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The Munda peoples of eastern and central parts of the Indian subcontinent are any of several Munda languages speaking ethno-linguistic groups of Austro-asiatic language family, formerly also known as Kolarian, and spoken by about nine million people.
Archaeological evidence put forward by Kingwell-Banham et al. (2018) demonstrated that a Neolithic rice-millet culture arose in Odisha coast around 3,500 years ago, "strikingly similar to the linguistically reconstructed proto-Munda agriculture." (Sidwell & Rau, 2019:46) However, Kingwell-Banham et al. proposed that rice agriculturists of Odisha might have originated from the Eastern Gangetic Plain instead of from the sea. Excavations in Odisha coast by Sarma (2000) have identified ceramic forms common to Neolithic Southeast and South Asia, consisting of dull and slipped red ware, grey ware, and cord impressed ware. More important findings were uncovered in a major Neolithic-Chalcolithic site at Sankarjang(ca. second millennium BCE), located in the Brahmani river valley near Angul. They include lithophones which resemble the types of instruments found in Southern Vietnam, and was interpreted as "evidence for cultural contact between these two disparate parts of Asia in the prehistoric period" (Yule et al. 1990:584). More decisively, the human remains at Sankarjang burial site have also produced teeth "whose dental morphology suggests that these individuals had East or ("mongoloid" sic) ancestry" (Yule et al. 1989:127–30). Gupta (2005:22) argued that the Neolithic-Chalcolithic situation found at Golabai, near the mouth of the Mahanadi, "hints at Southeast Asian landfall on the eastern Indian sea board in the 2nd–1st millennia BC" (cited in Sidwell & Rau, 2019:47). Pliny the Elder (c. 77 CE) and Claudius Ptolemy (c. 130 CE) respectively both mentioned the Sora people and the Sabaræ living in the Orissa-Kalinga hilly coastal area, whom were construed as the same tribe by Gidugu Venkata Ramamurthy.
After dispersal from the Mahanadi River Delta, the Korku moved west 350 miles and established settlements in the Satpura hills while the Kherwarians settled in the Chota Nagpur plateau and Rajmahal hills and practiced a mix of shifting cultivation and rice farming. It appears that there were two Munda tribes, the Birhor and the Juang, had reverted back to forager lifestyles after moving to the eastern plateau, where "agriculture likely proved difficult" (Peterson 2021:10). Peterson (2021) suggests that Munda-speaking tribes were not restricted in the accretion hills, but also likely inhabited in the eastern parts of the Gangetic Plain, around densely populated regions of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, where they later were absorbed into Indo-Aryan ethnic groups.
According to Zhang et al., Austroasiatic migrations from Southeast Asia into India took place after the last Glacial maximum, circa 10,000 years ago. Arunkumar et al. suggest Austroasiatic migrations from Southeast Asia occurred into Northeast India 5.2 ± 0.6 kya and into East India 4.3 ± 0.2 kya.
Tätte et al. 2019 estimated that the Austroasiatic language speaking people admixed with Indian population about 2000-3800 year ago which may suggest arrival of south-east Asian genetic component in the area. Munda-speaking people have high amount of the Southeast Asian paternal lineage O1b1a1a (M95) ( having it at ~62% and at ~73%), which is largely absent from other Indian groups. They found that the modern Munda-speaking people have about 29% East/Southeast Asian , 15.5% West Asian and 55.5% South Asian ancestry on average. The authors concluded that there was a mostly male-dominated migration into India from Southeast Asia. Modern people in Laos, Cambodia and Malaysia were found to represent the ancestral group, which migrated into India, and spread the Austroasiatic languages.
Due to efforts of Christian missionaries and a number of political factors, Christianity has established a stronghold among the Munda peoples during the last two centuries. The Norwegian Santal Mission began operating in Santal communities in 1867. Most Munda Christians today follow either Presbyterianism, Baptist, Lutheranism, some forms of Evangelicalism, and Catholic Church Churches.
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