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. 2010 Dec;143(4):555-69.
doi: 10.1002/ajpa.21350.

A mitochondrial revelation of early human migrations to the Tibetan Plateau before and after the last glacial maximum

Zhendong Qin  1 , Yajun Yang, Longli Kang, Shi Yan, Kelly Cho, Xiaoyun Cai, Yan Lu, Hongxiang Zheng, Dongchen Zhu, Dongmei Fei, Shilin Li, Li Jin, Hui Li; Genographic Consortium
Collaborators, Affiliations

A mitochondrial revelation of early human migrations to the Tibetan Plateau before and after the last glacial maximum

Zhendong Qin et al. Am J Phys Anthropol. 2010 Dec.

Abstract

As the highest plateau surrounded by towering mountain ranges, the Tibetan Plateau was once considered to be one of the last populated areas of modern humans. However, this view has been tremendously changed by archeological, linguistic, and genetic findings in the past 60 years. Nevertheless, the timing and routes of entry of modern humans into the Tibetan Plateau is still unclear. To make these problems clear, we carried out high-resolution mitochondrial-DNA (mtDNA) analyses on 562 Tibeto-Burman inhabitants from nine different regions across the plateau. By examining the mtDNA haplogroup distributions and their principal components, we demonstrated that maternal diversity on the plateau reflects mostly a northern East Asian ancestry. Furthermore, phylogeographic analysis of plateau-specific sublineages based on 31 complete mtDNA sequences revealed two primary components: pre-last glacial maximum (LGM) inhabitants and post-LGM immigrants. Also, the analysis of one major pre-LGM sublineage A10 showed a strong signal of post-LGM population expansion (about 15,000 years ago) and greater diversity in the southern part of the Tibetan Plateau, indicating the southern plateau as a refuge place when climate dramatically changed during LGM.

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