“We’re all connected somehow… somewhere… some point in time.”

 

 

 

mtDNA Genetics

 

 

I. Maternal Lineage – U2B

 

 

 

mtDNA Haplogroup U Origins

 

Haplogroup U is believed to have arisen somewhere in Europe or the Near East approximately 55,000 years before present. Haplogroup U is a group of individuals who descend from a woman in the R branch of the tree. Because of the great genetic diversity found in haplogroup U, it is likely that she lived around 50,000-55,000 years ago.  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, and are found in Arabia, the northern Caucasus Mountains, and throughout the Near East.  Haplogroup U is found throughout Europe, and contains many subgroups, each reflecting unique geography and history. Among its subgroups is Haplogroup K.

 

While some members of haplogroup U headed north into Scandinavia, or south into North Africa, most members of haplogroup U stem from a group that moved northward out of the Near East. These women crossed the rugged Caucasus Mountains in Southern Russia, and moved on to the steppes of the Black Sea. These individuals represent movements from the Black Sea steppes west into regions that comprise the present-day Baltic States and western Eurasia. This grassland then served as the home base for subsequent movements north and west. Today, members of these lineages are found in Europe and the eastern Mediterranean at frequencies of almost seven percent of the population.

 

Haplogroup U is subdivided into Haplogroups U1-U8 and Haplogroup K.

 

Haplogroup U1

 

Haplogroup U1 is found in about 14.4 percent of Armenians/Georgians in the Caucasus region, and about 2.3 percent of Indians, 1.2 percent of Estonians, Russians, and Slovaks.

 

Haplogroup U2

 

The distribution of the three sister clades within haplogroup U2 (U2a, U2b, and U2c) is essentially restricted to the Indo-Pakistani regions. They have not been observed in Europe and the Near East and, according to our data, they are absent in the Iranian plateau and Central Asian populations. They are, however, common in populations from Pakistan and India. The estimated coalescence times for these haplogroups are: 45,700 ± 14,400 years for U2a, 35,900 ± 9,000 years for U2b, and 45,200 ± 10,400 years for U2c.

 

Haplogroup U3

 

U3 has also been found with a comparatively higher frequency in Northwest Africa and might have followed the same route as U6, however, as its star-like expansion in the Caucasus has been dated around 30,000 yr BP, it most probably reached Africa in a posterior expansion. This out of Africa and back again hypothesis has also been suggested for Y-chromosome lineages. Subsequent Neolithic and historic expansions have doubtlessly reshaped the human genetic pool in wide geographic areas but mainly as limited gene flow, not admixture, between populations. Consequently, the continental origin of the major haplogroups can still be detected and the earliest human routes inferred through them.

 

Haplogroup U4

 

Haplogroup U4 has its origin in the Upper Palaeolithic, dating to approximately 25,000 years ago. It is widely distributed in Europe, and has been implicated in the expansion of modern humans into Europe occurring before the Last Glacial Maximum.

 

Haplogroup U5

 

Haplogroup U5 is restricted to Finland in its variation. This is likely the result of the significant geographical, linguistic, and cultural isolation of the Finnish populations, which would have restricted geographic distribution of this subgroup and kept it fairly isolated genetically. The Saami, reindeer hunters who follow the herds from Siberia to Scandinavia each season, also have U5 lineages in their population, indicating that these may have been introduced during their movements into these northern territories. The U5 lineage is found as far south as the Near East, though at much smaller frequencies and at much lower diversity. Because these individuals contain lineages that first evolved in Europe, their presence in the Near East is the result of a back-migration of people who left northern Europe and headed south, as though retracing the migratory paths of their own ancestors.

 

Haplogroup U6

 

Another interesting subgroup is U6, which branched off from haplogroup R while still in the Middle East. Haplogroup U6, is common in North Africa, and may suggest a "reverse migration" from Europe. Today U6 individuals are found in around ten percent of people living in North Africa. Despite the great geographic distances between subgroups U5 and U6, all members still share the same maternal ancestral line that gave rise to the haplogroup U ancestral clan.

 

Haplogroup U7

 

Many European populations lack Haplogroup U7, but its frequency climbs over 4% in the Near East and up to 5% in Pakistan, reaching nearly 10% level in Iranians. In India, haplogroup U7 frequency peaks at over 12% in Gujarat, the westernmost state of India, while for the whole of India its frequency stays around 2%. Expansion times and haplotype diversities for the Indian and Near and Middle Eastern U7 mtDNAs are strikingly similar. The possible homeland of this haplogroup spans Indian Gujarat and Iran because from there its frequency declines steeply both to the east and to the west. If the origin were in Iran rather than in India, then its equally high frequency as well as diversity in Gujarat favors a scenario whereby U7 has been introduced to the coastal western India either very early, or by multiple founders.

 

Haplogroup U8

 

The Basques have the most ancestral phylogeny in Europe for the mitochondrial haplogroup U8a, a rare subgroup of U8, placing the Basque origin of this lineage in the Upper Palaeolithic. The lack of U8a lineages in Africa suggests that their ancestors may have originated from West Asia.

 

 

Haplogroup K

 

Haplogroup K is a human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroup. Haplogroup K is part of the larger haplogroup U. It is a mostly Eurasian haplotype, and is believed to have first appeared when human populations expanded through Europe after the last glacial maximum in 16,000 BC.

 

Approximately 32% of the haplotypes of modern people with Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry are in haplogroup K.

 

In his popular book The Seven Daughters of Eve, Bryan Sykes named the originator of this mtDNA haplogroup Katrine.

 

This haplogroup is the final destination of a genetic journey that began some 150,000 years ago with an ancient mtDNA haplogroup called L3. Haplogroup L3 occurs only in Africa, but on that continent its derivatives are found nearly everywhere. L3's subclades are most prevalent in East Africa. This ancient lineage reflects an early divergence from humanity's common genetic coalescence point. "Mitochondrial Eve," the common ancestor of all living humans, was born in Africa some 150,000 years ago. All existing mtDNA diversity began with Eve and it remains greatest, and subsequently oldest, in Africa. Y chromosome polymorphisms on the male line of descent also point to an African origin for all humans , but our male common ancestor, "Adam," lived only about 60,000 years ago. MtDNA and the Y chromosome are independent parts of our genetic makeup and each tells a different tale of successive genetic mutations over the eons. That is why their approximate coalescence points are different. Yet while the dates vary, both paths point emphatically to a surprisingly recent African origin for all humans. The oldest known fossil remains of anatomically modern humans were found in Ethiopia's Omo River Valley. The skeletons, known as Omo I and Omo II, have been dated to about 195,000 years ago. Although haplogroup L3 does not occur outside of Africa it is an important part of the human migrations from that continent to the rest of the world. A single person of the L3 lineage gave rise to the M and N haplogroups some 80,000 years ago. All Eurasian mtDNA lineages are subsequently descended from these two groups. The African ice age was characterized by drought rather than by cold. But about 50,000 years ago a period of warmer temperatures and moist climate made even parts of the arid Sahara habitable. The climatic shift likely spurred hunter-gatherer migrations into a steppe-like Sahara---and beyond. This "Saharan Gateway" led humans out of Africa to the Middle East. The route they took is uncertain. They may have traveled north down the Nile to the Mediterranean coast and the Sinai. Alternatively, they may have crossed what was then a land bridge connecting the Bab al Mandab to Arabia, after which they either skirted the then-lush, verdant eastern coast of the Red Sea or headed east along the Gulf of Aden towards the Arabian Sea. When the climate again turned arid, expanding Saharan sands slammed the Saharan Gateway shut. The desert was at its driest between 20,000 and 40,000 years ago, and during this period MIddle East immigrants became isolated from Africa. From their new Middle East location, however, they would go on to populate much of the world. N is a macro-haplogroup descended from the African lineage L3. This line of descent, with haplogroup M, traces the first human migrations out of Africa. The ancient members of N spawned sublineages found across Eurasia and, eventually, the Americas. Early members of this group lived in the eastern Mediterranean and Near East region, where they likely coexisted for a time with pre-modern hominids such as Neantertals. Excavations in Israel's Kebara cave (mount Carmel) have unearthed Neandertal skeletons at least as recent as 60,000 years old. Growing cognitive abilities likely gave these Upper Paleolithic humans tremendous social advantages, evidenced by the appearance of modern thought and behavior. This "great leap forward" may have enabled our ancestors to outcompete and eventually replace evolutionary dead-end lineages such as the Neandertals. The macro-haplogroup N is composed of many subclades, which are often geographically distinct. Learning more about these subclades will add further clarity to the big picture of human genetic diversity, and is a primary goal of the Genographic Project. Haplogroup R is descended from N and has since dispersed across much of the globe. The lineage, in its many subgroups, appears on all continents except Australia and Antarctica. Subgroups preHV, U, T, and J are found in Europe and the Near East. The R5 and R6 lineages arose on the Indian subcontinent. Haplogroup K appeared some 16,000 years ago (on the R line of descent) when Europe's glaciers finally began a retreat from their ice age maximum. Humans of the era were living in the ice-free refuges of southern Europe--where K is still found in its highest concentrations. As populations followed the retreating ice northward, the lineage's descendents spread throughout most of Europe. Tests have revealed that Otzi, the 5200-year-old remains of a Copper Age man frozen in an Alpine glacier, belongs to haplogroup K.

 

Analysis of the mtDNA of Ötzi the Iceman, the frozen mummy from 3,300 BC found on the Austrian-Italian border, has shown that Ötzi belongs to the K1 subcluster of the mitochondrial haplogroup K, but that it cannot be categorized into any of the three modern branches of that subcluster.

 

 

II. mtDNA Sequence

 

 

mtDNA Haplogroup

U2b

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HVR1 differences from CRS

16051G

16256T

16318G

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HVR2 differences from CRS

73G

146C

263G

309.1C

309.2C

315.1C

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coding region

750G

1438G

1598A

1811G

3915A

4093G

 

4769G

5186T

7028T

8289G

8860G

11467G

 

11719A

11743T

11914A

12106T

12308G

12372A

 

13105G

13194A

14112A

14766T

15049T

15326G

 

 

The mitochondrion sequenced in 1981 became known as the Cambridge Reference Sequence (CRS) and has been used as a basis for comparison with your mtDNA. In other words, any place in your mtDNA where you have a difference from the CRS, is characterized as a mutation. if your results show no mutations at all, it means that your mtDNA matches the CRS. A mutation happens a) when a base replaces another base - for example a C (Cytosine) replaces an A (Adenine), b) when a base is no longer in that position and c) when a new base is inserted between the other bases without replacing any other. Those mutations are represented below according to the following color code:

 

a) Mutation at position: RED       b) Mutation Deleted: Strike       c) Mutation Inserted: Green

 

As a way to make it possible to display all the positions that are included in your test, please note that when you see "ATTCTAATTT" under 16010, it actually means that 16001 has an A (Adenine), 16002 has a T (Thymine), 16003 has a T (Thymine), 16004 has a C (Cytosine) and so on... Therefore, if your table of mutations above would show "192A" it means that you should see the 3rd "C" under 16192 replaced by a "A".

 

 

HVR1 Reference Sequence (Starts At: 16001)

16010

16020

16030

16040

16050

16060

16070

16080

ATTCTAATTT

AAACTATTCT

CTGTTCTTTC

ATGGGGAAGC

AGATTTGGGT

ACCACCCAAG

TATTGACTCA

CCCATCAACA

16090

16100

16110

16120

16130

16140

16150

16160

ACCGCTATGT

ATTTCGTACA

TTACTGCCAG

CCACCATGAA

TATTGTACGG

TACCATAAAT

ACTTGACCAC

CTGTAGTACA

16170

16180

16190

16200

16210

16220

16230

16240

TAAAAACCCA

ATCCACATCA

AAACCCCCTC

CCCATGCTTA

CAAGCAAGTA

CAGCAATCAA

CCCTCAACTA

TCACACATCA

16250

16260

16270

16280

16290

16300

16310

16320

ACTGCAACTC

CAAAGCCACC

CCTCACCCAC

TAGGATACCA

ACAAACCTAC

CCACCCTTAA

CAGTACATAG

TACATAAAGC

16330

16340

16350

16360

16370

16380

16390

16400

CATTTACCGT

ACATAGCACA

TTACAGTCAA

ATCCCTTCTC

GTCCCCATGG

ATGACCCCCC

TCAGATAGGG

GTCCCTTGAC

16410

16420

16430

16440

16450

16460

16470

16480

CACCATCCTC

CGTGAAATCA

ATATCCCGCA

CAAGAGTGCT

ACTCTCCTCG

CTCCGGGCCC

ATAACACTTG

GGGGTAGCTA

16490

16500

16510

16520

16530

16540

16550

16560

AAGTGAACTG

TATCCGACAT

CTGGTTCCTA

CTTCAGGGTC

ATAAAGCCTA

AATAGCCCAC

ACGTTCCCCT

TAAATAAGAC

16569

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ATCACGATG

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HVR2 Reference Sequence (Starts At: 1)

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

GATCACAGGT

CTATCACCCT

ATTAACCACT

CACGGGAGCT

CTCCATGCAT

TTGGTATTTT

CGTCTGGGGG

GTATGCACGC

90

100

110

120

130

140

150

160

GATAGCATTG

CGAGACGCTG

GAGCCGGAGC

ACCCTATGTC

GCAGTATCTG

TCTTTGATTC

CTGCCTCATC

CTATTATTTA

170

180

190

200

210

220

230

240

TCGCACCTAC

GTTCAATATT

ACAGGCGAAC

ATACTTACTA

AAGTGTGTTA

ATTAATTAAT

GCTTGTAGGA

CATAATAATA

250

260

270

280

290

300

310

320

ACAATTGAAT

GTCTGCACAG

CCACTTTCCA

CACAGACATC

ATAACAAAAA

ATTTCCACCA

AACCCCCCCCCT

CCCCCCGCTTC

330

340

350

360

370

380

390

400

TGGCCACAGC

ACTTAAACAC

ATCTCTGCCA

AACCCCAAAA

ACAAAGAACC

CTAACACCAG

CCTAACCAGA

TTTCAAATTT

410

420

430

440

450

460

470

480

TATCTTTTGG

CGGTATGCAC

TTTTAACAGT

CACCCCCCAA

CTAACACATT

ATTTTCCCCT

CCCACTCCCA

TACTACTAAT

490

500

510

520

530

540

550

560

CTCATCAATA

CAACCCCCGC

CCATCCTACC

CAGCACACAC

ACACCGCTGC

TAACCCCATA

CCCCGAACCA

ACCAAACCCC

570

580

 

 

 

 

 

 

AAAGACACCC

CCCA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

III. mtDNA Haplogroup Maps

 

 

 

 

Subhaplogroup U2 distribution (above); subgroup haplogroup U2b distribution (below)

 

 

 

From National Geographic:

 

 

 

Your Branch on the Human Family Tree

 

Your DNA results identify you as belonging to a specific branch of the human family tree called haplogroup U. Haplogroup U contains the following subgroups: U*, U1, U1a, U1b, U2, U3, U4, U7.

 

The map above shows the direction that your maternal ancestors took as they set out from their original homeland in East Africa. While humans did travel many different paths during a journey that took tens of thousands of years, the lines above represent the dominant trends in this migration.

 

Over time, the descendants of your ancestors ultimately made it into northeastern Europe, where most members of your haplogroup are found today. But before we can take you back in time and tell their stories, we must first understand how modern science makes this analysis possible.

 

How DNA Can Help

 

(To follow along, click See Your DNA Analysis above to view the data produced from your cheek scraping.)

 

The string of 569 letters shown above is your mitochondrial sequence, with the letters A, C, T, and G representing the four nucleotides—the chemical building blocks of life—that make up your DNA. The numbers at the top of the page refer to the positions in your sequence where informative mutations have occurred in your ancestors, and tell us a great deal about the history of your genetic lineage.

 

Here's how it works. Every once in a while a mutation—a random, natural (and usually harmless) change—occurs in the sequence of your mitochondrial DNA. Think of it as a spelling mistake: one of the "letters" in your sequence may change from a C to a T, or from an A to a G.

 

(Explore the Genetics Overview to learn more about population genetics.)

 

After one of these mutations occurs in a particular woman, she then passes it on to her daughters, and her daughters' daughters, and so on. (Mothers also pass on their mitochondrial DNA to their sons, but the sons in turn do not pass it on.)

 

Geneticists use these markers from people all over the world to construct one giant mitochondrial family tree. As you can imagine, the tree is very complex, but scientists can now determine both the age and geographic spread of each branch to reconstruct the prehistoric movements of our ancestors.

 

By looking at the mutations that you carry, we can trace your lineage, ancestor by ancestor, to reveal the path they traveled as they moved out of Africa. Our story begins with your earliest ancestor. Who was she, where did she live, and what is her story?

 

(Click Explore Your Route Map on the right side of the page to return to the map showing your haplogroup's ancestral journey.)

 

Your Ancestral Journey: What We Know Now

 

We will now take you back through the stories of your distant ancestors and show how the movements of their descendants gave rise to your mitochondrial lineage.

 

Each segment on the map above represents the migratory path of successive groups that eventually coalesced to form your branch of the tree. We start with your oldest ancestor, "Eve," and walk forward to more recent times, showing at each step the line of your ancestors who lived up to that point.

 

Mitochondrial Eve: The Mother of Us All

 

Ancestral Line: "Mitochondrial Eve"

 

Our story begins in Africa sometime between 150,000 and 170,000 years ago, with a woman whom anthropologists have nicknamed "Mitochondrial Eve."

 

She was awarded this mythic epithet in 1987 when population geneticists discovered that all people alive on the planet today can trace their maternal lineage back to her.

 

But Mitochondrial Eve was not the first female human. Homo sapiens evolved in Africa around 200,000 years ago, and the first hominids—characterized by their unique bipedal stature—appeared nearly two million years before that. Yet despite humans having been around for almost 30,000 years, Eve is exceptional because hers is the only lineage from that distant time to survive to the present day.

 

Which begs the question, "So why Eve?"

 

Simply put, Eve was a survivor. A maternal line can become extinct for a number of reasons. A woman may not have children, or she may bear only sons (who do not pass her mtDNA to the next generation). She may fall victim to a catastrophic event such as a volcanic eruption, flood, or famine, all of which have plagued humans since the dawn of our species.

 

None of these extinction events happened to Eve's line. It may have been simple luck, or it may have been something much more. It was around this same time that modern humans' intellectual capacity underwent what author Jared Diamond coined the Great Leap Forward. Many anthropologists believe that the emergence of language gave us a huge advantage over other early human species. Improved tools and weapons, the ability to plan ahead and cooperate with one another, and an increased capacity to exploit resources in ways we hadn't been able to earlier, all allowed modern humans to rapidly migrate to new territories, exploit new resources, and outcompete and replace other hominids, such as the Neandertals.

 

It is difficult to pinpoint the chain of events that led to Eve's unique success, but we can say with certainty that all of us trace our maternal lineage back to this one woman.

 

The L Haplogroups: The Deepest Branches

 

Ancestral line: "Eve" > L1/L0

 

Mitochondrial Eve represents the root of the human family tree. Her descendents, moving around within Africa, eventually split into two distinct groups, characterized by a different set of mutations their members carry.

 

These groups are referred to as L0 and L1, and these individuals have the most divergent genetic sequences of anybody alive today, meaning they represent the deepest branches of the mitochondrial tree. Importantly, current genetic data indicates that indigenous people belonging to these groups are found exclusively in Africa. This means that, because all humans have a common female ancestor, "Eve," and because the genetic data shows that Africans are the oldest groups on the planet, we know our species originated there.

 

Haplogroups L1 and L0 likely originated in East Africa and then spread throughout the rest of the continent. Today, these lineages are found at highest frequencies in Africa's indigenous populations, the hunter-gatherer groups who have maintained their ancestors' culture, language, and customs for thousands of years.

 

At some point, after these two groups had coexisted in Africa for a few thousand years, something important happened. The mitochondrial sequence of a woman in one of these groups, L1, mutated. A letter in her DNA changed, and because many of her descendants have survived to the present, this change has become a window into the past. The descendants of this woman, characterized by this signpost mutation, went on to form their own group, called L2. Because the ancestor of L2 was herself a member of L1, we can say something about the emergence of these important groups: Eve begat L1, and L1 begat L2. Now we're starting to move down your ancestral line.

 

Haplogroup L2: West Africa

 

Ancestral line: "Eve" > L1/L0 > L2

 

L2 individuals are found in sub-Saharan Africa, and like their L1 predecessors, they also live in Central Africa and as far south as South Africa. But whereas L1/L0 individuals remained predominantly in eastern and southern Africa, your ancestors broke off into a different direction, which you can follow on the map above.

 

L2 individuals are most predominant in West Africa, where they constitute the majority of female lineages. And because L2 individuals are found at high frequencies and widely distributed along western Africa, they represent one of the predominant lineages in African-Americans. Unfortunately, it is difficult to pinpoint where a specific L2 lineage might have arisen. For an African-American who is L2—the likely result of West Africans being brought to America during the slave trade—it is difficult to say with certainty exactly where in Africa that lineage arose.

 

Fortunately, collaborative sampling with indigenous groups is currently underway to help learn more about these types of questions and to possibly bridge the gap that was created during those transatlantic voyages hundreds of years ago.

 

Haplogroup L3: Out of Africa

 

Ancestral line: "Eve" > L1/L0 > L2 > L3

 

Your next signpost ancestor is the woman whose birth around 80,000 years ago began haplogroup L3. It is a similar story: an individual in L2 underwent a mutation to her mitochondrial DNA, which was passed onto her children. The children were successful, and their descendants ultimately broke away from the L2 clan, eventually separating into a new group called L3. You can see above that this has revealed another step in your ancestral line.

 

While L3 individuals are found all over Africa, including the southern reaches of sub-Sahara, L3 is important for its movements north. You can follow this movement of the map above, seeing first the expansions of L1/L0, then L2, and followed by the northward migration of L3.

 

Your L3 ancestors were significant because they are 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 and into unexplored lands? It is likely that a fluctuation in climate may have provided the impetus for your ancestors' exodus out of Africa.

 

The African Ice Age was characterized by drought rather than by cold. Around 50,000 years ago the ice sheets of northern Europe began to melt, introducing a period of warmer temperatures and moister climate in Africa. Parts of the inhospitable Sahara briefly became habitable. As the drought-ridden desert changed to savanna, the animals your ancestors hunted expanded their range and began moving through the newly emerging green corridor of grasslands. Your nomadic ancestors followed the good weather and plentiful game northward across this Saharan Gateway, although the exact route they followed remains to be determined.

 

Today, L3 individuals are found at high frequencies in populations across North Africa. From there, members of this group went in a few different directions. Some lineages within L3 testify to a distinct expansion event in the mid-Holocene that headed south, and are predominant in many Bantu groups found all over Africa. One group of individuals headed west and is primarily restricted to Atlantic western Africa, including the islands of Cabo Verde.

 

Other L3 individuals, your ancestors, kept moving northward, eventually leaving the African continent completely. These people currently make up around ten percent of the Middle Eastern population, and gave rise to two important haplogroups that went on to populate the rest of the world.

 

Haplogroup N: The Incubation Period

 

Ancestral line: "Eve" > L1/L0 > L2 > L3 > N

 

Your next signpost ancestor is the woman whose descendants formed haplogroup N. Haplogroup N comprises one of two groups that were created by the descendants of L3.

 

The first of these groups, M, was the result of the first great wave of migration of modern humans to leave Africa. These people likely left the continent across the Horn of Africa near Ethiopia, and their descendants followed a coastal route eastward, eventually making it all the way to Australia and Polynesia.

 

The second great wave, also of L3 individuals, moved north rather than east and left the African continent across the Sinai Peninsula, in present-day Egypt. Also 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 supply in spite of the surrounding desert and its frequent sandstorms.

 

Descendants of these migrants eventually formed haplogroup N. Early members of this group lived in the eastern Mediterranean region and western Asia, where they likely coexisted for a time with other hominids such as Neandertals. Excavations in Israel's Kebara Cave (Mount Carmel) have unearthed Neandertal skeletons as recent as 60,000 years old, indicating that there was both geographic and temporal overlap of these two hominids.

 

The ancient members of haplogroup N spawned many sublineages, which spread across much of the rest of the globe and are found throughout Asia, Europe, India, and the Americas.

 

Haplogroup R: Spreading Out

 

Ancestral line: "Eve" > L1/L0 > L2 > L3 > N > R

 

After several thousand years in the Near East, individuals belonging to a new group called haplogroup R began to move out and explore the surrounding areas. Some moved south, migrating back into northern Africa. Others went west across Anatolia (present-day Turkey) and north across the Caucasus Mountains of Georgia and southern Russia. Still others headed east into the Middle East, and on to Central Asia. All of these individuals had one thing in common: they shared a female ancestor from the N clan, a recent descendant of the migration out of Africa.

 

The story of haplogroup R is complicated, however, because these individuals can be found almost everywhere, and because their origin is quite ancient. In fact, the ancestor of haplogroup R lived relatively soon after humans moved out of Africa during the second wave, and her descendants undertook many of the same migrations as her own group, N.

 

Because the two groups lived side by side for thousands of years, it is likely that the migrations radiating out from the Near East comprised individuals from both of these groups. They simply moved together, bringing their N and R lineages to the same places around the same times. The tapestry of genetic lines became quickly entangled, and geneticists are currently working to unravel the different stories of haplogroups N and R, since they are found in many of the same far-reaching places.

 

Haplogroup U: Your Branch on the Tree

 

Ancestral line: "Eve" > L1/L0 > L2 > L3 > N > R > U

 

We finally arrive at your own clan, a group of individuals who descend from a woman in the R branch of the tree. Because of the great genetic diversity found in haplogroup U, it is likely that she lived around 50,000 years ago.

 

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, and are found in Arabia, the northern Caucasus Mountains, and throughout the Near East.

 

One of these subgroups, U5, is restricted to Finland in its variation. This is likely the result of the significant geographical, linguistic, and cultural isolation of the Finnish populations, which would have restricted geographic distribution of this subgroup and kept it fairly isolated genetically. The Saami, reindeer hunters who follow the herds from Siberia to Scandinavia each season, also have U5 lineages in their population, indicating that these may have been introduced during their movements into these northern territories. The U5 lineage is found as far south as the Near East, though at much smaller frequencies and at much lower diversity. Because these individuals contain lineages that first evolved in Europe, their presence in the Near East is the result of a back-migration of people who left northern Europe and headed south, as though retracing the migratory paths of their own ancestors.

 

Another interesting subgroup is U6, which branched off from haplogroup R while still in the Middle East. This subgroup moved southward and today is found in parts of northern Africa. Today U6 individuals are found in around ten percent of people living in North Africa. Despite the great geographic distances between subgroups U5 and U6, all members still share the same maternal ancestral line that gave rise to your ancestral clan, haplogroup U.

 

While some members of your haplogroup headed north into Scandinavia, or south into North Africa, most members of your haplogroup U stem from a group that moved northward out of the Near East. These women crossed the rugged Caucasus Mountains in southern Russia, and moved on to the steppes of the Black Sea. These individuals represent movements from the Black Sea steppes west into regions that comprise the present-day Baltic States and western Eurasia. This grassland then served as the home base for subsequent movements north and west. Today, members of these lineages are found in Europe and the eastern Mediterranean at frequencies of almost seven percent of the population.

 

Anthropology vs. Genealogy

 

DNA markers require a long time to become informative. While mutations occur in every generation, it requires at least hundreds—normally thousands—of years for these markers to become windows back into the past, signposts on the human tree.

 

Still, our own genetic sequences often reveal that we fall within a particular sub-branch, a smaller, more recent branch on the tree.

 

While it may be difficult to say anything about the history of these sub-groups, they do reveal other people who are more closely related to us. It is a useful way to help bridge the anthropology of population genetics with the genealogy to which we are all accustomed.

 

One of the ways you can bridge this gap is to compare your own genetic lineage to those of people living all over the world. Mitosearch.org is a database that allows you to compare both your genetic sequence as well as your surname to those of thousands of people who have already joined the database. This type of search is a valuable way of inferring population events that have occurred in more recent times (i.e., the past few hundred years).

 

Looking Forward (Into the Past): Where Do We Go From Here?

 

Although the arrow of your haplogroup currently ends in Northern Europe and Scandinavia, this isn't the end of the journey for haplogroup U. This is where the genetic clues get murky and your DNA trail goes cold. Your initial results shown here are based upon the best information available today—but this is just the beginning.

 

A fundamental goal of the Genographic Project is to extend these arrows further toward the present day. To do this, Genographic has brought together ten renowned scientists and their teams from all over the world to study questions vital to our understanding of human history. By working together with indigenous peoples around the globe, we are learning more about these ancient migrations.

 

 

Y-DNA

 

 

 

 

 

For other information…