HRA006067
(Open Access)
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The expansion of Han culture into southern China via demic or cultural diffusion remains debated owing to the lack of ancient genomes from historical periods in southern China. Here, we reported 99 ancient human genomes from the Songshan site with Han cultural influence in the eastern Yunnan-Guizhou plateau dated from the Song to Qing dynasties (990 to 1649 AD). We also sequenced the genomes of 51 individuals from present-day Tai-Kadai and Hmong-Mien-speaking populations. We observed genetic stability in the Songshan site over 700 years, with the majority of samples deriving 64% of their ancestry from Han-related Yellow River farmers and the remaining from local hunter-gatherers-related and Tai-Kadai-Austronesian related groups. There were three outliers sharing an excess affinity with present-day Hmong-Mien speakers and one outlier showing a higher proportion of Tai-Kadai-Austronesian-related ancestry. Our result supports the demic-diffusion model of the expansion of Han culture to southern China. |