Leading Oxford University geneticist Dr Stephen Oppenheimer is taken aback by how politically charged the research into the origins of human population is in Malaysia.<br /><br />Most recently, strong reaction had arisen over media coverage of a conference on the origins of the Malay race, which marked the Orang Asli - the Senoi, Semang and the Proto-Malays - as torchbearers of the modern human race.<br /><br />NONEClarifying this finding in an interview last week, Oppenheimer said the Orang Asli, particularly the Semang and the Proto-Malays are direct descendants of the first humans who stepped foot in South-East Asia (then Sunda), and are "ancestral" for east Asia and the Americas.<br /><br />http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/187435
