In 1967, Teuku analyzed the cranial and dental proportions of 152 adult skeletal samples recovered from prehistoric sites in Malaysia and Indonesia, the majority displaying robust jaws and teeth, prominent glabellae, and slender, elongated limbs.
Teuku argued these characteristics correspond to the Australo-Melanesian population proposed by Koenigswald that predated the East Asian immigrants of the Neolithic; also suggesting the initial inhabitants were likely forced south of Southeast Asia's mainland by the second wave of migrants, due to resource competition or conflict.
Using dental evidence, Turner’s Sundadont/Sinodont hypothesis suggests the “Sundadont” trait seen in present-day Southeast Asians is a result of long-standing continuity.
Turner created a cluster analysis of MMD values in order to test existing hypotheses of origins,[9] concluding that all Southeast Asians, Micronesians, Polynesians, and Jomonese form their own branch and descend from a common ancestor.
Howell discovered, however, that the size and features of present-day Asian cranial morphology differed significantly from that of Australians, Melanesians, and Africans.
[10] Distinctive Basal-East Asian (East-Eurasian) ancestry was recently found to have originated in Mainland Southeast Asia at ~50,000BC, and expanded through multiple migration waves southwards and northwards respectively.