The deep population history of northern East Asia from the Late Pleistocene to the

[venustas]

Excuse me, there's no Paleolithic y-DNA typed remains before 20 kya? Oase is 40 kya, Ust-Ishim is 45 kya, and Bacho Kiro is 46 kya, they've all been y-haplogroup tested.

Unless those who support the southern route can provide samples older than the ones I mentioned, or else the southern route is nothing but empty talk and guesses.

I forgot a word I meant to say there have been no samples with y-dna from SE Asia before 20kya.

[MNOPSC1b]

I forgot a word I meant to say there have been no samples with y-dna from SE Asia before 20kya.

Actually there're no samples with y-dna from SE Asia before 8 kya, the 8 kya Y-haplogroup C1b Hoabinhian La368 sample from Laos is the oldest SE Asian y-dna so far tested.

But I still think SE Asia's role as a OOA Homo Sapien haven is greatly exaggerated by those fervent advocates of the southern route hypothesis. Our ancestors had no problem living in northern latitudes, as proven by the many samples discovered in northern Eurasia so far.

[MNOPSC1b]

What kind of bizarro world logic is that?

It's not bizarre logic, you'd have to speak with evidence here, it's not some fantasy fairy tale forum where you can talk about whatever you want without providing any evidence.

I repeat myself for you and for other fervent supporters of the imaginary southern route, please find me a sample (K2a or K2b it doesn't matter) from SE Asia older than Ust-Ishim, Bacho Kiro, and Oase, that's the only way which you guys can prove the southern route, or else it's simply empty talk and imagination.

My logic is very straightforward and very easy to understand. Please speak with evidence.

[Kale]

It's not bizarre logic, you'd have to speak with evidence here, it's not some fantasy fairy tale forum where you can talk about whatever you want without providing any evidence.

I repeat myself for you and for other fervent supporters of the imaginary southern route, please find me a sample (K2a or K2b it doesn't matter) from SE Asia older than Ust-Ishim, Bacho Kiro, and Oase, that's the only way which you guys can prove the southern route, or else it's simply empty talk and imagination.

My logic is very straightforward and very easy to understand. Please speak with evidence.

I support that logic with the assertion that mt-L1 formed in Iberia because I4245.

[Ebizur]

For those who keep saying that K2a had a southern origin, please show me a Paleolithic K2a sample from SE Asia that is older than Ust-Ishim and Oase and I’ll be convinced.

No ancient DNA sample = no evidence

I would prefer not to state this directly, but it should be obvious that data derived from the Y-DNA of present-day humans should be more reliable than data derived from the Y-DNA of archaeological specimens.

Of course, ancient DNA extracted from an archaeological specimen has the potential to produce empirical proof of the presence of a member of a certain clade at a certain location at time of deposition, which is all the more useful for testing a hypothesis of the source of a prehistoric migration the closer the specimen is phylogenetically to some important node in the phylogeny.

However, the greater potential precision of ancient DNA for determining the time and place of origin of a particular clade is coupled with technological limitations (testing of degraded DNA is more difficult and less reliable), material limitations (ancient specimens must be discovered before they can be examined, and they may be quite few in number depending on various factors, such as local mortuary practices and soil acidity; furthermore, many ancient specimens do not retain sufficient amounts of endogenous DNA to be tested), and, unfortunately, a greater susceptibility to intentional obfuscation and manipulation by some nominal scientist who lacks moral integrity (it should be much easier to get away with manipulating patterns of ancient DNA results than it is to get away with manipulating patterns of present-day DNA results).

[anthrofennica]

The new hpDNA study is interesting. It shows all Americans, East Siberians, East Asians, Papuans, Australians, and most Yaponesians in a single clade. This clade is nested within a superclade that includes samples from South+West Eurasia (including a sample from the Neolithic Alps). The only clade in East Asia found outside it seems to be present in about half of the Okinawan population, which is found in basal position in a sister superclade (whose members were from Afghanistan, Punjab, Nepal).

If you go further back, all the other branches are European with a few South Asians, until you get to a branch found in both East Africa and West Eurasia. Everything deeper is just in Africa, with the deepest in South Africa.

The study concluded there must have been a separate northern migration to Okinawa preserved only in the Jomon. Maybe they are right. Maybe they are wrong. Whichever is the case, we could easily be looking at two different migrations into East Asia, and an easy explanation for that is both a southern and a northern route.

Most interesting to me is that there does not seem to be much of a diversity "pull" within the OoA population towards East Asia. South Asia only barely. West Eurasia is surprisingly diverse. I wonder about the implications of this for a coastal route Out of Africa.†

† As opposed to a coastal route into Sahul or up East Asia.



So basically most extant clades in East Eurasians do point to a spread through South and Southeast Asia. But not necessarily all of them. So however whichever Y-DNA haplogroups got there got there, most of the autosomal ancestry is expected to have reached East Asia through India and SE Asia, not from the north.

And in some ways, East Eurasians are nested within West Eurasians as far as hpDNA is concerned. This situation mirrors to some extent the Y-DNA situation of GHIJK. G, H, and IJ are all nested within and around Anatolo-Irania. And even within K, LT is difficult to view even as a very South Asian haplogroup going deeper in time. So there was clearly a period of time after OoA when Y-DNA haplogroups were diversifying an spreading, eventually throughout the world, and yet only a very nested part of this diversification, K2, made it to East Asia, while the rest of the diversity we see in the same region where we see the greatest hpDNA diversity.

Of course this is not counting some today-very-rare F clades, nor C and D. And it should be remembered that basal F* does seem to have been found in Europe and the Middle East even in the earlier part of the Neolithic (i.e. Derenburg Meerenstieg II); just like C1a it is quite possible the reason some of the rarer clades are not really present among West Eurasians like they are among East Eurasians has more to do with pure probability during the strong lineage extinction events during and following the Neolithic. North Eurasia could only support very low population densities, while in Southern Europe most of the native lines were replaced with Anatolian Farmer lines during the Neolithic. And "Circum-Anatolo-Irania" (CIA) has maximum forager population densities much lower than S Asia, SE Asia, or E Asia. So in contrast to those who take the preserved rare lineages in the latter regions as evidence for GHIJK being successive spreads from S Asia into CIA, I remain agnostic, and can only be convinced by a complete lack of such relict lineages in CIA following extensive aDNA testing, or if such lineages turn out to be nested within the eastern diversity.

Add the evidence of mtDNA (which provides less detail than hpDNA for basically the same lineage and may be more suspect to founder effects), and the evidence of auDNA, and together these seem to confirm a spread through S and SE Asia. They don't negate another spread through C Asia. But with so much diversity nested within CIA, the spread of OoA humans throughout Eurasia becomes much more complex than "it was clockwise" or "it was counter-clockwise". The more evidence we have, the clearer the picture will become. But already, I have to agree with everyone so far who doubts the Hallast et al. "F Out of SE Asia" hypothesis (though P is still interesting).

[MNOPSC1b]

I support that logic with the assertion that mt-L1 formed in Iberia because I4245.

Well, ancient DNA isn't 100% reliable, but it's still gonna be more reliable than modern ones by a long shot at determining the location of a particular haplogroup in a designated time period of the past. I mean, people do migrate a lot so the lineages that are now present in one place cannot serve as evidence for their presence in the same place 40 or 50 kya ago. Hence you cannot blindly assert that just because modern SE Asians have a certain Y-haplogroup it's ought to be the case that this Y-haplogroup originated from SE Asia. You can only assert that for trees, but not for humans.

And Iberia isn't that far away from Africa, so this example actually ends up supporting my logic.

[MNOPSC1b]

I would prefer not to state this directly, but it should be obvious that data derived from the Y-DNA of present-day humans should be more reliable than data derived from the Y-DNA of archaeological specimens.

Of course, ancient DNA extracted from an archaeological specimen has the potential to produce empirical proof of the presence of a member of a certain clade at a certain location at time of deposition, which is all the more useful for testing a hypothesis of the source of a prehistoric migration the closer the specimen is phylogenetically to some important node in the phylogeny.

However, the greater potential precision of ancient DNA for determining the time and place of origin of a particular clade is coupled with technological limitations (testing of degraded DNA is more difficult and less reliable), material limitations (ancient specimens must be discovered before they can be examined, and they may be quite few in number depending on various factors, such as local mortuary practices and soil acidity; furthermore, many ancient specimens do not retain sufficient amounts of endogenous DNA to be tested), and, unfortunately, a greater susceptibility to intentional obfuscation and manipulation by some nominal scientist who lacks moral integrity (it should be much easier to get away with manipulating patterns of ancient DNA results than it is to get away with manipulating patterns of present-day DNA results).

Reliability aside, ancient DNA is still gonna be the most direct evidence that proves a haplogroup's presence in a particular location in a certain time period. Whereas with modern DNA you can only infer or guess, but you cannot make assertions, cause humans have migrated a lot over the past 40 to 50 kya.

And the technology to extract ancient DNA has improved drastically over the recent years.

[MNOPSC1b]

The new hpDNA study is interesting. It shows all Americans, East Siberians, East Asians, Papuans, Australians, and most Yaponesians in a single clade. This clade is nested within a superclade that includes samples from South+West Eurasia (including a sample from the Neolithic Alps). The only clade in East Asia found outside it seems to be present in about half of the Okinawan population, which is found in basal position in a sister superclade (whose members were from Afghanistan, Punjab, Nepal).

If you go further back, all the other branches are European with a few South Asians, until you get to a branch found in both East Africa and West Eurasia. Everything deeper is just in Africa, with the deepest in South Africa.

The study concluded there must have been a separate northern migration to Okinawa preserved only in the Jomon. Maybe they are right. Maybe they are wrong. Whichever is the case, we could easily be looking at two different migrations into East Asia, and an easy explanation for that is both a southern and a northern route.

Most interesting to me is that there does not seem to be much of a diversity "pull" within the OoA population towards East Asia. South Asia only barely. West Eurasia is surprisingly diverse. I wonder about the implications of this for a coastal route Out of Africa.†

† As opposed to a coastal route into Sahul or up East Asia.



So basically most extant clades in East Eurasians do point to a spread through South and Southeast Asia. But not necessarily all of them. So however whichever Y-DNA haplogroups got there got there, most of the autosomal ancestry is expected to have reached East Asia through India and SE Asia, not from the north.

And in some ways, East Eurasians are nested within West Eurasians as far as hpDNA is concerned. This situation mirrors to some extent the Y-DNA situation of GHIJK. G, H, and IJ are all nested within and around Anatolo-Irania. And even within K, LT is difficult to view even as a very South Asian haplogroup going deeper in time. So there was clearly a period of time after OoA when Y-DNA haplogroups were diversifying an spreading, eventually throughout the world, and yet only a very nested part of this diversification, K2, made it to East Asia, while the rest of the diversity we see in the same region where we see the greatest hpDNA diversity.

Of course this is not counting some today-very-rare F clades, nor C and D. And it should be remembered that basal F* does seem to have been found in Europe and the Middle East even in the earlier part of the Neolithic (i.e. Derenburg Meerenstieg II); just like C1a it is quite possible the reason some of the rarer clades are not really present among West Eurasians like they are among East Eurasians has more to do with pure probability during the strong lineage extinction events during and following the Neolithic. North Eurasia could only support very low population densities, while in Southern Europe most of the native lines were replaced with Anatolian Farmer lines during the Neolithic. And "Circum-Anatolo-Irania" (CIA) has maximum forager population densities much lower than S Asia, SE Asia, or E Asia. So in contrast to those who take the preserved rare lineages in the latter regions as evidence for GHIJK being successive spreads from S Asia into CIA, I remain agnostic, and can only be convinced by a complete lack of such relict lineages in CIA following extensive aDNA testing, or if such lineages turn out to be nested within the eastern diversity.

Add the evidence of mtDNA (which provides less detail than hpDNA for basically the same lineage and may be more suspect to founder effects), and the evidence of auDNA, and together these seem to confirm a spread through S and SE Asia. They don't negate another spread through C Asia. But with so much diversity nested within CIA, the spread of OoA humans throughout Eurasia becomes much more complex than "it was clockwise" or "it was counter-clockwise". The more evidence we have, the clearer the picture will become. But already, I have to agree with everyone so far who doubts the Hallast et al. "F Out of SE Asia" hypothesis (though P is still interesting).

I fail to see how the tree you provided supports a coastal migration through S and SE Asia towards E Asia.

With a number of Paleolithic Homo Sapien samples being unearthed and tested from the northern parts of Eurasia in recent years, it's time to abandon the old southern coastal migration hypothesis. Our ancestors had no problem at all living in northern latitudes, and there's absolutely no reason to assume or to believe that they ought to have followed a strictly coastal route.

[anthrofennica]

I fail to see how the tree you provided supports a coastal migration through S and SE Asia towards E Asia.

With a number of Paleolithic Homo Sapien samples being unearthed and tested from the northern parts of Eurasia in recent years, it's time to abandon the old southern coastal migration hypothesis. Our ancestors had no problem at all living in northern latitudes, and there's absolutely no reason to assume or to believe that they ought to have followed a strictly coastal route.

I too fail to see how the tree would support a specifically coastal migration. But a migration through S and SE Asia towards E Asia? Well, the sample labelled "iceman" is the closest sample from West Eurasia (BM012A's ethnicity was not given but they were tested in "West Australia" so statistically they were likely to be of European descent). Further down the line, {India7, SNT49} is a South Asian clade. Shortly after, the line responsible for UBN18 (Thailand) diverged. Thailand is in SE Asia, and while there is South Asian ancestry there, statistically it is more likely to be "East-of-South Asian" (we await further testing for a better picture). The next to diverge were the Sahullans. Sahul is east of SE Asia. I couldn't find where PeCan4 came from beyond the probably the Americas judging by the label (this study didn't always label correctly). Everything else is East Asian.

I just connected the dots. Again, a separate migration through North Eurasia is not ruled out, i.e. for the Okinawan outliers. But for everyone else, trying to fit this with a migration from the north means you have to have an {East Asian, Sahullan} clade related closest to a Thailand clade, followed by an India clade. So there would be a fast and far migration stopping at India that wasn't strong enough to hold out against a fast+far migration all the way to Thailand eventually, followed by a fast+far migration to Sahul that happened to be closer to the East Asians.

So we now have [admittedly mild] hpDNA support for a southern route. And now we have to fit this with the mtDNA, auDNA, and Y-DNA evidence. And on top of that there is a complicated archaeological picture. Think for instance of Langley et al. 2020 and the evidence presented for bow-and-arrow primate hunting toolkits ~48 kya at Fa-Hien Lena in Sri Lanka. Similar technology has been cautiously suggested at the Niah Caves ~32 kya in Sunda, though the first confident evidence of bow hunting is with the Hoabinhians. Whether or not the projectiles were shot from a bow, their technology is similar.