Origin of the Tai People

Origin of the Tai People Volume 3 Genetic and Archaeological Approaches Joachim Schliesinger

Origin of the Tai People Volume 3 Genetic and Archaeological Approaches

Copyright 2016 Joachim Schliesinger. Origin of the Tai People 3 Genetic and Archaeological Approaches (Vientiane, 2016) Digitized by White Elephant Press in 2016. All rights reserved.

Contents Introduction 1 Traditional and genetic genealogy 5 Spencer Well s The Journey of Man 9 The Genographic Project 14 Genetic basics The cell 18 Genetic basics The nucleus 23 Genetic basics The chromosome 25 Genetic basics The DNA 27 Genetic basics The mitochondria 31 Genetic basics The code 33 Population genetics and its limitations 35 Archaeology and its combination with genetics 40 Human species and early migrations 45 From Africa straight to Australia 53 Two major migration dispersals 56 Northern and southern populations 59 Early train migration hypothesis based on genetics 63 Negroid hunter-gatherers migration into Southeast Asia 66 Austro-Asiatic migration 70 Sino-Tibetan migration 74 Austronesian migration 80 Tai-Kadai migration 86 Tai-Kadai genetic profile 89 Genetic analysis of the Li people of Hainan 93 Genetic comparison between Thai and Lao peoples 99 Genetic similarities among the Tai groups of northern Thailand 104 Genetics of populations in the Isan region of Thailand 107

Genetic link of Northern Tai speaking peoples in Thailand 110 Selected bibliography 115

Introduction For centuries, historians played an important role telling us the occurrences of the past, and since generations, linguists classify all mankind among language families and groups. Both disciplines of science reach their limits when historical documents are missing or when language shifts have happened. No better than guesswork progresses when both disciplines have to date historical events and human racial change back to the dawn of history, passing the millennia into the prehistory of mankind, especially when little is left on written sources, such as rock paintings, hieroglyphs, pictorial scripts, ancient letter (or alphabetic) scripts, such as Phoenician, Greek and Latin, and finally the early stone inscriptions of Southeast Asia. Prehistoric rock painting, Tham Lai Cave, Khon Kaen province, Thailand (c. 4000-3000 BC) 1

The Genographic Project The Genographic Project was launched in 2005 by the National Geographic Society and IBM. The project was created and led as director by Spencer Wells from the beginnings in 2005 to 2015. This project is an ambitious attempt to answer fundamental questions about where we originated and how we came to populate the Earth. Geno 2.0 The project is a multi-year genetic anthropology study that aims to map historical human migration patterns by collecting and analyzing DNA samples from hundreds of thousands of people from around the world. Field researchers at 11 regional centers around the world collect DNA samples from indigenous populations. 14

Every living human is invited to participate and play an active role in this historic endeavor by purchasing a Genographic Project Participation and DNA Ancestry Kit to learn about his or her own deep ancestry. The Genographic Project has used the latest genetic technology to expand the knowledge of the human story. The first phase drew participation from more than 500,000 participants from over 130 countries. In 2012, Spencer Welles announced the second phase that creates an even greater citizen science opportunity. Building on the science from the earlier phase of the project, the public was invited in the research effort that has helped to create a new breed of citizen scientist. This research expansion is called Geno 2.0, inviting everybody to increase its size to citizen science, harnessing the power of the crowd to discover new details of human population history. The scientists of the Genographic Project developed a new test kit, called Geno 2.0 Next Generation that enables members of the public to participate in the Genographic Project while learning fascinating Geno 2.0 Human Migration Map. (Source: National Geographic) Modern human migration Early southern migration route 15

Origin of the Tai People 3 Genetic and Archaeological Approaches is the third volume of a trilogy that informs about the origin of the Tai people by providing an overview of the latest genetic and archaeological researches. The first volume (Origin of the Tai People 1 Historical Approach) deals with the prehistory of the Tai people from the historical view. The second volume (Origin of the Tai Peoples 2 Linguistic Approach) presents the historical background of the Tai-Kadai language family. The long closure of China and some countries in Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia) due to war and/or strict Communist rule during the 20 th century led to little archaeological undertakings. This changed with the breakdown of the Soviet Union and the open door policies in Vietnam and China in the late 1980s. Additionally, the discipline of genetics developed in the late 1980s and 1990s and the numerous studies and researches executed within the last two decades provide more than sensational outcomes about the racial intermixing in the region. The results of these researches in relation to the various ethnic Tai groups are summarized and discussed. The process is illustrated with plenty of images.