The origin of Minnan and Hakka, the so-called "Taiwanese", inferred by HLAstudy

The Minnan and Hakka people groups, the so-called "Taiwanese", are the desc endants of early settlers from the southeast coast of China during the last few centuries. Genetically they showed affinities to southern Asian popula tions. as determined by phylogenetic trees and correspondence analysis calc ulated from HLA allele frequencies. This corresponds historically with the fact that they are the descendants of the southeast coastal indigenous popu lation (Yueh) of China and should therefore not be considered as descendant s of "pure" northern Han Chinese. A33-B58-DRB1*03 (A33-Cw10-B58-DRB1*03-DQB 1*02), the most common HLA haplotype among "Taiwanese", with a haplotype fr equency of 6.3%, has also been found to be the most common haplotype among Thai-Chinese and Singapore Chinese, two other populations also originating from the southeast coast of China. These observations suggests that this ha plotype is the most well-conserved ancient haplotype of the Yueh.