Genetic evidence supports linguistic affinity of Mlabri - a hunter-gatherer group in Thailand

Shuhua Xu,Metawee Srikummool,Daoroong Kangwanpong,Jatupol Kampuansai,Mark Seielstad,Li Jin

doi:10.1186/1471-2156-11-18

Abstract

BackgroundThe Mlabri are a group of nomadic hunter-gatherers inhabiting the rural highlands of Thailand. Little is known about the origins of the Mlabri and linguistic evidence suggests that the present-day Mlabri language most likely arose from Tin, a Khmuic language in the Austro-Asiatic language family. This study aims to examine whether the genetic affinity of the Mlabri is consistent with this linguistic relationship, and to further explore the origins of this enigmatic population.ResultsWe conducted a genome-wide analysis of genetic variation using more than fifty thousand single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) typed in thirteen population samples from Thailand, including the Mlabri, Htin and neighboring populations of the Northern Highlands, speaking Austro-Asiatic, Tai-Kadai and Hmong-Mien languages. The Mlabri population showed higher LD and lower haplotype diversity when compared with its neighboring populations. Both model-free and Bayesian model-based clustering analyses indicated a close genetic relationship between the Mlabri and the Htin, a group speaking a Tin language.ConclusionOur results strongly suggested that the Mlabri share more recent common ancestry with the Htin. We thus provided, to our knowledge, the first genetic evidence that supports the linguistic affinity of Mlabri, and this association between linguistic and genetic classifications could reflect the same past population processes.

Highlights

The Mlabri are a group of nomadic hunter-gatherers inhabiting the rural highlands of Thailand
To search for the group that gave rise to the founders of Mlabri and to examine if the genetic affinity is consistent with linguistic affinity, we further investigated the genetic relationship of Mlabri and other populations
Both model-free and model-based clustering analyses strongly suggest that the Mlabri share a degree of common ancestry with the Htin, a group speaking Tin language. In this case – as is the general rule in many human populations – the genetic affinity of these populations is consistent with its linguistic affinity. This result, to our knowledge, is the first genetic evidence supporting the linguistic affinity of the Mlabri and Tin languages

Summary

Introduction

The Mlabri are a group of nomadic hunter-gatherers inhabiting the rural highlands of Thailand. The Mlabri are a hill tribe in northern Thailand, inhabiting a dispersed area along the border with Laos [1,2] Today, they are a small population of nomadic huntergatherers, unusual in a region of almost entirely agricultural economies [3]. This work, very interesting, was criticized for not including any of populations neighboring the Mlabri, such as the Htin, Hmong, and northern Thai As a result, these authors were unable to demonstrate any similarities in the genetic and linguistic affinity of the Mlabri, and so made little comment on the possible source population (s) from which the Mlabri originated [8]

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