C Haplogroup

Haplogroup C attains its highest frequencies among the indigenous populations of Mongolia, the Russian Far East, Polynesia, Australia, and at moderate frequency in the Korean Peninsula and among the Manchus, it displays its highest diversity among modern populations of India, and therefore it is hypothesized that Haplogroup C either originated or underwent its longest period of evolution and diversification within India or the greater South Asian coastal region.

It is believed to have migrated to the Americas some 6,000-8,000 years before present, and was carried by Na-Dené speaking peoples into the northwest Pacific coast of America. Some have hypothesized that Haplogroups C and D were brought together to East Asia by a single population that became the first successful modern human colonizers of that region, but at present the distributions of Haplogroups C and D are different, with various subtypes of Haplogroup C being found at high frequency among the Australian aborigines, Polynesians, Vietnamese, Kazakhs, Mongolians, Manchurians, Koreans, and indigenous inhabitants of the Russian Far East and at moderate frequencies elsewhere throughout Asia and Oceania, including India and Southeast Asia, whereas Haplogroup D is found at high frequencies only among the Tibetans, Japanese peoples, and Andaman Islanders, and has been found neither in India nor among the aboriginal inhabitants of the Americas or Oceania.