Old DNA provides insights into the origins of the current population of Southeast Asia | Smart news

When it comes to the ancient origins of the current population of Southeast Asia, two dominant theories have divided scientists for more than a century. It is postulated that indigenous hunter-gatherers Hòabìnhian independently developed agricultural practices about 44,000 years ago. The other, known as the "two-layer model", argues that migrating rice farmers in the region of present-day China have replaced Hòabìnhian.

No theory is entirely correct, according to a new study published recently in . Instead, an international team of scientists discovered that the genetic diversity of the region was more complex than initially suspected, with the Hòabìnhian, Asian, Southeast Asian, and Vietnamese populations contributing to the mix.

Two and a half years tracking down old DNA samples from Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Laos and Japan. In total, researchers examined 43 ancient skeletons to sequence 26 ancient human genomes, which were then compared with the DNA of modern Southeast Asians.

The complete skull of an individual Hòabìnhian found in Gua Cha, Malaysia, and a Hòabìnhian skeleton of 8,000 years discovered in a cave at Pha Faen, Laos were among the samples; they represent the region's oldest sequenced DNA, because the heat and humidity of Southeast Asia tend to prevent the preservation of DNA. Previously, scientists had only been able to sequence 4,000-year-old samples from the region.

The team's discoveries allowed them to draw a DNA portrait of the ancient humans of Southeast Asia, suggesting that Southeast Asians can Hugh McColl, PhD student at the University of Copenhagen and one of the main authors of the paper, notes that "the Hunan-hunter-gatherers and farmers of East Asia have contributed to the current diversity of the South -Is Asian. Peter Bellwood of Science adds that the original Pleistocene hunter-gatherers, as the Hòabìnhian theory points out, were the main occupants. from Southeast Asia about 5000 to 4000 years ago, when Middle Holocene Neolithic farmers, as the two-layered model pointed out, migrated from southern China to mainland China. According to the study, "the evidence described here favors a complex model including a demographic transition in which the original Hòabìnhiens mixed with multiple incoming waves of east-Asian migration associated with Austroasiatic, Kradai.

The new discoveries, therefore, do not demystify so much the two dominant theories that refine and combine them. Although the Hòabìnhians did not remain totally separate from the new migrant populations, they were not erased by the new settlers. Instead, the original inhabitants mingled with the new, paving the way for the Southeast Asian population rich in diversity.

Like this article?
REGISTER NOW for our newsletter