Y-Chromosome Evidence for a Northward Migration of Modern Humans into Eastern Asia during the Last Ice Age

Abstract

The timing and nature of the arrival and the subsequent expansion of modern humans into eastern Asia remains controversial. Using Y-chromosome biallelic markers, we investigated the ancient human-migration patterns in eastern Asia. Our data indicate that southern populations in eastern Asia are much more polymorphic than northern populations, which have only a subset of the southern haplotypes. This pattern indicates that the first settlement of modern humans in eastern Asia occurred in mainland Southeast Asia during the last Ice Age, coinciding with the absence of human fossils in eastern Asia, 50,000-100,000 years ago. After the initial peopling, a great northward migration extended into northern China and Siberia.

Genetic insights into the origins of Tibeto-Burman populations in the Himalayas

“…The partitioning of these two populations with Bhutan and their proximity to the general collection from Nepal (Figures 2-5) may be associated with Neolithic migrants carrying Y-haplogroup O3a5-M134, an East Asian-specific marker, shared among TB populations. 1,3,4,9,60 The Himalayan populations, with the exception of Newar and Kathmandu, segregate close to the Northeast Asian cluster in agreement with the admixture analyses results (Table 3). Northeast Asia is the major contributor to both Tibet (63.4%) and Tamang (59.7%) whereas Newar (44.7%) and Bhutan (41.1%) received equivalent percentages, followed by Kathmandu (22.3%).…”

“…These Northeast Indian TB groups map distantly from both the Himalayan and East Asian populations in the CA graph (Figure 3), inconsistent with previous Y-chromosome and mtDNA studies which report a high degree of genetic homogeneity between Himalayan and Northeast Indian TB groups. 3,4,9,70 The discrepancy observed between Y-chromosome and microsatellite polymorphisms in the Northeast Indian TB groups may be explained by a male founder effect from Northeast Asia and their subsequent genetic isolation for an extended period of time following their arrival. 9 Altogether, our results suggest a Northeast Asian ancestry for the Himalayan populations with subsequent genetic admixture in Figure 5 Neighbor Joining (NJ) tree based on Nei's genetic distances generated using allele frequencies from the 13 CODIS core STR loci.…”

“…Both models invoke demic diffusion for the dispersal of the language subfamily. Su et al 3,4 postulate the upper and middle Yellow River basin as the ancestral source of TB people. In contrast, van Driem 5,6 argues for the Yangtse River in Sichuan province as the homeland of TB speakers, with subsequent northward migrations to the fertile plains of the Yellow River valley where Neolithic civilizations flourished.…”

A panel of ancestry informative markers to estimate and correct potential effects of population stratification in Han Chinese

“…[8][9][10] The north-south population structure is consistent with the historical migration and expansion pattern of the Han Chinese population. 23 Our Han Chinese samples were widely spread over PC1 (Figure 1a), suggesting a cryptic stratification in Han Chinese population. In addition, the north-south pattern became more pronounced when the CHB and CHS from 1KG, which had passed strict quality control (Supplementary Text S1, Supplementary Table S1) and outliers filtering (Supplementary Text S2, Supplementary Figure S2), were marked ( Figure 1a).…”

An updated tree of Y-chromosome Haplogroup O and revised phylogenetic positions of mutations P164 and PK4

“…[1][2][3] The dominant group of Y chromosome in Eastern Eurasia is Haplogroup O-M175, comprising roughly 75% of the Chinese [4][5][6] and more than half of the Japanese population. [7][8][9] Albeit the huge population of Haplogroup O, its phylogeny 10 is much less adequately resolved than those of Haplogroup R and E, despite the improvements of O tree made during the recent years.…”