Paternal genetic affinity between Western Austronesians and Daic populations.

Background: Austronesian is a linguistic family spread in most areas of the Southeast Asia, the Pacific Ocean, and the Indian Ocean. Based on their linguistic similarity, this linguistic family included Malayo-Polynesians and Taiwan aborigines. The linguistic similarity also led to the controversial hypothesis that Taiwan is the homeland of all the Malayo-Polynesians, a hypothesis that has been debated by ethnologists, linguists, archaeologists, and geneticists.

Genetic characterization of four Austronesian-speaking populations.

Ascertaining the genetic relationships between Austronesian populations is paramount to understanding their dispersal throughout the islands of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The start of the Austronesian expansion has been dated to approximately 6,000 years ago, and from linguistic and archeological evidence, the origin of this dispersal may have been the island of Formosa. Consequently, the Taiwanese aboriginal populations and their phylogenetic relationship to the Austronesian-speaking groups from Madagascar at the occidental fringes of the expansion are of great interest.