130,000 years of dispersal, replacement, and dead ends. Solid lines = persistent ancestry; dashed = dead-end lineages. Sources: Posth et al. (2023), Allentoft et al. (2024), Wang et al. (2021), Yang et al. (2020).
·
5 kya
Global (Out of Africa)
European settlement
East Asian settlement
Dead end / replaced
Sources & Methodology
Migration flows are simplified representations of population movements inferred from ancient DNA studies. Arrows indicate predominant direction of gene flow or demic diffusion; they do not imply single migration events or precise routes. Dates are approximate and represent the onset of detectable genetic signals in the archaeological record. The three-layer structure (global, European, East Asian) follows the major research programs in paleogenomics. For Europe, the primary framework is from Posth et al. (2023) and Allentoft et al. (2024). For East Asia, the primary framework is from Wang et al. (2021), Yang et al. (2020), and Yang et al. (2025).
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