Genomic insights into the demographic history of the Austronesian-speaking populations of Taiwan, Batanes Islands and Luzon

The Austronesian expansion corresponds to the last major human migration that supposedly started in the Taiwan-south China area and spread throughout southeast Asia and the Pacific, populating and reaching remote places such as Easter Island, Hawaii and Madagascar. It has been highly studied from lots of different field experts but no genetic studies have specifically focused on those populations residing in the assumed geographical area from where initially this migration spread. Starting from a comprehensive dataset that includes 836 genotyped ancient and modern samples, that share 94,034 SNPs, it was possible first to reconstruct population structure and demographic relationships between present-day ethnic groups living in Taiwan, Luzon and the Batanes archipelago, detecting a past trifurcation event that gave rise, likely in the south China/Taiwan area, to actual Cordilleran and to northern and southern Taiwan ancestral populations. Secondly, it was demonstrated that the ancestral Austronesian population, represented by ancient Vanuatu individuals, originated from a split event, that happened earlier then 8000 years ago, from the ancestral Kankanaey cluster previously inferred, rather than the other two.