title: Genomic and cranial phenotype data support multiple modern human dispersals from Africa and a southern route into Asia.
abstract: Despite broad consensus on Africa as the main place of origin for anatomically modern humans, their dispersal pattern out of the continent continues to be intensely debated. In extant human populations, the observation of decreasing genetic and phenotypic diversity at increasing distances from sub-Saharan Africa has been interpreted as evidence for a single dispersal, accompanied by a series of founder effects. In such a scenario, modern human genetic and phenotypic variation was primarily generated through successive population bottlenecks and drift during a rapid worldwide expansion out of Africa in the Late Pleistocene. However, recent genetic studies, as well as accumulating archaeological and paleoanthropological evidence, challenge this parsimonious model. They suggest instead a "southern route" dispersal into Asia as early as the late Middle Pleistocene, followed by a separate dispersal into northern Eurasia. Here we test these competing out-of-Africa scenarios by modeling hypothetical geographical migration routes and assessing their correlation with neutral population differentiation, as measured by genetic polymorphisms and cranial shape variables of modern human populations from Africa and Asia. We show that both lines of evidence support a multiple-dispersals model in which Australo-Melanesian populations are relatively isolated descendants of an early dispersal, whereas other Asian populations are descended from, or highly admixed with, members of a subsequent migration event.
authors.affiliation: Paleoanthropology, Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Paleoenvironment, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, D-72070 Tübingen, Germany;
authors.forename: Hugo
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Reyes-Centeno
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, University of Ferrara, I-44121 Ferrara, Italy; and.
authors.forename: Silvia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ghirotto
authors.affiliation: Department of Prehistory, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Unité Mixte de Recherche 7194, National Museum of Natural History, F-75005 Paris, France.
authors.forename: Florent
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Détroit
authors.affiliation: Department of Prehistory, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Unité Mixte de Recherche 7194, National Museum of Natural History, F-75005 Paris, France.
authors.forename: Dominique
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Grimaud-Hervé
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, University of Ferrara, I-44121 Ferrara, Italy; and.
authors.forename: Guido
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Barbujani
authors.affiliation: Paleoanthropology, Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Paleoenvironment, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, D-72070 Tübingen, Germany; katerina.harvati@ifu.uni-tuebingen.de.
authors.forename: Katerina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Harvati
mesh_terms: D000349:Africa; D001208:Asia; D005075:Biological Evolution; D018703:Founder Effect; D023281:Genomics / Q000379:methods*; D005843:Geography; D063426:Human Migration; D006801:Humans; D008957:Models, Genetic; D010641:Phenotype; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; D011157:Population Dynamics; D012886:Skull / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D012984:Software
keywords: SNPs; cranial diversity; genome diversity; human evolution; modern human origins
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