Which has greater autosomal genetic diversity: Europe or China?

[Peterski]

Are intra-European genetic differences greater than intra-Chinese genetic differences? I mean differences between ethnically and geographically distinct groups, such as: Northern vs. Southern, Western vs. Eastern, South-Western vs. North-Eastern, South-Eastern vs. North-Western Europeans and Chinese.

Obviously several groups are genetic outliers in both areas. What if we exclude outliers?

========================

Edit:

Adding this also to the OP, so everyone can see immediately:

I have made a comparison (based on data from this graph):

https://jaymans.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/global-genetic-distances-map.jpg

Left side (map) = geographical distances (sampling locations)

Right side (graph) = genetical distances between populations

https://s18.postimg.io/l85jfhya1/Genetic_Distances.png

^^^
Conclusion:

Europeans are about as close to each other, as are the Chinese (+ Koreans + Japanese).

However, when we exclude "genetic outliers" among Europeans, such as:

- Komi and Mari
- Sardinians
- the Adygei
- Lapps (Sami)

Then after such exclusion, the rest of Europeans are more closely related than Chinese.

[johen]

absolutely, China

[Peterski]

China has more inhabitants than Europe, and a territory comparable in size to Europe:

https://s22.postimg.io/sjdtoyd69/China_Europe.png

[Peterski]

AFAIK the Chinese are a mostly Neolithic-descended population, without any Post-Neolithic replacement. On the other hand, in Europe there was also a Post-Neolithic, Bronze Age replacement and a process of homogenization, caused by the massive migration of Indo-Europeans from the Steppe. So Europeans are generally a younger population, and thus I guess that they should be even more homogeneous.

See the most recent summary of Europe's population history:

http://biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2016/09/01/072926.full.pdf

[Petalpusher]

China appears to have less, but East Asians are understudied, we have no precise idea how they formed during the holocene and before. There's hardly any focus in calculators on the variability of East Asians due to the lack of ancient dna. They tend to all get 90-95% "E_Asian" but it's really like the "modern European" component most Euro score in the 95-100% range on 23andme.

[Myanthropologies]

China appears to have less, but East Asians are understudied, we have no precise idea how they formed during the holocene and before. There's hardly any focus in calculators on the variability of East Asians due to the lack of ancient dna. They tend to all get 90-95% "E_Asian" but it's really like the "modern European" component most Euro score in the 95-100% range on 23andme.

23andme just breaks down into regions like "European," etc based on geographical location, not based on actual genetics, at least according to someone I know who works for 23andme. The specific regions (such as Ireland, NW Russia, etc), are more specific on actual genetics. That is why 23andme includes "European Jewish" as being in Eastern Europe, whereas DNA Land has an "Ashkenazi/Levantine" category, which paints the picture of where "European" Jews come from a tad better.

And I would not say East Asians are understudied, Native Americans are the subjects of a lot of studies as well. Last year, I actually typed a report on a genetics study of a native American ancestral population found for one of my classes.

Obviously China is huge and diverse, but between the ethnic Chinese, there is far more genetic diversity between the Europeans.

[johen]

AFAIK the Chinese are a mostly Neolithic-descended population, without any Post-Neolithic replacement. On the other hand, in Europe there was also a Post-Neolithic, Bronze Age replacement and a process of homogenization, caused by the massive migration of Indo-Europeans from the Steppe. So Europeans are generally a younger population, and thus I guess that they should be even more homogeneous.

See the most recent summary of Europe's population history:

http://biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2016/09/01/072926.full.pdf

What makes you think that? b/c of o3?

see the steppe, where lion, tiger and wolf tribes were living. Why do you think European neolithic farmer were different from neolithic China?
R existed on the left side, but N , Q existed on the right, who were nothing but killers. However, they were civiization makers.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Eurasian_steppe_belt.jpg


I think bronze people ruled the farmer with their swords w/o exception.

[Insuperable]

AFAIK the Chinese are a mostly Neolithic-descended population, without any Post-Neolithic replacement. On the other hand, in Europe there was also a Post-Neolithic, Bronze Age replacement and a process of homogenization, caused by the massive migration of Indo-Europeans from the Steppe. So Europeans are generally a younger population, and thus I guess that they should be even more homogeneous.

See the most recent summary of Europe's population history:

http://biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2016/09/01/072926.full.pdf

More recent migrations, more diverse people, duh.

[Petalpusher]

23andme just breaks down into regions like "European," etc based on geographical location, not based on actual genetics, at least according to someone I know who works for 23andme. The specific regions (such as Ireland, NW Russia, etc), are more specific on actual genetics. That is why 23andme includes "European Jewish" as being in Eastern Europe, whereas DNA Land has an "Ashkenazi/Levantine" category, which paints the picture of where "European" Jews come from a tad better.

And I would not say East Asians are understudied, Native Americans are the subjects of a lot of studies as well. Last year, I actually typed a report on a genetics study of a native American ancestral population found for one of my classes.

Obviously China is huge and diverse, but between the ethnic Chinese, there is far more genetic diversity between the Europeans.

What i mean is 23andme's European percentage is basically Europe after BA. For E_Asians we don't have adna from the paleolithic, mesolithic, or a neolithic/BA equivalent in East Asia but there could be something similar and maybe as complex as in Europe.

Even what is far east into Russia has very little to do with Chineses, Japaneses, etc.. Factually they are understudied : http://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/ancient-human-dna_41837#3/36.24/94.04

[Insuperable]

China appears to have less, but East Asians are understudied, we have no precise idea how they formed during the holocene and before. There's hardly any focus in calculators on the variability of East Asians due to the lack of ancient dna. They tend to all get 90-95% "E_Asian" but it's really like the "modern European" component most Euro score in the 95-100% range on 23andme.

Are ancient samples really needed to answer the main question of this thread? People can still be compared to one another as is the case with first online ancestry calculators (Georgian samples being representative of West Asian admixture, Scandinavians for North Sea or whatever). I think that Chinese are more homogeneous based on old calculators, but maybe in this case too there was not enough Chinese samples from various regions. But if we want to see what the average Chinese looks like in terms of ancient migrations, he/she would also came out as mix of many things. It just happens they are more homogeneous compared to each other which is what you are basically saying, no? Maybe I am wrong, idk.

[Peterski]

OK, I made a comparison (based on data from this graph):

https://jaymans.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/global-genetic-distances-map.jpg

Left side (map) = geographical distances (sampling locations)

Right side (graph) = genetical distances between populations

https://s18.postimg.io/l85jfhya1/Genetic_Distances.png

^^^
Conclusion:

Europeans are about as close to each other, as are the Chinese (+ Koreans + Japanese).

However, when we exclude "genetic outliers" among Europeans, such as:

- Komi and Mari
- Sardinians
- the Adygei
- Lapps (Sami)

Then after such exclusion, the rest of Europeans are more closely related than Chinese.

[alpha]

Europe

[Insuperable]

OK, I made a comparison (based on data from this graph):

https://jaymans.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/global-genetic-distances-map.jpg

Left side (map) = geographical distances (sampling locations)

Right side (graph) = genetical distances between populations

https://s18.postimg.io/l85jfhya1/Genetic_Distances.png

^^^
Conclusion:

Europeans are about as close to each other, as are the Chinese (+ Koreans + Japanese).

However, when we exclude "genetic outliers" among Europeans, such as:

- Komi and Mari
- Sardinians
- the Adygei
- Lapps (Sami)

Then after such exclusion, the rest of Europeans are more closely related than Chinese.

So, is this about East Asians in general or just Chinese as thread implies? Chinese despite being a large population seem to be more homogeneous. Maybe I am wrong.

[Petalpusher]

Are ancient samples really needed to answer the main question of this thread? People can still be compared to one another as is the case with first online ancestry calculators (Georgian samples being representative of West Asian admixture, Scandinavians for North Sea or whatever). I think that Chinese are more homogeneous based on old calculators, but maybe in this case too there was not enough Chinese samples from various regions. But if we want to see what the average Chinese looks like in terms of ancient migrations, he/she would also came out as mix of many things. It just happens they are more homogeneous compared to each other which is what you are basically saying, no? Maybe I am wrong, idk.

Yea clearly, as seen on 23, the variability of Europeans based on a modern model of Europeans would be 5-10%. As in everything found from Finland to Sicily is considered equally indigenous European, it's not wrong in a modern sense, but really an oversight to understand the variables of Europe. Based on adna it's more 50%.

What E_Asians can vary on for now is only some ASE, S_Asian, Siberian, at best. It's like those K3 for us where most Euro are +95% W_Eurasians.

[Peterski]

So, is this about East Asians in general or just Chinese as thread implies?

See the map: 14 regional Chinese populations + Koreans + Japanese were compared.

These 14 Chinese populations are less closely related to each other, than are Europeans.


Chinese despite being a large population seem to be more homogeneous.

This is a myth (at least when compared to Europeans).

Data from JayMan's blog disproves it - Chinese are less homogeneous than Europeans.

[Myanthropologies]

OK, I made a comparison (based on data from this graph):

https://jaymans.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/global-genetic-distances-map.jpg

Left side (map) = geographical distances (sampling locations)

Right side (graph) = genetical distances between populations

https://s18.postimg.io/l85jfhya1/Genetic_Distances.png

^^^
Conclusion:

Europeans are about as close to each other, as are the Chinese (+ Koreans + Japanese).

However, when we exclude "genetic outliers" among Europeans, such as:

- Komi and Mari
- Sardinians
- the Adygei
- Lapps (Sami)

Then after such exclusion, the rest of Europeans are more closely related than Chinese.

That's really weird that Hungarians are far genetically closer to "Pathans" (let alone Afghan Pashtuns) than the Japanese are to the Vietnamese, according to that. I wonder if that's actually accurate.

[Insuperable]

That's really weird that Hungarians are far genetically closer to "Pathans" (let alone Afghan Pashtuns) than the Japanese are to the Vietnamese, according to that. I wonder if that's actually accurate.

Why Hungarians? You can say the same for any Euro nation on that picture. Are you sure you are reading that quite ok?

[Taiguaitiaoghyrmmumin]

Europe probably. nearly all Chinese are HAN

[Sacrificed Ram]

Some europeans have even some little SSA component.

[Taiguaitiaoghyrmmumin]

These Hakas peoples on the map. But they are also called Khakassian
Obviously they are more shifted to mongoloids than European
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/8b/11/5c/8b115c58ef25aff3f7db84db576d7dde.jpg

http://www.face-music.ch/Bilder/uel_photo_irgit_II.jpg

these are likely recent mixes of russians non indgenous types

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/ec/a2/d8/eca2d83d66fc0927a399055a5f065d19.jpg


other modern Hakas

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/36/Khakassian_traditional_costume.jpg/766px-Khakassian_traditional_costume.jpg

[johen]

These Hakas peoples on the map. But they are also called Khakassian
Obviously they are more shifted to mongoloids than European

They live in the ANE red zone, having C3, E, N*, N1b, N1c, R1a1a and R1b1b1, not Q. They have R1b1b1 (M73), which European don't have. Who gave them scythian Hg R1a1a? looks like they are natives though.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21790006

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Khakassia_in_Russia.svg

[Grab the Gauge]

East Asians have the least genetic diversity in the world aside from Native Americans. Dispersal in to East Asia involved many bottlenecks due to the harshness of the conditions in the ice age there. Genetic diversity decreases on a West-to-East cline from southern Africa. There's no real population structure in Asian genetics.

[Myanthropologies]

Why Hungarians? You can say the same for any Euro nation on that picture. Are you sure you are reading that quite ok?

Lol I'm not picking on the Hungarians, I was just using them as an example. I had no idea that Finns and Pashtuns are genetically closer than the Japanese and Vietnamese are. It's just kind of weird.

[Dick]

https://cdn.meme.am/instances/500x/67426230.jpg

[♥ Lily ♥]

I live in Central London and I think Europe is more genetically diverse as European citizens are more multi-racial than China's citizens which is a mostly homogenous nation.

[Grab the Gauge]

I think Europe is more genetically diverse as Europeans are more multi-racial than China's citizens which is a mostly homogenous nation.

Multi-racialism has nothing to do with it. This is about human population bottlenecks that took place thousands of years ago. Southeast Asians are also multi-racial but extremely genetically homogenous. It doesn't matter if you are multi racial when all the different races in the area started off in small numbers.

[Charles Bronson]

Yes the best Haplogroup is the Q strong Hunic.

[Petalpusher]

Speak of the devil previously in the thread, some new papers will be coming out on East Asian and a 40ky genome :

Reconstructing population history in East Asia
Wang et al.

The deep population history of East Asia remains poorly understood compared to that of West Eurasia, due to the lack of ancient DNA data as well as limited sampling of present-day populations especially on the Tibetan Plateau and in southern China. We report a fine scale survey of East Asian history based on genome-wide data from ancient samples in the Amur River Basin, as well as 435 newly reported individuals from 53 populations. Present-day groups can be broadly classified into highly differentiated clusters, corresponding to Amur River Basin, Tibetan Plateau, southern natives and Han Chinese. Populations of the Amur River Basin show a high degree of genetic continuity from seven thousand years ago until today, and are closely related to the strain of East Asian related ancestry present in Native Americans. Tibetan Plateau populations are all admixed, deriving about 5%-10% of their ancestry from an anciently divergent population that plausibly corresponds to the Paleolithic population on the Plateau, and the remaining part from an ancient population that no longer exists in unmixed form but that likely corresponds to expanding farmers from the Middle and Upper Yellow River Basin who also contributed 40-90% of the ancestry of Han Chinese. A total of 10-60% of Han Chinese ancestry derives from southern Native populations, and we show that the type of southern Native ancestry that contributed to Taiwan Island Austronesian speakers is most closely related to present-day speakers of Tai-Kadai languages in southern mainland China.


Contextualizing the Tianyuan genome within present and ancient human genomic diversity
Yang et al.

Recently, many studies have produced an unprecedented number of ancient human genomes, providing insight on human dynamics in many regions, particularly West Eurasia and the Americas. Here, we present genome-wide data from the Tianyuan specimen, dating to ~40,000 years ago. Unlike other ancient genomes studied to date, the Tianyuan genome is the first ancient Upper Paleolithic sample analyzed to have contributed greatly to the East Eurasian ancestral lineage. We compare Tianyuan to several ancient and present day human genomes to better understand both the genetic diversity in the Upper Paleolithic and the similarities and differences between Tianyuan and present day populations. Overall, the addition of genome-wide Tianyuan data provides greater insight into the population history in Eurasia over the last 40,000 year


Origins and genetic legacy of the first people in Remote Oceania
Skoglund et al.

The appearance of people associated with the Lapita culture in the South Pacific ~3,000 years ago marked the beginning of the last major human dispersal to unpopulated lands, culminating in the settlement of eastern Polynesia ~1,000-700 years ago. However, the genetic relationship of these pioneers to the long established Papuan peoples of the New Guinea region is debated. We report the first genome-wide ancient DNA data from Asia-Pacific region, from four ~2,900 to ~2,500 year old Lapita culture individuals from Vanuatu and Tonga, and co-analyze them with new data from 356 present-day Oceanians. Today, all indigenous people of the South Pacific harbor a mixture of ancestry from Papuans and a population of East Asian origin that we find to be a statistical match to the ancient Lapita individuals. Most analyses have interpreted the ubiquitous Papuan ancestry in the region today-at least 25%-as evidence that the first humans to reach Remote Oceania and Polynesia were derived from mixtures near New Guinea prior to the Lapita expansion into Remote Oceania. Our results refute this scenario, as none of the geographically and temporally diverse Lapita individuals had detectable Papuan ancestry. These results imply later major human population movements, which spread Papuan ancestry through the South Pacific after the islands' first peopling.

[Peterski]

I live in Central London and I think Europe is more genetically diverse as European citizens are more multi-racial than China's citizens which is a mostly homogenous nation.

But I'm only talking about native Europeans, not people with recent immigrant descent.

[Cihan]

Are intra-European genetic differences greater than intra-Chinese genetic differences

...

^^^
Conclusion:

Europeans are about as close to each other, as are the Chinese (+ Koreans + Japanese).

However, when we exclude "genetic outliers" among Europeans, such as:
...
Then after such exclusion, the rest of Europeans are more closely related than Chinese.

I don’t see any unit on the axes of graphs on the right.

Are the x-y axes between the two graphs to the same scale?

[Anthr0]

Chinese are less phenotypically diverse

[Peterski]

I don’t see any unit on the axes of graphs on the right.

Are the x-y axes between the two graphs to the same scale?

Yes both are to the same scale because both are fragments of the same larger graph:

https://jaymans.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/global-genetic-distances-map.jpg

[CabOOM]

...........