BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY Newly Released Study Traces Arrival of First Chinese
WASHINGTON — Genetic studies that show the first modern human arrived in China about 60,000 years ago support the theory that people first evolved in Africa, researchers say.
In a study published Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists say that an analysis of genetic samples from throughout Asia suggests that people there sprang from common ancestors, the modern humans who appeared first in Africa and then spread throughout the world.
"Our work shows that modern humans first came to southeast Asia and then moved later to northern China," said Li Jin, a population geneticist at the University of Texas in Houston. "This supports the idea that modern humans originated in Africa."
Jin said the study is based on analysis of the gene patterns from 43 different ethnic groups in China and Asia. He said the technique gives an indication of how people moved and mixed over thousands of generations.
Migration clues are carried in genetic patterns, called microsatellites, that change rapidly over time. By analyzing these changes and linking them to earlier genetic patterns, researchers are able to plot the migration of ancient humans.
Based on the research, Jin said it appears that modern humans first moved from central Asia, following the Indian Ocean coastline across India, to southeast Asia. Later, they moved to south China. Descendants of these original Chinese then migrated north and northwest, populating northern China, Siberia and eventually the Americas.
"This is important research because it supports the out-of-Africa theory about the origin of modern humans," said Ranjan Deka, a population genetics researcher at the University of Cincinnati.
Deka said the results of the study weaken an alternative theory that modern humans arose independently on different continents at about the same time. If this were true, he said, there would be little or no genetic continuity among the various populations of the world.
Instead, said Deka, the findings by Jin and his colleagues show genetic continuity in China, even though that vast country has dozens of different ethnic populations and more than 200 different languages.
Jin said he believes modern human migration into Asia was probably affected by glaciers that invaded much of the Northern Hemisphere during an ice age that lasted thousands of years.
It may have been only after the glaciers retreated, more than 15,000 years ago, that modern humans were able to migrate to far northern Asia and across the Bering Strait to the Americas.
Ancient Black Chinese From East Africa
by Professor Jin Li - Fudan University Shanghai
An international study has found that the Chinese people originated not from Peking Man in northern China, but from early humans in East Africa who moved through South Asia to China some 100,000 years ago, Hong Kongs Ming Pao daily reported yesterday in a finding that confirms the single origin theory in anthropology.
According to the newspaper, a research team led by Jin Li (of Fudan University in Shanghai has found that modern humans evolved from a single origin, not multiple origins as some experts believe.
In China, school textbooks teach that the Chinese race evolved from Peking Man, based on a theory that humans in Europe and Asia evolved from local species.
But Jin and his fellow researchers found that early humans belonged to different species, of which only the East African species developed into modern humans.
This new finding nullifies the theory that the ancestors of the Chinese people were Peking Man who lived in northern China 400,000 years ago.
Based on DNA analyses of 100,000 samples gathered from around the world, a number of human families evolved in East Africa some 150,000 years ago, said Li Hui, a member of Jins team.
About 100,000 years ago, some of those humans began to leave Africa, with some people moving to China via South and Southeast Asia, Li said.
According to the newspaper article, it has been proven that the 65 branches of the Chinese race share similar DNA mutations with the peoples of East and Southeast Asia.
It said that the Shanghai scientists were part of an international team comprised of researchers from Russia, India, Brazil and other nations in a five-year project studying the geographic and genealogical routes related to the spread and settlement of modern humans.
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