Europe

 Phylogenetic and diversity analysis of the mtDNA control region sequence variation of individuals from Europe and the Middle East distinguishes five major lineage groups with different internal diversities and divergence times. (8659525)

 Consideration of the diversities and geographic distribution of these groups within Europe and the Middle East leads to the conclusion that ancestors of the great majority of modern, extant lineages entered Europe during the Upper Paleolithic. (8659525)

 A further set of lineages arrived from the Middle East much later, and their age and geographic distribution within Europe correlates well with archaeological evidence for two culturally and geographically distinct Neolithic colonization events that are associated with the spread of agriculture. (8659525)

 It follows from this interpretation that the major extant lineages throughout Europe predate the Neolithic expansion and that the spread of agriculture was a substantially indigenous development accompanied by only a relatively minor component of contemporary Middle Eastern agriculturalists. (8659525)

 There is no evidence of any surviving Neanderthal lineages among modern Europeans. (8659525)

 Haplogroup H is distributed throughout the entire range of Caucasoid populations and which originated in the Near East approximately 25,000-30,000 years ago, also took part in this expansion, thus rendering it by far the most frequent (40%-60%) haplogroup in western Europe.

 A major Paleolithic population expansion from the "Atlantic zone" (southwestern Europe) occurred 10,000-15,000 years ago, after the Last Glacial Maximum.

 A mtDNA marker for this expansion is Haplogroup V, an autochthonous European haplogroup, which most likely originated in the northern Iberian peninsula or southwestern France at about the time of the Younger Dryas.

 Subsequent migrations after the Younger Dryas eventually carried those "Atlantic" mtDNAs into central and northern Europe. This scenario, already implied by archaeological records, is given overwhelming support from both the distribution of the autochthonous European Y chromosome type 15, as detected by the probes 49a/f, and the synthetic maps of nuclear data.

 Clinal patterns of autosomal genetic diversity within Europe have been interpreted in previous studies in terms of a Neolithic demic diffusion model for the spread of agriculture. In contrast, studies using mtDNA have traced many founding lineages to the Paleolithic and have not shown strongly clinal variation. (11078479)

 Y-chromosomal biallelic polymorphisms show significant clines for five of six haplogroups analyzed. Clines for two haplogroups, representing 45% of the chromosomes, are continentwide and consistent with the demic diffusion hypothesis. Clines for three other haplogroups each have different foci and are more regionally restricted and are likely to reflect distinct population movements, including one from north of the Black Sea. (11078479)

 Populations are related primarily on the basis of geography, rather than on the basis of linguistic affinity. (11078479)

 Mantel tests show a strong and highly significant partial correlation between genetics and geography but a low, nonsignificant partial correlation between genetics and language. (11078479)

 Genetic-barrier analysis also indicates the primacy of geography in the shaping of patterns of variation. These patterns retain a strong signal of expansion from the Near East but also suggest that the demographic history of Europe has been complex and influenced by other major population movements, as well as by linguistic and geographic heterogeneities and the effects of drift. (11078479)

 Two Paleolithic and one Neolithic migratory episode could have contributed to the modern European gene pool. (11073453)

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