Description

Haplogroup N1a1a (Z1936) is the dominant Y-DNA lineage of Uralic-speaking peoples and one of the most frequent haplogroups in Northern Europe. It is found at very high frequencies among Finns (~58%), Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Sami, Yakuts (~85%), Nenets, Selkups, Khanty, and Mansi. Z1936 defines the Uralic expansion from the Ural–West Siberian homeland into the Baltic, Scandinavia, and the Siberian northeast. Its MRCA in the Neolithic corresponds to the time of proto-Uralic language diversification, providing one of the strongest genetic correlates for a specific language family expansion in Eurasia.

Interesting Fact

The distribution of N1a1a (Z1936) almost perfectly maps the current and historical range of Uralic languages — Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian, Sami, Mordvin, Mari, Khanty, Mansi, Nenets, Selkup, Yakut. Its carrier populations speak languages as different as Finnish and Yakut, yet share a patrilineal ancestor who lived ~8,000 years ago in Western Siberia.

Distribution by Ethnicity

Ethnic distributionRegionFrequencySample
YakutsSiberia (NE)
85%
n=300
NenetsArctic Siberia
75%
n=100
KhantyWest Siberia
70%
n=120
FinnsNorthern Europe
58%
n=700
LithuaniansNorthern Europe
42%
n=350
LatviansNorthern Europe
38%
n=300
EstoniansNorthern Europe
33%
n=400
SamiNorthern Europe / Scandinavia
20%
n=150

Tags

References

  1. Ilumäe et al. (2016) — Human Y Chromosome Haplogroup N: A Non-trivial Time-Resolved Phylogeography that Cuts across Language Families. AJHG 99(1), 163–173.
  2. Rootsi et al. (2007) — A counter-clockwise northern route of the Y-chromosome haplogroup N from Southeast Asia towards Europe. European Journal of Human Genetics 15, 204–211.
  3. Lamnidis et al. (2018) — Ancient Fennoscandian genomes reveal origin and spread of Siberian ancestry in Europe. Nature Communications 9, 5018.