Population-Genetic History of China in the Context of the East Asian Population History

Abstract

The territory of modern China was a zone of active population transformations from the time of its occupation by human species. There was the formation zone of the progenitors of all Mongoloid populations associated with the eastern trunk of non-Africans. The most ancient group is associated with the population of Tianyuan cave (田園洞). The basal steam split, after Tianyuan branch separation into two clusters of southern and northern populations. The north groups formed a gene pool base for the modern population of the northern half of China, Japan, Korea, as well as Mongolia, Siberia, and America. The southern groups formed a gene pool core for the population of Indochina, Indonesia, eastern Oceania. From the beginning of the Neolithic era, two-way interaction begins between both groups. During the agricultural spread, people from the region of the upper Yellow River actively settled in Tibet, the southwestern provinces of China, the lower reaches of the Yellow River, forming the basis of the gene pool of modern Tibetans, other Tibetan-Burmans and progenitors of the Han. Also, the migrants from the valley of Yellow River influence the population of the western Liao River, associated with another subgroup of the northern Mongoloid cluster. And the basin of this river, this population inhabits the Korean Peninsula, and from there to the Japanese archipelago. In historical time, especially in the Jin, Tang and Song eras, the penetration of northerners south of the Yellow River intensified. It absorbs local groups and affects the gene pools of local Sino-Tibetan and Hmong-Mien groups that have escaped assimilation. At the same time, the southern groups of Han Chinese also receive a noticeable admixture from the southern Mongoloid groups of the southern cluster. The arrival of the Han Chinese probably causes the outflow of part of the Tibeto-Burman groups to northeast India. The invasions of the steppe nomads did not change the gene pool of China. On the contrary, the resettlement of Han farmers in the steppe left a noticeable admixture in the population of Mongolia from the Xiongnu era to the present. Thus, the population of China since ancient times has not only a turbulent internal population history but had been influencing since the earliest epochs to rest of the population of the Inhabited parts of the World like Siberia, both Americas, India, South-East Asia and Oceania.