NEW genetic research shows that the earliest Chinese may have been Cantonese who then went on to colonise the rest of China and East Asia.
An analysis of the genes of 28 groups in north and south China suggest modern man came from Africa and migrated eastwards along the Indian Ocean coasts to reach Southeast Asia and then southern China.
'We have found genetic evidence that Asian people entered from the southern part of China and then migrated north, some 40,000 to 60,000 years ago,' said Professor Jin Li, of the Human Genetics Centre at the University of Texas.
Shanghai-born Professor Jin is working on the Chinese Human Genome Diversity Project, which is analysing DNA from 28 out of China's 56 ethnic groups and comparing it with samples from other Asian and non-Asian populations.
The project, a collaboration between 12 researchers from seven mainland institutions, is continuing to find significant differences between northern and southern Chinese.
'Genetically speaking, northern Chinese and Caucasians are more alike than southern Chinese and northern Chinese,' Professor Jin said.
'Of course, the first Cantonese may not have been Han Chinese at all.' The research corroborates the 'Out of Africa' theory which holds that modern man, homo sapiens, descended from a common ancestor in East Africa dubbed Eve.