An Annotated Bibliography of International Scholarship on Việt Origins

It has become clear to me that there are many people who are not aware that there is a large body of scholarship that has been published in English over the past decade that provides important information about the prehistory of the Việt, and of the various other peoples who inhabit the area of what is now Vietnam.

I’ve decided to help people become aware of what has been writen by creating an annotated bibliography of the relevant scholarship.

It will take time to create this bibliography as a lot of important studies have been published, and I will continue to add to this bibliography as I discover new studies (so be sure to check back for updates).

I’m going to focus on works from the past 10 years, but many of the current views about the early history of mainland Southeast Asia were first presented in works from before 2010, like Peter Bellwood’s 2005 work, First Famers: The Origins of Agricultural Societies.

Nonetheless, the number of writings on this topic has really grown over the past decade, and that is why I am focusing on that time period.

Over the past 10-20 years, there is a view of the prehistory of East and Southeast Asia that most scholars in archaeology, linguistics, and genetics have come to agree upon.

That view is that anatomically modern humans (AMH) migrated from Africa to Asia, that rice was first cultivated around the Yangzi River Valley, and that this led to a “Neolithic expansion” that sent populations southward.

Linguists argue that some of these early farmers spoke proto-Austronesian languages, and that these peoples migrated into southern China, across to Taiwan, and then launched the Austronesian migrations that led people as far to the east as Rapa Nui and as far to the west as Madagascar.

Linguists also argue that somewhere to the west of these proto-Austronesian speakers were early farmers who likewise migrated southward, in this case, into mainland Southeast Asia.

What is still unclear is the relationship between these agriculturalists and the speakers of another language family – proto-Austroasiatic. Some argue that these agriculturalists brought proto-Austroasiatic languages into mainland Southeast Asia, whereas others argue that proto-Austroasiatic speakers were already in the mainland region and that the arrival of agriculturalists and agricultural techniques led to a dispersal of proto-Austroasiatic speakers.

As for the agriculturalists who migrated into the mainland, these peoples migrated from the area of what is now southern China towards the southwest into mainland Southeast Asia, first around 2,000 BC with their agricultural technology, and then more entered the region starting around 1,000 BC with knowledge about how to work with metal.

The first wave of these agriculturalists mixed with hunter-gatherers in the region, people who were descended from the first AMHs to reach Southeast Asia. Archaeologists usually refer to these hunter-gatherers as “Hoabinhian” peoples, and they were genetically related to Melanesians and the Aboriginal peoples in Australia.

The second wave of agriculturalists, by contrast, did not mix as much with indigenous peoples. This second group of migrants are the most closely related to the group we refer to as the Việt.

In regards to Southeast Asia, this picture of the past is referred to as the “Two-Layer Model.” The first layer refers to the spread of AMHs from Africa to Southeast Asia. The second layer refers to the southward spread of farming populations into mainland Southeast Asia.

1989 - teeth

Sundadonty vs. Sinodonty; local evolution in SEAsia

Christy G. Turner II, “Teeth and Prehistory in Asia,” Scientific American, Vol. 260, No. 2 (February 1989):88-97.

See also: Turner CGII 1990. Major features of Sundadonty and Sinodonty, including suggestions about East Asian microevolution, population history and late Pleistocene relationships with Australian Aborigines. Am J Phys Anthropol 82:295–317.

Overview: While there are general features of teeth that are common across the globe, there are secondary features that can vary from one population to another. “These secondary traits include the number of cusps (rounded bumps on the biting surface) on the molars, the number of roots, various tiny ridges and grooves in the enamel and other small anatomical features.” (91)

Christy found that by examining these secondary features one can place the various peoples of Asia into two main categories: Sinodonts (Sino = China) and Sundadonts (Sunda = Sundaland, the area of what is today island Southeast Asia).

As the below two quotes indicate, Christy believed that the Australian Aborigines were the earliest migrants to Southeast Asia, but that they passed through the region to Australia. He then argues that the populations that demonstrate Sundadonty emerged in Southeast Asia and then migrated northward into China where Sinodonty then developed.

“The ancestors of Australian aboriginals must have been in southeast Asia, if only briefly, before expanding through Indonesia into Australia. The earliest people known to reach Australia rafted there some 30,000 years ago. These earliest arrivals do not have the Sundadont pattern; they have the more generalized early modern pattern. Therefore it seems likely that Sundadonty developed between 30,000 and 17,000 years ago (when it is observed in the Minatogawans of Okinawa).” (91)

“People possessing the Sundadont pattern expanded into China and Mongolia about 20,000 years ago, and that is where I suspect Sinodonty rapidly developed.” (91)

2000 - genetic evidence generated so far (as of 2000)

Southern route of migration from Africa through SEAsia to East Asia

Jin L, Su B. Natives or immigrants: modern human origin in east Asia. Nat Rev Genet 2000;1:126–133.

Overview: “East Asia is one of the few regions in the world where a relatively large number of human fossils have been unearthed — a discovery that has been taken as evidence for an independent local origin of modern humans outside of Africa. However, genetic studies conducted in the past ten years, especially using Y chromosomes, have provided unequivocal evidence for an African origin of East Asian populations. The genetic signatures present in diverse East Asian populations mark the footsteps of prehistoric migrations that occurred tens of thousands of years ago.” (12^

The authors of this article then go on to examine the issue of the peopling of East Asia.

Method: Examining “the genetic evidence generated so far.” (132)

Conclusions: “One interesting observation related to the prehistoric population movements is the substantial distinction between northern and southern East Asian populations that has been observed in the analyses of both genetic markers and of physical characteristics (23–25,41,45,46). Three models have been proposed to interpret this observation. The first model postulates a north-to-south migratory pattern, which led to the admixture with Australoids (41). The second model suggests a southern origin and northward migration of East Asians (7,21). The third model assumes that the ancestors of the northern and southern populations arrived in East Asia separately. From the evidence that has been presented so far, genetic data collected on Y chromosomes and autosomal-microsatellite markers support the second model. According to the distribution of Y-chromosome haplotypes in East Asian populations, southern populations are much more diverse than northern populations (admittedly, this could be due to a bottleneck event that occurred in northern populations).” (130)

2005 - mitochondrial DNA

Southern route of migration from Africa through SEAsia to East Asia

Macaulay, V. Et al. 2005. “Single, rapid coastal settlement of Asia revealed by analysis of complete mitochondrial genomes.” Science 308(5724):1034-6.

Abstract: A recent dispersal of modern humans out of Africa is now widely accepted, but the routes taken across Eurasia are still disputed. We show that mitochondrial DNA variation in isolated “relict” populations in southeast Asia supports the view that there was only a single dispersal from Africa, most likely via a southern coastal route, through India and onward into southeast Asia and Australasia. There was an early offshoot, leading ultimately to the settlement of the Near East and Europe, but the main dispersal from India to Australia approximately 65,000 years ago was rapid, most likely taking only a few thousand years.

2005 - teeth

Challenges Turner (1989); supports "two-layer" model

Matsumura H, Hudson MJ. 2005. Dental perspectives on the
population history of Southeast Asia. Am J Phys Anthropol
127:182–209.

Overview: (The text here is copied from the abstract) This article uses metric and nonmetric dental data to test the “two-layer” or immigration hypothesis whereby Southeast Asia was initially occupied by an “Australo-Melanesian” population that later underwent substantial genetic admixture with East Asian immigrants associated with the spread of agriculture from the Neolithic period onwards.

Method: We examined teeth from 4,002 individuals comprising 42 prehistoric and historic samples from East Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia, and Melanesia. For the odontometric analysis, dental size proportions were compared using factor analysis and Q-mode correlation coefficients, and overall tooth size was also compared between population samples. Nonmetric population affinities were estimated by Smith’s distances, using the frequencies of 16 tooth traits.

Conclusions: The results of both the metric and nonmetric analyses demonstrate close affinities between recent Australo-Melanesian samples and samples representing early Southeast Asia, such as the Early to Middle Holocene series from Vietnam, Malaysia, and Flores. In contrast, the dental characteristics of most modern Southeast Asians exhibit a mixture of traits associated with East Asians and Australo-Melanesians, suggesting
that these populations were genetically influenced by immigrants from East Asia. East Asian metric and/or nonmetric traits are also found in some prehistoric samples from Southeast Asia such as Ban Kao (Thailand), implying that immigration probably began in the early Neolithic. Much clearer influence of East Asian immigration was found in Early Metal Age Vietnamese and Sulawesi samples.

2009 - autosomal variation

Argues that there was a migration northward from SEA into EA, and that the genetic variation that resulted was the product of population divergence rather than gene flow from other populations

The HUGO Pan-Asian SNP Consortium, “Mapping human genetic diversity in Asia,” Science 326 (2009): 1541-1545

Overview: “The geographic source(s) contributing to EA populations have long been debated. One hypothesis suggests that all SEA and EA populations derive primarily from a single initial migration, which entered the continent along a southern, largely coastal route ([J. Y. Chu et al.1998; . 20. B. Su et al. 1999]). Another hypothesis argues for at least two independent migrations into East Asia, first along a southern route, followed later by a series of migrations along a more northern route that served to bridge European and EA populations, but with little contribution to populations in Southeast Asia ([B. Su et al. 1999]).” (1543)

Method: “Here we report a large-scale survey of autosomal variation from a broad geographic sample of Asian human populations.” (1543)

Conclusions: “In estimating the contribution of SEA and Central-South Asian (CSA) haplotypes to the EA gene pool by haplotype sharing analyses ([S. Xu, W. Jin, L. Jin 2009]), we found that more than 90% of haplotypes in EA populations could be found in SEA and CSA populations, of which about 50% were found in SEA and EA only and 5% found in CSA only (Fig. 3B, see also SOM text). Phylogenetic analysis of private haplotypes indicates greater similarity be tween EA and SEA populations relative to EA and CSA populations (Fig. 3C). These observations suggest that the geographic source(s) contributing to EA populations were mainly from SEA populations, with rather minor contributions from CSA, and that this clinal structure of EA populations arose from prehistoric population divergence rather than IBD [isolation-by-distance] or gene flow from CSA populations.” (1543-44)

“Although this study does not disprove a two-wave model of migration, the evidence from our autosomal data and the accompanying simulation studies (figs. S29 and S30) point toward a history that unites the Negrito and non-Negrito populations of Southeast and East Asia via a single primary wave of entry of humans into the continent.” (1545)

2010 - agriculture

Spread of rice cultivation into southern China

Zhang Chi & Hsiao-chun Hung, “The Emergence of Agriculture in Southern China,” Antiquity 84 (2010): 11–25.

Overview: The authors note that “It has been suggested that the southward dispersal of rice agriculture from the Yangtze Valley was perhaps related to the expansions of Austroasiatic- and Austronesian-speaking populations into Mainland and Island Southeast Asia respectively (e.g. Higham & Lu 1998; Higham 2002; Diamond & Bellwood 2003; Bellwood 2005: 222). If so, then southern China, between the Yangtze Basin and northern Mainland Southeast Asia, must have played a significant role in the spread of rice farming. However, due to the rarity of reported rice remains and reliable 14C dates, the question of agricultural development in southern China proper, south of the Yangtze Basin, remains poorly understood.

Method: “We have previously suggested (Zhang & Hung 2008a) that the process of agricultural dispersal in China was not a singular event. To illustrate this, we focus here on recent discoveries from the regions of Lingnan-Fujian-Taiwan (Lingnan includes the provinces of Guangxi and Guangdong) and south-west China (Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou provinces).”

Conclusions: “Rice cultivation was introduced into southern China around 3000-2500 BC from the Middle and Lower Yangtze Valley, possibly earlier in coastal regions. Separate coastal and inland routes of expansion are suggested into Fujian-Guangdong and Guangxi respectively, and it is likely that each area underwent a separate process of introduction. In south-west China, agriculture occurred in Sichuan c. 3000 BC and then spread into Guizhou and Yunnan c. 2500 BC. The dispersal of rice agriculture was thus not a single event. In the early stage, before 3000 BC, dispersal was slow, even involving periodic returns to non-agricultural subsistence with a heavy emphasis on fishing and hunting in areas marginal to the main Yangtze Basin, such as the Middle Yuan and Xia-Jiang regions. But once the Yangtze agricultural systems became highly developed with domesticated and transportable crops and animals, rice cultivation spread very quickly. The process of southward dispersal carried not only the knowledge and technology of rice cultivation, but also considerable human population. Because of the consequent growth of farming populations in southern China after 2500 BC, the Neolithic cultures of Lingnan-Fujian and south-west China spread rapidly into Southeast Asia.”

2010 - mitochondrial DNA and/or Y-chromosome data

Southern route of migration from Africa through SEAsia to East Asia

Stoneking, Mark, and Frederick Delfin, “The Human Genetic History of East Asia: Weaving a Complex Tapestry.” Current Biology Vol. 20, Issue 4 (2010): R188–R193.

Overview: (Copied from abstract) Here, we review the following topics: the initial colonization of East Asia, the direction of migrations between southeast Asia and northern Asia, the genetic relationships of East Asian hunter-gatherers and the genetic impact of various social practices on East Asian populations.

Method: Insights derived from mitochondrial DNA and/or Y-chromosome data.

Conclusions: In conclusion, the current genetic evidence tends to support an early migration of modern humans from Africa along a southern route to East Asia. Many studies find genetic differences between southern and northern East Asian populations, and while the Pan-Asian SNP study conclusively shows a strong signature of a south-to-north migration, some migration in the reverse direction cannot be ruled out. Some hunter-gatherer groups do show distinctive genetic signatures, suggesting that they have maintained their hunting-gathering lifestyle since pre-agricultural times, while other hunter-gatherer groups may have reverted recently from an agricultural lifestyle. Genetic analyses of East Asian groups have also demonstrated an important impact of human cultural practices — in particular, residence pattern, social selection and agriculture-related population expansions — on genetic variation.

2011 - skeletal sequences

Supports “two-layer” model

Hirofumi Matsumura, Marc F. Oxenham, Nguyen Kim Thuy, Ngyuen Lan Cuong & Nguyen Kim Dung, “Population History of Mainland Southeast Asia: The Two Layer Model in the Context of Northern Vietnam.” In Enfield, N. J. (ed.), Dynamics of Human Diversity: The Case of Mainland Southeast Asia (Canberra: Australian National University, 2011), 153-178.

Overview: The authors explain that “the population history of Southeast Asia generally
revolve around two main questions. The first is whether the early occupants of Southeast Asia have an Australo-Melanesian affinity. . . The second question concerns the timing, source and scale of the dispersal of food-producing people often linked with language family expansion from southern China or Taiwan, and whether they mixed with or replaced local, extant populations.” (154)


Method: “The central aim of this chapter is to address these two major issues by way of examining human skeletal sequences spanning the prehistoric and early historic phases of northern Vietnam.” (154)

Conclusions: The authors argue that the Hoabinhians may share “a common ancestry with present-day Australian Aboriginal and Melanesian people”. They then state that there is clear evidence of later migrations into the region: “In northern Vietnam, examples of sweeping population change, likely associated with large-scale admixture with North/East Asians, are especially evident from the Neolithic
(e.g. Phung Nguyen and Ha Long periods) and early Metal Age. . . The close resemblance between Dong Son crania and those of recent East Asians suggests large scale gene flow into northern Vietnam brought about by immigrants from peripheral regions to the north and northeast of Vietnam during the Neolithic and/or early Metal Period. Man Bac, a Neolithic site dated to between 3900–3500 years BP, may be pivotal in resolving the question of the dispersal timing of food-producing populations into northern Vietnam.” (169)

Regarding the skeletal remains found in Man Bac, the authors write,

“Some individuals closely resemble the earlier pre-Neolithic inhabitants of the region, while others show a close affinity to the later Dong Son inhabitants. This remarkable intra-group variation in cranial morphology suggests an initial appearance of immigrants at Man Bac with a genetic inheritance located in the northern peripheral region of Vietnam, which includes what is now southern China. Man Bac may be an example of one of those extremely rare archaeological snap shots of a population in transition; a somewhat cosmopolitan mix of indigenous inhabitants tracing their origins back to the Hoabinhian and new comers with a genetic heritage located outside of the region. The eventual outcome of this integration was a new population that contributed to the modern Southeast Asian morphology.” (169-170)

2011 - mitochondrial DNA

Argues that southern (especially southwest) China was probably the genetic reservoir of modern humans in East Asia

Kong QP, Sun C, Wang HW, et al. Large-scale mtDNA screening reveals a surprising matrilineal complexity in east Asia and its implications to the peopling of the region. Molecular Biology and Evolution. 2011 Jan;28(1):513-522. DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msq219.

Overview: “In recent years, our knowledge of the fine-detailed mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) tree of East Asian has been much improved, mainly due to the elaborate analyses of mtDNA genomes from China (Kivisild et al. 2002; Kong, Yao, Sun, et al. 2003; Trejaut et al. 2005; Kong et al. 2006; Zhao et al. 2009) and Japan (Tanaka et al. 2004; Bilal et al. 2008; Ueno et al. 2009). Although the vast majority of mtDNA lineages in East Asia (which is usually understood to encompass China, Mongolia, Korea Peninsula, and Japan) can be allocated into the available mtDNA haplogroup system, there are some infrequent mtDNA lineages whose phylogenetic status remains unknown. Full determination of these uncharacterized mtDNA types has at least two advantages: 1) such information helps to better understand the matrilineal genetic composition and refine the mtDNA phylogeny in East Asia and 2) full recognition of these mtDNA types may have important implications for getting deeper insights into the initial peopling scenario of the region.” (513)

Method: “To get a comprehensively geographic coverage of Chinese samples and to collect more uncharacterized mtDNA types, a total of 6,093 individuals from 84 populations across China (fig. 1 and supplementary table S1, Supplementary Material online) were collected.” (514)

This was then compared with other data (see the article for details).

Conclusion: “In this context, our observations, including an enrichment of most of the basal lineages in southern China (especially its southwestern part) (supplementary figs. S1–S6, Supplementary Material online) and the ancient ages of these newly found basal haplogroups (table 1), raise a possibility that southern (especially southwest) China was probably the genetic reservoir of modern humans when they first populated East Asia. However, one has to admit that the lack of extensive data from Southeast Asia, especially for some key regions, for example, Myanmar, make any precise localization of this initial scenario at best tentative.” (519-20)

2012 - historical texts

Vietnamese historical sources cannot be used to examine early history

Liam C. Kelley, “The Biography of the Hồng Bàng Clan as a Medieval Vietnamese Invented Tradition,” Journal of Vietnamese Studies 7.2 (2012): 87-130.

Overview: This paper analyzes “The Biography of the Hồng Bàng Clan,” the opening section of the fifteenth-century Vietnamese historical text, the Complete Book of the Historical Records of Đại Việt (Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư), and demonstrates that although it contains information about early history, that information was created (invented) some 1500 years later, and therefore cannot be used to examine or understand early history.

2013 - language

Blust, R. A. The Austronesian Languages (Asia-Pacific Linguistics Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies,The Australian
National University, Canberra, 2013).

Overview:

2013 - migration

Bellwood, P. First Migrants (Wiley Blackwell, Chichester, 2013).

Overview:

2014 - teeth

Early SEAsians related to Australian/Melanasian; later migration of Northeast Asians into the region = "two-layer" model

Matsumura H, Oxenham MF. Demographic transitions and migration in prehistoric East/Southeast Asia through the lens of nonmetric dental traits. Am J Phys Anthropol. 2014 Sep;155(1):45-65. doi: 10.1002/ajpa.22537.

Concluding Paragraph: “The aim of this study is to examine and assess the nonmetric dental trait evidence for the population history of East and Southeast Asia and, more specifically, to test the two-layer hypothesis for the peopling of Southeast Asia.”

Method: “Using a battery of 21 nonmetric dental traits we examine 7,247 individuals representing 58 samples drawn from East and Southeast Asian populations inhabiting the region from the late Pleistocene, through the Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age, and into the historic and modern periods.”

Conclusions: “Principal findings indicated a major dichotomization of the dataset into (1) an early Southeast Asian sample with close affinities to modern Australian and Melanesian populations and (2) a very distinct grouping of ancient and modern Northeast Asians. Distinct patterns of clinal variation among Neolithic and post-Neolithic Mainland Southeast Asian samples suggest a center to periphery spread of genes into the region from Northeast Asia. This pattern is consistent with archaeological and linguistic evidence for demic diffusion that accompanied agriculturally driven population expansion in the Neolithic.

2017 - dental phenotypic shape variation

“multiple AMH dispersal”

Corny, J. et al. 2017. Dental phenotypic shape variation support multiple dispersals of anatomically modern humans in Southeast Asia. Journal of Human Evolution, 112, 41–56. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2017.08.017

Abstract: The population history of anatomically modern humans (AMH) in Southeast Asia (SEA) is a highly debated topic. The impact of sea level variations related to the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and the Neolithic diffusion on past population dispersals are two key issues.

We have investigated competing AMH dispersal hypotheses in SEA through the analysis of dental phenotype shape variation on the basis of very large archaeological samples employing two complementary approaches. We first explored the structure of between- and within-group shape variation of permanent human molar crowns.

Second, we undertook a direct test of competing hypotheses through a modeling approach. Our results identify a significant LGM-mediated AMH expansion and a strong biological impact of the spread of Neolithic farmers into SEA during the Holocene.

The present work thus favors a “multiple AMH dispersal” hypothesis for the population history of SEA, reconciling phenotypic and recent genomic data.

2017 - Neolithic transition

Hung, H. C., Zhang, C., Matsumura, H. & Li, Z. Neolithic transition in Guangxi: a long development of hunting-gathering society
in Southern China in Bio-Anthropological Studies of Early Holocene Hunter-Gatherer Sites at Huiyaotian and Liyupo in Guangxi,
China (eds. Matsumura, H., Hung, H. C., Li, Z. & Shinoda, K.) 205–228, http://www.kahaku.go.jp/research/publication/
monograph/download/47/ Monograph47.pdf (National Museum of Nature and Science, Monographs 47, Tokyo, 2017).

Abstract:

2018 - genomes

Present-day Southeast Asian populations derive ancestry from at least four ancient populations

Hugh McColl et al. 2018. “The Prehistoric Peopling of Southeast Asia.” Science 361(6397): 88-92. Doi: 10.1126/science.aat3628

Final Paragraph: Present-day Southeast Asian populations derive ancestry from at least four ancient populations (Fig. 4).

The oldest layer consists of mainland Hòabìnhians (group 1), who share ancestry with present-day Andamanese Önge, Malaysian Jehai, and the ancient Japanese Ikawazu Jōmon.

Consistent with the two-layer hypothesis in MSEA, we observe a change in ancestry by ~4 ka ago, supporting a demographic expansion from EA into SEA during the Neolithic transition to farming.

However, despite changes in genetic structure coinciding with this transition, evidence of admixture indicates that migrations from EA did not simply replace the previous occupants.

Additionally, late Neolithic farmers share ancestry with present-day Austroasiatic-speaking hill tribes, in agreement with the hypotheses of an early Austroasiatic farmer expansion (20).

By 2 ka ago, Southeast Asian individuals carried additional East Asian ancestry components absent in the late Neolithic samples, much like present-day populations. One component likely represents the introduction of ancestral Kradai languages in MSEA (11), and another the Austronesian expansion into ISEA reaching Indonesia by 2.1 ka ago and the Philippines by 1.8 ka ago.

The evidence described here favors a complex model including a demographic transition in which the original Hòabìnhians admixed with multiple incoming waves of East Asian migration associated with the Austroasiatic, Kradai, and Austronesian language speakers.

2018 - genomes

Supports “two-layer” model

Lipson, M. et al. 2018. Ancient genomes document multiple waves of migration in Southeast Asian prehistory. Science 361 (2018), 92–95. Doi: 
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aat3188

Abstract: Southeast Asia is home to rich human genetic and linguistic diversity, but the details of past population movements in the region are not well known.

Here, we report genome-wide ancient DNA data from 18 Southeast Asian individuals spanning from the Neolithic period through the Iron Age (4100 to 1700 years ago).

Early farmers from Man Bac in Vietnam exhibit a mixture of East Asian (southern Chinese agriculturalist) and deeply diverged eastern Eurasian (hunter-gatherer) ancestry characteristic of Austroasiatic speakers, with similar ancestry as far south as Indonesia providing evidence for an expansive initial spread of Austroasiatic languages.

By the Bronze Age, in a parallel pattern to Europe, sites in Vietnam and Myanmar show close connections to present-day majority groups, reflecting substantial additional influxes of migrants.

2019 - Craniometrics

"two-layer" model

Hirofumi Matsumura, Hsiao-chun Hung, Charles Higham, Chi Zhang, Mariko Yamagata, Lan Cuong Nguyen, Zhen Li, Xue-chun Fan, Truman Simanjuntak, Adhi Agus Oktaviana, Jia-ning He, Chung-yu Chen, Chien-kuo Pan, Gang He, Guo-ping Sun, Weijin Huang, Xin-wei Li, Xing-tao Wei, Kate Domett, Siân Halcrow, Kim Dung Nguyen, Hoang Hiep Trinh, Chi Hoang Bui, Khanh Trung Kien Nguyen & Andreas Reinecke, Craniometrics Reveal “Two Layers” of Prehistoric Human Dispersal in Eastern Eurasia. www.nature.com/scientificreports

Abstract: This cranio-morphometric study emphasizes a “two-layer model” for eastern Eurasian anatomically modern human (AMH) populations, based on large datasets of 89 population samples including findings directly from ancient archaeological contexts.

Results suggest that an initial “first layer” of AMH had related closely to ancestral Andaman, Australian, Papuan, and Jomon groups who likely entered this region via the Southeast Asian landmass, prior to 65–50kya.

A later “second layer” shared strong cranial affinities with Siberians, implying a Northeast Asian source, evidenced by 9kya in central China and then followed by expansions of descendant groups into Southeast Asia after 4kya.

These two populations shared limited initial exchange, and the second layer grew at a faster rate and in greater numbers, linked with contexts of farming that may have supported increased population densities.

Clear dichotomization between the two layers implies a temporally deep divergence of distinct migration routes for AMH through both southern and northern Eurasia.

2020

title

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2021

title

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2014 - Archaeology

skeletal sequences

text

Overview: