Wednesday 8 June 2011

Panasian-Part II: SE Asia

This part II is about continental SouthEast Asian populations from the Panasian dataset K=9 analysis I ran earlier. Some useful populations for comparison from part I are represented again- Their ADMXITURE component percentages are exactly the same since this is the very same run.

About the populations:

Hmong live in Southern China, particularly in more mountainous regions often separated by Han-inhabited areas, suggesting they were once more widespread in China, but were possibly swamped by an agriculturally more advanced wave of Han in the lowlands. They also live in South East Asian countries, such as Thailand. Yao people likewise live in Southern China and SouthEast Asia (the Yao sample in this set is from Thailand). Both Hmong and Yao speak Hmong-Mien languages. These peoples in China are often lumped as "Miao" by the Han. Interestingly, Han Chinese foundational myths speak of the Miao as a people originally from the Yellow River, forced to migrate south after conflict with the Huaxia, another Yellow River people, from whom the Han claim to descend. Such stories may be just folklore, but they do resonate somewhat with a Neolithic model of East Asian population expansion. Interestingly, the Hmong-modal component (light green) is larger in populations from the Yellow River southwards, while the closely related red component is more important in Han Chinese and northeastwards from the Yellow River in Koreans and Japanese.

Wa or Va, Lawa, Blang or Plang, Paluang, Mal and Mon speak Austro-Asiatic tongues and live in pockets dispersed between Southern China, Southeast Asia, and Burma. In this set, the Wa sample's from China, the remaining ones from Thailand.
Vietnamese also belongs to the linguistic family. These languages are generally thought of as the original languages of SE Asia, being mostly replaced by Tai-Kadai and Austronesian languages today, but their geographical dispersion might also suggest expansion from a Chinese homeland, where they largely didn't survive.

Tai Yuan, Tai Khuen, Tai Lue, Tai Yong, Zhuang and Jiamao are Tai-Kadai speaking.
Tai-Kadai languages have some similarities to Austronesian tongues, suggesting possible common origin in Southern China- with one expanding West into continental SE Asia, the other East into Taiwan and insular SE Asia. Both would be largely become extinct in Southern China itself after the "Second Wave"-like Han expansion from the North.

Malays and Temuan speak Austronesian languages, as do the aboriginal Taiwanese Amis. SG Malays are from Singapore.

Jehai and Kensiu are Malaysian Negritos. They speak Austronesian languages as well, very likely adopted from their agriculturalist neighbours.

Considerations/speculation:
1) China Hmong appear to differ with Thailand Hmong only in some southern Han admixture in the former. This may also apply to Yao.
2) Temuan speak an Austronesian dialect apparently somewhat mutually intelligible with Malay. They preserve many ancient traditions maybe lost among the Malay, such as religious Animist practices. They also have a larger "pink" element modal in local Negrito foragers. Their presumed greater isolation may help explain less dark green genetic admixture than in Malays.
3) Jehai have substantial "dark blue" element absent in Kensiu. This may suggest an association of the dark blue element with agriculturalists (fst distances to other components are in agreement-see part I).
4) Some "Burgundy" component starts to become visible in Malays, unlike in more Northern populations.
5) The presence of an element clustering with West Eurasians in Mon and Malays is interesting. It's small, so it may be just noise. But since Indian populations weren't included and there's no "South Asian"-modal component, I wouldn't find it strange if this element would have a similar pattern to Fertile Crescent ones as found in South Asia- either from the time of the arrival of Neolithic West Asians to India, perhaps also later?
6) ADMIXTURE patterns at this K and language families have some correlation. A common origin in an ancient Yellow River-Yangtze River Nelithic Core Area can also be argued for linguistically.

Next I'll post results from this run for Insular Southeast Asia (Philippines, then Indonesia).

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