study also holds, that the caste system grew out of tribal-like organizations of the Indian society. In another study of 2009 conducted among 10 Asian countries, Dravidians were connected with the other Indian populations and peoples of Malaysia, Singapore and China.

वांशिक ओळख
Etymology
मूळ/उगम
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