Demographic model and biological adaptation inferred from the genome-wide SNP data reveal tripartite origins of southernmost Chinese Huis

Abstract

The culturally unique Sanya Hui (SYH) people are regarded as the descendants of ancient Cham people in Central Vietnam (CV) and exhibit a scenario of complex migration and admixture history, who were likely to first migrate from Central and South Asia (CSA) to CV and then to South Hainan and finally assimilated with indigenous populations and resided in the tropical island environments since then. A long-standing hypothesis posits that SYH derives from different genetic and cultural origins, which hypothesizes that SYH people are different from the genetically attested admixture history of northern Hui people possessing major Han-related ancestry and minor western Eurasian ancestry. However, the effect of the cultural admixture from CSA and East Asia (EA) on the genetic admixture of SYH people remains unclear. Here, we reported the first batch of genome-wide SNP data from 94 SYH people from Hainan and comprehensively characterized their genetic structure, origin, and admixture history. Our results found that SYH people were genetically different from the northern Chinese Hui people and harbored a close genomic affinity with indigenous Vietnamese but a distinct relationship with Cham, which confirmed the hypothesis of documented recent historical migration from CV and assimilation with Hainan indigenous people. The fitted admixture models and reconstructed demographic frameworks revealed an additional influx of CSA and EA ancestries during the historical period, consisting of the frequent cultural communication along the Southern Maritime Silk Road and extensive interaction with EA. Analyses focused on natural-selected signatures of SYH people revealed a similar pattern with mainland East Asians, which further confirmed the possibility of admixture-induced biological adaptation of island environments. Generally, three genetically attested ancestries from CV, EA, and CSA in modern SYH people supported their tripartite model of genomic origins.