title: Recent origin and cultural reversion of a hunter-gatherer group.
abstract: Contemporary hunter-gatherer groups are often thought to serve as models of an ancient lifestyle that was typical of human populations prior to the development of agriculture. Patterns of genetic variation in hunter-gatherer groups such as the Kung and African Pygmies are consistent with this view, as they exhibit low genetic diversity coupled with high frequencies of divergent mtDNA types not found in surrounding agricultural groups, suggesting long-term isolation and small population sizes. We report here genetic evidence concerning the origins of the Mlabri, an enigmatic hunter-gatherer group from northern Thailand. The Mlabri have no mtDNA diversity, and the genetic diversity at Y-chromosome and autosomal loci are also extraordinarily reduced in the Mlabri. Genetic, linguistic, and cultural data all suggest that the Mlabri were recently founded, 500-800 y ago, from a very small number of individuals. Moreover, the Mlabri appear to have originated from an agricultural group and then adopted a hunting-gathering subsistence mode. This example of cultural reversion from agriculture to a hunting-gathering lifestyle indicates that contemporary hunter-gatherer groups do not necessarily reflect a pre-agricultural lifestyle.
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Hiroki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Oota
authors.forename: Brigitte
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Pakendorf
authors.forename: Gunter
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Weiss
authors.forename: Arndt
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: von Haeseler
authors.forename: Surin
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pookajorn
authors.forename: Wannapa
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Settheetham-Ishida
authors.forename: Danai
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Tiwawech
authors.forename: Takafumi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ishida
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Stoneking
mesh_terms: D041322:Chromosomes, Human, Y; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics*; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000235:genetics*; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D014644:Genetic Variation; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008019:Life Style; D008297:Male; D044382:Population Groups; D012919:Social Behavior; D013785:Thailand
chemical_list: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial
references.citation: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1999 Sep 14;96(19):10597-602
references.pmid: 10485871
references.citation: Nature. 1981 Apr 9;290(5806):457-65
references.pmid: 7219534
references.citation: Am J Hum Genet. 2003 Feb;72(2):281-302
references.pmid: 12532283
references.citation: Nucleic Acids Res. 1987 Jan 26;15(2):529-42
references.pmid: 2881260
references.citation: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1989 Dec;86(23):9350-4
references.pmid: 2594772
references.citation: Nat Genet. 1998 Feb;18(2):109-10
references.pmid: 9462737
references.citation: Science. 2004 May 21;304(5674):1125
references.pmid: 15155941
references.citation: Am J Phys Anthropol. 2002 Jun;118(2):146-53
references.pmid: 12012367
references.citation: J Mol Evol. 1984;20(2):99-105
references.pmid: 6433037
references.citation: Genetics. 1998 Sep;150(1):499-510
references.pmid: 9725864
references.citation: Science. 1991 Sep 27;253(5027):1503-7
references.pmid: 1840702
references.citation: Heredity (Edinb). 1996 Apr;76 ( Pt 4):377-83
references.pmid: 8626222
references.citation: Nat Genet. 2001 Sep;29(1):20-1
references.pmid: 11528385
references.citation: Curr Biol. 2000 Oct 19;10(20):1237-46
references.pmid: 11069104
references.citation: Am J Hum Genet. 2003 Jan;72(1):178-84
references.pmid: 12478481
references.citation: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1998 Jul 21;95(15):9047-52
references.pmid: 9671802
references.citation: Mol Biol Evol. 1995 Jul;12(4):604-15
references.pmid: 7659016
references.citation: J Hum Genet. 2001;46(3):115-25
references.pmid: 11310578
references.citation: Genetics. 1997 Feb;145(2):505-18
references.pmid: 9071603
references.citation: Genetics. 1996 Dec;144(4):2001-14
references.pmid: 8978083
references.citation: Genome Res. 1999 Jun;9(6):558-67
references.pmid: 10400923
references.citation: Nat Genet. 2001 Feb;27(2):155-6
references.pmid: 11175781
references.citation: Am J Hum Genet. 2001 Apr;68(4):990-1018
references.pmid: 11254455
references.citation: Am J Hum Genet. 1996 Aug;59(2):437-44
references.pmid: 8755932
references.citation: Curr Biol. 2003 Jan 21;13(2):86-93
references.pmid: 12546781
references.citation: Am J Hum Genet. 2000 Apr;66(4):1362-83
references.pmid: 10739760