Y-chromosome-based genetic pattern in East Asia affected by Neolithic transition

The Neolithic transition, defined as the shift from a hunter-gatherer economy into the one based on agricultural activities, is assumed to have resulted in extensive human population growths. Despite major progress has been made by archaeologists in the use of archaeobotanic data to reconstruct a reliable time frame of Neolithic transition in China, the roles played by Neolithic transition in East Asian demographic history are not yet well understood. This paper offers a perspective on the issues regarding when and how the East Asian population expanded and its consequences. Considering diverse genetic evidences, we revealed that, in East Asia, there were at least two population expansion events in the Paleolithic Era and notably, the latter Paleolithic expansion and climate improvement after Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, about 15 ka) might together facilitate the emergence of agriculture. In comparison to the Paleolithic expansion, Neolithic expansion had its own characteristics, such as stronger expansion dynamics and sex-specific expansion pattern. According to the Y-chromosome-based tree in our recent studies, we found strong signals of partial paternal lineage expansions during or after the Neolithic transition, for instance, O3a2c1a-F5 (Oα), O3a2c1-F46 (Oβ), O3a1c1-F11 (Oγ), C3a1-F2613 (Cα), Q1a1-M120 (Qα), and O1a1a1-F78 (Oδ), suggesting the influence of a strong bottleneck caused by cultural changes. Finally, we discussed the relationship between major East Asian paternal lineages and linguistic families, as well as early archeology cultures, linking the Daxi culture to the modern Hmong-Mien populations, the Liangzhu Culture and/or Songze Culture to modern Austronesian and Daic populations, and Yangshao Culture, Dawenkou Culture and/or Longshan Culture, and Hongshan Culture to modern Sino-Tibetan populations.