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Figure 1. Frequency distribution of mitochondrial haplogroup J Despite my love of the desert, the answer is no. The reason has to do with the date at which this movement took place, and the age of the haplogroup J lineages in Europe. It turns out that J has been in Europe for thousands of years, a result deduced from looking at the pattern of diversity within each lineage. This clock allows us to determine how old lineages are, and when they started to move from their place Figure 1. Frequency...
Haplogroup K
Ancestral line Eve L1 L0 L2 L3 N R K K individuals also descend from a woman in the R branch of the tree. Because of the great genetic diversity found in haplogroup K, it is likely that she lived around 20,000 years ago. Interestingly, her descendants gave rise to several different subgroups, some of which exhibit very specific geographic homelands. The very old age of these subgroups has led to a wide distribution today they harbor specific European, northern African, and Indian components,...
Haplogroup V
Ancestral line Eve L1 L0 L2 L3 N R pre-HV HV V Today, haplogroup V tends to be restricted to western, central, and northern Europe. Its age is estimated at around 15,000 years old, indicating that it likely arose during the 5,000 years or so that humans were confined to the European refugia during the last ice age. It is found in around 12 percent of Basques, an isolated population in northern Spain, and around 5 percent in many other western European populations. It is also found in Algeria...
Eurasian Adam And Eve
Virumandi's defining marker, M130, does not occur in isolation it also had ancestors. Tracing its roots brings us to a very important marker indeed M168. It first occurred in a man who was born between 50,000 to 60,000 years ago, probably in northeastern Africa. This man gave rise to the great coastal exodus that led to India and on to Australia. And one of his great-, great- .grandsons, a few thousand years later, also gave rise to the M89 lineage that left Africa for the Middle East.
Info Kha
Figure 2. Map of the Fertile Crescent. Wheat domestication likely originated in the Karacadag Mountains. Figure 2. Map of the Fertile Crescent. Wheat domestication likely originated in the Karacadag Mountains. Today, there are hardly any hunter-gatherers left in the world. Tribes such as the Hadzabe of Tanzania Figure 3 or the San Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert provide a cultural link to the days when humans all lived in this way, but most have long since left those days behind. Not because our...
Haplogroup H
Ancestral line Eve L1 L0 L2 L3 N R pre-HV HV H As humans began to repopulate western Europe after the ice age, by far the most frequent mitochondrial lineage carried by these expanding groups was haplogroup H, which came to dominate the European female landscape. Today haplogroup H comprises 40 to 60 percent of the gene pool of most European populations. In Rome and Athens, for example, H is found in about 40 percent of the entire population, and it exhibits similar frequencies throughout...
Haplogroup L 1
Ancestral line Eve L1 L0 L2 L3 The most recent common ancestor of haplogroup L3 is a woman who lived around 80,000 years ago. While L3 individuals are found all over Africa, L3 is particularly known for its northerly movements. They were the first modern humans to have left Africa, representing the deepest branches of the tree found outside of that continent. Why would humans have first ventured out of the familiar African hunting grounds into unexplored lands It is likely that a fluctuation in...
Haplogroup H Shg
Ancestral line Adam M168 M89 M69 M52 The specific genetic marker that defines haplogroup H1, M52, is part of a largely Indian lineage. This marker made its first known appearance some 25,000 years ago in India. M52 was part of the second major wave of human migration into India, long after a large wave of African migrants traveled along the Indian coastline 50,000 to 60,000 years ago. Haplogroup H1 ancestors appear to have arrived from the north on a journey from the Middle East and were likely...
Haplogroup T
Ancestral line Eve L1 L0 L2 L3 N R T The divergent genetic lineage that constitutes haplogroup T indicates that the woman they descended from lived sometime around 40,000 years ago. Haplogroup T has a very wide distribution, and is present as far east as the Indus Valley and as far south as the Arabian Peninsula. It is also common in eastern and northern Europe. Although this haplogroup was present during the early and middle Upper Paleolithic, T is largely considered one of the main genetic...
Haplogroup N
Ancestral line Eve L1 L0 L2 L3 N Haplogroup N, like M, is one of two groups that descend directly from haplogroup L3. The first of these groups, M, made up the first great wave of human migration to leave Africa. The second great wave, also of L3 individuals, moved north rather than east and left the African continent across the Sinai Peninsula. Faced with the harsh desert conditions of the Sahara, these people likely followed the Nile basin, which would have proved a reliable water and food...
Haplogroup M
Ancestral line Eve L1 L0 L2 L3 M Haplogroup M descended from L3 and also left the African continent. These people most likely moved across the Horn of Africa, where a narrow span of water between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden separates the East African coastline from the Arabian Peninsula at Bab-el-Mandeb. The short ten miles would have been easily navigable for humans possessing early maritime technologies. This crossing constituted the start of a long coastal migration across the Middle...
Haplogroup F
Ancestral line Eve L1 L0 L2 L3 N R F Haplogroup F likely developed on the high plains of central Asia between the Caspian Sea and Lake Baikal. It is one of the founding East Asian lineages and, along with haplogroups B and M, comprises around three-quarters of all mitochondrial lineages found there today. Around 50,000 years ago, the first members of haplogroup F began moving into East Asia after they broke away from their R ancestors in Central and Southeast Asia. They would eventually spread...
Haplogroup I
Ancestral line Eve L1 L0 L2 L3 N I Haplogroup I descended from the N haplogroup, whose descendants live in high frequencies in northern Europe and northern Eurasia. I individuals used the Near East as a home base of sorts, radiating from that region to populate much of the rest of the world. Today, members in the Near East belonging to haplogroup I have more divergent lineages than those found in northern Europe, indicating a greater time in the Near East for those lineages to accumulate...
The Challenges Ahead
As of this writing May 2006 the team has started sampling in places as far afield as Alaska, Chad, the Caucasus, southern India, and Laos. The coming years, before the estimated project completion date of 2010, promise to hold many surprises and much excitement. One of the most challenging aspects of the Project is coordinating the international efforts with indigenous and traditional peoples and their representatives to collect and evaluate their samples. Earlier sampling efforts by others...
Mapping Europe
Despite the relatively limited data, we do know a fair amount about world genetic patterns. European populations are particularly well cataloged, for the simple reason that most of the world's geneticists are of European descent, and over many years they have studied themselves and the populations where they live to a greater extent than remote populations halfway around the world. While this bias makes sense, it is has led to false assumptions about the way human history has unfolded. Clear...
Haplogroup J 1
Ancestral line Adam M168 M89 M304 The patriarch of haplogroup J was born around 15,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent, a region today that includes Israel, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. Today the M304 marker appears at its highest frequencies in the Middle East, North Africa, and Ethiopia. In Europe, it is seen only in the Mediterranean region. The early farming successes of the J lineages spawned population booms and encouraged migration throughout much of the...
Haplogroup J
Ancestral line Eve L1 L0 L2 L3 N R J This group of individuals also descended from a woman in the R branch of the tree. The divergent genetic lineage that constitutes haplogroup J indicates that she lived sometime around 40,000 years ago. Haplogroup J has a very wide distribution, and is present as far east as the Indus Valley bordering India and Pakistan, and as far south as the Arabian Peninsula. It is also common in eastern and northern Europe. Although this haplogroup was present during the...
Haplogroup R B
Ancestral line Adam M168 M89 M9 M207 M173 M343 Around 30,000 years ago, a descendant of the clan making its way into Europe gave rise to marker M343, the defining marker of haplogroup R1b. These travelers are direct descendants of the people who dominated the human expansion into Europe, the Cro-Magnon. The Cro-Magnon created the famous cave paintings found in southern France, providing archaeological evidence of a blossoming of artistic skills as people moved into Europe. Prior to this,...
Haplogroup I 1
Ancestral line Adam M168 M89 M170 Ancestors of this group were part of the M89 Middle Eastern clan that continued to migrate northwest into the Balkans and eventually spread into central Europe. These people may have been responsible for bringing the Gravettian culture to western Europe about 21,000 to 28,000 years ago. Named after a site in La Gravette, France, Gravettian culture represented a new technological and artistic phase in western Europe. Archaeologists discovered sets of tools...
Haplogroup U 1
Ancestral line Eve L1 L0 L2 L3 N R U U5 The most recent common ancestor for all U5 individuals broke off from the rest of the group and headed north into Scandinavia. Even though U5 is descended from an ancestor in haplogroup U, it is also an ancient lineage, estimated to be around 50,000 years old. U5 is quite restricted in its variation to Scandinavia, particularly to Finland. This is likely the result of the significant geographical, linguistic, and cultural isolation of the Finnish...
Haplogroup Hv 1
Ancestral line Eve L1 L0 L2 L3 N R pre-HV HV1 Descending from haplogroup pre-HV, haplogroup HV1 formed a new group around 30,000 years ago. Like HV, HV1 can be found at its highest frequencies throughout the Near East, including Anatolia present-day Turkey and the Caucasus Mountains of southern Russia and the republic of Georgia. Some members of this haplogroup crossed the rugged Caucasus Mountains in southern Russia, moved on to the steppes of the Black Sea, and then westward into regions that...
The Future Of The Genographic Project
I n this book we've taken a scientific journey back in time, through genealogy and history, back to prehistory and the earliest days of our species. Along the way we have picked up the key scientific concepts, learned about how we use DNA as a tool to study the past, and met the great-, great- .grandparents of every human alive today. So what's next The story told in this book is just a brief overview of where the Genographic Project is today. As I wrote in The Journey of Man, we have a glimpse...
Haplogroup Z
Ancestral line Eve L1 L0 L2 L3 M Z About 30,000 years ago, the first members of haplogroup Z began moving north into Siberia, the beginnings of a journey into much of eastern Asia. A characteristic Siberian lineage, haplogroup Z also inhabited the high plains of central Asia between the Caspian Sea and Lake Baikal. Today it accounts for around 3 percent of the entire mitochondrial gene pool found there. Because of its old age and frequency throughout northern Eurasia, it is widely accepted that...
The Needle In A Haystack
Humans migrating from Africa may have passed through India en route to populate the rest of southern Asia and Australia. Professor Pitchappan was not necessarily hoping that the Piramalai Kallar samples would reveal details about how Indians were related to Australians when he suggested our collaboration. Rather, he hoped to investigate the relationships among Indian populations, with their complex history of caste, conquest, and migration. But when we tested several hundred samples collected...
Haplogroup W
Ancestral line Eve L1 L0 L2 L3 N W Members of haplogroup W also descended from haplogroup N and migrated into Europe from the Near East. Like haplogroup I descendants, W members who live in the Near East today have more divergent lineages than those found in northern Europe, indicating a longer habitation in the Near East for those lineages to accumulate more mutations. Early members of haplogroup W likely moved north across the Caucasus during the middle Upper Paleolithic. Like haplogroup I,...
A Long Time To Wait
We've come to the end of our journey back to the earliest human ancestors who can be detected in our DNA. Each person alive today can be assigned to one of our haplogroup clans, uniting their Y chromosome or mtDNA with others who shared a similar journey to wherever they live today. But what about the root of the trees shown in Figures 3 and 5 What do these roots actually represent, and when did Any piece of DNA that is not shuffled through the action of recombination can be traced back in time...