The prehistoric peopling of Southeast Asia

Hugh McColl, Fernando Racimo, Lasse Vinner, Fabrice Pietrot Maurice Demeter, Takashi Gakuhari, José Víctor Moreno Mayar, George van Driem, Uffe Gram Wilken, Andaine Seguin-Orlando, Constanza Pilar de la Fuente Castro, Sally Wasef, Rasmi Shoocongdej, Viengkeo Souksavatdy, Thongsa Sayavongkhamdy, Mohd Mokhtar Saidin, Morten E Allentoft, Takehiro Sato, Anna-Sapfo Malaspinas, Farhang A Aghakhanian, Thorfinn Sand KorneliussenAna Prohaska, Ashot Margaryan, Peter de Barros Damgaard, Supannee Kaewsutthi, Patcharee Lertrit, Thi Mai Huong Nguyen, Hsiao-Chun Hung, Thi Minh Tran, Huu Nghia Truong, Giang Hai Nguyen, Shaiful Shahidan, Ketut Wiradnyana, Hiromi Matsumae, Nobuo Shigehara, Minoru Yoneda, Hajime Ishida, Tadayuki Masuyama, Yasuhiro Yamada, Atsushi Tajima, Hiroki Shibata, Atsushi Toyoda, Tsunehiko Hanihara, Shigeki Nakagome, Thibaut Deviese, Anne-Marie Bacon, Philippe Duringer, Jean-Luc Ponche, Laura Shackelford, Elise Patole-Edoumba, Anh Tuan Nguyen, Bérénice Bellina-Pryce, Jean-Christophe Galipaud, Rebecca Kinaston, Hallie Buckley, Christophe Pottier, Simon Rasmussen, Tom Higham, Robert A Foley, Marta Mirazón Lahr, Ludovic Orlando, Martin Sikora, Maude E Phipps, Hiroki Oota, Charles Higham, David M Lambert, Eske Willerslev

    Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

    254 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    The human occupation history of Southeast Asia (SEA) remains heavily debated. Current evidence suggests that SEA was occupied by Hòabìnhian hunter-gatherers until ~4000 years ago, when farming economies developed and expanded, restricting foraging groups to remote habitats. Some argue that agricultural development was indigenous; others favor the "two-layer" hypothesis that posits a southward expansion of farmers giving rise to present-day Southeast Asian genetic diversity. By sequencing 26 ancient human genomes (25 from SEA, 1 Japanese Jōmon), we show that neither interpretation fits the complexity of Southeast Asian history: Both Hòabìnhian hunter-gatherers and East Asian farmers contributed to current Southeast Asian diversity, with further migrations affecting island SEA and Vietnam. Our results help resolve one of the long-standing controversies in Southeast Asian prehistory.

    Original languageEnglish
    JournalScience (New York, N.Y.)
    Volume361
    Issue number6397
    Pages (from-to)88-92
    Number of pages5
    ISSN0036-8075
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 6 Jul 2018

    Keywords

    • Asia, Southeastern
    • Asian Continental Ancestry Group/genetics
    • DNA, Ancient
    • Genetic Variation
    • Genome, Human
    • History, Ancient
    • Human Migration/history
    • Humans
    • Population/genetics
    • Sequence Analysis, DNA

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