How Vietnamese Genetic Scientists are Erasing the Past

A few months ago a new genetic study that provides information about the early history of the area we now call “Vietnam” was published.

The article is entitled “Extensive Ethnolinguistic Diversity in Vietnam Reflects Multiple Sources of Genetic Diversity” and it was written by 7 authors: 4 genetic scientists from the Institute of Genome Research in Vietnam, 2 genetic scientists from the Max Planck Institute in Germany, and 1 linguist from the Laboratoire Dynamique du Langage in France.

This article is available online (https://academic.oup.com/mbe/advance-article/doi/10.1093/molbev/msaa099/5821431). It has been reported about widely in the Vietnamese media (search for “Đa dạng di truyền và nguồn gốc người Việt Nam”), and the Vietnamese co-leader of this project has spoken publicly about it in Vietnam.

In reading this article, and in seeing how it has been reported and talked about in Vietnam, it is obvious to me that the findings of this study are being presented in a way that fits with a politically-correct Vietnamese nationalist view of the past.

Is this because the Vietnamese scholars involved do not want to say something that is different from the nationalist view of the past that has been repeated over and over for decades? Or is it simply because they themselves do not have the knowledge to understand that the genetic evidence their study produced points to a history that is different from the official nationalist version?

Whatever the case may be, it is sad to see how this study is being reported in Vietnam because the findings of this study directly contribute to a growing body of current genetic, archaeological and linguistic scholarship on the history of the Neolithic and Bronze Age in Vietnam that has been produced by international scholars and which offers a much more insightful picture of the past than the politically-correct Vietnamese nationalist version that has been reported in the Vietnamese media over the past few months.

In recent years, international archaeologists and linguists, as well as genetic scientists, have started to agree on an outline for the Neolithic and Bronze Age in the Red River delta. For the sake of simplicity, let’s say that the Neolithic started around 2,000 BC and the Bronze Age around 1,000 BC.

What these scholars are arguing is that there were “waves” of migration that brought people from areas of what is today southern China into the region of what is now northern Vietnam (and yes, I have “waves” in scare quotes because I am aware that these migrations took place over long periods of time and were complex). Further, these people brought with them new technologies (agriculture, the use of metals), and new languages – Austro-Asiatic languages (and Vietnamese is an Austro-Asiatic language).

When these migrants arrived, they found indigenous inhabitants, people we now refer to as the Hòa Bình people. International scholars argue that while there was some intermixing, the new arrivals ultimately replaced these earlier inhabitants, though how exactly that happened is not clear.

In other words, what these scholars are arguing is that the history of the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods is a history of “new” (Austro-Asiatic-language-speaking) peoples coming in and taking over areas from earlier inhabitants. It is a story of “inequality” (one group dominating or replacing another).

See, for example, these studies:

Lipson et al., “Ancient genomes document multiple waves of migration in Southeast Asian prehistory,” Science Vol. 361, Issue 6397 (06 Jul 2018): pp. 92-95. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aat3188

Matsumura et al., “Craniometrics Reveal ‘Two Layers’ of Prehistoric Human Dispersal in Eastern Eurasia, ” Sci Rep 9, 1451 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-35426-z

In reading the report of the new study that was conducted by Vietnamese and foreign scholars, it is clear that they have genetic evidence that supports the above outline of the history of the Neolithic and the Bronze Age (a story of migrations and replacement).

However, the authors avoid talking about “migrations.” They focus instead on “diversity” and say instead that “the overall Vietnamese genetic diversity likely reflects multiple waves of ancestry from the Neolithic to later periods.”

Wait. . . “wave of ancestry”?? What is that? How exactly does “ancestry” move in “waves”?

Human beings can move in groups when they migrate, and we can call those groups “waves.” But can “ancestry” move in “waves” without migration?? If it can’t, then why not just say “waves of migration” like other scholars do? Or if you don’t like the word “migration,” why not say something like “waves of human dispersal”?

But “waves of ancestry”? That makes absolutely no sense.

Unfortunately, there are many vague expressions like this one in this article. The overall point of the article is to highlight genetic diversity in Vietnam, and that is equally vague and superficial. After all, to say that human populations are genetically diverse is about as insightful as saying that human beings breathe oxygen.

Of course they are genetically diverse! But what can the specific details about that diversity tell us about the past? This is the question that the authors of this article avoid addressing, but it is precisely the question that numerous international scholars (geneticists, archaeologists and linguists) have been answering in their scholarship.s

Let’s take a look at the article to get a better sense of how the authors avoid addressing what their data reveals.

This is how the authors talk about the Austro-Asiatic (AA) language family (the larger language family to which Vietnamese belongs):

“The possible origins of the AA family include southern China, [Mainland Southeast Asia, MSEA], or India (Sidwell 2014). It is thought to be the oldest language family in MSEA, which emerged after the Hoabinhian tradition ∼4–5 ka (Sidwell 2014). “

In these two sentences we are led to believe that scholars are not sure where the Austro-Asiatic language family comes from, and that it somehow just “emerged” in Mainland Southeast Asia after the period when the Hòa Bình culture was dominant.

The work that is cited, Sidwell 2014, is a kind of encyclopedia entry, as it was originally published in 2013 in a 5-volume work entitled the Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration. In this entry, Sidwell states that:

“There is no general scholarly consensus about the homeland or migration paths of the ancient Austroasiatics, but there are three broad scenarios. These include a western origin in northeastern India or in the vicinity of the Bay of Bengal (Van Driem 2001); a northern origin in central or southern China (Scheussler 2007); and a central origin within Southeast Asia (Sidwell 2010).

This is helpful, but this is information from 2013. Is there more up-to-date information? If so, where can we find it? Let’s try Wikipedia!

On the Wikipedia page for “Proto-Austroasiatic” we quickly learn that Sidwell and Van Driem (the person who thought Austro-Asiatic came from India), have both changed their minds, and now believe, along with other scholars, that southern China is where Austro-Asiatic languages emerged.

So in 2020 it does not make sense to cite Sidwell 2014 to say “The possible origins of the AA family include southern China, MSEA, or India,” because Sidwell and the person he cited for India don’t think that way anymore. They all argue that the area of what is now southern China is where Austro-Asiatic languages come from.

What is more, these scholars also do not think that Austro-Asiatic somehow just “emerged” in Mainland Southeast Asia. They think that speakers of Austro-Asiatic languages MIGRATED there.

However, instead of acknowledging that Austro-Asiatic speakers migrated into the region, the authors of this article say the following:

“Ancient genome studies have suggested that the present-day AA groups in MSEA are descendants of Hoabinhian hunter-gatherers and ancestral East Asians from southern China admixing during the Neolithic farming expansion (Lipson et al. 2018; McColl et al. 2018).”

This is deceptive. What these two cited articles argue is that Austro-Asiatic speakers MIGRATED into the region and mixed (to a limited degree) with the indigenous Hòa Bình people. The above sentence doesn’t make that clear.

In mentioning “the Neolithic farming expansion,” readers who are familiar with the work of Lipson et al. and McColl et al. will understand that this was a MIGRATION of peoples from what is now southern China into Mainland Southeast Asia.

However, if a reader is not familiar with that work, then s/he will not be able to clearly see what “the Neolithic farming expansion” is actually referring to.

In addition, by mentioning “Hoabinhian hunter-gatherers” first, a reader gets the sense that they are the dominant genetic group. But in actuality, the East Asian migrants were. The East Asian migrants largely replaced the original Hòa Bình inhabitants.

In other words, the above sentence erases the history of a dominant East Asian Austro-Asiatic-speaking group migrating into the region and taking control of it from hunter-gatherers, and provides instead a vaguely-worded, and very safe and sanitized, version of the past that won’t hurt anybody’s feelings.

Having claimed that “the present-day AA groups in MSEA are descendants of Hoabinhian hunter-gatherers and ancestral East Asians from southern China,” the authors then state that,

“Consistent with this scenario, we find that the indigenous AA groups Htin Mal and Khomu have 9% and 11% ancestry from the Hoabinhian hunter-gatherers and 91% and 89% ancestry from the ancestors of southern Chinese, respectively (fig. 8A and B).”

Ok, so here we have examples of two groups of people (minority groups in Vietnam today) who show genetic signs of mixing (and note that the percentage of genes from Hoabinhian hunter-gatherers is much less than that of the “southern Chinese”). But what about other groups?

You then have to read a few lines further, but eventually you get to this statement about the Kinh, the main ethnic group in Vietnam (the people we refer to as “the Việt”): “they are not estimated as having ancestry from the Hoabinhians.”

Wait!! What???!!! You said first that “the present-day AA groups [and “the” here means “all”] in MSEA are descendants of Hoabinhian hunter-gatherers and ancestral East Asians from southern China” and now you say that the Kinh “are not estimated as having ancestry from the Hoabinhians”??!!

Ok, so the first statement is clearly false. It should say “SOME present-day AA groups are descendants of Hoabinhian hunter-gatherers and ancestral East Asians from southern China.” But what is really important here is that the genetic evidence indicates that the people in the main AA group in the region (the Việt) are NOT descendants of the Hòa Bình.

How can that be? How do we explain this historically?

Interestingly, there is another article that has come out of this research project that mentions this point as well. This article is entitled “The paternal and maternal genetic history of Vietnamese populations” (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41431-019-0557-4), and I have not seen it mentioned in the Vietnamese media.

The abstract of the article might provide a clue as to why this article has been ignored in Vietnam, because it states right in the abstract that “there is substantial genetic diversity [in Vietnam] that is not represented by the Kinh.”

Further, this article states in a supplemental text that the limited genetic diversity that is present in the Kinh population “reflects amalgamation and incorporation of other groups during their initial spread, rather than more recent contact.”

What “initial spread” is that referring to? It is referring to a migration, and in this supplemental text the authors state in referring to the Kinh/Việt that “the rise of this AA group in Vietnam might be linked to the spread of the Dong Son culture 2.6 kya.”

This fits with what international archaeologists, linguists and other genetic scientists have been saying.

There were multiple migrations into the region of Mainland Southeast Asia. Some of the first migrants (during the Neolithic) mixed with the indigenous Hòa Bình peoples, and some of the ethnic minority Austro-Asiatic-speaking groups in Vietnam today are “descendants” of those early migrants (they are the ones who have a small percentage of Hòa Bình genes.

Later migrants (during the Bronze Age) did not mix as much with the Hòa Bình, probably because by that time the Hòa Bình had either been driven away by, and/or absorbed into, the populations of earlier migrants). These later migrants who do not have Hòa Bình genes are the current majority population in Vietnam – the Kinh/Việt.

Therefore, at the same time that everyone is genetically diverse, there are also clear distinctions in this diversity that point to historical migrations.

If you know the current state of international scholarship on this topic, then you can see that these new studies provides information that supports this view of the past.

However, the way that this information is presented in these reports (particularly the one that focuses on diversity), makes it very difficult for someone who is not familiar with that scholarship to see the connections.

This is where it becomes important for the people involved in this project to explain clearly what the information means, and that is exactly what has NOT happened in Vietnam.

The message that is being repeated over and over in the media is that Vietnam is genetically diverse.

Again, that is like saying “Vietnamese are human beings.” It doesn’t tell us anything.

However, it is very clear that this message is being delivered for clear political/nationalist purposes. It is being use to say that since genetic science shows that “Vietnam is genetically diverse” then that means that “everyone in Vietnam is the same” because they are all together in one big bowl of mixed genes.

Here is a representative quote from the online site Tia Sang:

“In particular, the team found the peak of mitochondrial DNA diversity around a time that coincided with the Dong Son Culture. . . Thus, not only the ancestors of the Kinh people concentrated in the Red River Delta but also the ancestors of the ethnic groups belonging to the five linguistic groups today have traces of dense population concentration here in the Dong Son period. That means the Dong Son culture was common to these ethnic groups in the past.”

“Đặc biệt, nhóm nghiên cứu đã phát hiện được đỉnh cao tập trung sự đa dạng DNA ty thể vào khoảng thời gian trùng với nền Văn hóa Đông Sơn. . . Như vậy, không phải chỉ tổ tiên của người Kinh tập trung ở đồng bằng sông Hồng mà tổ tiên của các tộc người thuộc 5 nhóm ngữ hệ ngày nay đều có dấu vết tập trung dân cư đông đúc ở đây vào thời Đông Sơn. Nghĩa là nền văn hóa Đông Sơn là chung của các dân tộc này trong quá khứ.”

https://tiasang.com.vn/tim-kiem?q=Nong%20Van%20Hai

Isn’t that beautiful? Dong Son culture is “everybody’s” culture because “everybody is diverse.”

Yes, that is beautiful, but that’s NOT what the genetic evidence is showing. Instead, the genetic (and linguistic and archaeological) evidence is demonstrating that Dong Song culture belonged to a NEW people in the region, a group of Austro-Asiatic speakers who had NEW technological skills and who MIGRATED into the region and took control (?), conquered (?), pushed aside (?) drove away (?) populations of earlier migrants and indigenous peoples.

That story might not be as beautiful as a feel-good story of “we are all diverse,” but it is a 100% HUMAN story. It is the same story as that of the Japanese in Hokkaido, the Han in southern China, the Anglo-Europeans in America, the Indo-European language speakers in India, the Russians in Sibera, the Bantu-language speaking peoples in southern Africa, etc., etc. . . the list goes on and on and on.

It is a story, however, that Vietnamese genetic scientists are not going to tell. Instead, what they are saying is erasing this story.

One would hope that in 2020 Vietnamese scholars would be able to move beyond feel-good nationalism and join the world of serious and professional international scholarship, but clearly that is not the case. . . If you watch the video above you will see that the lead Vietnamese scholar links the diversity that they found in their genetic study with the “diversity” that one can supposedly find in the mythical 15th-century story of Lac Long Quan and Au Co!!!!!

Finally, I am of course aware that these works are multi-authored, and that there is a lot of “complexity” involved in that process. The lead authors of both articles, for instance, are graduate students. . .

There are all kinds of questions one could thus ask about “who’s” knowledge this is. Are the Vietnamese scholars involved aware of international scholarship? Do they fully understand the information that this study produced?

I have no way of knowing the answers to such questions, or what kind of discussions went on (if any) in the process of writing these articles. What I can see is the final form that the articles took, and the way that this information has been presented to the public in Vietnam, and that is what I have commented on here.

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  1. Diemhentamhon

    The corresponding author is himself an ethnic minority (Tay).

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