Over the sands and far away: Interpreting an Iberian mitochondrial lineage with ancient Western African origins

Abstract

Results are concordant with a previously proposed Neolithic connection between Southern Europe and Western Africa, which might be key to the proper understanding of the ancient links between these two continents.

A western route of prehistoric human migration from Africa into the Iberian Peninsula

“…An alternative possibility is that gene flow may have occurred even earlier in Southern Iberia from a population with Sub-Saharan African [9,46,47]. This hypothesis implies the existence of some north-south genetic structure in pre-Neolithic Iberia, with hunter-gatherers from the south showing a stronger resemblance with sub-Saharan Africans, and it would account for all findings of the present study, as well as for those of previous studies of modern DNA [1,7]. However, to safely discriminate between the two hypotheses, we would need Mesolithic samples from southern Spain, which are at present unavailable.…”

“…However, analyses of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and Y chromosomes in modern individuals suggest a much older admixture event, possibly dated around 10 000 -8000 years before present (yBP), [4][5][6]. One of the strongest pieces of evidence is the existence of mitochondrial haplotypes belonging to the sub-Saharan L macro-haplogroup that form European-specific subclades, suggesting they have evolved locally in Europe [5][6][7].…”

Carriers of mitochondrial DNA macrohaplogroup L3 basic lineages migrated back to Africa from Asia around 70,000 years ago

“…Indeed, this is the case, for instance, for the L3d1b3 (Go764) sequence from La Gomera island that shares tip transitions 14040 and 16256 with an Ovimbundu isolate (KJ185837) from Angola [70]. However, unexpectedly, there are Canarian sequences as TF0005, allocated into the L3f1b subclade, that has its closest relatives in the Iberian Peninsula, sharing the 8994 transition with two Asturian L3f1b sequences (KJ959229, KJ959230) [71]. Similar is the case of the L3x2 (TF116) sequence from Tenerife that shares all its terminal variants(650, 7933, 8158, 15519, 16261) with sequences from Galicia (HQ675033, JN214446) and Andalusia (KT819228) instead of African sequences.…”

Paleogenetics of Northern Iberian from Neolithic to Chalcolithic Time

“…The Bronze Age period is represented by three groups from Siberia, Kazakhstan, and Romania [10,53,54]. The present-day populations database corresponds to that described in [10], to which the present-day population of Asturias, where El Aramo Mine is located, has been added [55,56].…”