Genetic History of East Asia

University Of Cincinnati Main Campus, Cincinnati OH

Investigators

Abstract

East Asia marks one of the key areas for understanding the origin and prehistoric migrations of modern humans. In particular, the relative continuity of hominid fossils found in China has challenged the well-known "Out of Africa" hypothesis which states that the modern humans originated only once in Africa, subsequently migrated out of Africa and replaced all the archaic forms of human in the rest part of the world. The aforementioned observation suggests an independent origin of modern humans in East Asia and it contradicts the results obtained from genetic studies. Unfortunately, no systematic genetic study has been conducted to describe the spectrum of genetic diversity in East Asian populations. This project aims to describe the genetic profile of East Asian populations, to trace the ancient migratory routes in East Asia, and to study the origin of modern humans in this region by analyzing a battery of mtDNA, Y chromosomal, and autosomal markers. This project will evaluate the genetic diversity of a group of linguistically and geographically diverse but ethnically defined populations in East Asia using a set of mtDNA, Y chromosomal, and autosomal polymorphisms. It will investigate the prehistoric migrations of modern humans in this area and study the genesis of the significant genetic differences between northern and southern Mongoloids using both Y and mtDNA haplotypes. Then, it will examine the competing hypotheses of origin of anatomically modern humans in East Asia. Finally, it will characterize the relationship between linguistically versus geographically affiliated populations, and study the origin and dispersal of major language families in East Asia.