Reconstructing the Human Population History of East Asia through Ancient Genomics

This Element synthesis East Asian population history from recent results from the field of ancient East Asian genomics.

E. Andrew Bennett (Author), Yichen Liu (Author), Qiaomei Fu (Author)

9781009246644, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 9 January 2025

90 pages
23 x 15.1 x 0.5 cm, 0.14 kg

East Asian population history has only recently been the focus of intense investigations using ancient genomics techniques, yet these studies have already contributed much to our growing understanding of past East Asian populations, and cultural and linguistic dispersals. This Element aims to provide a comprehensive overview of our current understanding of the population history of East Asia through ancient genomics. It begins with an introduction to ancient DNA and recent insights into archaic populations of East Asia. It then presents an in-depth summary of current knowledge by region, covering the whole of East Asia from the first appearance of modern humans, through large-scale population studies of the Neolithic and Metal Ages, and into historical times. These recent results reflect past population movements and admixtures, as well as linguistic origins and prehistoric cultural networks that have shaped the region's history. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

1. Introduction
2. Middle Pleistocene archaic humans
3. The earliest modern humans in east Asia
4. Overview of ancient east Asian modern human populations
5. Northeastern East Asia
6. Southern East Asia
7. Yellow River and North Central China
8. The Tibetan plateau
9. Mongolia and the Eastern Steppe
10. Xinjiang
11. The Japanese Archipelago
12. Korean peninsula
13. Conclusions
Glossary of Ancestries
References.

Subject Areas: Asian history [HBJF]