Description
Mitochondrial haplogroup U is one of the oldest mtDNA haplogroups in Europe and the Near East, and contains several historically important subclades. U5 is considered the most ancient surviving European maternal haplogroup — it was carried by the first anatomically modern humans who entered Europe approximately 45,000 years ago and is still found today at elevated frequencies in the Sami (48%) and other Northern Europeans who preserve Mesolithic hunter-gatherer ancestry. U2e is associated with Yamnaya steppe ancestry and is found across Eastern Europe. Subclade K (U8b) is notably common among Ashkenazi Jews (~32%) and among Druze. U6 spread into North Africa.
Interesting Fact
Haplogroup U5 is the oldest surviving European maternal lineage, originally carried by the hunter-gatherers who first colonised Europe after the Out-of-Africa migration and who are still genetically detectable in modern European populations roughly 45,000 years later — a living thread connecting present-day Europeans to the Ice Age.
Distribution by Ethnicity
| Ethnic distribution | Region | Frequency | Sample |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sami | Northern Europe | — | |
| Basques | Western Europe | — | |
| Europeans (average) | Europe | — | |
| Near Easterners | Near East | — | |
| South Asians | South Asia | — | |
| Berbers | North Africa | — |
Tags
References
- Torroni et al. (2006) — Harvesting the fruit of the human mtDNA tree. Trends in Genetics 22(6), 339–345.
- Bramanti et al. (2009) — Genetic discontinuity between local hunter-gatherers and central Europe's first farmers. Science 326(5949), 137–140.
- Malyarchuk et al. (2010) — The peopling of Europe from the mitochondrial haplogroup U5 perspective. PLOS ONE 5(4), e10285.