Prehistoric human migration between Sundaland and South Asia was driven by sea-level rise

Rapid sea-level rise between the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and the mid-Holocene transformed the Southeast Asian coastal landscape, impacting human demography. This study combines paleogeographic mapping of sea-level changes with genomic analysis of 763 high-coverage whole-genome sequencing datasets from 59 ethnic groups. Sea-level rise, particularly meltwater pulses 1A and 1B, caused over 50% land area reduction since the LGM, leading to population segregation. Subsequent population pressure drove Malaysian Negrito migration into South Asia, representing the earliest documented forced human migration due to sea-level rise.

Hie Lim Kim, Tanghua Li, Namrata Kalsi, Hung Tran The Nguyen, Timothy A. Shaw, Khai C. Ang, Keith C. Cheng, Aakrosh Ratan, W. Richard Peltier, Dhrubajyoti Samanta, Mahesh Pratapneni, Stephan C. Schuster, Benjamin P. Horton