Home > Technical section > Biology > Molecular biology > Population genetics > By geographic areas > Europe > Iberian refugium
Iberian refugium
Wednesday 28 September 2005
Haplogroup H is by far the most common European haplogroup, which at lower resolution displayed a rather uninformative frequency distribution within Europe. mtDNA haplogroup H in observed throughout Europe, the Caucasus, and the Near East. Haplogroup H entered Europe from the Near East approximately 20,000-25,000 years ago, around the time of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM).
Some sub-clades of Haplogroup H re-expanded from an Iberian refugium when the glaciers retreated approximately 15,000 years ago.
A large fraction of the maternal ancestry of modern Europeans traces back to the expansion of hunter-gatherer populations at the end of the last Ice Age from glaciation refugiums.
References
Pereira L, Richards M, Goios A, Alonso A, Albarran C, Garcia O, Behar DM, Golge M, Hatina J, Al-Gazali L, Bradley DG, Macaulay V, Amorim A. High-resolution mtDNA evidence for the late-glacial resettlement of Europe from an Iberian refugium. Genome Res. 2005 Jan;15(1):19-24. PMID: 15632086
Torroni A, Bandelt HJ, Macaulay V, Richards M, Cruciani F, Rengo C, Martinez-Cabrera V, Villems R, Kivisild T, Metspalu E, Parik J, Tolk HV, Tambets K, Forster P, Karger B, Francalacci P, Rudan P, Janicijevic B, Rickards O, Savontaus ML, Huoponen K, Laitinen V, Koivumaki S, Sykes B, Hickey E, Novelletto A, Moral P, Sellitto D, Coppa A, Al-Zaheri N, Santachiara-Benerecetti AS, Semino O, Scozzari R. A signal, from human mtDNA, of postglacial recolonization in Europe. Am J Hum Genet. 2001 Oct;69(4):844-52. PMID: 11517423
