Internal Diversification of Mitochondrial Haplogroup R0a Reveals Post-Last Glacial Maximum Demographic Expansions in South Arabia

Abstract

Widespread interest in the first successful Out of Africa dispersal of modern humans ∼60-80 thousand years ago via a southern migration route has overshadowed the study of later periods of South Arabian prehistory. In this work, we show that the post-Last Glacial Maximum period of the past 20,000 years, during which climatic conditions were becoming more hospitable, has been a significant time in the formation of the extant genetic composition and population structure of this region. This conclusion is supported by the internal diversification displayed in the highly resolved phylogenetic tree of 89 whole mitochondrial genomes (71 being newly presented here) for haplogroup R0a-the most frequent and widespread haplogroup in Arabia. Additionally, two geographically specific clades (R0a1a1a and R0a2f1) have been identified in non-Arabic speaking peoples such as the Soqotri and Mahri living in the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula where a past refugium was identified by independent archaeological studies. Estimates of time to the most recent common ancestor of these lineages match the earliest archaeological evidence for seafaring activity in the peninsula in the sixth millennium BC.

Genetic structure of theKuwaiti population revealed by paternal lineages

“…The Southern Arabian Peninsula has been proposed to be the place of origin of haplogroup J. In fact, the distribution of this haplogroup agrees with the first major expansions proposed from GM marker analysis (Chaabani, 2002) and that of mtDNA haplogroup R0a (Cerny et al, 2011) providing evidence for its deep genetic root in Southern Arabia (Chaabani et al, 2000).…”

West Eurasian mtDNA lineages in India: an insight into the spread of the Dravidian language and the origins of the caste system

“…Surprisingly, we have detected the R0a2 lineages in Brahmin populations from northern India-Uttar Pradesh (supplementary table S1) which clustered phylogenetically with Iranian and Somalian samples (Cerný et al 2011;Derenko et al 2013). We detected eight lineages of haplogroup V in north Indian (Uttar Pradesh) Brahmin population and all were found to carry similar haplotypes, suggesting a possible founder event in recent times.…”

Genetic Differentiation and Origin of the Jordanian Population: An Analysis ofAluInsertion Polymorphisms

“…They were first proposed in an evolutionary analysis of GM and immunoglobulin Cc gene haplotypes (Chaabani, 2002). They are consistent with more recent genetic results such as (1) the distribution of the Y-chromosome J1-M267 haplogroup that reveals a decreasing frequency moving from southern Arabia (72.6%) to the north toward ancient Mesopotamia (58.3% in Qatar and 34.8% in UAE), and to North Africa (35.0% in Algeria and 30.1% in Tunisia) (Cadenas et al, 2007); (2) the distribution of the Y-chromosome haplogroup JIc3 (P58), formerly J1e, which is most frequent in Yemen-Saudi (65%) and less frequent toward the north in ancient Mesopotamian countries such as Syria (30%), Lebanon (25%), or in a second direction toward sub-Saharan Africa such as Ethiopia (33.3%) for spreading later to North Africa (as identified by the motif DNA analysis that showed a highest frequency of the haplogroup R0a on Yemen to decrease in all directions, particularly in the two major directions toward the north of the Arabian peninsula and toward Africa via Bab el-Mandab (Cerny et al, 2011). Additionally in this latest study, the date of these ancient people movements is estimated with the involvement of archaeological and paleoclimatic data from about 20,000 years ago.…”