Monday, June 28, 2021

Ancient Southern Chinese DNA

Ancient Mesolithic and Neolithic DNA from Southern China reveals that it once had three distinct diverged ancestries, none of which exist in unadmixed form today. The results are largely paradigm confirming. 

More commentary and context is available in a comment from "Matt" here.

Highlights

• Guangxi region in southern China had distinct East Asian ancestry 11 kya not found today 
• At least three distinct ancestries were in southern China and SE Asia prior to 10 kya 
• Three admixed ancestries were present in pre-agricultural Guangxi 9–6 kya 
• Tai-Kadai- and Hmong-Mien-related ancestry present in Guangxi by 1.5–0.5 kya 
Summary 
Past human genetic diversity and migration between southern China and Southeast Asia have not been well characterized, in part due to poor preservation of ancient DNA in hot and humid regions. 
We sequenced 31 ancient genomes from southern China (Guangxi and Fujian), including two ∼12,000- to 10,000-year-old individuals representing the oldest humans sequenced from southern China. 
We discovered a deeply diverged East Asian ancestry in the Guangxi region that persisted until at least 6,000 years ago. 
We found that ∼9,000- to 6,000-year-old Guangxi populations were a mixture of local ancestry, southern ancestry previously sampled in Fujian, and deep Asian ancestry related to Southeast Asian Hòabìnhian hunter-gatherers, showing broad admixture in the region predating the appearance of farming. 
Historical Guangxi populations dating to ∼1,500 to 500 years ago are closely related to Tai-Kadai and Hmong-Mien speakers. 
Our results show heavy interactions among three distinct ancestries at the crossroads of East and Southeast Asia. 
Graphical abstract

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