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South China (SC) was a region with mixed rice–millet farming during the Middle Neolithic period and was also suggested to be the homeland of Tai‐Kadai (TK)‐speaking people. However, the formations of inland TK‐speaking people and southwestern Hans are far from clear due to very few studies on this subject. Here, we reveal the spatiotemporally demographic history of SC by analyzing newly‐generated genome‐wide SNP data of 115 modern southwestern individuals and find that inland TK‐speaking Dongs and Bouyeis have a close genomic affinity to coastal TK/Austronesian (AN)‐speaking people and Neolithic Yangtze River basin (YZRB) farmers, while southwestern Hans and TK‐speaking Gelaos possess a close genomic affinity to Neolithic Yellow River basin (YRB) farmers. Genetic differentiations are identified among TK people from SC and Southeast Asia, and between northern and southern inland Chinese TK people, in which the identified shared genetic ancestry between TK and AN people highlights a common origin of AN/TK groups. Conclusively, our findings indicate that millet farmers deriving from the YRB and rice farmers deriving from the YZRB substantially contribute to the present‐day inland TK speakers and southwestern Hans via a two‐way admixture scenario of bi‐directional gene‐flow events, which facilitates the formation of a modern two‐way genetic admixture profile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Archaeological, genetic, and linguistic evidence has supported the idea that northern China is the original center of modern Sino‐Tibetan‐speaking populations. However, the demographic history of subsequent southward migration and genetic admixture of Han Chinese with surrounding indigenous populations remain uncharacterized, and the language shifts and assimilations accompanied by movement of people, or just an adaptation of cultural ideas among populations in central China is still unclear, especially for Tibeto‐Burman‐speaking Tujia and central Han Chinese populations. To resolve this, we genotyped over 60K genome‐wide markers in 505 unrelated individuals from 63 indigenous populations. Our results showed both studied Han and Tujia were at the intermediate position in the modern East Asian North–South genetic cline and there was a correlation between the genetic composition and the latitude. We observed the strong genetic assimilation between Tujia people and central Han Chinese, which suggested massive population movements and genetic admixture under language borrowing. Tujia and central Han Chinese could be modeled as a two‐way admixture deriving primary ancestry from a northern ancestral population closely related to the ancient DevilsCave and present‐day Tibetans and a southern ancestral population closely related to the present‐day Tai‐Kadai and Austronesian‐speaking groups. The ancestral northern population we suspect to be related to the Neolithic millet farming groups in the Yellow River Basin or central China. We showed that the newly genotyped populations in Hubei Province had a higher proportion of DevilsCave or modern Tungusic/Mongolic‐related northern ancestries, while the Hunan populations harbored a higher proportion of Austronesian/Tai‐Kadai‐related southern ancestries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]