🇵🇭 Five waves into the Philippines, not one

Genetic evidence shows the islands were peopled by multiple waves, not a single migration. The earliest were Negrito ancestors (in at least two branches). Later movements came from the south (including Manobo and Sama groups).

A final major wave brought Cordilleran-related people—early Basal East Asians—arriving ~8–10 thousand years ago, well before rice farming.

Cordillerans today are the least mixed and a better stand-in than Taiwanese groups for early Austronesian ancestry.

Some coastal communities (especially Sama) also show South Asian input from trade about 1,000 years ago, while Spanish ancestry in sampled lowlanders is very small.

Takeaway: The archipelago’s DNA reflects several pulses plus regional mixing, not a single “out of Taiwan” story.

Source: Larena et al., 2021. Multiple migrations to the Philippines during the last 50,000 years.