Genetic dating indicates that the Asian-Papuan admixture through Eastern Indonesia corresponds to the Austronesian expansion.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

3-20-2012

Keywords

Asia, Asian Continental Ancestry Group, Bayes Theorem, Chromosome Mapping, Genetics, Population, Genome-Wide Association Study, Genotype, Geography, Humans, Indonesia, Language, Linguistics, Models, Genetic, Models, Statistical, Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide

JAX Source

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2012 Mar 20; 109(12):4574-9.

PMID

22396590

Volume

109

Issue

12

First Page

4574

Last Page

4579

ISSN

1091-6490

Abstract

Although the Austronesian expansion had a major impact on the languages of Island Southeast Asia, controversy still exists over the genetic impact of this expansion. The coexistence of both Asian and Papuan genetic ancestry in Eastern Indonesia provides a unique opportunity to address this issue. Here, we estimate recombination breakpoints in admixed genomes based on genome-wide SNP data and date the genetic admixture between populations of Asian vs. Papuan ancestry in Eastern Indonesia. Analyses of two genome-wide datasets indicate an eastward progression of the Asian admixture signal in Eastern Indonesia beginning about 4,000-3,000 y ago, which is in excellent agreement with inferences based on Austronesian languages. The average rate of spread of Asian genes in Eastern Indonesia was about 0.9 km/y. Our results indicate that the Austronesian expansion had a strong genetic as well as linguistic impact on Island Southeast Asia, and they significantly advance our understanding of the biological origins of human populations in the Asia-Pacific region.

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