Abstract
The great ethnolinguistic diversity found today in mainland Southeast Asia (MSEA) reflects multiple migration waves of people in the past. Maritime trading between MSEA and India was established at the latest 300 BCE, and the formation of early states in Southeast Asia during the first millennium CE was strongly influenced by Indian culture, a cultural influence that is still prominent today. Several ancient Indian-influenced states were located in present-day Thailand, and various populations in the country are likely to be descendants of people from those states. To systematically explore Indian genetic heritage in MSEA populations, we generated genome-wide SNP data (using the Affymetrix Human Origins array) for 119 present-day individuals belonging to 10 ethnic groups from Thailand and co-analyzed them with published data using PCA, ADMIXTURE, and methods relying on f-statistics and on autosomal haplotypes. We found low levels of South Asian admixture in various MSEA populations for whom there is evidence of historical connections with the ancient Indian-influenced states but failed to find this genetic component in present-day hunter-gatherer groups and relatively isolated groups from the highlands of Northern Thailand. The results suggest that migration of Indian populations to MSEA may have been responsible for the spread of Indian culture in the region. Our results also support close genetic affinity between Kra-Dai-speaking (also known as Tai-Kadai) and Austronesian-speaking populations, which fits a linguistic hypothesis suggesting cladality of the two language families.
Highlights
Mainland Southeast Asia (MSEA) is a region with high ethnolinguistic diversity and complex population history
Mainland Southeast Asia is a region with great ethnolinguistic diversity
We studied genetic population history of present-day mainland Southeast Asian populations using genome-wide SNP data
Summary
Mainland Southeast Asia (MSEA) is a region with high ethnolinguistic diversity and complex population history. Previous archaeogenetic studies indicate that the earliest MSEA individuals belong to the deeply diverged East Eurasian hunter-gatherers [4]. Andamanese hunter-gatherers (Onge and Jarawa) and MSEA Negritos are present-day populations with substantial proportions of ancestry from the deeply diverged East Eurasian hunter-gatherer lineage [4,5]. Neolithic populations in MSEA were established by admixture between these local hunter-gatherers and agriculturalists who migrated from South China around 4000 years ago [4,5]. The genetic makeup of MSEA Neolithic individuals is similar to present-day Austroasiatic-speaking populations [4,5]. That pair of studies detected additional waves of migrations from South China to MSEA during the Bronze and Iron Ages. A Chinese source described Funan, one of the earliest known states in MSEA, as established by an Indian Brahmin named Kaudinya and a local princess [2,6]. Ancient Sanskrit inscriptions were found throughout MSEA, and several present-day languages in the region contain numerous Sanskrit loanwords [6]
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