Abstract
BackgroundYami and Ivatan islanders are Austronesian speakers from Orchid Island and the Batanes archipelago that are located between Taiwan and the Philippines. The paternal genealogies of the Yami tribe from 1962 monograph of Wei and Liu were compared with our dataset of non-recombining Y (NRY) chromosomes from the corresponding families. Then mitochondrial DNA polymorphism was also analyzed to determine the matrilineal relationships between Yami, Ivatan, and other East Asian populations.ResultsThe family relationships inferred from the NRY Phylogeny suggested a low number of paternal founders and agreed with the genealogy of Wei and Liu (P < 0.01). Except for one Y short tandem repeat lineage (Y-STR), seen in two unrelated Yami families, no other Y-STR lineages were shared between villages, whereas mtDNA haplotypes were indiscriminately distributed throughout Orchid Island.The genetic affinity seen between Yami and Taiwanese aborigines or between Ivatan and the Philippine people was closer than that between Yami and Ivatan, suggesting that the Orchid islanders were colonized separately by their nearest neighbors and bred in isolation. However a northward gene flow to Orchid Island from the Philippines was suspected as Yami and Ivatan peoples both speak Western Malayo-Polynesian languages which are not spoken in Taiwan. Actually, only very little gene flow was observed between Yami and Ivatan or between Yami and the Philippines as indicated by the sharing of mtDNA haplogroup B4a1a4 and one O1a1* Y-STR lineage.ConclusionsThe NRY and mtDNA genetic information among Yami tribe peoples fitted well the patrilocal society model proposed by Wei and Liu. In this proposal, there were likely few genetic exchanges among Yami and the Philippine people. Trading activities may have contributed to the diffusion of Malayo-Polynesian languages among them.Finally, artifacts dating 4,000 YBP, found on Orchid Island and indicating association with the Out of Taiwan hypothesis might be related to a pioneering stage of settlement, as most dating estimates inferred from DNA variation in our data set ranged between 100-3,000 YBP.
Highlights
IntroductionThe Ivatan tribe people are inhabitants of Itbayat in the Batanes archipelago which is south of Orchid Island (Figure 1)
Yami and Ivatan islanders are Austronesian speakers from Orchid Island and the Batanes archipelago that are located between Taiwan and the Philippines
A close genetic relationship between Yamis and Ivatans was hypothesized by linguistic studies, since both groups of islanders belong to the Batanic sub-branches of the Malayo Polynesian language group found in the ISEA
Summary
The Ivatan tribe people are inhabitants of Itbayat in the Batanes archipelago which is south of Orchid Island (Figure 1). The archaeological findings in Orchid Island have shown evidence of Fine Corded Ware Culture, which is related to the Peinan culture [5]. These middle Neolithic artifacts were found on the east coast of Taiwan between Hualien and Taitung (Figure 1). These findings indicate contact and possibly migration from Taiwan to Orchid Island ~4,000 years before present (YBP). The post-Neolithic oral history (~1,500 YBP), reports that the interactions between Orchid island and the Batanes archipelago islanders were frequent until ~300 YBP [6], but the interactions between TwA and Orchid Islanders have ceased much earlier
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