Talk:Negrito

1212

The 1212 purchase of rights to settle implies that the Negrito also had boats. How else could these peoples survive, genetically. There must have been some diversity in the gene pool.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.207.90.216 (talk • contribs) 12:10, 12 December 2003 (UTC)

Mitochondrial DNA study on the origins of modern humankind

Well this caption is misleading as I don't learn anything about the contribution of Negrito's mtDNA in our understanding of the human race. Please expand this section! Thanks! Meursault2004 28 June 2005 20:57 (UTC)

Not realted

take from some non-copy righted site

[quote]African Pygmies—the most numerous Pygmy population, estimated variously at 150,000 to 300,000—are believed to have lived in the Congo Valley before the arrival of other peoples. The best-known tribe, the Mbuti or Bambuti, are the shortest of all human groups, averaging about 130 cm (about 51 in) in height. Non-African Pygmy populations, often called Negritos, may also represent archaic populations. Blood typing and other studies indicate that the African, Asian, Oceanian, and Indian groups are genetically distinct from one another and have independent origins.[/quote]—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.220.52.101 (talk • contribs) 27 December 2005.

Removed last sentence

I removed the following sentences: "They do not have a permanent place to live in because of food shortage. It depends upon the place where they live, if it can still provide them enough food." Thees sentences formed a seperate paragraph unrelated to any previous or subsequent subject, and were grammatically incorrect. Additionally, it is unclear who "they" refers to, and the entire paragraph is vague, fragmentary, and generally unhelpful.

If this is a real concern, it should be explained lucidly and with regard to the different populations and areas involved. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.232.40.217 (talk • contribs) 05:12, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Slightly rewriting and including the distinction between regional different groups classified as "Negrito"

@Austronesier: what do you think about this version, in this way we mention the diversity and distinction between the different Negrito groupings, while also mentioning the affinity of these groups to surrounding populations:

Negritos are considered as the indigenous population of large parts of Southeast Asia. Based on perceived physical similarities, Negritos were once considered a single population of closely related groups, however genetic studies found significant differences between different groups classified as Negrito. Genetic studies found that Malay/Andamanese Negrito groups are rather closely related to East Asian people, with both having descended from a common East-Eurasian ancestor, who split from other Eurasian populations, such as Australasian/Papuan and West-Eurasian populations about ~50 thousand years ago. Malay/Andamanese Negritos and East Asians are estimated to have diverged from each other in Mainland Southeast Asia about ~30 thousand years ago, with one group migrating further southwards, and Ancestral East Asians migrating northwards. In contrast, most Philippines Negrito groups are only distantly related to the Malay/Andamanese Negrito groups and show higher affinity towards Papuans, suggesting independent origins for the putative Negrito populations. Overall, a high diversity is observed among the earliest inhabitants of Southeast Asia, supporting a multi-layer origin for the diverse Negrito grouping. Historical back migrations of later East Asian agriculturalist groups, specifically Austroasiatic and Austronesian peoples, largely replaced or assimilated the diverse hunter-gatherers. The remainders form minority groups in geographically isolated regions.

I think it is better to explain that the Negrito grouping is only a superficial one, based on outdated racialist views, rather than a real population grouping.

We have references here about Philippine Negritos, which are on a cline between East Asians and Papuans, we have references stressing the diversity and heterogeneity among different Negrito groupings, and we have references about Malay/Andamanese Negrito groupings showing them to be rather close to East Asians. As such it would be great to use these references instead of making another generalization.

And could you explain what the term "South East Eurasian" should mean? This term is used in the current version, but I simply can not find it in any given reference.

We may together try to make a better version at the talk page? If you want, I can search for more studies about Negritos and post their links here. Some references are only indirectly concerned with the putative Negrito grouping.

Have a nice day!61.14.233.182 (talk) 10:12, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

I would prefer not to give undue weight to the idea that Australo-Papuans represent an early split of the OOA population. This was proposed in Malaspinas et al. (2016), A genomic history of Aboriginal Australia (cited e.g. by Carlhoff et al. (2021)), but most studies since Mallick et al. (2016) model Onge, Australo-Papuans and East Asians (and also ancient Hoabinhians, Malaysian Negritos, Philippine Negritos, if covered) as deriving from a single East Eurasian ancestral source:

• Mallick et al. (2016), The Simons Genome Diversity Project: 300 genomes from 142 diverse populations
• Lipson & Reich (2017), A Working Model of the Deep Relationships of Diverse Modern Human Genetic Lineages Outside of Africa
• Jinam et al. (2017), Discerning the Origins of the Negritos, First Sundaland People: Deep Divergence and Archaic Admixture
• Yang et al. (2017), 40,000-Year-Old Individual from Asia Provides Insight into Early Population Structure in Eurasia
• Skoglund & Mathieson (2018), Ancient Genomics of Modern Humans: The First Decade
• McColl et al. (2018), The prehistoric peopling of Southeast Asia
• Narasimhan et al. (2019), The formation of human populations in South and Central Asia
• Sikora et al. (2019), The population history of northeastern Siberia since the Pleistocene
• Larena et al. (2021), Multiple migrations to the Philippines during the last 50,000 years
• Wang et al. (2021), Genomic insights into the formation of human populations in East Asia

So the East Eurasian affiliation of both Onge and Australo-Papuans is the current mainstream view, and is robust under various admixture models. The divergence of Australo-Papuans reported in earlier studies was due to the fact that Denisovan gene flow was not accounted for.

There is no final word about the exact relations among Onge, Australo-Papuans and East Asians. Lipson & Reich (2017) preferred to be agnostic about it. If you look a the TreeMix diagrams in McColl et al. (2018), you find all three permutations for the cladistic relations among the three (Onge–Australo-Papuans, Onge–East Asians, and even Australo-Papuans–East Asians), depending on which specific ancient specimen is modeled.

For more local relations, there is consensus (Jinam et al. 2017; McColl et al. 2018) that Hoabinhians and Malaysian Negritos derive from an Onge-related ancestry (the latter with admixture from non-Negrito Austroasiatic-related ancestry). Larena et al. (2021) show that it is likely that the deep ancestry of Southern (i.e. non-Luzon) Philippine Negritos forms a clade with Australo-Papuans to the exclusion of Northern (i.e. Luzon) Philippine Negritos. And finally, Wang et al (2021) have shown that Onge-related ancestry significantly contributed to "Interior South East Eurasian" populations (Liangdao, ancient Austronesian, Jomon among others).

Note that most of these studies focus on just one Negrito group. Larena et al. (2021) do not cover Onge or Malaysian Negritos, while McColl et al. 2018 do not go into admixture details of the Philippine Negritos. So we have to be careful when citing these sources and making blanket statements. So far, the only source that covers the full range of "Negrito" populations plus Australo-Papuans and East Asians is Jinam et al. (2017), and some of its finding have been superseded by more recent research results.

I agree that the current section "Origins" needs to be rewritten and potentially expanded. But considering the previous mess we have seen as a result of indiscriminate amassment of sources paired with blatant misreadings by relentless LTAs, this has to be done with utmost care and scrutiny. And without haste. –Austronesier (talk) 21:26, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

It is true that there is still debate about the exact split times and inter-group relationships between proper East-Eurasians and Australasians, but it is not true that the studies linked by you support that all descended from a single East-Eurasian source, or are equally related to each other. They all suggest that both "proper East-Eurasians" (in the sense of East Asians and either with or without Onge) and Australasians descended from an eastern non-African lineage which split from West-Eurasians shortly after the Out of Africa migration. However the Australasian and the East Asian (including the Ongan lineage) also split from each other shortly after the divergence of East/West Eurasians. Probably as early as ~50 thousand years ago, some (Larena et al. 2021 as example) earlier at ~58 thousand years ago. But the divergence of Ongan/Hoabinhian lineage from East Asians is (in nearly all recent studies, and most previous studies) on the East Asian lineage (sometimes between 40 to 15 thousand years ago, after Tianyuan, the currently oldest ESEA-linked sample), significantly after the divergence of the Australasian lineage from the East Asian lineage. And as you said, some (Malaspinas et al. 2016) even suggest that the Australasian lineage split prior to the West/East Eurasian split, making them an outgroup to other Eurasians (with unknown, but probably distinct affinity to Basal Eurasians, another early split from the OOA population.) As such, this debate is not really relevant to the points I made.

To summarize these points: 1. The East Asian lineage (recently called ESEA lineage) split from the Australasian lineage shortly after the split of eastern non-Africans from West-Eurasians (with others proposing them to be an outgroup to other Eurasians, through a split predating the East/West differentiation). ESEA is what we understand as East-Eurasian (including various distinct ancestries on the ESEA lineage, including Hoabinhians). Here a recently published review article by Melinda A. Yang 2022: A genetic history of migration, diversification, and admixture in Asia
2. Ongan/Hoabinhian/Malay Negrito split from the ESEA lineage long after the ESEA lineage diverged from the Australasian and West-Eurasian lineages, regardless of if Australasians being slightly closer to them or not. Always keep the split dates in mind.
3. My points made above take all this into account and simply give an overview of the estimated split times of these lineages. It is not relevant if Australasians are an outgroup or split within the eastern non-Africans. They always split prior to the divergence of the East Asian and Ongan lineage, which both are significantly closer to each other than to any of the two is to the Australasians (or West-Eurasians), also seen in the many studies linked by you. If Australasians are closer to ESEA or not is irrelevant in this case, and my proposal did not discuss this dispute, which is also not relevant to the article section.

Finally, I completely agree with the points made by you, I will try to search some more information and make a general overview statement, which we may use, taking the different views into account. The overview article by Melinda A. Yang 2022 should be the most useful, as it summarize all previous studies. However it is an overview article, not explicitly about the superficial grouping known as Negrito. Thank you for your points!61.14.233.182 (talk) 19:32, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

"Proper" East-Eurasian is not a NPOV-term. The very point of using "East Eurasian" is to have an umbrella term for East Asian (= Yang's ESEA) and Australasian ancestries (unless you subscribe to Southern Route). I'll take a look at Yang's paper. As a secondary source, it will certainly relieve us from the burden of turning WP into a research review of primary sources (or in the worst case, an arbitrary paper dump – see Ainu people), which is exactly what WP is not about. But if Yang's article doesn't have a broad overview of the diverse Negrito groups and their deep ancestries, it will be of little use here. –Austronesier (talk) 20:37, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

PS: They [i.e. Australasians] always split prior to the divergence of the East Asian and Ongan lineage. Always? Not in Narasimhan (2019). So no, there is no final word about this. –Austronesier (talk) 20:43, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Oh, and about But the divergence of Ongan/Hoabinhian lineage from East Asians is (in nearly all recent studies, and most previous studies) [...] significantly after the divergence of the Australasian lineage from the East Asian lineage.: Yang (2022) assigns the Andamanese to the AASI lineage (p. 23), but the Hoabinhians to the ESEA lineage (p. 9). I can't see clearly based on what, but obviously, there are still a lot of open questions. –Austronesier (talk) 21:16, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, Narasimhan 2019 suggests a trifurication of East Asians, AASI and Australasians, that is true.

Yang (2022) assigns the Andamanese to the AASI lineage (p. 23), but the Hoabinhians to the ESEA lineage (p. 9).: The inconsistency in the position of the Ongan lineage may be because they formed from an early AASI component and an early ESEA one (either Tianyuan-like or Hoabinhian-like) or alternatively AASI formed from an Basal-East Asian lineage close to Ongan with an earlier Australasian-like one. This would explain their alleged affinity to Hoabinhians, AASI and Han, observed in McColl 2018, however the affinity was not reproduced by Boer 2021 or Yang 2021. The possibility that Ongan formed from both was already raised by Chaubey 2015, modeling 32% East Asian-related ancestry among Ongans. Liu et al. 2020 had a model with 45% East Asian-related ancestry. On the other hand, Carlhoff et al. 2021 models the Onge as East Asian close to Tianyuan and Hoabinhians. So there is indeed a hard time to summarize these results. The Yang paper at least shows that the Ongan are not an Australasian group.

I can't see clearly based on what, but obviously, there are still a lot of open questions.: That is the problem with genetic studies generally. We have tons of different results, with different geneticists taking the results which are closest to their own theories. For now, we know that Andamanese Onge are either positioned in between East Asians and Australasians, or closer to East Asians, showing high affinity with basal Tianyuan/Hoabinhians. Negritos generally are diverse, some clustering with Hoabinhians basal to East Asians, others being on a cline between Papuans and Cordellians (early Austronesians).

Some interesting models I saw positioned Onge rather close to Hòabìnhians and Tianyuan, with the three being basal to East Asians, but distant from Australasian Papuans and Aboriginal Australians. (This is also acknowledged by Yang 2017 about the genome of Tianyuan. While Tianyuan show highest affinity to East Asians, Native Americans, and Ongan, he does show less affinity to Aboriginal Australians and Papuans, although clearly more than to Europeans or Africans.) Interestingly, the AASI were intermediated between Ongan and Australasian in the model. That would suggest the Ongan diverged from the Ancestral East Asians much later, merging with an Australasian group giving rise to AASI. However it is not as easy as that. We can complicate it taking haplogroups into account, that will result in an unresolvable mess. As such, haplogroups are never, really never, an option to determine relations or affinity, especially if talking about real old subclades such as D1 or C1. The problem we have are that there is much raw data, but so many different possibilities that we have a hard time to find out how and when all these populations really split. Let alone Basal-Eurasians and their strange affinity to West-Eurasians compared to any eastern non-African group.

Let us face reality, we will probably not be able to reconstruct the genetic history of diverse human lineages, especially taking ancient migrations and admixture events into account. There will always be disputes and misunderstandings, and this is not only confined to genetic topics but generally (see Russia - Ukraine). People must understand the principles of four ears, both sides have true arguments, and at the same time biased views. This is true for everything. In the context of Negritos, I think it would be better to make clear that it is an outdated summary concept of distinct groups, with some having more affinity to Australasians and some more affinity with East Asians, but all being interconnected through ancient contact. To be honest, in a sheer geographically (and logical) view, these groups diverged from each other probably more than 50 thousand years ago. A trifurication, as proposed by Narasimhan 2019, sounds logical, but I caution that it may be an oversimplification, not taking admixture events into account. We simply do not have data about that. The deep position of Australasians (taking Denisovan admixture into account, which actually is higher in Aeta Negritos whom still cluster closer to East Asians) simply suggests that these split of from others the earliest. Archeologic evidence supports this as well. We also must take geneflow into Australasians into account, geneflow which predates the Austronesian expansion, and geneflow from which we know existed (Carlhoff et al. 2021). The fact that Ongan here is clustering with East Asians as opposed to Papuans, is another supportive evidence. A currently non-peer reviewed paper (2021) also notes Papuans and Aboriginal Australians are either a distant sister lineage to East Asians, or formed from admixture of early East Asian-like groups and an earlier lineage basal to all Eurasians. Than we are again at the same problem, what is true now?

Another review article from 2022 () cites: "The ancestors of Malay Negrito groups diverged from the East Asian ∼25 kya; but subsequently admixed with the other Austronesian populations ∼1,700 years ago (Wu et al., 2019). ... Growing body of evidence confirm that the Orang Asli Negrito once shared common origins with the East Asian populations (Deng et al., 2014; Aghakhanian et al., 2015; Liu et al., 2015; Fu et al., 2018; Yew et al., 2018a). ... their inferred time of divergence from Eurasian was younger than anticipated (Jinam et al., 2017; Yew et al., 2018a). Intriguingly, despites exhibiting similar phenotypic characteristics, the Negritos from Malaysia, the Philippines and the Andaman were found to be only distantly related. On the other hand, an ancient link between the Negrito from Peninsular Malaysia and the Andamanese Negrito was observed (Aghakhanian et al., 2015). ... Intriguingly, the Orang Asli Negrito (Jehai sub-tribe) showed a shared genetic drift with ancient genomes from Hoabinhian ancestry (McColl et al., 2018), suggesting that they are genetically closer to the ancestors of Hoabinhian hunter-gatherers who occupied northern parts of Peninsular Malaysia during the late Pleistocene (Bellwood, 2007). What puzzles us, however, is that the divergence between Eurasian and Australian aborigines (Malaspinas et al., 2016) predates the divergence between Eurasian and Orang Asli Negrito (Yew et al., 2018a), thus complicates the peopling history in Peninsular Malaysia."

They made interesting summary points, although many questions remain open:

"The Negrito from Peninsular Malaysia once shared a common ancestry with East Asian populations (HUGO Pan-Asian SNP Consortium et al., 2009; Aghakhanian et al., 2015; Liu et al., 2015; Jinam et al., 2017; Lipson et al., 2018). ... The genetic link between the Negrito-like populations from SEA, including Negrito from Peninsular Malaysia, the Philippines, the Andaman, Papuan and Australian aborigines, and possibly the African pygmies, remain inconclusive. Whilst it has been shown that these populations shared an ancient basal Asian ancestry component (Deng et al., 2021), they have undergone a long period of isolation from each other and could have experienced extensive local adaptation and admixture from respective neighboring populations therefore posting a challenge to uncover the precise date of migration of these populations. Analysis of natural selection may be able to at least in part address this question (Liu et al., 2015; Zhang et al., 2021). Several studies have been carried out in the SEA populations including the natives from Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo (Liu et al., 2015; Liu et al., 2017; Hoh et al., 2020). However finer genotyping, phenotypic and environmental characteristics, along with a sample size on the indigenous populations are required to warrant a convincing conclusion."

A last point to be made, East Asians themselve originated in Southeast Asia and diversified from there, but were already clearly differentiated from Australasians.

"Most notably, the study supports an initial single migration wave of the ancestors of East Asian (EA) populations via “Southern route” into SEA, followed by multiple subsequent migrations thence shaped the complex genetic diversity of SEA (HUGO Pan-Asian SNP Consortium et al., 2009)."

We may have to mention the distinction between different Negrito groups, or better clearly state that there are no" Negrito people", and that this term is an outdated historical term based on superficial similarities without scientific basis.61.14.233.182 (talk) 08:30, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Based on the points above from you and me, I am making a new proposal:

The diverse grouping of Negritos are considered as the indigenous population of large parts of Southeast Asia. Based on perceived physical similarities, Negritos were once considered a single population of closely related groups, however genetic studies found significant differences between different groups classified as Negrito.

Genetic studies found that Malay Negrito groups are distinct from Philippine Negrito groups, but sharing genetic affinity with Hoabinhian and Andamanese people. The Malay Negritos and ancient Hoabinhians were found to be rather closely related to East Asian people, with both having descended from a common Basal-East Asian source population from Mainland Southeast Asia, who split from other Eurasian populations, such as from the Australasian/Papuan lineage about ~50 thousand years ago, with some proposing an early date between ~58 to ~70 thousand years ago. Malay/Andamanese Negritos and East Asians are estimated to have diverged from each other about ~30 to ~15 thousand years ago, with one group migrating further southwards, giving rise to the Malay and Andamanese peoples, and "Ancestral East Asians" migrating northwards. A distant affinity between Andamanese and the hypothetical "Indigenous South Asians" (AASI) has also been found, but the exact relationship between the two remains unknown.

In contrast, Philippines Negrito groups are only distantly related to the Malay and Andamanese groups or East Asians, while showing significant affinity towards modern Papuans, suggesting independent origins for the putative Negrito populations. Philippines Negrito groups are suggested to have diverged from the Australasian lineage ancestral to Papuans and Aboriginal Australians, after the Australasian lineage split from the East Asian and Malay/Andamanese lineage.

Philippines Negritos later received significant East Asian-related admixture, positioning them on a cline between Papuans and East Asian Cordellians (early Austronesians).

Overall, a high diversity is observed among the alleged earliest inhabitants of Southeast Asia, supporting a multi-layer origin for the diverse Negrito grouping. Historical back migrations of later East Asian agriculturalist groups, specifically Austroasiatic and Austronesian peoples, largely replaced or assimilated the diverse hunter-gatherers. The remainders form minority groups in geographically isolated regions."

With this version we make clear the difference between the different Negrito groups, while also mentioning their affinity to other groups and do not fall in the trap of the East Asian/Australasian East-Eurasian affinity problem. Something like this should resolve the problem.61.14.233.182 (talk) 09:31, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

This would explain their alleged affinity to Hoabinhians, AASI and Han, observed in McColl 2018. I guess "their" refers to the Onge. Where do McColl et al. (2018) write this, especially when they do not talk about AASI?

...however the affinity was not reproduced by Boer 2021. This must be about de Boer (2020) "Japan considered from the hypothesis of farmer/language spread"? If so, they actually talk about the proposed affiliation of the Jomon samples to the two Hoabinhian samples in McColl et al. (2018), not about the "affinity [of the Onge?] to Hoabinhians, AASI and Han".

On the other hand, Carlhoff et al. 2021 models the Onge as East Asian close to Tianyuan and Hoabinhians. Where? They are "close" in the PCA, but that has little to do with the actual modeling of migration/admixture events as obtained from Treemix or qpGraph. –Austronesier (talk) 22:15, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

References