“The genomic formation and diversity of underrepresented southern Chinese and Southeast Asian populations have long fascinated researchers, particularly regarding Late Paleolithic to Holocene expansions and early paternal interactions. Here, we present a large-scale paternal genomic aggregation dataset of 14435 ancient and present-day Eurasian individuals, including 584 newly sequenced whole Y-chromosome genomes. We reconstruct the highest-resolution Y-chromosome phylogeny to date for ancient East and Southeast Asian populations based on our fully resolved modern eastern Eurasian maximum-likelihood phylogenetic framework. We identify 138 paternal lineages that diversify during the Neolithic in a time-calibrated phylogeny and find that 17 dominant lineages are shared between China and Mainland Southeast Asia (MSEA), with a marked expansion beginning ca. 5 kya and peaking between 3.5 and 3 kya. While northern and southern Han populations show minimal paternal differentiation, southern ethnolinguistic minorities exhibit clear substructures, in which coastal groups align with Tai-Kadai speakers, southwestern groups with Hmong-Mien speakers, and highland groups with Tibeto-Burman speakers. Our findings support a demic diffusion model of Neolithic farming and Han culture, highlighting the significant paternal contributions of ancient millet farmers and their Han descendants to the genetic landscape of southern China and MSEA, with subsequent enrichment from rice farmer-mediated expansions.”
Paternal genetic contributions of ancient agriculturalists to present-day China and MSEA.
(A) Frequencies of subsistence-related paternal haplogroups across 86 Chinese and MSEA populations. MSEA groups are displayed in boxes. Populations on the lower left are from Thailand; those on the lower right are from Vietnam.
(B) Contributions of millet- and rice-farming-associated haplogroups to ancient and modern meta-populations. "EM" denotes ethnic minorities. Arrow colors match the haplogroups shown in (A); arrow thickness corresponds to haplogroup frequencies within each meta-population; arrow paths are schematic and do not represent actual migration routes. Color gradients indicate migration directions, with lighter colors showing origins and darker colors showing destinations. Light blue lines indicate the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers. The inset bar plot shows haplogroup frequencies within each meta-population.
(C) Pearson correlation analysis between the frequencies of subsistence-related haplogroups across Chinese and MSEA populations (n = 86) and geographic coordinates, with p < 0.05 considered significant. Line colors match those in (A).
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450 ancient Asian genomes trace the most recent common ancestor of the Qiang to ancient Yellow River farmers ~5300 years ago, indicating shared ancestry with other Chinese populations.
"Ancient Yellow River ancestry and divergent admixture histories in the Qiang people"
ADMIXTURE inference of the ancestral makeup of Qiang_H, Qiang_T and other Eurasian populations.
Great illustration. Genetic origin of the Qiang people.
(D) A possible demographic model of the Qiang population. Ancestry proportions were estimated using MultiWaveX and rescaled after incorporating ancient and private ancestry into the model
Fig. 1. The geographic location and time period of the SHJ site (A) Geographic location of the SHJ site and published relevant sites; (B) Timeline of the SHJ site's use during the mid-Pingcheng period of the Northern Wei Dynasty.
Genetic structure and affinities of the SHJ individuals
(A) Principal component analysis (PCA) showing the genetic variation of SHJ individuals projected onto present-day Eurasian populations;
(B) Outgroup f3-statistics showing that SHJM42-1 shares the most genetic drift with Steppe-related groups;
(C) f4-statistics (f4 (Mbuti, X; SHJ-g1, SHJ-g2)) indicate that SHJ-g1 individuals share more ancestry with East Asian populations than SHJ-g2.
Xiongnu armored cavalry, middle of the 1st century BC beginning of the 1st century AD (reconstruction by V. V. Gorbunov, drawing by G. L. Nekhvedavichyus
Warrior’s armor and bladed weapons of Xiongnu: 1—6 — armor plates; 7 — armor; 8 — helmet; 9 — sword; 10 — belt buckle; 11—13 — belt distributors; 14 — dagger (1—6 — after Эрдэнэбаатар и др. 2015:
V. V. Gorbunov Armored Cavalry of the Xiongnu and Xianbi: Reconstructing Armor and Equipment
Using the four ancient ancestral groups as parental components to directly estimate and compare the ancestry proportions of the 333 centenarians and 690 controls, resulting in the following mean values for CENT (WHG = 0.022, Iran_N = 0.019, Turkey_N = 0.63, Yamnaya_EBA = 0.32) and ITA (WHG = 0.017, Iran_N = 0.022, Turkey_N = 0.63, and Yamnaya_EBA = 0.33
Ancient genomes give insight into 160,000 years of East Asian population dynamics and biological adaptation.
How ancestral lineages and agricultural innovations shaped East Asian populations, while migrations and admixture events linked to shifting subsistence strategies contributed to genomic and phenotypic diversity.
Adaptive signatures from ancient genomes further elucidate the underpinnings of high-altitude adaptation, pigmentation, and morphological traits, offering new insights into human evolutionary biology.
Human evolutionary process and potential migrations in East Asia. Symbols of different colors and shapes are used to represent individuals with distinct archeological backgrounds and genetic connections.
The colored outlines delineate various regions: yellow for the TSM, purple for the ARB and WLRB, light yellow for the YRB, dark blue for the YZRB, and light blue for the TP and TYC.
The individual labels were consistent with the shapes and colors used in Fig. 2. The arrows indicate directions of past population spread or diffusion, with arrow colors corresponding to specific regions.