Southern Dispersal

In the context of the recent African origin of modern humans, the Southern Dispersal scenario (also the coastal migration or great coastal migration hypothesis) refers to the early migration along the southern coast of Asia, from the Arabian peninsula via Persia and India to Southeast Asia and Oceania[1] Alternative names include the "southern coastal route"[2] or "rapid coastal settlement",[3] with later descendants of those migrations eventually colonizing the rest of Eurasia (including Europe), the remainder of Oceania, and the Americas.

Representation of the coastal migration model, with the indication of the later development of mitochondrial haplogroups from three population centers in the Near East, India and East Asia.

The coastal route theory is primarily used to describe the initial peopling of West Asia, India, Southeast Asia, New Guinea, Australia, Near Oceania, and coastal East Asia beginning between roughly 70,000 and 50,000 years ago.[4][5][6][7][8]

It is linked with the presence and dispersal of mtDNA haplogroup M and haplogroup N, as well as the specific distribution patterns of Y-DNA haplogroup F,[9] haplogroup C and haplogroup D, in these regions.[3][10][11]

The theory proposes that early modern humans, some of the bearers of mitochondrial haplogroup L3, arrived in the Arabian peninsula about 70,000-50,000 years ago, crossing from East Africa via the Bab-el-Mandeb straits. It has been estimated that from a population of 2,000 to 5,000 individuals in Africa, only a small group, possibly as few as 150 to 1,000 people, crossed the Red Sea.[12] The group would have travelled along the coastal route around Arabia and Persia to India relatively rapidly, within a few thousand years. From India, they would have spread to Southeast Asia ("Sundaland") and Oceania ("Sahul").[5][6][8]