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Southern dispersal

Early human migration out of Africa

Early human migration out of Africa

Southern dispersal, also known as the great coastal migration or rapid coastal settlement, was an early human migration along the southern coastal route, from the Arabian Peninsula via Persia and India to Southeast Asia and Oceania, with later descendants of those migrations eventually colonizing the rest of Eastern Eurasia and the Americas.

According to this thesis, the dispersal was possible thanks to the development of a multipurpose subsistence strategy, based on the collection of organisms, fish, crustaceans, molluscs, algae, which are part of the biotic communities of the intertidal zone, the transition ecosystem between land and sea between the upper limit of high tides and the lower limit of low tides, i.e. organisms left behind by the waters which retreat during ebb tide, and which people could harvest from the ground and reefs left unsubmerged or in shallow water at low tide. - In support of this hypothesis there are the remains found on an ancient Pleistocene reef, now emerged, near the locality of Abdur in Eritrea. Its rocks are the result of the compaction of marine debris about 125,000 years ago and contain fossil remains of a complex biotic community of the coast of the time: large colonies of corals, oyster shells, large clams and other bivalve molluscs, gastropods and echinoderms. A group of geologists and paleontologists found many blades and tools made of quartz, obsidian and other fine volcanic stone, mixed with the remains of shells. This would prove that over 100,000 years ago human populations of Homo sapiens exploited the intertidal zone for food purposes.

The coastal route theory is primarily used to describe the initial peopling of West Asia, India, Southeast Asia, New Guinea, Australia, Near Oceania, and East Asia beginning between roughly 70,000 and 50,000 years ago.{{Cite journal |title= Pleistocene Mitochondrial Genomes Suggest a Single Major Dispersal of Non-Africans and a Late Glacial Population Turnover in Europe |journal= Current Biology |year= 2016 |doi= 10.1016/j.cub.2016.01.037

It is linked with the presence and dispersal of mtDNA haplogroup M and haplogroup N, as well as the specific distribution patterns of Y-DNA haplogroup F (ancestral to G, H, I, J, K), haplogroup C and haplogroup D, in these regions.

The theory proposes that early modern humans, some of the bearers of mitochondrial haplogroup L3, arrived in the Arabian peninsula about 70,000-50,000 years ago, crossing from East Africa via the Bab-el-Mandeb strait. The group would have travelled along the coastal route around Arabia and Persia to India relatively rapidly, within a few thousand years. From India, they would have spread to Southeast Asia ("Sundaland") and Oceania ("Sahul"). Roger Blench discusses the theory in relation to language families.

Genetic and archaeologic evidence

The southern route dispersal is primarily linked to the Initial Upper Paleolithic expansion of modern humans and "ascribed to a population movement with uniform genetic features and material culture" (Ancient East Eurasians), which was the major source for the peopling of the Asia–Pacific region. While certain Initial Upper Paleolithic populations represented by specimens found in Central Asia and Europe, such as the Ust'-Ishim man, Bacho Kiro cave or Oase 2, are inferred to have used inland routes, the ancestors of all modern East Eurasian populations are inferred to have used the Southern dispersal route through South Asia, where they subsequently diverged rapidly and gave rise to modern populations in Eastern Eurasia, Oceania, and the Americas.

According to a 2024 study, Southeast Asia was the "demographic center of expansion" after some Out of African migrants returned to Africa, evident by the presence of basal Y-chromosome Eurasian lineages (C, D, F, K) in the region.

References

References

  1. (2007). "The Evolution and History of Human Populations in South Asia: Inter-disciplinary Studies in Archaeology, Biological Anthropology, Linguistics and Genetics". [[Springer Netherlands]].
  2. Metspalu et al 2006, Human Mitochondrial DNA and the Evolution of Homo sapiens.]
  3. Núñez Castillo, Mélida Inés. (20 December 2021). "Ancient genetic landscape of archaeological human remains from Panama, South America and Oceania described through STR genotype frequencies and mitochondrial DNA sequences". Dissertation.
  4. (29 March 2017). "Middle Stone Age Sites from Eritrean Red Sea Coast: Perspectives on Origin and Dispersal of Modern Humans".
  5. (9 October 2007). "Environmental setting of human migrations in the circum-Pacific region". Journal of Biogeography.
  6. (April 2015). "A recent bottleneck of Y chromosome diversity coincides with a global change in culture". Genome Research.
  7. (June 2019). "A Rare Deep-Rooting D0 African Y-chromosomal Haplogroup and its Implications for the Expansion of Modern Humans Out of Africa". Genetics.
  8. Cabrera, Vicente M.. (2024). "Early male and female footprints of modern humans across Eurasia and Australasia". Medical Research Archives.
  9. (13 May 2005). "Single, Rapid Coastal Settlement of Asia Revealed by Analysis of Complete Mitochondrial Genomes". Science.
  10. [http://www.human-evol.cam.ac.uk/Projects/sdispersal/sdispersal.htm Searching for traces of the Southern Dispersal] {{webarchive. link. (10 May 2012 , by [[Marta Mirazón Lahr). Dr Marta Mirazón Lahr]], et al.
  11. (2008). "The Genographic Project: Genetic Markers, Haplogroup D (M174)". National Geographic.
  12. Spencer Wells. (2002). "The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey". [[Princeton University Press]].
  13. http://www.rogerblench.info/Archaeology/World/Indian%20Ocean%20settlement%20paper%202006.pdf The Pleistocene settlement of the rim of the Indian Ocean
  14. (April 2022). "Genetics and Material Culture Support Repeated Expansions into Paleolithic Eurasia from a Population Hub Out of Africa". Genome Biology and Evolution.
  15. Yang, Melinda A.. (6 January 2022). "A genetic history of migration, diversification, and admixture in Asia". Human Population Genetics and Genomics.
  16. (1 September 2021). "Whole-Genome Sequencing of a 900-Year-Old Human Skeleton Supports Two Past Migration Events from the Russian Far East to Northern Japan". Genome Biology and Evolution.
  17. (2021). "Exploring models of human migration to the Japanese archipelago using genome-wide genetic data". Anthropological Science.
  18. (25 August 2020). "Ancient Jomon genome sequence analysis sheds light on migration patterns of early East Asian populations". Communications Biology.
  19. (30 August 2023). "Infectious diseases may have arrested the southward advance of microblades in Upper Palaeolithic East Asia". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.
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