44 replies to this topic

[LongMa]

Polynesia:

Are you suggesting that Asia as a whole comes from seperate origins or that Asians
over time were isolated, because Southeast Asians not only are Chinese but are East Asians
as well, all of East Asia is the early migration North from Southeast Asia- the forming of China's
Culture itself cut these groups or migration north off from the Southeast of Asia, this is why you find Archaeolical
and Genetic markers from the South in the North , after the Formation of stronger Chinese Cultures this migration from
Southeast Asia along the Pacific Coast slowed to almost nothing after even Stronger Political borders were drawn.
All of Asia itself has it's orgins in the Southeast Asian Pacific along the Oceans border.

Well all people originated from East Africa...we all have common ancestors, the issue is how far back you would like to go.

East Asians at one time all had common ancestors, that is a fact, that is not argued by anyone.

The argument is really when did they break apart and when did those who broke apart come back together and remix and what does this all mean as far as present ethnicity and nationality.

All of Asia does not have its origins along Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

There were thought to be two migrations that split in the Middle East at some point.

One went South along Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, India, and into Southeast Asia and even up into present day southern China.


Another migration (by which most people outside of Africa went) came into the Middle East and into the Asian Steppe...while in the Asian steppe some people split and moved West into Southern Europe and others moved East into North East Asia...coming out of Central Asia.

We are talking about things that occurred over 20-40 thousand years ago..some folks kept walking into the Americas across Siberia and the Russian Far East (there were several waves of people into the Americas, not just one).

Some folks from Indonesia spread out into the Pacific....who became Melanesians and Polynesians.


You have to also remember that at this time, people were not farming, they were hunter-gathers and they lived in sparse populations. There were many areas of the earth with no people and I'm sure you could walk for days and not see another person.

This is the isolation you spoke of. When people started farming the population increased and people started to stay in one place. When the horse (and camel) were domesticated people could travel more than 15-20 miles a day on foot...

The earth at that time...if Wiki is correct, probably only had 250, 000,000 people in about 900AD...that's it.

So 20-40 thousand years ago, there were barely any people on earth, likely less than 20 million or so (if I remember the estimate correctly) scattered all over the world.

As far as your question, it is quite complicated. historically people have invaded South, not Southern people invading North for a variety of reasons. One is, Northern people tend to be more warlike as they are more used to competing for scarce resources.

What China's political organization did, was push people into Southeast Asia who did not live there before in large numbers or at all (such as the Thai, Yue), etc, which pushed people like the Khmer, Negritos, etc further South or into mountains, jungles, etc.

At that time though you can still see some haplogroups such as Y Chromosome O, has moved South from the North since prehistoric times, so the Chinese were not the first to push South, many of the ancestors of the Yue and Thai likely lived in North or at least Central China for thousands of years and their ancestors also came from Central Asia.

Edited by LongMa, 08 December 2008 - 08:02 PM.

[Moonstone]

If there should be 35 individuals of Chinese origin, then shouldn't there be at least 35 Japanese dots on the Han Chinese cluster?

If the sampling were completely random, then, yes, we should expect to see approximately 35 "Japanese" data points in the Han Chinese cluster.
They might have tried to avoid sampling non-ethnic Japanese individuals, but not tried hard enough, inadvertently allowing some ethnic Chinese or Koreans to slip into their sample; however, this is all speculation and there is really no way to prove it unless the authors explain their sampling procedure.

I think the results are just a random variation of Japanese population rather than the few outliers being actual Han Chinese citizens in Japan. With a huge sample size as 7003, one would expect some outliers and even some who overlap other clusters, even if the people are ethnically Japanese.

I suppose that might be possible, but it is not what should normally be expected. If the outliers were really "pure ethnic Japanese," then they should not be so genetically different from their compatriots that they would cluster with some Han Chinese instead. Ethnic groups have a tendency to homogenize themselves over the generations, regardless of how diverse the origins of their original genetic inputs might have been. In other words, if the individuals in question were really full ethnic Japanese, there should be a smooth cline between these individuals and the rest of the Japanese, not a huge gap like we see in this case.

The unnatural separation of these individuals from the Japanese genetic cluster makes me suspect that they must have recent non-Japanese admixture of some sort. A full-blooded ethnic Japanese should not have a genetic profile that fails to contact any edge of the Japanese cluster.

Edited by Moonstone, 08 December 2008 - 08:24 PM.

[SNK_1408]

Guys, the overlapping shows people tends to travels horizontally mainly because of climate condition, and people tends to travels forwards & backwards as many as they can.

The one who traveled from Northern India could well have come back from Tibet or Mongolia; and this sort of process can continue and carries genetic mutation from various places. They will carry disease, newly discovered foods, ideas & knowledges.

This is why while East & West were considerably developed than these at North pole, Africa, South pacific, South America etc..
This is law of the nature, all animals travels horizontally, horses and meat eaters, and plant eaters all travels horizontally; only birds and fish travels vertically to search for different climates.

Humans and mammals only travels to south or north if it only have to travel; for example seasonal changes; when weather is too cold they search for warmer places; once they found the ideal condition, human tends to settle down and build their livelihood.

This is why Northern people looking very different from Southern people; it doesn't really mean they are different people originally.

Btw, this doesn't mean that humans only travels horizontally; it could well travel vertically too but its less than horizontal movements.

[nijokyoto]

Studies on autosomal SNPs are not enough to determine anything about human genetics. 2 populations can have the EXACT same ancestors, and with isolation, autosomal DNA can change vastly from generation to generation.

Classical genetic markers (protein and blood group) are a better way in determining common ancestry.

X and Y chromosome SNPs are also missing in autosomal SNP testing.

X (mtdna) chromosome studies among Japanese show that Japanese mtdna haplogroup downstream SNPs have a significant percentage with specificity with Han Chinese mtdna haplogroup downstream SNPs. These are mtdna (female sex) chromosomes, and are entirely different from autosomal chromosomes.

Y chromosome studies among Japanese show that Japanese ydna haplogroup downstream SNPs have a significant percentage with specificity with both Korean and Ryukyuan ydna haplogroup downstream SNPs.

Edited by nijokyoto, 09 December 2008 - 09:24 AM.

[LongMa]

Studies on autosomal SNPs are not enough to determine anything about human genetics. 2 populations can have the EXACT same ancestors, and with isolation, autosomal DNA can change vastly from generation to generation.

Classical genetic markers (protein and blood group) are a better way in determining common ancestry.

X and Y chromosome SNPs are also missing in autosomal SNP testing.

X (mtdna) chromosome studies among Japanese show that Japanese mtdna haplogroup downstream SNPs have a significant percentage with specificity with Han Chinese mtdna haplogroup downstream SNPs. These are mtdna (female sex) chromosomes, and are entirely different from autosomal chromosomes.

Y chromosome studies among Japanese show that Japanese ydna haplogroup downstream SNPs have a significant percentage with specificity with both Korean and Ryukyuan ydna haplogroup downstream SNPs.

yeah I said that already. Actually autosomal does not tell you origin but it does tell you who has had more contact with who SINCE ORIGIN.

Koreans and Chinese could have originated the exact same place, but are totally different today (I'm using an example, not stating a fact) because each admixed more with a neighboring population.

So it depends on what you are tracking.

Origin is still hard to determin with haplogroups, but we can kind of tell the general direction people moved in and guess where they split up...but it is not an exact science.

For example. Did Mongoloids begin with O haplogroup? WHere did Han begin, what Y chromosone?

Reality is the question is asinine, because Han likely were already hetereogeneous from the beginning and there were several Y Chromosones in the original population, each might have had some different origin but just ended up in the same location.


There is no such thing as "Han mtdna"

There is no such thing as Korean or Ryukuan Y Chromosones.

There is only the fact that some haplogroups are much more common in one population than another, that does not necessarily mean they even originated in that population...they could have became dominent for other reasons (bottleneck, genetic drift, etc).

[Moonstone]

Origin is still hard to determin with haplogroups, but we can kind of tell the general direction people moved in and guess where they split up...but it is not an exact science.

For example. Did Mongoloids begin with O haplogroup? WHere did Han begin, what Y chromosone?

That would be impossible. From the perspective of physical anthropology, the most extremely "Mongoloid" populations (Native Americans and indigenous East Siberians) do not even have haplogroup O-M175. If there were a "Mongoloid Y-chromosome," it would probably be haplogroup C3-M217.

[LongMa]

That would be impossible. From the perspective of physical anthropology, the most extremely "Mongoloid" populations (Native Americans and indigenous East Siberians) do not even have haplogroup O-M175. If there were a "Mongoloid Y-chromosome," it would probably be haplogroup C3-M217.

What do you mean "extremely Mongoloid"?

Can you define that?

Are you implying that Native Americans or Siberians have undergone no natural selection in 20 or 30 thousand years and look like the original people to enter those areas looked?? I hope not because that does not make sense. There are no genetic deadends, evolution has not stopped, natural selection has not stopped for anyone, gene flow has not stopped either.

As far as C3...that is highly unlikely.

Native Americans may not have Haplogroup C because of a bottleneck, very few people ever walked into America, the genetic variance of Native Americans is quite small, some speculate, less than 500 people ever came across the land bridge into North America. to assume that few people would have taken the genetic diversity of all of Asia at the time and that the haplogroup, even if it did cross into North America, would have survived after this long in isolation is a BIG assumption

My point of asking the question is that there is no answer, one does not exist.

First you would have to define who was the first fully Mongoloid person or group. That's subjective. Likely there never were any "pure mongoloids" there were clines of various types, just like we can see today. At each end of a pole you have extremes, because distance minimized gene flow, allowing certain features to be dominant. It would just not occur in one man or one family, shifts in phenotype occur very slowly over time across a population...

That group is likely not likely going to be uniform in haplogroup in the first place, not even back then.

"C" exists in Australia, Oceana...none of those people are remotely what we would call "Mongoloid"

C IS 60,000 and likely existed before Caucasion/Mongoloid split started...as people moved into Southern Europe, from Central Asia or the Eurasian Steppe. C3 is thought to be 20,000 years old.

[Moonstone]

What do you mean "extremely Mongoloid"?

Can you define that?

If you plot various anthropometric (especially osteological and craniological) measurements of samples of human populations, you will find that Native Americans, Mongols, and indigenous North Asians occupy one extreme of the range of measurements. This is how races were defined in the first place.

As far as C3...that is highly unlikely.

No, it is not. Actually, it is the most likely of all.
You shouldn't even need me to explain why, but I guess I'll have to give you a summary:

*Eastern Eurasians and Native Americans are closely related according to their physical anthropological characteristics
*Eastern Eurasians and Native Americans are closely related according to their autosomal genetic characteristics
*Eastern Eurasians and Native Americans are closely related according to their mitochondrial DNA
*Eastern Eurasians and Native Americans are not closely related according to the Y-chromosomal DNA of many of them, but some of them do share haplogroup C3-M217

What is the simplest explanation for these observations? You decide.

Native Americans may not have Haplogroup C because of a bottleneck, very few people ever walked into America, the genetic variance of Native Americans is quite small, some speculate, less than 500 people ever came across the land bridge into North America. to assume that few people would have taken the genetic diversity of all of Asia at the time and that the haplogroup, even if it did cross into North America, would have survived after this long in isolation is a BIG assumption

Native Americans do have haplogroup C in the form of its subclade, C3-M217, which they share with North Asians, East Asians, and Central Asians.

First you would have to define who was the first fully Mongoloid person or group. That's subjective. Likely there never were any "pure mongoloids" there were clines of various types, just like we can see today. At each end of a pole you have extremes, because distance minimized gene flow, allowing certain features to be dominant. It would just not occur in one man or one family, shifts in phenotype occur very slowly over time across a population...

It is not really subjective. As I said before, if you graph various measurements of populations around the world and look at the results, you will find that North Asians and indigenous peoples of the Americas occupy one extreme in most of the graphs. In other words, they are the "most distinctive" or "most divergent" groups in regard to these traits; therefore, they are the most "Mongoloid" (or whatever name you want to choose as a label for that set of anthropometric values and ranges).

"C" exists in Australia, Oceana...none of those people are remotely what we would call "Mongoloid"

The haplogroup C found in Oceania consists mainly of two subclades: haplogroup C2 in Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian peoples, and haplogroup C4 in indigenous Australian peoples. These two subclades are not necessarily closely related to each other, nor are they necessarily closely related to the haplogroup C subclades that are found in Asian and American populations.

C IS 60,000 and likely existed before Caucasion/Mongoloid split started...as people moved into Southern Europe, from Central Asia or the Eurasian Steppe. C3 is thought to be 20,000 years old.

Haplogroup C is currently placed next to haplogroup F as a branch of haplogroup CF. Haplogroup C's subclades are limited to Mongoloid and Australoid populations. Its subclade C3-M217 is, in particular, shared among North Asians, Native Americans, Central Asians, East Asians, and some Southeast Asians, reflecting the relatively recent genetic links that exist among these populations.

Haplogroup O is ultimately a branch of haplogroup F, nearly all of whose subclades are found exclusively or most commonly in Caucasoid populations.
The fact of the matter is that it is much more likely that haplogroup C3 (and perhaps some other subclades of haplogroup C) should be "originally Mongoloid" than that a terminal branch of haplogroup F should be. If haplogroup O is so ancient and "originally Mongoloid," then why is it not found in the most extreme representatives of Mongoloid traits, i.e. indigenous Siberians and Americans?

Edited by Moonstone, 09 December 2008 - 08:43 PM.

[LongMa]

If you plot various anthropometric (especially osteological and craniological) measurements of samples of human populations, you will find that Native Americans, Mongols, and indigenous North Asians occupy one extreme of the range of measurements. This is how races were defined in the first place.


No, it is not. Actually, it is the most likely of all.
You shouldn't even need me to explain why, but I guess I'll have to give you a summary:

*Eastern Eurasians and Native Americans are closely related according to their physical anthropological characteristics
*Eastern Eurasians and Native Americans are closely related according to their autosomal genetic characteristics
*Eastern Eurasians and Native Americans are closely related according to their mitochondrial DNA
*Eastern Eurasians and Native Americans are not closely related according to the Y-chromosomal DNA of many of them, but some of them do share haplogroup C3-M217

What is the simplest explanation for these observations? You decide.


Native Americans do have haplogroup C in the form of its subclade, C3-M217, which they share with North Asians, East Asians, and Central Asians.


It is not really subjective. As I said before, if you graph various measurements of populations around the world and look at the results, you will find that North Asians and indigenous peoples of the Americas occupy one extreme in most of the graphs. In other words, they are the "most distinctive" or "most divergent" groups in regard to these traits; therefore, they are the most "Mongoloid" (or whatever name you want to choose as a label for that set of anthropometric values and ranges).


The haplogroup C found in Oceania consists mainly of two subclades: haplogroup C2 in Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian peoples, and haplogroup C4 in indigenous Australian peoples. These two subclades are not necessarily closely related to each other, nor are they necessarily closely related to the haplogroup C subclades that are found in Asian and American populations.


Haplogroup C is currently placed next to haplogroup F as a branch of haplogroup CF. Haplogroup C's subclades are limited to Mongoloid and Australoid populations. Its subclade C3-M217 is, in particular, shared among North Asians, Native Americans, Central Asians, East Asians, and some Southeast Asians, reflecting the relatively recent genetic links that exist among these populations.

Haplogroup O is ultimately a branch of haplogroup F, nearly all of whose subclades are found exclusively or most commonly in Caucasoid populations.
The fact of the matter is that it is much more likely that haplogroup C3 (and perhaps some other subclades of haplogroup C) should be "originally Mongoloid" than that a terminal branch of haplogroup F should be. If haplogroup O is so ancient and "originally Mongoloid," then why is it not found in the most extreme representatives of Mongoloid traits, i.e. indigenous Siberians and Americans?

O is the most common male Y chromosome in Asia.

Q and C are about the same age and they or branches are found in North

East Asia and also in the Americas.

First lets clear something up.

Terms like Mongoloid, I use for the sake of easy discussion but if you are

going to try to talk about "extreme Mongoloid", "True Mongoloid" etc.

These terms are defunct and no longer used by most anthropological

institutions or geneticists. These terms started going out of use about

15 years ago, at least in most of Western Europe and the U.S./Canada...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race#cite_note-17

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race#cite_note-11

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race#cite_note-10

The United States National Library of Medicine:

Other Notable MeSH Changes and Related Impact on Searching: Ethnic

Groups and Geographic Origins". NLM Technical Bulletin 335 (Nov-Dec).

2003.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/nd03/...ta_changes.html. "The

MeSH term Racial Stocks and its four children (Australoid Race, Caucasoid

Race, Mongoloid Race, and Negroid Race) have been deleted from MeSH in

2004. A new heading, Continental Population Groups, has been created with

new indentions that emphasize geography.".

These type of things were based on measurements of "scientist" like Coon

who and his predecessors who were often trying to prove the innate

physical superiority of the "Aryan Race". For example, it was believed in

the 1800's that "Mongoloids" evolved from Orangutans and were not even

related to people in Europe or Africa but from some distant early ape-like

primate. This was not science as we know it today.

Humans exist in clines. Even in regions with great deserts /moutains/and

waterways there was often still gene flow and intermediate populations,

although they were so small it limited gene flow in such a way as to

maintain stronger phenotypical appearance on each side of the divide.

There has never existed a "pure Mongoloid".

As far as Native Americans...it is not true they represent "extreme

Mongonloid" features.

That is false.

Coon and others felt the most extreme Mongoloid features were in the

Tungustic and Northeast Asia in people like these:



The earliest Native Americans did not look like that.

They looked like Kinwick man, who looked like Ainu/Jomon, and more

distantly Austronesian.



It is likely when these type of people came to the americans, 20,000 years

ago the extreme phenotype we seen in Northeast Asia today did not exist,

if they did, they had no yet made it to that area of Asia (just like Yayoi

did not exist and Jomon lived all over Japan).

These people are usually considered "proto-Mongoloid" as they have some

proto-Caucasoid features as well.

I have said over and over again we can not look at Haplogroups and

origin and always attribute present phenotype to people who lived in the

past with those Haplogroups. That assumes evolution through natural

selection and genetic bottlenecks, intermarriage that lead to new gene

introduction, etc ALL STOPPED. IT DID NOT. Humans have never been

stagnant...we are not genetic deadends (no population).

A good example...Kets look like this and they are predominately (like over

70%) Q Y chromosone:

[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Ket_shaman_1914.pn

g[/img

The vast majority of Native Americans look nothing like that.

They look like this:

Iraquois

[img]http://www.wheretheyplaygames.com/images/people01.jpg[/img]

Amazonian Indian

[img]http://www.publicanthropology.org/images/Faces/Yanomami%20portrait8(girl).jpg[/img]

Lakota

[img]http://www.buffalosoldier.net/Chief%20Victorio%20aka%20Apache%20Wolf.jpg[/img]

Shawnee

[img]http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ohgreene/Images/218.jpg[/img]


Mayan

[img]http://w0sd.com/mexico2004/0027.jpg[/img]

They obviously don't look like Kinwick men, Ainu,or Kets.

Some of them likely have C and Q though, no doubt.


In any case it is highly unlikely that people who originated from proto-Mongoloids (Native Americans/Amerids) represented what you are referring to as "extreme Mongoloids".

The "Mongoloid" phenotype did not exist in the Americans to our knowledge 20,000 years ago and likely did not exist in much of East Asia.

It was probably still evolving as it moved West into East Asia from Central Asia/Eurasian Steppes.

The people who look the most like "extreme Mongoloids" that live in large numbers are Tungustic and people who live South of them.

We know (or it is believed, even by many Chinese anthropologist) Han came out of North West China, near the foothills near Tibet and spread into East Asia...it is likely they were not alone in this migration or did not come first (possibly proceeded by proto-Turkic and Tugustic Altaic speakers into East Asia), but had the phenotype we consider "Mongoloid".

It is not shocking there is no firm lingustic connection between any Native American language (even Inuit whose ancestors were thought to have come from Asia last) and East Asian languages, only speculation, well but for people like Kets...but Kets are thought to be a member of the na-Dene language Supergroup, but that group doesn't extend far outside of Canada and Alaska but some isolated regions in the American Southwest, in groups like the Navajo and Apache, but this is still considered controversial.

Other languages like Ainu are isolates and so far removed from anyone...no one will likely ever know there connection. I would imagine most of the proto-Mongoloid type were absorbed or killed off and were likely never large in population to begin with because they were hunter gathers who live in low population density and are nomadic...

MtDNA is interesting in that...of

A, B, C, D, and X, only the last is associated with East Asia.

The others are direct descendants from N (sometimes through R), which is 50,000 years old and thought to have evolved in the Middle East or Central Asia and are not found at all or only in trace amounts in East Asia.

In any case, much of that is neither here nor there.

First we have to consider that "Mongoloids" actually existed as a "distinct grouping".

Most people today (expert associations) say they do not and never have.

Even if we say they do, the most "extreme phenotypical cline" is not Native Americans or other "proto Mongoloids"... the idea it is proto, links directly to the features being pre-Mongoloid, therefore some mix of Caucasiod and Mongoloid.

That is not called "extreme" it is called "intermediate".

Native Americans are clearly derived from an Asian population with affinities to the Mongoloids.[18] However, Native Americans retain certain non-Mongoloid features.[18] These might represent the genetic legacy of a pre-Mongoloid, Australoid-Caucasoid population, swamped by a later Mongoloid immigration;[18] more likely, they reflect the broad range of physical variation found in early northern Asian populations, before Mongoloid traits became predominant."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongoloid_race#Native_Americans

The physical features of the "Proto-Mongoloid" were characterized as, "a straight-haired type, medium in complexion, jaw protrusion, nose-breadth, and inclining probably to round-headedness".[41] Kanzō Umehara considers the Ainu and Ryukyuans to have "preserved their proto-Mongoloid traits". [42]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongoloid_race#Proto_Mongoloids

Edited by LongMa, 10 December 2008 - 09:22 AM.

[mongobanjum]

Haplogroup C3 might be shared among the "extreme Mongoloid" populations, but native Americans also have haplogroup Q.

Indigenous Australians and Polynesians belong to different C branches. They don't have the C3-M217 marker.

Haplogroup C3 also occurs at moderately high frequencies in Korean peninsula (16%). It's also interesting to see haplogroup Q also occurs at a low frequency among Koreans (2%) and Dungans (6%).

Percentages from http://hpgl.stanford..._v98_p10244.pdf
(The Eurasian Heartland: A continental perspective on
Y-chromosome diversity)



I think anthropologically, Koreans and Native Americans (at least those in North America) show some physical resemblances. There's also archaeological evidence that ondol technology from Korean peninsula/southeastern Manchuria traveled all the way across Siberia to North America.


This Native American man exhibits features common to native Siberians.


Tungus man

Edited by mongobanjum, 10 December 2008 - 09:40 AM.

[LongMa]

I fixed some of the links in my previous post.

[mongobanjum]

Here's a study on classical genetic markers (proteins, blood serums, etc)

Abstract Polymorphism of HLA genes was investigated in a population sample of Ryukyuans living on the main island of Okinawa (n = 197), in the southwestern islands of Japan. Serological typing was applied to class I loci (HLA-A, -B, and -C) and to HLA-DRB1; nucleotide sequence-level typing was performed using PCR microtiter plate hybridization and PCR single-strand conformation polymorphism methods. Ryukyuans showed a higher frequency of DRBI *0405 and lower frequencies of DRB1*1502 and DRB1*1302 compared with Hondo Japanese living on main islands. Principal components and phylogenetic analyses of 12 East Asian populations, including Ryukyuans, were performed based on the allele frequencies of HLA-A, -B, and -DRB1. In the principal components analysis 3 Japanese populations (Ryukyuans, Hondo Japanese, and Ainu) formed a cluster and showed the highest affinity to 2 Korean populations. In the phylogenetic tree Ryukyuans and Ainu were neighbors, but the genetic distance between them was larger than the distances between Ryukyuans and Hondo Japanese and between Ryukyuans and Korean populations. The geographic cline of the predominant haplotype in Ryukyuans, A*24-B*54-DRB1*0405, suggests that an ancestral population possessing A*24-B*54-DRB1*0405 moved into the Okinawa Islands after the divergence of Ryukyuans from the Ainu. Such a recent gene flow, probably from South China to the Okinawa Islands, is considered the major cause of difference in genetic characteristics between Ryukyuans and the Ainu.

Principal Components Analysis. Figure 1 shows the result of the principal components analysis of 12 East Asian populations based on allele frequencies at the HLA-A, -B, and -DRB1 loci. Contributions of the first and second principal components were 20.9% and 19.6%, respectively (40.5% total). For the first principal component Ryukyuans were closest to the Buyi, a population living in southwest China, followed by Hondo Japanese, Singapore Chinese, and Thais; for the second principal component Ryukyuans were closest to the Ainu followed by Hondo Japanese, South Koreans, and Chinese Koreans. As a whole, however, 3 populations of Japan (Ryukyuans, Hondo Japanese, and Ainu) formed a cluster.

Edited by mongobanjum, 10 December 2008 - 10:16 AM.

[mongobanjum]

I found an interesting article linked by someone from an anthropology blog:

http://72.14.235.132...p...;cd=5&gl=au

The recent launch of 1-million-SNP chips from Illumina and Affymetrix showcased the ability of the rival array firms to produce high-density genotyping tools, but also marked their continued decision to include copy number variation content on these chips in order to reach a market that is still trying to figure out just how to survey CNV data in future studies.

Indeed, both commercial and academic sources have said in recent weeks that now that the CNV content has been deployed on the Affy and Illumina chips, the debate over the way that vendors will make CNV information available to users in the future is intensifying. While vendors have yet to decide whether new products will take the form of a standalone “CNV chip” or if they will bundle the content into existing product lines for array comparative genome hybridization or SNP genotyping, most agree that CNV content will play an important role in next-generation microarray products.

Scherer said he is skeptical that the current generation of products can meet the long-term needs of researchers doing association studies with CNVs in mind. “If you want to do whole-genome association studies, based on the current products I don’t think it will work very well,” he said. “With that in mind there would be room for a CNV-specific array.”

[LongMa]

Here's a study on classical genetic markers (proteins, blood serums, etc)

Abstract Polymorphism of HLA genes was investigated in a population sample of Ryukyuans living on the main island of Okinawa (n = 197), in the southwestern islands of Japan. Serological typing was applied to class I loci (HLA-A, -B, and -C) and to HLA-DRB1; nucleotide sequence-level typing was performed using PCR microtiter plate hybridization and PCR single-strand conformation polymorphism methods. Ryukyuans showed a higher frequency of DRBI *0405 and lower frequencies of DRB1*1502 and DRB1*1302 compared with Hondo Japanese living on main islands. Principal components and phylogenetic analyses of 12 East Asian populations, including Ryukyuans, were performed based on the allele frequencies of HLA-A, -B, and -DRB1. In the principal components analysis 3 Japanese populations (Ryukyuans, Hondo Japanese, and Ainu) formed a cluster and showed the highest affinity to 2 Korean populations. In the phylogenetic tree Ryukyuans and Ainu were neighbors, but the genetic distance between them was larger than the distances between Ryukyuans and Hondo Japanese and between Ryukyuans and Korean populations. The geographic cline of the predominant haplotype in Ryukyuans, A*24-B*54-DRB1*0405, suggests that an ancestral population possessing A*24-B*54-DRB1*0405 moved into the Okinawa Islands after the divergence of Ryukyuans from the Ainu. Such a recent gene flow, probably from South China to the Okinawa Islands, is considered the major cause of difference in genetic characteristics between Ryukyuans and the Ainu.

Principal Components Analysis. Figure 1 shows the result of the principal components analysis of 12 East Asian populations based on allele frequencies at the HLA-A, -B, and -DRB1 loci. Contributions of the first and second principal components were 20.9% and 19.6%, respectively (40.5% total). For the first principal component Ryukyuans were closest to the Buyi, a population living in southwest China, followed by Hondo Japanese, Singapore Chinese, and Thais; for the second principal component Ryukyuans were closest to the Ainu followed by Hondo Japanese, South Koreans, and Chinese Koreans. As a whole, however, 3 populations of Japan (Ryukyuans, Hondo Japanese, and Ainu) formed a cluster.

This is only based on blood.

This is highly volatile and can be effected by local disease variants...this is why these studies aren't used much anymore for this purpose.

Ryukuans live in a tropical place...it is not shocking, due to their historic trading by seaways that they were exposed to various tropical disease that people in Northern Japan or Korea would not have been...this will effect the genetics of their immune system.

[Nguyen-Trong Cam]

What China's political organization did, was push people into Southeast Asia who did not live there before in large numbers or at all (such as the Thai, Yue), etc, which pushed people like the Khmer, Negritos, etc further South or into mountains, jungles, etc.

At that time though you can still see some haplogroups such as Y Chromosome O, has moved South from the North since prehistoric times, so the Chinese were not the first to push South, many of the ancestors of the Yue and Thai likely lived in North or at least Central China for thousands of years and their ancestors also came from Central Asia.

Great thread!
I have 1 thing to say: 2500 years ago, 4 out of 7 statelets in China were Yue or non-Hua. This occurred in historic time, and there is no indication of Yue southern migration before and after Chin and Han were established.
And 1 question to ask: where did you read that Y Chromosone Haplogroup O moved South from the North? We only know it came from Central Asia.

Edited by Nguyen-Trong Cam, 24 August 2009 - 08:39 AM.