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Genetic evidence supports demic diffusion of Han culture

Abstract

The spread of culture and language in human populations is explained by two alternative models: the demic diffusion model, which involves mass movement of people; and the cultural diffusion model, which refers to cultural impact between populations and involves limited genetic exchange between them1. The mechanism of the peopling of Europe has long been debated, a key issue being whether the diffusion of agriculture and language from the Near East was concomitant with a large movement of farmers1,2,3. Here we show, by systematically analysing Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA variation in Han populations, that the pattern of the southward expansion of Han culture is consistent with the demic diffusion model, and that males played a larger role than females in this expansion. The Han people, who all share the same culture and language, exceed 1.16 billion (2000 census), and are by far the largest ethnic group in the world. The expansion process of Han culture is thus of great interest to researchers in many fields.

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Figure 1: Geographic distribution of sampled populations.
Figure 2: Principal component plot.

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Acknowledgements

We thank all of the donors for making this work possible. The data collection was supported by NSFC and STCSM to Fudan and a NSF grant to L.J. L.J., R.D. and R.C. are supported by NIH.

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Correspondence to Li Jin.

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The authors declare that they have no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Table 1

This table provides the general information of the Han populations studied, including the names of population, locations, sample sizes and references. (DOC 69 kb)

Supplementary Table 2

This table gives the Y chromosome haplogroup distribution in the Han populations. (DOC 78 kb)

Supplementary Table 3

This table gives the mtDNA haplogroup distribution in the Han populations. (DOC 123 kb)

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Wen, B., Li, H., Lu, D. et al. Genetic evidence supports demic diffusion of Han culture. Nature 431, 302–305 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02878

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