image: This map shows putative prehistorical migration routes of Asian human populations. According to recent studies by the PanAsia SNP Project, the most recent common ancestors of Asians arrived first in India (olive green). Later, some of them migrated to Thailand, and South to the lands known today as Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. The first group of settlers must have gone very far south before they settled successfully. These included the Malay Negritos (brown), Philippine Negritos (purple), the East Indonesians, and early settlers of the Pacific Islands (dark green). Thereafter, one or several groups of people migrated North, mixed with previous settlers there and, finally, formed various populations we now refer to as Austronesian (light green), Austro-Asiatic (red), Tai-Kadai (dark blue), Hmong-Mien (light blue), and Altaic (orange) etc. This image relates to an article that appeared in the Dec. 11 issue of Science, published by AAAS. The study, by the HUGO Pan-Asian SNP Consortium was titled, "Mapping Human Genetic Diversity in Asia." view more
Credit: Image © <i>Science</i>/AAAS