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2 - The population history of Southeast Asia viewed from morphometric analyses of human skeletal and dental remains

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 November 2009

By
Hirofumi Matsumura
Edited by
Marc Oxenham  and
Nancy Tayles
Hirofumi Matsumura
Affiliation:
Sapporo Medical University Sapporo Japan
Marc Oxenham
Affiliation:
Australian National University, Canberra
Nancy Tayles
Affiliation:
University of Otago, New Zealand
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Summary

Introduction

The population history of Southeast Asia is complex because of the various migration processes and the intermixing of populations since prehistoric times. The limited number of prehistoric human remains and uncertainty over their dating are additional problems in studies of this region. In general terms, Southeast Asia is thought to have been originally occupied by indigenous people (sometimes referred to as Australo-Melanesians), who exchanged genes with immigrants from north and/or east Asia leading to the formation of present day Southeast Asians (van Stein Callenfels 1936, Mijsberg 1940, von Koenigswald 1952, Coon 1962, Jacob 1967, Bellwood 1987, 1989, 1996, 1997, Brace et al. 1991). It should be noted that the term Australo-Melanesian is commonly used to refer to either the recent indigenous people of Australia, New Guinea and island Melanesia or the people of that regional phenotype. This population history scenario for Southeast Asia is known as the Immigration or Two-layer model. The Two-layer hypothesis is supported by a wide range of genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. Classic genetic markers and recent mitochondrial DNA analyses (Ballinger et al. 1992, Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1994, Omoto and Saitou 1997, Tan 2001) have found many biological similarities between Chinese and Southeast Asian samples.

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Bioarchaeology of Southeast Asia , pp. 33 - 58
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2006

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