Comments on: Southeast Asian migrations, Indians and Tai

By: Hla Thein

Hla Thein — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 15:58:52 +0000

In Burma – first millennium central Irrawaddy links were generally overland, both to Yunnan and Inner Asia, and also to Assam, Bengal and the Ganges basin. Coastal (mainly Mon-speaking) links were across the Bay of Bengal to Orissa, south India and Ceylon. There were also Persian arrivals along the coast. Also in the late first millennium was a likely central Asian (Turkish and Mongol) influx along the Yunnan borderlands.

By: Razib Khan

Razib Khan — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 07:11:09 +0000

I thought it might also be leap-frogging through Bangladesh or there was a marginal continuum there that got replaced.

the mon focus was to the south if it was through bengal then the old indic zone would have been further north i think. also, the writing system is the tell. that’s a very old south indian script which is the root of southeast asian ones. bengali script is from a different root. interesting, the old script of the ahoms of assam is from a south indian root. that proves the point: the ahom arrived from burma within the last 1,000 years.

By: Balaji

Balaji — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 19:47:32 +0000

In Bali, the following paper found 12% male lineages from India.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16114819

By: Justin Giancola

Justin Giancola — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 11:06:42 +0000

wow I had to read that so many times to clarify you weren’t totally screwing with me. sea = S.E.A.

I knew about maritime connections of India and SE Asia in antiquity but this seemed potentially earlier and seemed more people to boat than merchants and monks. I thought it might also be leap-frogging through Bangladesh or there was a marginal continuum there that got replaced. I don’t know where all the Indian group names are by heart and their attested histories!

By: Razib Khan

Razib Khan — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 08:46:53 +0000

#3, look at a map there’s no connection between s india and se asia. though more seriously, most india – sea connections are by sea.

By: Justin Giancola

Justin Giancola — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 08:36:53 +0000

Would it be more likely the South Indians came by land or sea?

By: Razib Khan

Razib Khan — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 02:00:13 +0000

It’s unlikely that there is extensive Tai admixture in the Khmer sample. There are Thai and Lao villages in Cambodia, but they have remained separate from the general population, and Thai influence did not extend to the post populous provinces in the east.

the sample is from cambodia fyi. or at least khmer refugees in santa anna california.

Something that should be considered is that the samples currently available for Cambodia and Thailand may have been taken from population centers with high recent Chinese admixture. Estimates for recent Chinese admixture in Bangkok and Phnom Penh vary in the ranges of 15-30% Chinese. It is not clear to me if this was considered in the analysis above.

there’s surprisingly little inter-regional difference in the thai (there are thai samples from bangkok above, i aggregated them since they weren’t distinguishable from the northern thai). there doesn’t seem to be a chinese admixture, though that’s more obvious in the earlier post. for the thailand sample i they must have tried to exclude those with known chinese ancestry proactively, since the consortium already has lots of han.

By: Garvan

Garvan — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 01:17:38 +0000

Northern Thailand and Western Lao would be expected to be the areas with the highest Tai demographic impact, while central Thailand may preserve more of the pre-Tai populations (there are still Mon speaking communities in Bangkok).

Garvan