Geographically, Europe is a western promontory of Asia, surrounded by water on three sides. The oscillations of the Gulf Stream have led to rapid climate fluctuations that likely have had major effects on the spread and extinction of archaic human populations, including the Neanderthals. For modern humans, however, and especially during the warmth and stability of the last 11,500 years (the Holocene), the peninsula has facilitated maritime mobility around the resource-rich littoral zone, leading to dense exchange networks as well as to population growth across the diverse societies that have sprung up amidst its varied and tightly packed ecological zones.
Europe is itself not really a continent, geographically speaking; and indeed, Europeans share their basic pattern of mtDNA variation — in other words, the range of major basal clades, or ‘haplogroups’— with people in Southwest Asia, and to some extent also in Central Asia, as well as — with a substantial reduction in diversity— in North Africa. This is partly true also for the Y chromosome, but with some complications.
archived 27 Dec 2021 20:47:37 UTC
archive.is
The most ancient mtDNA lineages in Europe belong to haplogroup U5 and U8, which appear to have originated within Europe from the root of haplogroup U. U8 appears to have an age of c. 50,000 years in Europe, although its subclade K appears in the Near East around 30 kya).
Y-chromosome haplogroups implicated in Late Glacial or postglacial expansions form the majority of lineages in the continent today.
More surprising is the status of Y-chromosome haplogroup R1, which, unlike mtDNA haplogroup I, is not indigenous to West Eurasia but appears to have originated in South Asia, possibly in the early settlements associated with the southern route dispersal. This appears better substantiated than the alternative suggestion of a Central Asian origin.
Two major subclades of R1 appear in Europe: R1b in the west and R1a in the north-east. It has been suggested that R1b mirrors mtDNA haplogroup H and the forerunner of V in arriving from the east shortly after the LGM. Then, with the Late Glacial, its main subclade R1b1b2 expanded into western and central Europe, with a possible expansion at the same time from Anatolia. R1a might then represent an expansion from an eastern refuge, perhaps in the Ukraine, although it might also have been the result of more recent dispersals.
archived 27 Dec 2021 20:47:37 UTC
archive.is
Volume 20, Issue 4, 23 February 2010, Pages R174-R183
T. Kivisild, S. Rootsi, M. Metspalu, S. Mastana, K. Kaldma, J. Parik, E. Metspalu, M. Adojaan, H.-V. Tolk, V. Stepanov, et al.
The genetic heritage of the earliest settlers persists both in Indian tribal and caste populations
Am. J. Hum. Genet., 72 (2003), pp. 313-332
Two tribal groups from southern India—the Chenchus and Koyas—were analyzed for variation in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), the Y chromosome, and one autos…
www.sciencedirect.com
E.W. Hill, M.A. Jobling, D.G. Bradley
Y-chromosome variation and Irish origins
Nature, 404 (2000), pp. 351-352
O. Semino, G. Passarino, P.J. Oefner, A.A. Lin, S. Arbuzova, L.E. Beckman, G. De Benedictis, P. Francalacci, A. Kouvatsi, S. Limborska, et al.
The genetic legacy of Paleolithic Homo sapiens sapiens in extant Europeans: a Y chromosome perspective
Science, 290 (2000), pp. 1155-1159
Underhill, P.A., Myres, N.M., Rootsi, S., Metspalu, M., Zhivotovsky, L.A., King, R.J., Lin, A.A., Chow, C.E., Semino O., Battaglia V., et al. Separating the post-Glacial coancestry of European and Asian Y chromosomes within haplogroup R1a. Eur. J. Hum. Genet. doi: 10.1038/ejhg.2009.194.
O. Balanovsky, S. Rootsi, A. Pshenichnov, T. Kivisild, M. Churnosov, I. Evseeva, E. Pocheshkhova, M. Boldyreva, N. Yankovsky, E. Balanovska, et al.
Two sources of the Russian patrilineal heritage in their Eurasian context
Am. J. Hum. Genet., 82 (2008), pp. 236-250
archive.is
