1. State Key Laboratory of Genetic Engineering and Center for Anthropological Studies, School of Life Sciences and Morgan-Tan International Center for Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
2. Chinese National Human Genome Center, Shanghai 201203, China
3. Center for Genome Information, Department of Environmental Health, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio 45267, USA
4. Key Laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650223, China

Correspondence to: Li Jin^1,3 Email: lijin@fudan.edu.cn or li.jin@uc.edu
The mtDNA HVS-1 sequences of 711 individuals from 15 Han populations were submitted to GenBank with accession numbers AY594701–AY595411.

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 farmers^{1, 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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