New map of mtDNA haplogroup U5

[bicicleur 2]

I do not think it is a coincidence that the Neolithic started in the Levant just as the Sahara started drying up. I believe it could have started earlier in eastern Libya (which would have been criss-crossed by rivers) and Egypt. This would also explain why haplogroup E1b1b had spread all over northern Africa and to the Levant before 9500 BCE.

There was a theory that agriculture was brought into the Levant from Africa.
Since then it has been discovered that people around lake Tiberias (or lake of Galilee) allready consumed wild grains 20.000 years ago.
Other technologies which were supposed to have been imported from Africa now appear to have existed in the Levant long time before.
I believe that agriculture started in the Levant and southern Anatolia 11.500 years ago by the same people that settled in the Levant allready 44.000 years ago (Ahmarian culture - haplo J2), and I think that it was the other way around : agriculture was brought into Africa from the Levant. Of course it spread very rapidly in the Sahara because of the favourable climate at that time. Indeed most people in the Sahara must have been E1b1, but don't forget, some T and even a branch of R1b also came into Africa, maybe around that time.

 

[Degredado]

Maciamo, what is your understanding of U5b1? Would it have first pooled in NE Europe during the Paleolithic/Mesolithic and then spread to Western/SW Europe, or the other way around?

 

[LeBrok]

Actually it has to do with the air and sea currents that vary with climate change. The Sahara was green until the Last Galcial Maximum (24,500 to 17,000 BCE), when it turned into a desert again.

I'm unable to find information showing that Sahara was greener during Ice Age. All my searches say it was very dry during cool periods.

During the last glacial period, the Sahara was even bigger than it is today, extending south beyond its current boundaries.^[17] The end of the glacial period brought more rain to the Sahara, from about 8000 BC to 6000 BC, perhaps because of low pressure areas over the collapsing ice sheets to the north.^[18]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara

The Sahara therefore alternated from dry to wet for hundred of thousands of years and each period lasted several millennia. Humans have lived in the Middle East for over 60,000 years and could have inhabited the Sahara for a much longer period, as attested by the presence of Sahelanthropus tchadensis, our oldest presumed ancestor since the split with the Chimpanzees, who lived between 7 and 6 million years ago in the Sahara (which was obviously not desert at the time)

.
Yes, it was warmer, wetter and greener on Earth up to 2.5 million years ago when climate really cooled.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_temperature_record

Ice Ages are last 2 million year fenomenon. Quite recent in geological terms. This might mean that Sahara was Savana like with many lakes till 2 million years ago.

 

[bicicleur 2]

last 8 ice ages came in cycles of +/- 100.000 years
last ice age was 20.000 years ago, the one before 128.000 years ago
between 130.000 - 55.000 years ago there seem to have been several (4) wet periods in the Sahara and Arabia
then it became gradualy dryer, and 20.000 years ago it became extremely dry
maybe it was wet 13-16.000 years ago, and it was wet again 6-10.000 years ago
12,7 - 11,6 years ago there was a cold spike (the 'youngest dryas') resulting in the tundra coming back all over Europe and a dry period in the Sahara and Arabia
after that agriculture started in the Levant and southeast Anatolia
wet periods in the Sahara seem to be coming with shifting monsoon winds

 

[Angela]

Enlightening maps as usual, thanks!
Looks like a very good match with the north_east euro autosomal component from K12.
I don't expect perfect local matches because haplogroups have much more volatile distributions than autosomals, yet mtDNA is perhaps still less volatile than Y-DNA.
Regarding Sardinia I still think they almost lost their autosomal legacy from the north-euro-like hunter-gatherers, despite U5 and I2 frequencies, because in all autosomal distance measures I've seen Sardinians appear most distant from north-east europeans.
Although admittedly the increased U5 in Sardinia raises some questions.

Sorry, I'm playing a little catch up here...I don't recall and can't seem to find any thread where Dienekes deconstructed the North East European component of K-12 in order to show it's relationship to other clusters, but, with the caveat that we're not talking about the same exact cluster, I think it still might be informative to consider what he says about the K=12b North European component.
See:

The North European in that analysis is about 2/3 Atlantic Med, a little less than 1/3 Gedrosia, and a slice of Siberian. Atlantic-Med itself is 90% Caucasus (which we know has a big "Southern" component along with North Euro), with about another 10% North Euro.

If I had to guess, the North East Euro would have less Atlantic Med, less Gedrosia, and more Siberian.

Just for comparison, these are the scores for Germans and Poles in the two analyses:
North Euro/North East Euro
Germans: 48/25.3
Poles: 63%/44.9
Lithuanians: 77/59

This is my round about way of saying that I don't think that North East Euro equates to northern European mesolithics either.

That component is mixed as well, just like the Northern European one. There is no remaining North Eurasian Mesolithic population...that's why they keep saying it's outside the range of modern variation. That's also why, I think, Skoglund said that the Northern Europeans are slightly more related to these people than are southern Europeans. We're all picking apart what is essentially not that much variation in Europe any longer, however stark the differences may have been in the early Mesolithic.

As to Sardinians, I posted a study on another thread about the fact that in the Balkans the authors saw assimilation between the foragers and the farmers within a few hundred years. I don't know if that study will stand up in the face of the new results that hopefully will be coming from the Balkans soon. If they are correct, however, and even if I2a1 is "mesolithic", all the wives that the paper indicates they seem to have taken from the newcomers might indeed have changed the autosomal picture for them before some of them set out to colonize the western Mediterranean. On the other hand, should mtDNA "H" turn out to have a Mesolithic presence in Mediterranean Europe, then the calculus would be more in line with what Maciamo has suggested. Of course, if people then wanted, for whatever reason, to differentiate between Northern or North Eastern Mesolithic, and Southern European Mesolithic that could be done as well.

 

[LeBrok]

last 8 ice ages came in cycles of +/- 100.000 years
last ice age was 20.000 years ago, the one before 128.000 years ago
between 130.000 - 55.000 years ago there seem to have been several (4) wet periods in the Sahara and Arabia
then it became gradualy dryer, and 20.000 years ago it became extremely dry
maybe it was wet 13-16.000 years ago, and it was wet again 6-10.000 years ago
12,7 - 11,6 years ago there was a cold spike (the 'youngest dryas') resulting in the tundra coming back all over Europe and a dry period in the Sahara and Arabia
after that agriculture started in the Levant and southeast Anatolia
wet periods in the Sahara seem to be coming with shifting monsoon winds

Some of wet cycles affect only South Sahara region, with monsoons that you mentioned coming from south-west.

 

[ElHorsto]

Sorry, I'm playing a little catch up here...I don't recall and can't seem to find any thread where Dienekes deconstructed the North East European component of K-12 in order to show it's relationship to other clusters, but, with the caveat that we're not talking about the same exact cluster, I think it still might be informative to consider what he says about the K=12b North European component.
See:

The North European in that analysis is about 2/3 Atlantic Med, a little less than 1/3 Gedrosia, and a slice of Siberian. Atlantic-Med itself is 90% Caucasus (which we know has a big "Southern" component along with North Euro), with about another 10% North Euro.

If I had to guess, the North East Euro would have less Atlantic Med, less Gedrosia, and more Siberian.

Just for comparison, these are the scores for Germans and Poles in the two analyses:
North Euro/North East Euro
Germans: 48/25.3
Poles: 63%/44.9
Lithuanians: 77/59

This is my round about way of saying that I don't think that North East Euro equates to northern European mesolithics either.

That component is mixed as well, just like the Northern European one. There is no remaining North Eurasian Mesolithic population...that's why they keep saying it's outside the range of modern variation. That's also why, I think, Skoglund said that the Northern Europeans are slightly more related to these people than are southern Europeans. We're all picking apart what is essentially not that much variation in Europe any longer, however stark the differences may have been in the early Mesolithic.

As to Sardinians, I posted a study on another thread about the fact that in the Balkans the authors saw assimilation between the foragers and the farmers within a few hundred years. I don't know if that study will stand up in the face of the new results that hopefully will be coming from the Balkans soon. If they are correct, however, and even if I2a1 is "mesolithic", all the wives that the paper indicates they seem to have taken from the newcomers might indeed have changed the autosomal picture for them before some of them set out to colonize the western Mediterranean. On the other hand, should mtDNA "H" turn out to have a Mesolithic presence in Mediterranean Europe, then the calculus would be more in line with what Maciamo has suggested. Of course, if people then wanted, for whatever reason, to differentiate between Northern or North Eastern Mesolithic, and Southern European Mesolithic that could be done as well.

Apologies for not having enough time to anwer more comprehensively. Just briefly: By "Northeastern" I actually meant "Northern" from K12b and "Eastern" from K12 at the same time, since both overlap strongly. Sorry for not being more clear.

The samples found in Gotland and La Brana showed closest autosomal resemblance with Saami, Finns and to a wider extent also with Scandinavians, north Slavs and Balts - the last two admittedly more related to mtDNA U4 . That's why I'm sure the most paleolithic remnants can be found in the forests and tundras of northeastern europe.

Regarding Atlantic_Med component, I believe that it is much older than Caucasus component. Dienekes thinks Caucasus is the source of nations, but he himself once provided analysis of clusters against each other where Atlantic_med turned out to be second oldest, while Caucasus was second newest. There is an older discussion about this buried somewhere in this forum. I think Atlantic_med was already in east-mediterranean during the paleolithic and partially spread to Iberia (some strong hints were already present in the La Brana hunter-gatherer), before later admixtures changed it in the near-east. But I'm not sure.

 

[adamo]

I'm beginning to believe the very first Europeans were y-DNA I and mtdna U predominantly; followed after by R1b and mtdna H/V.

 

[adamo]

R1a though came MUCH later towards Central Europe; even J2,E3b,T (Neolithic) lineages have been in Europe longer than R1a has fen in the Czech Republic, for example. As the Paleolithic transitioned towards the Neolithic we can imagine a slew of new incoming lineages to Europe.

 

[GloomyGonzales]

R1a though came MUCH later towards Central Europe; even J2,E3b,T (Neolithic) lineages have been in Europe longer than R1a has fen in the Czech Republic, for example. As the Paleolithic transitioned towards the Neolithic we can imagine a slew of new incoming lineages to Europe.

Really? We have 8500 y.o. R1a clades in CE. while I have never heard about so old J2,E3b,T clades in CE.

 

[adamo]

The most recent common ancestor for all U5 women 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 variation to Scandinavia, particularly to Finland. This is likely the result of the significant geographical, linguistic, and cultural isolation of the Finnish populations, which would have limited the geographical distribution of this subgroup and kept it fairly isolated. The Saami, reindeer hunters who follow the herds from Siberia to Scandinavia each season, have the U5 lineage at a very high frequency (50%) indicating that it may have been introduced during their movements into these northern territories. The U5 lineage is also found outside of Scandinavia, though at much lower frequencies and with much lower genetic diversity. Interestingly, the same exact U5 found in the Saami has also been found at very low frequencies in some north-African Berber populations of Morocco, Senegal and Algeria. Finding similar genetic lineages in populations living thousands of miles apart is certainly unexpected, and is likely the result of movements that occurred 15,000 years ago when the last ice age came to an end. In addition to being present in some parts of North Africa, U5 individuals are also found sporadically across the Middle East at 2% trace frequencies in people's such as Armenians!Kurds,Turks; none is present on the Arabian peninsula. Because these rare individuals have lineages that first evolved in Europe, their presence in the near east is due to back-migration of people who left Northern Europe and headed south, as though retracing the migratory paths of their own ancestors. About 5-10% of European women belong to mtdna U5.

 

[Jackson]

The most recent common ancestor for all U5 women 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 variation to Scandinavia, particularly to Finland. This is likely the result of the significant geographical, linguistic, and cultural isolation of the Finnish populations, which would have limited the geographical distribution of this subgroup and kept it fairly isolated. The Saami, reindeer hunters who follow the herds from Siberia to Scandinavia each season, have the U5 lineage at a very high frequency (50%) indicating that it may have been introduced during their movements into these northern territories. The U5 lineage is also found outside of Scandinavia, though at much lower frequencies and with much lower genetic diversity. Interestingly, the same exact U5 found in the Saami has also been found at very low frequencies in some north-African Berber populations of Morocco, Senegal and Algeria. Finding similar genetic lineages in populations living thousands of miles apart is certainly unexpected, and is likely the result of movements that occurred 15,000 years ago when the last ice age came to an end. In addition to being present in some parts of North Africa, U5 individuals are also found sporadically across the Middle East at 2% trace frequencies in people's such as Armenians!Kurds,Turks; none is present on the Arabian peninsula. Because these rare individuals have lineages that first evolved in Europe, their presence in the near east is due to back-migration of people who left Northern Europe and headed south, as though retracing the migratory paths of their own ancestors. About 5-10% of European women belong to mtdna U5.

There was a study on Danish mtDNA quite recently which was interesting. Small amounts of Saami U5 were found, but the majority (around 3/4) was U5a (mostly U5a1a1 and U5a1b), while in Iberia it is the other way around, with around 3/4 of the U5 being U5b as opposed to U5a. Quite interesting, but don't know what it means ultimately.

 

[adamo]

Over all, Greeks,Italians,spaniards and Portuguese men only have about 5% mtdna U5 in total; it is quite scarce in these regions and pretty much everywhere in Europe other than Scandinavia. The French, Irish, Scottish and welsh have more like 10%; same for Bulgarians, Romanians, Bosnians, Slovenians and Macedonians, Hungarians, Austrians, Germans, poles, Czechs and Slovaks. The swedes, Norwegians, Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussians, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians and Finns (on a national level) have 15%. I don't have statistics on the Danes.

 

[adamo]

It seems that the further you move north and east across Europe, the higher the U5 frequencies become. I believe the basque and certain regions of France have slightly inflated frequencies though, particularly the first group I mentioned.

 

[Jackson]

It seems that the further you move north and east across Europe, the higher the U5 frequencies become. I believe the basque and certain regions of France have slightly inflated frequencies though, particularly the first group I mentioned.

Here's a post from another forum about it (By GailT on Anthrogenica, her specialization seems to be U5):

I'll use this thread for updates on new U5 sequences, starting with the results from the new Li et al study on diabetes in Denmark. The study has 2000 full mtDNA sequences, including 160 in haplogroup U5, or 8%. The sequencing is of uneven quality with some samples having large numbers of no calls, but I was able to place all but 1 in subclades of U5, listed below.

It is interesting that Denmark is nearly 73% U5a and 27% U5b. The U5b samples are heavily concentrated in U5b2. In constrast, the recent 13 U5 samples from northwest Spain (Zamorra Province) were 31% U5a and 69% U5b.

Some notable finds were new U5a1*, U5b1* and U5b3* samples.

For two of the subclades found often in Finland, U5b1b1a and U5b1b2, there were no U5b1b1a samples, and there were 3 U5b1b2 samples. I've speculated that U5b1b1a arrived in Finland via an eastern European route, and U5b1b2 via a western European route, and these results seem consistent with that theory.


U5a1 = 51%
N = 84
U5a1* = 1
U5a1a1 = 31
U5a1a2 = 5
U5a1b = 22
U5a1c2a = 9
U5a1d = 3
U5a1e = 1
U5a1f = 4
U5a1g = 4
U5a1h = 4
U5a1*i1 = 1

U5a2 = 21%
N = 34
U5a2a = 13
U5a2b = 10
U5a2c = 5
U5a2d = 3
U5a2e = 1
U5a2*g =1


U5b1 = 7.6%
N = 12
U5b1* = 1
U5b1b2 = 3
U5b1c2 = 1
U5b1c2b = 3
U5b1d2 = 2
U5b1e = 2


U5b2 = 17%
N = 27
U5b2a1a1 = 3
U5b2a1a1*C = 2
U5b2a1a1*C2 = 2
U5b2a2a1 = 4
U5b2a2b = 1
U5b2a2b1 = 3
U5b2a2c = 1
U5b2a4a = 1
U5b2a5 = 1

U5b2b* = 1
U5b2b1a = 1
U5b2b4 = 3
U5b2b4*B = 2
U5b2b4*B1 = 1

U5b2c2b = 1


U5b3 = 1.3%
N = 2
U5b3* = 1
U5b3e = 1

 

[adamo]

So most Danish U5 seems to be of the U5a variety; very interesting, but what are the overall frequencies of U5 in Denmark?; I doubt they exceed 5-15% so U5 isn't particularly frequent in Denmark either way.

 

[adamo]

But according to its subclade distribution, 70% are U5a whereas 30% are U5b...does anyone have any information on were U5a is most frequent and were it's highest diversity is and same for U5b; thanks in advance. : )

 

[Jackson]

So most Danish U5 seems to be of the U5a variety; very interesting, but what are the overall frequencies of U5 in Denmark?; I doubt they exceed 5-15% so U5 isn't particularly frequent in Denmark either way.

8% According to this study, but of course it will vary by sample, so 5-15% seems a reasonable enough estimate.

 

[epoch]

There is no remaining North Eurasian Mesolithic population...that's why they keep saying it's outside the range of modern variation.

Yes. There must be. We all are the remaining North Eurasian Mesolithic population. It must be because of the following logic.

We know for sure that the most abundant mtDNA haplogroup of mesolthic hunter-gatherers is U5/U4/U. We also know that there is ample archeological evidence that hunter-gatherers lived alongside the new farmers for thousands of years, even if separated from them. We have DNA from a number of those cultures which lived alongside farmers and they are mtDNA U5/U4/U.

If these people managed to remain alive and remain their own culture for several thousand years, they must have been relatively immune to the diseases that exterminated all other HG's on other continents that came into first contact with farmers. They were decimated, whereas European HGs were not. And lo and behold, guess what was found in La Brana 1: La Brana 1 has derived alleles at loci associated with pathogen resistance.

We know the core of Europe has about one third WHG admixture. We found that after LBK the number of U mtDNA in farmers goes up.

There is no other possibility than that we all in Europe are the remaining HG's. Partly, that is.

 

[Original European]

Very interesting!

I'm beginning to believe the very first Europeans were y-DNA I and mtdna U predominantly; followed after by R1b and mtdna H/V.

I belong to both haplogroups and I have always been curious about their origins and age ever since I discovered that my Father belongs to haplogroup I and my Mother to haplogroup U. It seems that it is the oldest purely European haplogroup line, and, apparently, rare in the present-day.