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Natives or immigrants: modern human origin in east asia

Nature Reviews Genetics volume 1, pages 126–133 (2000)Cite this article

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.

Key Points

  • Modern humans have a recent common origin in Africa.

  • Fossil records unearthed in China suggest the possibility of a local, independent origin of East Asians.

  • Genetic studies using autosomal, mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome markers all point to an African ancestor of East Asians.

  • A close examination of human fossils in China reveals a gap that spans from 100,000 to 50,000 years ago.

  • A survey of more than 1,000 East Asian Y chromosomes shows no local contribution, making the multiregional hypothesis very unlikely.

  • The Y chromosome haplotype distribution of diverse East Asian populations suggests a northward migration leading to the peopling of mainland East Asia and Siberia.

  • The Y chromosome haplotype distribution of Polynesian/Micronesian, Taiwanese and Southeast Asians refutes the hypothesis of a Taiwan homeland of Pacific Islanders.

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Figure 1: The phylogeny of Y-chromosome haplotypes in East Asians (H1–H17).
Figure 2: The distribution of the seven East Asian-specific Y-chromosome haplotypes.
Figure 3: The putative migratory routes of East Asians of African origin.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Human Genetics Center, University of Texas, Houston, 77030, Texas, USA

    Li Jin

  2. School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, China

    Bing Su

  3. National Human Genome Center at Shanghai, China

    Bing Su

Authors
  1. Li Jin
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Supplementary information

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FURTHER INFORMATION

The Ethnologue: Languages of the World

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LIFE SCIENCES

Human evolution: Overview

Glossary

ALLOZYME

A different electrophoretic form of the same enzyme due to allelic differences.

GENETIC ARCHITECTURE

The genetic make-up of a population.

HIGH-PERFORMANCE LIQUID CHROMATOGRAPHY

A technique for separating DNA or protein molecules by molecular weight and conformation.

VARIANCE

A measure of the variation around the central class of a distribution (the average squared deviation of the observations from their mean value).

ASCERTAINMENT BIAS

An error introduced with a biased sampling scheme.

HAPLOTYPES

A set of genetic markers present on one chromosome.

GENETIC DRIFT

Changes in allele frequency that result because the genes appearing in offspring are not a perfectly representative sample of the parental genes (for example, in small populations).

ALU SEQUENCE

A dispersed, intermediately repetitive DNA sequence found in the human genome in about 300,000 copies. The sequence is about 300 base pairs long. The name Alu comes from the restriction endonuclease (AluI) that cleaves it.

EFFECTIVE POPULATION SIZE

The size of a population determined by the number of individuals who contribute to the next generation, assuming random mating.

COALESCENCE

A pedigree-like network in which all living individuals sampled are united under a most recent common ancestor.

ADMIXTURE

Inter-population gene flow.

INCA BONES

Supernumerary bones on the skull at lambda, the corner between the two parietal and the occipital bones.

EXPRESS TRAIN MODEL

A hypothesis that claims a rapid eastward migration of humans starting in Southern China, spreading Austronesian language and the associated Lapita culture through the Pacific islands about 4,000 to 5,000 years ago.

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Jin, L., Su, B. Natives or immigrants: modern human origin in east asia. Nat Rev Genet 1, 126–133 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35038565

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