The Senoi appear to be a composite group, with approximately half of the maternal DNA lineages tracing back to the ancestors of the Semang and about half to later ancestral migrations from Indochina. Scholars suggest they are descendants of early Austronesian-speaking agriculturalists, who brought both their language and their technology to the southern part of the peninsula approximately 5,000 years ago. They united and coalesced with the indigenous population.
The Aboriginal Malays are more diverse. Although they show some connections with island Southeast Asia, some also have an ancestry in Indochina around the time of the Last Glacial Maximum, about 20,000 years ago. This was followed by an early-Holocene dispersal through the Malay Peninsula into island Southeast Asia.[32]
