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Human evolution

Towards a genetic history of China

Nature volume 395, pages 637–639 (1998)Cite this article

Scholars of human evolution are well aware that physical traits are mostly adaptive, reflecting the geography or environment — rather than the history — of those who carry them. Therefore, they will appreciate a paper by Chu and thirteen other Chinese co-authors1 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, who have done a genetic analysis of China at a finer resolution than any attempted so far.

In his book Guns, Germs, and Steel2, Jared Diamond wonders how China — politically unified since 221BCand linguistically almost monolithic, with a single writing system from the beginning of its recorded history — happened to become Chinese. One reason why we should not have expected such astonishing homogeneity (which covers one-fifth of our present species and one-fifteenth of our inhabited planet) is genetic. Northern and southern Chinese people, whose boundary is conventionally located between the Huang Ho (Yellow River) and the Yangtze, were previously found to be genetically different — at least from the relatively few samples tested by blood-group and protein-marker polymorphisms. But this heterogeneity, supported by anthropological, environmental, archaeological, prehistoric and historical evidence, was far from a robust result derived from well-planned genetic surveys at a micro-geographical level. Physical appearance, as anywhere and at any time, was an important factor in recognizing these differences. The northern Chinese tend to be taller and paler, with smaller eyes that seem more ‘slanted’. Moreover, old skeletons differ, the southern ones being more similar to contemporary Southeast Asian types, especially those with a darker skin (such as the so-called Negritos)3.

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Figure 1: Main features of the tree models constructed by Chu et al1.
Figure 2: Map of China showing locations of the sampled populations, and geographical display of a phylogenetic tree based on Han surnames (from ref. 9).

References

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  1. Dipartimento di Genetica, Biologia e Biochimica, Università di Torino, via Santena 19, 10126, Torino, Italy

    Alberto Piazza

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  1. Alberto Piazza
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Piazza, A. Towards a genetic history of China. Nature 395, 637–639 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/27071

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