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Despite its key location for population movements out of and back into Africa, Yemen has not yet been sampled on a regional level for an investigation of sub-Saharan, West Eurasian, and South Asian genetic contributions. In this study, we present mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) data for regionally distinct Yemeni populations that reveal different distributions of mtDNA lineages. An extensive database of mtDNA sequences from North and East African, Middle Eastern and Indian populations was analyzed to provide a context for the regional Yemeni mtDNA datasets. The groups of western Yemen appear to be most closely related to Middle Eastern and North African populations, while the eastern Yemeni population from Hadramawt is most closely related to East Africa. Furthermore, haplotype matches with Africa are almost exclusively confined to West Eurasian R0a haplogroup in southwestern Yemen, although more sub-Saharan L-type matches appear in more northern Yemeni populations. In fact, Yemeni populations have the highest frequency of R0a haplotypes detected to date, thus Yemen or southern Arabia may be the site of the initial expansion of this haplogroup. Whereas two variants of the sub-Saharan haplogroup M1 were detected only in southwestern Yemen close to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, different non-African M haplotypes were detected at low frequencies (approximately 2%) in western parts of the country and at a higher frequency (7.5%) in the Hadramawt. We conclude that the Yemeni gene pool is highly stratified both regionally and temporally and that it has received West Eurasian, Northeast African, and South Asian gene flow.

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Maritime trade in the Arabian Gulf connected Mesopotamia u d h societies in the Gulfand with the Indus d u r i q the Bronze Age. This article explores the Gulftrade in light of shifiing consumption patterns and of various political forces at work within and between regions, in order to define the socioeconomic place of the trade in center-periphery relations. Through time the consumption ofcertain commodities, notably copper andgrain, became deepb embedded in the changing political economies oJ'Mesopotamian and Gulfsocieties, and the trade formed a basic economic dimension of center-periphery relations in western Asia. A t the same time, other,forces-polilical, military, and cullural-conjgured center-periphery relations in western Asia as deepb as the economic ones, and provided the context within which lhe trade occurred. Using lhe Gulftrade as an example, the article ofleers a framework for considerin

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