Origin of Y chromosome haplogroup N in Asia

The haplogroup N/Tat-C "controversy" is finally over.

UPDATE: Also of interest:

Interestingly, 14 N2-individuals from Turkey, data from Cinnioglu et al6 (updated in this study), belong to the Asian subcluster N2-A, suggesting that the clade N2 might have geographically expanded from Siberia westward by at least two different flows: one northwest through the Volga-Ural region, giving rise to N2-E, probably mainly via the Finno-Ugric group, and the other, N2-A, southwest together with Turkic languages.

European Journal of Human Genetics advance online publication 6 December 2006; doi: 10.1038/sj.ejhg.5201748

A counter-clockwise northern route of the Y-chromosome haplogroup N from Southeast Asia towards Europe

Siiri Rootsi1,10, Lev A Zhivotovsky2,10, Marian Baldovic caron1,3, Manfred Kayser4, Ildus A Kutuev1,5, Rita Khusainova1,5, Marina A Bermisheva1,5, Marina Gubina1,6, Sardana A Fedorova1,7, Anne-Mai Ilumäe1, Elza K Khusnutdinova5, Mikhail I Voevoda6, Ludmila P Osipova6, Mark Stoneking8, Alice A Lin9, Vladimir Ferak3, Jüri Parik1, Toomas Kivisild1, Peter A Underhill9 and Richard Villems1

Abstract

A large part of Y chromosome lineages in East European and East Asian human populations belong to haplogroup (hg) NO, which is composed of two sister clades N-M231 and O-M175. The O-clade is relatively old (around 30 thousand years (ky)) and encompasses the vast majority of east and Southeast Asian male lineages, as well as significant proportion of those in Oceanian males. On the other hand, our detailed analysis of hg N suggests that its high frequency in east Europe is due to its more recent expansion westward on a counter-clock northern route from inner Asia/southern Siberia, approximately 12–14 ky ago. The widespread presence of hg N in Siberia, together with its absence in Native Americans, implies its spread happened after the founder event for the Americas. The most frequent subclade N3, arose probably in the region of present day China, and subsequently experienced serial bottlenecks in Siberia and secondary expansions in eastern Europe. Another branch, N2, forms two distinctive subclusters of STR haplotypes, Asian (N2-A) and European (N2-E), the latter now mostly distributed in Finno-Ugric and related populations. These phylogeographic patterns provide evidence consistent with male-mediated counter-clockwise late Pleistocene–Holocene migratory trajectories toward Northwestern Europe from an ancestral East Asian source of Paleolithic heritage.

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