Information about H4

[Aberdeen]

Does anyone know where I can find detailed information about H4? It seems to be one of the less common forms of H, with a fairly wide distribution, but that's all I've been able to learns so far.

[PaschalisB]

From 23andme:
H4 and H4aThe H4 branch appears to have arisen in southeastern Europe or the Black Sea region about 12,000 years ago, during the final stages of the Ice Age. It soon spun off its own sub-branch, H4a, which spread north and west from the Caucusus region or neighboring Turkey into eastern Europe about 10,000 years ago, possibly in association with the spread of farming. The haplogroup is most common today in Poland, where about 5% of the population carries it.
The next highest concentration of H4a is in Ireland, where about 3% of the population falls into the category. Those people may be descended from women who migrated to Britain and Ireland with 5th- and 6th-century Saxon invaders or during the later Viking period.

[adamo]

So we've established that it's 1. Very rare (5% maximum in polish females with 3% found among Irish) that it seems to have spread more recently from actually the Caucasus region or southeastern Europe towards eastern Europe in only the past 10,000-12,000 years. Can anyone else help us get more information on mtdna H4 and it's variants?

[adamo]

I've traced the origins of hg mtdna H to the Basque region of Spain where it reaches one of it's highest global frequencies (75%) excluding women from Ireland (65%). It is found in nearly 40-50% of all women of European descent, in places as culturally distinct as Italy, Scandinavia (the entirety of it), Germany, Belarus or Greece. I believe many European women have a form of it that waited out the last ice age somewhere between northern Spain and southern France, and would subsequently re-colonize Europe from there as the main European mtdna marker. Mtdna V would also subsequently expand from the Franco-Cantabrian refuge, but would only migrate to or become frequent in northern Scandinavia (above 30% in some regions of Norway, Sweden and Finland.)

[adamo]

Although there are many different branches of mtdna H with different migration regions of course.

[Angela]

I've traced the origins of hg mtdna H to the Basque region of Spain where it reaches one of it's highest global frequencies (75%) excluding women from Ireland (65%). It is found in nearly 40-50% of all women of European descent, in places as culturally distinct as Italy, Scandinavia (the entirety of it), Germany, Belarus or Greece. I believe many European women have a form of it that waited out the last ice age somewhere between northern Spain and southern France, and would subsequently re-colonize Europe from there as the main European mtdna marker. Mtdna V would also subsequently expand from the Franco-Cantabrian refuge, but would only migrate to or become frequent in northern Scandinavia (above 30% in some regions of Norway, Sweden and Finland.)

How fascinating...you really should work all your proofs up into an article and try to get it published...

[adamo]

As humans began to re-populate Western Europe after the ice age, by far the most frequent mtdna lineage carried by these expanding groups was haplogroup H, which would come to dominate the European female landscape. Today, haplogroup H comprises 40-60% of the gene pool of most European populations. In Rome and Athens, for example, H is found in about 40% of females, and it exhibits similar frequencies throughout Western Europe. Moving eastward the frequencies of H gradually decrease, illustrating the migratory path these settlers followed as they left the Iberian peninsula after the ice sheets had receded. Haplogroup H is found at around 25% in Turkey and around 20% in the Caucasus mountains. While haplogroup H is considered the Western European lineage due to it's high frequency there, it can also be found much further east. Today, it comprises around 20% of southwest Asian lineages, about 15% of people living in Central Asia, and around 5% in northern Asia. Importantly, the age of haplogroup H lineages differs quite substantially between those seen in the west compared with those found in the east. In Europe it's age is estimated at 10,000-15,000 years old, and while H made it into Europe substantially earlier (30,000 years ago), reduced population sizes resulting from the last ice age significantly reduced it's diversity there, and thus it's estimated age. In central and east Asia however, it's age is estimated at 30,000 years old, meaning the lineage made it into those areas during some of the earlier migrations out of the near east. Today, the single highest frequency of haplogroup H in any country is to be found in Ireland, where 65% of females belong to H.

[Judith]

Try looking on the FTDNA H4 project web site. It seems to have more information there now than it used to.