Tracing the origins of Hakka and Chaoshanese by mitochondrial DNA analysis.
Hakka and Chaoshanese are two unique Han populations residing in southern China but with northern Han (NH) cultural traditions and linguistic influences. Although most of historical records indicate that both populations migrated from northern China in the last two thousand years, no consensus on their origins has been reached so far. To shed more light on the origins of Hakka and Chaoshanese, mitochondrial DNAs (mtDNAs) of 170 Hakka from Meizhou and 102 Chaoshanese from Chaoshan area, Guangdong Province, were analyzed. Our results show that some southern Chinese predominant haplogroups, e.g. B, F, and M7, have relatively high frequencies in both populations. Although median network analyses show that Hakka/Chaoshanese share some haplotypes with NH, interpopulation comparison reveals that both populations show closer affinity with southern Han (SH) populations than with NH. In consideration of previous results from nuclear gene (including Y chromosome) research, it is likely that matrilineal landscapes of both Hakka and Chaoshanese have largely been shaped by the local people during their migration southward and/or later colonization in southern China, and factors such as cultural assimilation, patrilocality, and even sex-bias in the immigrants might have played important roles during the process.
Wang
Wen-Zhi
WZ
State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650223, People's Republic of China.
Wang
Cheng-Ye
CY
Cheng
Yao-Ting
YT
Xu
An-Long
AL
Zhu
Chun-Ling
CL
Wu
Shi-Fang
SF
Kong
Qing-Peng
QP
Zhang
Ya-Ping
YP
D044466:Asian People / Q000235:genetics / Q000266:history*; D002681:China; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000737:chemistry*; D004641:Emigration and Immigration; D006239:Haplotypes; D049690:History, Ancient; D006801:Humans; D011157:Population Dynamics; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial