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Interpolation maps for U6 haplogroup. (A) Map representing the centroids of sampling locations used for the spatial smoothing analyses of haplogroup frequencies (based on HV-I data sets). The resulting frequency maps are shown for U6 (B), U6a (C) and U6bd (D).
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The archaeology of North Africa remains enigmatic, with questions of population continuity versus discontinuity taking centre-stage. Debates have focused on population transitions between the bearers of the Middle Palaeolithic Aterian industry and the later Upper Palaeolithic populations of the Maghreb, as well as between the late Pleistocene and H...
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... display the geographic distribution of the frequen- cies of U6 and its major sub-clades across Europe, North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and the Near East using HV-I data. Figure 1 confirms that U6a occurs most frequently in the west of North Africa, with two main peaks in Mauritania and Mozabites, most probably due to genetic drift, which is especially strong in the lat- ter. U6bd (mostly likely U6b, since U6 d is very rare and cannot be distinguished from U6b on the basis of HV-I diversity) is restricted to the Canary Islands and to a few instances in North Iberia. ...Similar publications
The most common cause of the monogenic form of Parkinson’s disease known so far is the G2019S mutation of the leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2) gene. Its frequency varies greatly among ethnic groups and geographic regions ranging from less than 0.1% in Asia to 40% in North Africa. This mutation has three distinct haplotypes; haplotype 1 being th...
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... Some of the first radiocarbon dates placed the indigenous settlement of the Canary Islands back to late Neolithic times, which agreed with their cultural level 35 and with the first coalescent age estimations obtained for the Canary islands mtDNA autochthonous lineages U6b1a and U6c1a around 5000 ya 36,37 . However, those old radiocarbon dates have recently been reconsidered due to the inappropriate material used. ...
Numerous genetic studies have contributed to reconstructing the human history of the Canary Islands population. The recent use of new ancient DNA targeted enrichment and next-generation sequencing techniques on new Canary Islands samples have greatly improved these molecular results. However, the bulk of the available data is still provided by the classic mitochondrial DNA phylogenetic and phylogeographic studies carried out on the indigenous, historical, and extant human populations of the Canary Islands. In the present study, making use of all the accumulated mitochondrial information, the existence of DNA contamination and archaeological sample misidentification in those samples is evidenced. Following a thorough review of these cases, the new phylogeographic analysis revealed the existence of a heterogeneous indigenous Canarian population, asymmetrically distributed across the various islands, which most likely descended from a unique mainland settlement. These new results and new proposed coalescent ages are compatible with a Roman-mediated arrival driven by the exploitation of the purple dye manufacture in the Canary Islands.
... The resulting molecular date was estimated at 33,533 years BP (95% highest posterior Figure 6A). Haplogroup U6 is most commonly observed in Northern Africa in present-day humans, 70,71 and has previously only been observed in Palaeolithic Europe in the specimens from the site of Pes xtera Muierii in Romania ($34,000 years old). 9,72,73 Similar to the Muierii 1 and 2 mtDNA genomes, which were subsequently determined to belong to the same individual, 73 the Borsuka mtDNA genome is basal to the U6 haplogroup, sharing the 3348G, 10517A, and 16172C positions. ...
Six infant human teeth and 112 animal tooth pendants from Borsuka Cave were identified as the oldest burial in Poland. However, uncertainties around the dating and the association of the teeth to the pendants have precluded their association with an Upper Palaeolithic archaeological industry. Using <67 mg per tooth, we combined dating and genetic analyses of two human teeth and six herbivore tooth pendants to address these questions. Our interdisciplinary approach yielded informative results despite limited sampling material, and high levels of degradation and contamination. Our results confirm the Palaeolithic origin of the human remains and herbivore pendants, and permit us to identify the infant as female and discuss the association of the assemblage with different Palaeolithic industries. This study exemplifies the progress that has been made toward minimally destructive methods and the benefits of integrating methods to maximize data retrieval from precious but highly degraded and contaminated prehistoric material.
... Besides providing a detailed phylogenetic classification as well as the detection of previously overlooked patterns, the study of mitogenomes reveals further insights into the role of natural selection in recent human evolution and the exploration of demographic histories. Usually, these efforts have not been focused on the global mtDNA pool but on the dissection of specific mitochondrial lineages [48,50,66,[81][82][83][84][85][86][87][88]. ...
Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is a small fraction of our hereditary material. However, this molecule has had an overwhelming presence in scientific research for decades until the arrival of high-throughput studies. Several appealing properties justify the application of mtDNA to understand how human populations are-from a genetic perspective-and how individuals exhibit phenotypes of biomedical importance. Here, I review the basics of mitochondrial studies with a focus on the dawn of the field, analysis methods and the connection between two sides of mitochondrial genetics: anthropological and biomedical. The particularities of mtDNA, with respect to inheritance pattern, evolutionary rate and dependence on the nuclear genome, explain the challenges of associating mtDNA composition and diseases. Finally, I consider the relevance of this single locus in the context of omics research. The present work may serve as a tribute to a tool that has provided important insights into the past and present of humankind.
... The period between 11,000 and 5,000 BP was associated with a substantial rise in human population density in the northern Subtropical Zone (as evidenced by both archaeological and genetic data: Kuper & Kröpelin, 2006;Powell et al., 2009;Pereira et al. 2010;Zheng et al. 2012), much of it associated with cattle pastoralism (Manning & Timpson, 2014). Very similar conditions prevailed in the Ganges Plain in northern India (Staubwasser et al., 2003) and in the central regions of China . ...
... Very similar conditions prevailed in the Ganges Plain in northern India (Staubwasser et al., 2003) and in the central regions of China . Figure 2 (solid line) plots the population growth over time in the eastern Mediterranean, as determined from coalescence models for mtDNA haplogroups associated with a hunter-gatherer lifestyle: the population began to increase from the beginning of the Humid Period, some four thousand years before the first evidence for substantive agriculture (double square symbol, dated to 7,800 BP) (for similar results for North Africa as a whole, see Pereira et al., 2010). In contrast, the huntergather populations of sub-Saharan Africa (represented here San populations from the southern Subtropical Zone: dotted line) remained extremely stable into modern times. ...
Doctrinal religions that involve recognised gods, more formal theologies, moral codes, dedicated religious spaces and professional priesthoods emerged in two phases during the Neolithic. Almost all of these appeared in a narrow latitudinal band (the northern Subtropical Zone). I suggest that these developments were the result of a need to facilitate community bonding in response to scalar stresses that developed as community sizes increased dramatically beyond those typical of hunter-gatherer societies. Conditions for population growth (as indexed by rainfall patterns and the difference between pathogen load and the length of the growing season) were uniquely optimised in this zone, creating an environment of ecological release in which populations could grow unusually rapidly. The relationship between latitude, religion and language in contemporary societies suggests that the peculiar characteristics of the northern (but not the southern) Subtropical Zone were especially favourable for the evolution of large scale religions as a way of enforcing community cohesion.
... E-M81 (E1b1b1b1a), dating to ~ 2.8 ka (YFull, v.6.06.15), has been retrieved from early Islamic remains (seventh-eighth century CE) in southern France 38 , whereas the more derived E1b1b1b1a1 has been found in two individuals from an Islamic necropolis in the city of Valencia, dating to twelfth-thirteenth century CE 6 . E-M81 is today predominantly found in the Maghreb (where its average frequency is > 40%) and peaks in modern Berber populations, with frequencies reaching > 80% [39][40][41] , being almost fixed in some groups, such as the southern Moroccan Tachlhitspeakers 42 and the Chenini-Douiret and Jradou from Tunisia 40 . In Europe, it is found mostly in Iberia and Sicily at frequencies < 5% 43 . ...
Historical records document medieval immigration from North Africa to Iberia to create Islamic al-Andalus. Here, we present a low-coverage genome of an eleventh century CE man buried in an Islamic necropolis in Segorbe, near Valencia, Spain. Uniparental lineages indicate North African ancestry, but at the autosomal level he displays a mosaic of North African and European-like ancestries, distinct from any present-day population. Altogether, the genome-wide evidence, stable isotope results and the age of the burial indicate that his ancestry was ultimately a result of admixture between recently arrived Amazigh people (Berbers) and the population inhabiting the Peninsula prior to the Islamic conquest. We detect differences between our sample and a previously published group of contemporary individuals from Valencia, exemplifying how detailed, small-scale aDNA studies can illuminate fine-grained regional …
... For details, see Fig. 2. These haplogroups were also reported in many other studies (Pereira et al., 2010). ...
Ancient human DNA has various applications in molecular evolution and studies the genetic relationship between the archaic human population and the modern human population. Many ancient human remains are stored in the archeological museum and can be used for DNA sequence analysis. The current study was ever first attempt in Pakistan to use old biological specimens for molecular characterization to trace the population of Chitral district in KP Pakistan. Due to the low quantity and quality of ancient DNA, it is challenging to isolate DNA profiles from ancient human samples. A protocol was optimized for the extraction of degraded DNA from the ancient human bone's specimens. Different Bioinformatics analyses like online servers, Mitomastar and James lick, Phylogenetic Tree, and Genetic Diversity were used for the molecular characterization of the Chitrali population. Our results show that the Ancient Chitrali population has admixture with Europeans and Neolithic European populations.
... Since the end of the ninth century the North African coastline has been occupied respectively by the Phoenicians, Romans, Vandals and Byzantines, their contribution to Berbers, the natives of North Africa, seems to have been limited (Brett and Fentress 1996).This small demographic contribution of these foreigners would be due to the fact that (1) intermarriages would have been rare because Berbers belonged to a tribal endogamous system and often they were in continuous rejection of the domination of these arrivals, who themselves avoided inter-marriage because of their feeling of superiority as invaders and (2) In recent years, several studies using classical markers (blood types, serum proteins, etc.) were conducted to explore the genetic history of North African populations (e.g., Cox 1988, Bosch et al. 1997;Lefevre-Witier et al. 2006;Coudray et al. 2006;Aouar et al. 2012;Ben Halima et al. 2015). Many other studies were carried out using different molecular markers STR, SNP, mtDNA, Chromosome Y, Chromosome X, etc.) (e.g., Chaabani et al. 1989;Arnaiz-Villena et al. 1995;Côrte -Real et al. 1996 ;Ivanova et al. 1999;Macaulay et al. 1999;Bosch et al. 2000 ;Comas et al. 2000 ;Plaza et al. 2003;Arredi et al. 2004;Bahri et al. 2008Bahri et al. , 2014Robino et al. 2008;Vermeulen et al. 2009;Bekada et al. 2010Bekada et al. , 2013Bekada et al. , 2015El Moncer et al. 2010;González-Pérez et al. 2010 ;Pereira et al. 2010;Henn et al. 2012;Ben Halima et al. 2014;Triki-Fendri et al. 2013, 2015Amir et al. 2015 ;Solé-Morata et al. 2017;Badache et al. 2019). ...
This article aims to take stock of knowledge on the history of the human settlement of North Africa and the genetic history of Algerians within North African populations by gathering the most important published results related to HLA allele analysis. These results revealed a strong genetic relationship between studied North African populations (Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia). Such evident genetic affinity between North African populations, also proved by the use of other powerful autosomal markers, agrees with historic data considering North African populations as having similar origins. HLA allele analysis also indicated a genetic link between North African populations (Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco) and the populations of the South-Western Europe particularly the Basques and Spaniards. This would reflect a Neolithic relationship between Iberians and the natives of North Africa (the Berbers). However, other results showed a genetic distinction between samples from North African populations and Middle Eastern populations (Arab-Palestinians, Lebanese’s and Jordanians). Beside these results related to Mediterranean populations, the HLA allele variation was analyzed at the world scale showing low genetic differentiations among the three broad continental areas, with no special divergence of Africa. Keywords: Genetic diversity; Molecular Anthropology; Genetic History; HLA genes; North Africa; Algeria
... Being phylogenetically independent from nuclear DNA, mtDNA is particularly valuable when studying complex demographic events, such as sexually biased migrations and unilateral population structuring 52,53 . A growing number of mitogenomic studies prove the effectiveness of this approach, especially when analysis focuses on a specific subclade [54][55][56][57] . Given the underrepresentation of most Near Eastern populations in genomic studies, the relative wealth of full mitogenome data provides a great opportunity to study the complex and long history of human dispersal in Near East. ...
Of particular significance to human population history in Eurasia are the migratory events that connected the Near East to Europe after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Utilizing 315 HV*(xH,V) mitogenomes, including 27 contemporary lineages first reported here, we found the genetic signatures for distinctive movements out of the Near East and South Caucasus both westward into Europe and eastward into South Asia. The parallel phylogeographies of rare, yet widely distributed HV*(xH,V) subclades reveal a connection between the Italian Peninsula and South Caucasus, resulting from at least two (post-LGM, Neolithic) waves of migration. Many of these subclades originated in a population ancestral to contemporary Armenians and Assyrians. One such subclade, HV1b-152, supports a postexilic, northern Mesopotamian origin for the Ashkenazi HV1b2 lineages. In agreement with ancient DNA findings, our phylogenetic analysis of HV12 and HV14, the two exclusively Asian subclades of HV*(xH,V), point to the migration of lineages originating in Iran to South Asia before and during the Neolithic period. With HV12 being one of the oldest HV subclades, our results support an origin of HV haplogroup in the region defined by Western Iran, Mesopotamia, and the South Caucasus, where the highest prevalence of HV has been found.
... The Western Asia, encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Near East and Caucasus, was thus the main cradle for the non-African pool , and in the context of the Mediterranean Basin, the common origin of all its populations. This is even true for North Africa, which despite being inhabited by modern humans at the very dawn of their existence (huBlin et al., 2017), had settlement discontinuation as evidenced by archaeological and genetic data (BouZouggar et al., 2008;Pereira et al., 2010). The extant North African populations are genetically closer to Western Asian and Southern European populations, sharing the same origin in the Near East around 45 KYA (olivieri et al., 2006), as illustrated by the sister mtDNA haplogroups U5 (European) and U6 (North African) (riChardS et al., 2000). ...
A estas alturas del siglo XXI el impacto del cambio climático es evidente y muy preocupante. En lo que se refiere a los efectos en el mar, estos son difíciles de establecer porque el ambiente marino nos es todavía poco conocido, y las características físicas, los equilibrios químicos y las respuestas biológicas de los océanos se extienden desde la superficie al fondo y por un medio que tiene una inercia notable. Asimismo, apenas conocemos la dinámica de fenómenos a macroescala oceánica, o el funcionamiento de áreas no suficientemente estudiadas hasta ahora, como el océano Austral. Por si fuera poco, hay sinergias con otros impactos antrópicos, desde la contaminación y la invasión de especies alóctonas a la sobrepesca. Sin embargo, ya hay suficientes indicios y certezas de que el impacto del cambio climático se deja sentir en el mar y de que los efectos son aún más variados, globales y preocupantes de lo que se preveía. Además de los informes que elabora el Panel Intergubernamental sobre el Cambio Climático (IPCC) a escala global, en el Mediterráneo occidental ya son varios los estudios que tratan de esta cuestión, dentro de informes más amplios o centrados en el impacto sobre el paisaje marino y costero. Se pasará una breve revista a estos efectos, tanto al nivel oceánico global como en el Mediterráneo, y en particular en las costas catalanas, muchos de los cuales se han recogido en el Tercer Informe sobre el Canvi Climàtic a Catalunya (Martín-Vide, 2016)
... The Western Asia, encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Near East and Caucasus, was thus the main cradle for the non-African pool , and in the context of the Mediterranean Basin, the common origin of all its populations. This is even true for North Africa, which despite being inhabited by modern humans at the very dawn of their existence (huBlin et al., 2017), had settlement discontinuation as evidenced by archaeological and genetic data (BouZouggar et al., 2008;Pereira et al., 2010). The extant North African populations are genetically closer to Western Asian and Southern European populations, sharing the same origin in the Near East around 45 KYA (olivieri et al., 2006), as illustrated by the sister mtDNA haplogroups U5 (European) and U6 (North African) (riChardS et al., 2000). ...
The Mediterranean is globally considered an oligotrophic sea. However, there are some places or certain seasons in which mechanisms that enhance fertility may occur. These mechanisms, and related processes, are especially relevant in maintaining fish populations when they take place during the period of larval development. This contribution analyzes how environmental conditions occurring in the NW Mediterranean, at local and seasonal scales, determine the temporal and spatial patterns of fish reproductive activity in the region. The structure of the bathymetry, diversity of adult fish habitats and hydrodynamic mechanisms conditioning the primary production of the region (e.g., shelf-slope density front and associated current, continental water inflows, winter mixing, stratification of the water column) determine the location of spawning and the distribution patterns of fish eggs and larvae. A pronounced seasonal variability regarding both the number of species and the number of fish larvae in the plankton can be observed throughout the year. Most NW Mediterranean fish reproduce during the spring–summer stratification period, when the phytoplankton biomass values at the upper layers of the water column are lower than in winter. The development of the Deep Chlorophyll Maximum in this period and the high zooplankton biomass associated to it offers an important food source for the larvae. Additionally, during this period the inputs of continental waters are one of the fertilization mechanisms of surface waters and some species, as anchovy, takes advantage of this situation. Autumn–winter is the period with lower ichthyoplankton diversity, being dominated by sardine. Vertical mixing during winter is one of the mechanisms that enhance productivity. Overall, fish species show reproductive strategies and larval fish behavior that allow them to take advantage of the available resources throughout the seasonal cycle. These strategies, together with the high ecological efficiency of oligotrophic systems, contribute to the relatively high yield of Mediterranean fisheries. In a context of global change, understanding of the mechanisms relating environmental changes to the extent of spatial and temporal location of suitable spawning habitats of fish is a key first step to predicting and projecting such future changes, and thereby adapting to these changes.
