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Haplogroup O-M50

O-M50 (early maritime East Asian lineage)

Macro-haplogroup

Parent clade

O1a-M119

Formed (estimate)

c. 14,000–18,000 years before present

TMRCA (estimate)

c. 6,000–8,000 years ago

Overview

O-M50 is an ancient downstream branch of O1a representing one of the earliest maritime-oriented paternal lineages in East and Southeast Asia. This clade predates the formal Austronesian expansion and reflects deep-rooted coastal forager networks across southeast China, Taiwan, and Island Southeast Asia. M50-bearing populations were likely involved in early seafaring traditions that provided the cultural and technological foundations for later Austronesian voyaging.

Geographic distribution

Found in southern China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and occasionally Melanesia. The distribution is patchy but follows ancient maritime corridors. Lower frequencies appear in Vietnam and Thailand through secondary dispersals.

Ancient DNA

Ancient coastal East Asian genomes show ancestry upstream of M50.
The formation of M50 overlaps with early Holocene maritime toolkits in southern China and Taiwan.
M50 helped seed later expansions into the Philippine archipelago and Borneo.

Phylogeny & subclades

M50 sits as an early offshoot of O1a and contains several branches that either remained localized in southern China or expanded into Island Southeast Asia during the early Neolithic.

O-M50*
O1a2-related microbranches

Notes & context