Thursday, February 13, 2025 – 5pm, Foster 103
Jose Antonio Urban Aragon, PhD Candidate, Human Genetics, University of Chicago
Sri Lanka, yielding the oldest-yet evidence of Homo sapiens in South Asia (~36,000 years ago), is central to our understanding of the early peopling of South Asia. Historically, Sri Lanka has been a vital node in the Indian Ocean trade network. To investigate if the population history of Sri Lanka mirrors this socio-cultural diversity, we analyzed whole-genome sequence data from two present-day Sri Lankan populations: Adivasi (N = 19) and Sinhalese (N = 35). We evaluated the genome-wide affinities of the Sinhalese and Adivasi with global populations, including the Sri Lankan Tamils (STU, 1000G Project), finding that all three Sri Lankan populations fall on the modern South Asian genetic cline and share high levels of genetic drift with each other and with South Indian populations. Moreover, while the three Sri Lankan populations were modeled with genetic sources used to model other South Asians, our analyses suggest that the Adivasi have maintained a small long-term effective population size, reflecting a unique demographic history compared to the other two Sri Lankan populations. Overall, our study provides novel genomic insights on the human genetic origins and migratory history of Sri Lanka.