Demographic change of human populations is one of the central questions for
delving into the past of human beings. To identify major population expansions
related to male lineages, we sequenced 78 East Asian Y chromosomes at 3.9 Mbp
of the non-recombining region (NRY), discovered >4,000 new SNPs, and identified
many new clades. The relative divergence dates can be estimated much more
precisely using molecular clock. We found that all the Paleolithic divergences
were binary; however, three strong star-like Neolithic expansions at ~6 kya
(thousand years ago) (assuming a constant substitution rate of 1e-9/bp/year)
indicates that ~40% of modern Chinese are patrilineal descendants of only three
super-grandfathers at that time. This observation suggests that the main
patrilineal expansion in China occurred in the Neolithic Era and might be
related to the development of agriculture.Comment: 29 pages of article text including 1 article figure, 9 pages of SI
text, and 2 SI figures. 5 SI tables are in a separate ancillary fil
