Y chromosome J quick reference page

My blogging lately has been slowed down by my MS flaring up and my boy discovering Lego Indiana Jones online – my  apologies to anyone I haven’t responded to in the comments.

A basic page for reference on J1 and J2 so I don’t have to root through multiple papers and blog entries every time I want to find something.

This is a homemade table and mainly from Cruciani’s 2004 figures and Hassan 2008  for a one-glace overview . The Egyptian figures are my own from several combined sources and are about as accurate as you’ll get for that country. The other countries are from single paper sources and probably aren’t as accurate overall, but it’s a decent rough guide.

The actual Cruciani table, another chart (can’t remember which paper).

 

From Giacomo 2004 and Battaglia 2008

 

 

   

Greece, From Martinez 2007. Turkey; Cinnioglu 2003 and  Semino 2002.

    

Iran, from Cadenas 2006, from Al-Zahery 2002 and Luis 2004

From Giacomo 2004

 

While not the neatest page, it should be useful for quicker referencing. A good look through the J hg’s around the near East has reinforced a Neolithic or older entry date for the J2 in North Africa as far as I’m concerned, as the ratio of J2 to J1/other hg’s is incompatible with it having a historical arrival from any of the known invading areas. I’m also wondering if upper Egypt is the switch over  area from Arab J1 to Capsian J1.

Reference list.

• Semino 2002
• Al-Zahery 2002
• Cinnioglu 2003
• Cruciani 2004
• Giacomo 2004
• Luis 2004
• Cadenas 2006
• Battaglia 2008
• Hassan 2008

If anyone else finds a Y chromosome J reference for the near East, Europe, North Africa or India/Pakistan that I haven’t included leave the name of the paper ( I expect there’s a few) in the comments, as I’ll be adding to this one as I go along. Also a decent recent tree of J would be nice – if anyone find one send me a link!

Y chromosome J’s tangled past in Africa.

Just something I’ve done to help me get a better grip of the history of the Y chromosome’s presence in North Africa. Firstly, I need the J tree and it’s distribution from Cruciani 2004.

And some more detailed information on the distribution in the places relevant. Most important to this are J-m267 /J1, (typical of Arabs and common in East Africa) and J-m172/ J2, (which maps the expansion of the Neolithic into Europe and apparently into Pakistan (J2e) and North Africa).

J1 is typically seen as the marker for the Arab tribes expanding into North Africa, and this accounts for somewhat more than half of the J in North Africa. However, the J1 in East Africa is lacking a alteration in the historical-Arab specific Y chromosomes, and the latest paper I have seen dates the entry of this to Africa at the Iberomaurusian-Capsian- (pre neolithic) transition-or possibly a little later- which would require an entry date about  of about 12k ago.

Cruciani’s Bedouin sample was free of  J2 - as you can see from the maps there seems to be a break in it’s distribution pattern. A look at Italy and Greece (looking for other possible source of J possibly from the Romans and Greeks) showed it at levels low enough that for the Greek and Romans to have made any impact on the J Y chr of North Africa they would had to have left way more European specific haplotypes (the highest J observed in Italy is 29%, overall it’s a lot lower) and the same is true for other middle Eastern countries- to have added any extra J2 into North Africa a lot of other non-J Y chromosomes would have to have accompanied it. The North African Y chromosomes (Lower Egypt as the prime example)  just aren’t that varied and mainly show ‘ancient in Africa’ Eurasian and African specific Y chromosomes, with J making up most of the difference, which makes Europe and the recent near East as a source for the J2 unlikely. 

The distribution of J2 and J1 in North and East Africa, and whatever near Arabian populations I can find.

From Cruciani 2004

Egyptian

From Luis 2004 in Lower Egypt and Oman.

• Egyptian Arabs… J1 20%   J2 12%
• Oman Arabs…..    J1  38%   J2 10%

From Lucotte 2003

• Lower Egypt…. J1  10.5%  J2  8.6%
• Upper Egypt….  J1  3%        J2  4.5%

From Arredi 2004

• Lower Egypt… J1  9%,  J2 9%
• Upper Egypt     J1  21% J2 3.5%

I’m omitting the other studies I have on file as they don’t differentiate between the two, or lack clarity on which is which.

As the other studies are either a bit vague or very small I stick to these. The average amount of J for lower Egypt seems to be 25% (average of 5 studies) with about 10% being J2. Bearing in mind about 10% of the North African J1` is pre Neolithic, about 13.5% of the Egyptian Y chr are ‘Arab’ J1-possibly. J2 from the recent Arab expansion into North Africa probably does contribute to the J2 in NE Africa, but not in the main. The argument against this is that J2 is a minority in the Palestinian Arabs and Bedoiuns , and that to get J2 up to the levels you find in Egypt you’d need to have a lot more J1 and other Eurasian male ancestry- which would make the other African/ancient EurAfrican types way less more common. J2 is also common in Persia (who also invaded Egypt), but again it isn’t dominant and you would have to expect large amounts of other Y chromosomes to have accompanied it, which has not been observed (same argument against a European origin for Egyptian J2).

If the J2 had come in with the Arabs you’d expect a very obvious overweight of J1 in the ratio-as in the Sudan. It’s not even clear if the J1 there is all ‘Arab’ in origin, as the most of the J1 in East Africa is the pre Arabic J1- which makes Hassan’s 2008 choice of description as ‘Arabic’ for all the J1 in the Sudan a little confusing. As Cruciani wrote..

According to this interpretation, the first migration, probably in Neolithic times, brought J-M267 to Ethiopia

Although, I have to say; Hassan’s calling the Sudan Copts a living record of the Egyptians is strange considering how low they were on African Y chromosomes- particularly the Egyptian m78; and that 13 of 33 samples were J1.

While large scale historic movement of Arabic tribes into the Sudan is well documented, a lot of J1 is showing up in groups like the Nubians. When you bear in mind Arab culture is very patriarchal, I can’t understand how the non-Arab groups in the Sudan seem to have about the same amount of J1 as the Arab tribes in the Hassan study. Did more Arabs move into the Sudan than North Africa or is the recent and ancient J1 just getting lumped together in these studies?

I’m sure I’ll add to this post after my regulars have corrected/added whatever info they feel is necessary, but I think mainly but not entirely the J2 in North East Africa is a result of the Neolithic expansion, as it does seem to form a neat radial pattern from Turkey/Iran which is seems to track along with the R1b/p25, which also seems to be Turkish/Iranian.

Egyptian Y DNA and mt DNA reference

All the info I could find, collected in one place from assorted studies, mainly for my own ease of reference. I’ve kept putting this off, but finally here I am.

Egyptian  Y chromosomes

From Luis et al 2004.

 Which places the African Y chromosomes (this is a lower Egyptian sample group) at about 42%. I was most interested by the expansion time for the Eurasian hg’s. Luis et al estimated an expansion time of 13.7–17.5 ky for the K2 lineages in Egypt, although it also states the K2 could have accompanied R1*-M173 back into Africa in the paleolithic along with the U and M1.

Like the R1*-M173 males, the M70 individuals could represent the relics of an early back migration to Africa from Asia, since these chromosomes are not associated with the G-M201, J-12f2, and R1-M173 derivatives, lineages that represent more-recent Eurasian genetic contributions.

It also describes J-12f2 as a marker of the Neolithic expansion. Although looking through the Sudanese Y chromosome study it Hassan puts it down as a recent Arab marker, although no expansion dates are mentioned in his paper, so I’m not sure on what basis that conclusion was drawn. The J is complicated to unravel. After a read of Cruciani 2004 it would seem about 90% of the  J-12f2 is Arabic in origin, but the M172 (J2) is rather older and probably Neolithic, although this doesn’t seem to agree with the age estimates for J-12f2 in this paper. It would seem that J has made several entrances to North Africa.

From Lucotte 2003, which needs this Keita paper to understand it. Haplotypes V, XI and IV are all Pn2 derived (E). VII and VIII are considered Arabic, so I’m assuming J1 is VIII and VII is J2.

The other study that deals with numbered and not named groups is by Franz et al. This puts Hg 1 (E) at 44% in Egypt (Cairo) and J  (Hg 9) at 35%, but unfortunately the rest of the information is a bit vague.

From Arredi 2004 which had a small study of upper and lower Egyptians as part of a North Africa overview.

Lower Egypt (0f 44 samples)

• 1 A3b2*
• 4 E3b3a
• 12 E3b1
• 2 E3b
• 5 E3b2
• 1 J2f1
• 3 J2
• 3 F
• 4 J
• 1 O
• 1 K2
• 4 R1
• 1 R1a*
• 2 P

Upper Egypt (of 29 samples)

• 2 E3b3a
• 5 E3b1
• 2 E3b2
• 1 I
• 1 J2
• 5 F
• 6 J
• 3 K2
• 4 R1

Which places AfricanY DNA at 59%, and J at 18% in Lower Egypt, which is close to the Lucotte study. Upper Egypt has a much more diverse profile (oddly) with J at 20% and African Y chromsomes at a much lower 31% with the ‘old in Africa’ R1 and K making up 24% of this (pretty small) sample. Having seen this study I’ve been obliged to dig into the origin of F, and it does look like an ‘ancient in Africa’ Y chromosome (Karafet 2008) as it turns up in the Bantu in South Africa.

From Wood et al 2005,which is in here provisionally until I can check the paper personally as I’ve borrowed it from Maju’s comments.

3/92 = 3.3% A3b2-M13
2/92 = 2.2% B2a1a-M152
1/92 = 1.1% E-SRY4064(xE1a-M33, E2-M75, E1b1-P2)
1/92 = 1.1% E1a-M33
2/92 = 2.2% E1b1a-P1(xE1b1a7-M191)
1/92 = 1.1% E1b1a7-M191
8/92 = 8.7% E1b1b1-M35(xE1b1b1a-M78, E1b1b1b-M81)
28/92 = 30.4% E1b1b1a-M78
4/92 = 4.3% E1b1b1b-M81
2/92 = 2.2% F-P14(xG-M201, H1-M52, I-P19, J-12f2, K-M9)
2/92 = 2.2% G-M201
1/92 = 1.1% I-P19
21/92 = 22.8% J-12f2
1/92 = 1.1% K-M9(xL-M20, M1-M4, N1-LLY22g, O-M175, P-P27, T-M70)
7/92 = 7.6% T-M70
1/92 = 1.1% R-M207(xR1-M173)
2/92 = 2.2% R1-M173(xR1a1-SRY10831b, R1b1-P25)
4/92 = 4.3% R1b1-P25(xR1b1b2-M269)
1/92 = 1.1% R1b1b2-M269

T formerlyK2, I believe. Finally I find a source for the R1b in the Sudan and Cameroon.

Finally a study of J (Giacomo 2004) found the Egyptian sample to be 23.4% J and with more clarity this was..

• 6 J1
• 1 J2*
• 2 J2
• 1 J2f
• 1 J2fl

I can’t help noticing there’s a fair amount of variance between these studies. But still the overall picture you get from Lower Egypt is about half native African, with most of the other Eurasian Hg’s dating back into prehistory.

Lower Egypt is about 55% African, mainly E3b, E and then A.

The next largest group is J, which is unfortunately a bit hard to separate out from Neolithic expansion, Capsian expansion, earlier historic population movements and the Arab expansion, but it averages out at 25% from all five studies, with possibly a third of it attributable to non historic expansions (J2, a little  Capsian J1).

After this comes the ‘old in Africa’ haplotypes, which make up the bulk of the remaining Y chromosomes about 19% (again averaging the studies, the HG vary in proportion but they came up near 19% overall).

Which takes Lower Egypt into the low 80% area for paternal ancestry traceable to the dynastic era and earlier. One would assume the Arab expansion didn’t bring anywhere near as much maternal DNA with it, although some tribes did settle in Egypt.

Egyptian mitochondrial DNA

From Berbers at Siwa Oasis (north west Egypt) and from Egyptians at Gurna (upper Egypt area) Detail here.

Siwa; Of 78 samples.

• Eurasian  45
• Asian (M) 1
• North African (U6 and M1) 13
• Sub Saharan 19

24% SSA, 75% Eurasian/N African.

Gurna

• H 5 14.7
• I 2 5.9
• J 2 5.9
• L1a 4 11.7
• L1e 2 5.9
• L2a 1 2.9
• M1 6 17.6
• N1b 3 8.8
• T 2 5.9
• U 3 8.8
• U3 1 2.9
• U4 2 5.9
• L3*(a) 2 5.9
• L3*(b) 1 2.9

29% SSA, 71% Eurasian/N African.

Surprisingly little difference between them. Lower Nubia came in at about 60% Eurasian an ancient mummy test- and while it’s correct that L3 also comes into the category marked out as Eurasian, it’s actually pretty close to the DNA study of modern Nubians. Unless the invading armies of history were all women there’s no plausible scenario to explain such a huge influx of Eurasian ancestry in such a relatively short space of time, as the Y chromosome presence of Arabs in the area just isn’t that massive in the modern lower Nubia area.

From Krings 1999. Which also shows that Egyptian maternal DNA is roughly 25% sub Saharan and 75% Eurasian. 

 

Ancient Egyptian DNA

To obtain the frequencies of these mtDNA types, amplification of the HVRI region and three RFLP markers was conducted. The authors succeeded in analysing RFLP markers in 34 samples and HVRI sequences in 18 of the samples. Both populations, ancient and contemporary, fit the north-south clinal distribution of “southern” and “northern” mtDNA types (Graver et al. 2001). However, significant differences were found between these populations. Based on an increased frequency of HpaI 3592 (+) haplotypes in the contemporary Dakhlehian population, the authors suggested that, since Roman times, gene flow from the Sub-Saharan region has affected gene frequencies of individuals from the oasis.

Which suggests the proportion of sub Saharan lineages is higher now than it once was at Dahkleh (SW Egypt). Bearing in mind that the Arab slave trade in African women seems to have accounted for about 10-15% of the maternal DNA in Arabia, this would seem the most likely cause in the increase of sub Saharan lineages. It would seem that post dynastic inflow maternal from sub Saharan African is passably close match to the paternal immigration from Arabs, and that these are probably the two most influential factors in immigration in post dynastic Egypt.

Not strictly speaking Egyptian but still relevant.

Copts from the Sudan, from Hassan 2008.

• 13/33 J1
• 5/33 B
• 2/33 E3b
• 5/33 E3b1
• 2/33 J2
• 1/33 K
• 5/33 R1b

Nubians from the Sudan

• 3/39 B
• 3/39 E3b
• 6/39 E3b1
• 4/39 F
• 2/49 I
• 16/39 J1
• 1/39 J2
• 4/39 R1b

The high level of J1 is quite a surprise in both of these. Particlarly since Copts aren’t supposed to marry out. A y chr study of Cairo Copts could be informative as to just how much mixing there has been between the two groups there.

One thing that became apparent after reading through these DNA studies was that there was a somewhat higher level of African male ancestry in Egyptians than in a lot of the East African groups, and that the Horn Africans and Egyptians are really made up of very similar ancestries (West Asian, North East African and East African with a little Bantu here and there) but in varying ratios.

Reference list.

1.  Luis 2004
2.  Cruciani 2004
3. Lucotte 2003
4. Wood 2005
5. Franz 2002
6. Hassan 2008
7. Krings 1999
8. Arredi 2004
9. Karafet 2008
10. Giacomo 2004

Holocene human peopling of Libyan Sahara

Holocene human peopling of Libyan Sahara – Molecular analysis of maternal lineages in ancient and extant populations of Fezzan

The present work provides an important view of a region of Africa that is still almost unknown: the Central Sahara. The aim of the project as a whole, was to reconstruct from the maternal side, through the genetic analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), the origins of a Pastoral nomad population in the Libyan Sahara, the Tuareg. The availability of both modern and ancient samples from the Fezzan (Libyan Sahara), collected in collaboration with the Italian Archaeological Mission in Libya directed by Prof. Savino Di Lernia, represented an important means of relating the mtDNA pool of extant Libyan Tuareg, with that of Pastoral people inhabiting the Central Sahara in prehistoric times, and with the Garamantes, the hypothetical ancestors of Libyan Tuareg. Nevertheless, molecular analysis carried out on the bones collected from the archaeological sites of the Acacus region, showed a very low state of preservation of the DNA, this probably due to the high temperatures that characterised burials over the centuries. Failure of the genetic analyses in the ancient individuals, necessarily limited the present work to the study of the extant Tuareg sample. Nevertheless, comparison with other genetic data collected so far in the modern African populations, and moreover the multidisciplinary integration with archaeological and ethnological data, helped to hypothetically reconstruct the origins of Libyan Tuareg, and their relationship with the ancient human migratory dynamics that occurred in Northern Africa during the Holocene.

A total of 129 individuals from two villages in the Acacus region, in Fezzan, were genetically analysed at the mtDNA level. The results here reported clearly show the low level of genetic diversity in the Libyan Tuareg sample, that is hypothetically due to high endogamy. Furthermore, phylogenetic analyses indicate that the mtDNA genetic pool of the Libyan Tuareg is characterized by a major “West- Eurasian” component, that is shared with many Berber groups and hypothetically comes from the Iberian Peninsula, and a minor “South-Saharan” component that shows some kind of  relationship with Central and Eastern African populations.

A pdf I located with a lot of information on North Africa and The Tuareg, for anyone interested in their history and culture and maternal ancestry.

The pdf book (it’s very long) shows H1 to be dominant in the Tuareg sample tested at  frequencies higher than 60%, H1 having roughly an 11,000 year old presence in North Africa. Eurasian lines H and V  make up nearly 2/3 of Libyan Tuareg mtDNA. This paper also finds traces of Eastern African ancestry in the Tuareg via the L2a lineage which has a coalescence date of around 5,000 years, which is tolerably close to the theorised Beja/Tuareg split of 6,000 years. It’s got a pretty detailed breakdown all all the Hg’s found.

Luis, you’ll like this one. Places the U in N Africa as Iberian in origin.

Research on ancient DNA in the Near East

Research on ancient DNA in the Near East

An interesting read on the state of aDNA work in the near East. Of most interest was to me was the aDNA from the mummies at Dakleh Oasis.

To obtain the frequencies of these mtDNA types, amplification of the HVRI region and three RFLP markers was conducted. The authors succeeded in analysing RFLP markers in 34 samples and HVRI sequences in 18 of the samples. Both populations, ancient and contemporary, fit the north-south clinal distribution of “southern” and “northern” mtDNA types (Graver et al. 2001). However, significant differences were found between these populations. Based on an increased frequency of HpaI 3592 (+) haplotypes in the contemporary Dakhlehian population, the authors suggested that, since Roman times, gene flow from the Sub-Saharan region has affected gene frequencies of individuals from the oasis.

Which is from the Graver mummy DNA study, I believe. It actually suggests there’s more sub Saharan input  to the Egyptian population than anything else since the Roman era.

Mitochondrial DNA Research in the Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt
Alison M. Graver, Ryan L. Parr, Sandra Walters, Renée C. Praymak, Jennifer M. Maki and J.El Molto

Molecular genetic research is being conducted as part of the Dakhleh Oasis Project (DOP), an international and multi-disciplinary research initiative in the western desert of Egypt. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is being analyzed from both ancient human skeletal remains associated with the Roman period town of Kellis (100 to 450 AD) and contemporary inhabitants of the Dakhleh Oasis. The primary objectives of this research are to derive paleogenetic information about the inhabitants of ancient Kellis, and to develop a picture of change over time within this desert oasis. Preliminary mtDNA restriction site data and control region sequence variability suggest significant genetic differences exist between the ancient and modern oasis populations

It’s a good grounding in the state of aDNA at the moment, human, animal and pathogenic. Worth the read.

There’s also another pdf  with a lot of abstracts about ancient DNA from the 5th annual ancient DNA conference.

mtDNA Analysis of Nile River Valley Populations: A Genetic Corridor or a

mtDNA Analysis of Nile River Valley Populations: A Genetic Corridor or a Barrier to Migration?

To assess the extent to which the Nile River Valley has been a corridor for human migrations between Egypt and sub-Saharan Africa, we analyzed mtDNA variation in 224 individuals from various locations along the river. Sequences of the first hypervariable segment (HV1) of the mtDNA control region and a polymorphic HpaI site at position 3592 allowed us to designate each mtDNA as being of “northern” or “southern” affiliation. Proportions of northern and southern mtDNA differed significantly between Egypt, Nubia, and the southern Sudan. At slowly evolving sites within HV1, northern-mtDNA diversity was highest in Egypt and lowest in the southern Sudan, and southern-mtDNA diversity was highest in the southern Sudan and lowest in Egypt, indicating that migrations had occurred bidirectionally along the Nile River Valley. Egypt and Nubia have low and similar amounts of divergence for both mtDNA types, which is consistent with historical evidence for long-term interactions between Egypt and Nubia. Spatial autocorrelation analysis demonstrates a smooth gradient of decreasing genetic similarity of mtDNA types as geographic distance between sampling localities increases, strongly suggesting gene flow along the Nile, with no evident barriers.We conclude that these migrations probably occurred within the past few hundred to few thousand years and that the migration from north to south was either earlier or lesser in the extent of gene flow than the migration from south to north.

I know I’ve posted the abstract, but I couldn’t find the full text before. Finally…

I see the maternal Eurasian DNA in modern Nubia is about the same as the Nubian mummy study-60% vs 54% L3 being included as Eurasian in the other study not withstanding.

The History and Geography of Human Genes- the Americas.

The History and Geography of Human Genes.

Link to  part of the paper back version on line – mainly to do with the Americas. For my own reference.

Analysis of mtDNA HVRII in several human populations

Analysis of mtDNA HVRII in several human populations using an  immobilised SSO probe hybridisation assay

Several populations were typed for the hypervariable region II (HVRII) of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region using immobilised sequence-specific oligonucleotide (SSO) probes. A total of 16 SSO probes was used to type 1081 individuals from eight different ethnic groups (African Americans, Somali, US Europeans, US Hispanics, Bosnians, Finns, Saami and Japanese). Data was compared with already published sequence data by analysis of principal components, genetic distances and analysis of the molecular variance (AMOVA). The analyses performed group the samples in several clusters according to their geographical origins. Most of the variability detected is assigned to differences between individuals and only 7% is assigned to differences among groups of populations within and between geographical regions. Several features are patent in the samples studied: Somali, as a representative East African population, seem to have experienced a detectable amount of Caucasoid maternal influence; different degrees of admixture in the US samples studied are detected; Finns and Saami belong to the European genetic landscape, although Saami present an outlier position attributable to a strong maternal founder effect. The technique used is a rapid and simple method to detect human variation in the mtDNA HVRII in a large number of samples, which might be useful in forensic and population genetic studies.

Finally some info on Somali mt DNA, although it’s not very detailed, probably due to it’s age (‘99).

It’s also got a little snippet of autosomal info on Somalis.

Our Somali sample presents features that clearly locate it close to the African samples, but European features are also evident…. For a simple approach to measure the Caucasoid influence in East Africa, the triangle method described by Cavalli-Sforza et al was used to compute the proportion of admixture from the genetic distance matrix. Taking the British as a representative Caucasoid sample and the Mandenka as a sub-Saharan population, the proportion m of caucasoid lineages in the Somali is m = 0.46. This value is similar to the estimate based on autosomal studies (m = 0.40), and clearly higher than the estimates for the mtDNA found in Ethiopians 1 (m = 0.05–0.27)

The last paper I saw put M1 down as 20%, so I’d guess a lot of this input is  ancient. This makes Somalis (at least, the ones tested) about the same as Ethiopians for Eurasian ancestry (40% ish). I’d guess some of this dates back to the expansion from Egypt. The Ethiopian maternal Eurasian contributions is now more like 40%  (GOT paper) so I assume the data they are reffering to had M1 as African (incorrect now).

The paper describes Hispanics as well, quite a mixed bag genetically, no surprise, and estimates African ancestry in white Americans at 0.8%, and European in black Americans as about 22%, which are very close to the later studies done (I believe the latest tests by Shriver had African ancestry in white Americans as 0.7%).

MtDNA variation in North, East, and Central African populations gives clues to a possible back-migration from the Middle East.

MtDNA variation in North, East, and Central African populations gives clues to a possible back-migration from the Middle East.

A.D. Holden et al.

The general timeline for human occupation of Africa has been studied extensively. However, questions involving Upper Palaeolithic migrations still persist. One remaining question is the presence of the mitochondrial M1 haplogroup in North and East Africa. Some (Quintana-Murci et al. 2004, 1999) argue that the presence of M1 in modern Africans is a remnant of the original M haplogroup that left Africa 60 kya via the Horn of Africa. Others (Forster, 2004) propose that it is instead the result of a back-migration from the Arabian Peninsula from 20 kya. This research aims to test these two competing hypotheses.

We analysed mtDNA variation in ~250 persons from Libya, Somalia, and Congo/Zambia, as representatives of the three regions of interest. Our initial results indicate a sharp cline in M1 frequencies that generally does not extend into sub-Saharan Africa. While our North and especially East African samples contained frequencies of M1 over 20%, our sub-Saharan samples consisted almost entirely of the L1 or L2 haplogroups only. In addition, there existed a significant amount of homogeneity within the M1 haplogroup.

This sharp cline indicates a history of little admixture between these regions. This could imply a more recent ancestry for M1 in Africa, as older lineages are more diverse and widespread by nature, and may be an indication of a back-migration into Africa from the Middle East. Further research on this topic includes more extensive population samples from the Middle East, as well as possible correlations of M1 to the Afro-Asiatic language family.

I’m still looking for the full text on this one.  Another mt DNA study placing M1 as Asian.

The maternal aborigine colonization of La Palma (Canary Islands)

The maternal aborigine colonization of La Palma (Canary Islands)

Teeth from 38 aboriginal remains of La Palma (Canary Islands) were analyzed for external and endogenous mitochondrial DNA control region sequences and for diagnostic coding positions. Informative sequences were obtained from 30 individuals (78.9%). The majority of lineages (93%) were from West Eurasian origin, being the rest (7%) from sub-Saharan African ascription. The bulk of the aboriginal haplotypes had exact matches in North Africa (70%). However, the indigenous Canarian sub-type U6b1, also detected in La Palma, has not yet been found in North Africa, the cradle of the U6 expansion. The most abundant H1 clade in La Palma, defined by transition 16260, is also very rare in North Africa. This means that the exact region from which the ancestors of the Canarian aborigines came has not yet been sampled or that they have been replaced by later human migrations. The high gene diversity found in La Palma (95.22.3), which is one of the farthest islands from the African continent, is of the same level than the previously found in the central island of Tenerife (92.42.8). This is against the supposition that the islands were colonized from the continent by island hopping and posterior isolation. On the other hand, the great similarity found between the aboriginal populations of La Palma and Tenerife is against the idea of an island-by-island independent maritime colonization without secondary contacts. Our data better fit to an island model with frequent migrations between islands.

Again the indigenous Canarians show up as mainly Eurasian/North African for ancestry. Not really a surprise that L lineages show up a little. Although a lot of them seem to be in North Africa from the slave trade, a couple are older and one shows an entry into Iberia about 20,000 years ago.