Abstract
Northeast India, the only region which currently forms a land bridge between the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, has been proposed as an important corridor for the initial peopling of East Asia. Given that the Austro-Asiatic linguistic family is considered to be the oldest and spoken by certain tribes in India, Northeast India and entire Southeast Asia, we expect that populations of this family from Northeast India should provide the signatures of genetic link between Indian and Southeast Asian populations. In order to test this hypothesis, we analyzed mtDNA and Y-Chromosome SNP and STR data of the eight groups of the Austro-Asiatic Khasi from Northeast India and the neighboring Garo and compared with that of other relevant Asian populations. The results suggest that the Austro-Asiatic Khasi tribes of Northeast India represent a genetic continuity between the populations of South and Southeast Asia, thereby advocating that northeast India could have been a major corridor for the movement of populations from India to East/Southeast Asia.
Highlights
Two major routes have been proposed for the initial peopling of East Asia; one via Central Asia to Northeast Asia, which subsequently expanded towards Southeast Asia and beyond, and the other through India to Southeast Asia and further to different regions of East Asia [1]
If Northeast India had served as an initial corridor, it is likely that the Austro-Asiatic tribes of this region should provide hitherto missing genetic link, which may reflect genetic continuity between Indian and East/Southeast Asian populations
O-M95, with its frequency ranging from 17% in War-Khasi to 42% in War-Jaintia, was the most common haplogroup in all the AustroAsiatic populations followed by the undifferentiated O-M122 where as in the Tibeto-Burman Garo the frequency of O-M134 and undifferentiated O-M122 haplogroups (23% and 17%, respectively) were the most common
Summary
Two major routes have been proposed for the initial peopling of East Asia; one via Central Asia to Northeast Asia, which subsequently expanded towards Southeast Asia and beyond, and the other through India to Southeast Asia and further to different regions of East Asia [1]. Given its unique geographic position, Northeast India is the only region which currently forms a land bridge between the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, hypothesized as an important passage for the initial peopling of East Asia. This region is inhabited by populations belonging to Indo-European, Tibeto-Burman and Austro-Asiatic linguistic families. If Northeast India had served as an initial corridor, it is likely that the Austro-Asiatic tribes of this region should provide hitherto missing genetic link, which may reflect genetic continuity between Indian and East/Southeast Asian populations. Further evidence is needed by way of determining the mtDNA and Y-chromosome haplogroups/ lineages of the Austro-Asiatic tribes of the northeastern region and their comparison with appropriate set of South and Southeast Asian populations
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