Southern Dispersal

In the context of the recent African origin of modern humans, the Southern Dispersal scenario (also the 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. Alternative names include the "southern coastal route" or "rapid coastal settlement".

The coastal route theory is primarily used to describe the initial peopling of the Arabian peninsula, India, Southeast Asia, New Guinea, Australia, Near Oceania, coastal China, and Japan between roughly 70,000 to 60,000 years ago.

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 C and haplogroup D, in these regions.

The theory proposes that early Homo sapiens, some of the bearers of mitochondrial haplogroup L3, most likely similar to the Australoid populations of today (and hence dubbed Proto-Australoids), arrived in the Arabian peninsula about 70,000 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. 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").

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