European colonisation of Southeast Asia tightening Turkish control and eventual shut down of the Eastern Mediterranean gateways into Asia first prompted Portuguese, and later Spanish and Dutch sea voyagers to ship around Africa in search of new trading routes and business opportunities. Niccolò de' Conti arrived in Southeast Asia as the earliest documented European in the early 15th century. By 1498 Vasco da Gama, who had sailed round the Cape of Good Hope, established the first direct sea route from Europe to India. Central among the various plannings was to establish direct and permanent trade of the highly priced spices, that were native to Southeast
African admixture in Europe Europe may have a common origin in Asia (e.g. Y haplogroups R1, and some paternal haplogroup T and U subclades). One subclade of haplogroup U, namely U6a1, is known to have expanded from northern and eastern Africa back into Europe even though haplogroup U6 is considered to have originated in the Middle East. Other lineages are known to have moved from Europe directly into Africa, for example mitochondrial haplogroups H1 and H3. Such bidirectional migrations between Africa and Eurasia complicate the task of defining admixture. One proposed example of Holocene gene flow from Africa to Europe, via the Middle East,