Vyas Deven N, Al-Meeri Ali, Mulligan Connie J
Department of Anthropology, University of Florida, 1112 Turlington Hall, PO Box 117305, Gainesville, Florida 32611-7305.
Genetics Institute, University of Florida, Cancer & Genetics Research Complex, PO Box 103610, Gainesville, Florida 32610-3610.
Am J Phys Anthropol. 2017 Dec;164(4):736-749. doi: 10.1002/ajpa.23312. Epub 2017 Sep 15.
The Northern Dispersal Route (NDR) and Southern Dispersal Route (SDR) are hypothesized to have been used by modern humans in the dispersal out of Africa. The NDR follows the Nile into Northeast Africa and crosses the Red Sea into the Levant. The SDR emerges from the Horn of Africa and crosses the Bab el-Mandeb into southern Arabia. In this study, we analyze genetic data from populations living along the NDR and SDR to test support for each dispersal route.
We genotyped 90 Yemeni samples on the Affymetrix Human Origins array. We analyzed these data with published data from Levantine and other southern Arabian populations as well as 157 comparative populations for a total sample size of >550,000 genetic variants from >2,000 individuals in >160 populations. We calculated outgroup f statistics to test how Levantine and southern Arabian populations relate to African populations living along the NDR and SDR and to other non-African populations.
We find that Levantine and southern Arabian populations bear similar genetic relationships to both African and non-African populations, thus providing no support for the use of one dispersal route over the other.
Our results are consistent with a history of gene flow between the Levant and southern Arabia. Consideration of genetic, archaeological, and paleoclimate data provide a slight edge for the SDR but, ultimately, more data are needed to definitively identify which dispersal route out of Africa was used.
北方扩散路线（NDR）和南方扩散路线（SDR）被假定为现代人类走出非洲时所采用的路线。北方扩散路线沿着尼罗河进入东北非，然后穿过红海进入黎凡特。南方扩散路线从非洲之角出发，穿过曼德海峡进入阿拉伯半岛南部。在本研究中，我们分析了生活在北方扩散路线和南方扩散路线沿线人群的基因数据，以检验对每条扩散路线的支持情况。
我们在Affymetrix人类起源阵列上对90个也门样本进行了基因分型。我们将这些数据与来自黎凡特和其他阿拉伯半岛南部人群的已发表数据以及157个比较人群进行分析，总样本量来自160多个群体中的2000多个个体的超过55万个基因变异。我们计算了外群f统计量，以检验黎凡特和阿拉伯半岛南部人群与生活在北方扩散路线和南方扩散路线沿线的非洲人群以及其他非非洲人群的关系。
我们发现，黎凡特和阿拉伯半岛南部人群与非洲和非非洲人群有着相似的遗传关系，因此不支持使用其中一条扩散路线而非另一条。
我们的结果与黎凡特和阿拉伯半岛南部之间的基因流动历史一致。综合考虑遗传、考古和古气候数据，南方扩散路线略显优势，但最终，还需要更多数据来明确确定走出非洲使用了哪条扩散路线。
