Copyright � 2008 The American Society of Human Genetics. All rights reserved.
The American Journal of Human Genetics, 24 April 2008

doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2008.04.002

The Dawn of Human Matrilineal Diversity

Doron M. Behar1, 13, Richard Villems2, 13, Himla Soodyall3, Jason Blue-Smith4, Luisa Pereira5, 6, Ene Metspalu2, Rosaria Scozzari7, Heeran Makkan3, Shay Tzur1, David Comas8, Jaume Bertranpetit8, Lluis Quintana-Murci9, Chris Tyler-Smith10, R. Spencer Wells4, Saharon Rosset11, 12, The Genographic Consortium14

1 Molecular Medicine Laboratory, Rambam Health Care Campus, Haifa 31096, Israel
2 Department of Evolutionary Biology, University of Tartu and Estonian Biocentre, Tartu 51010, Estonia
3 School of Pathology, Division of Human Genetics, National Health Laboratory Service and University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2000, South Africa
4 Mission Programs, National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C. 20036, USA
5 Instituto de Patologia e Imunologia Molecular da Universidade do Porto, Porto 4200-465, Portugal
6 Medical Faculty, University of Porto, Porto 4200-319, Portugal
7 Dipartimento di Genetica e Biologia Molecolare, Sapienza Universit� di Roma, Rome 00185, Italy
8 Evolutionary Biology Unit, Department of Experimental and Health Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona 08003, Catalonia, Spain
9 Unit of Human Evolutionary Genetics, CNRS URA3012, Institut Pasteur, Paris 75724, France
10 The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambs CB10 1SA, UK
11 Data Analytics Research Group, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, USA
12 Department of Statistics and Operations Research, School of Mathematical Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel
13 These authors contributed equally to this work.
14 See Acknowledgments.

Abstract
The quest to explain demographic history during the early part of human evolution has been limited because of the scarce paleoanthropological record from the Middle Stone Age. To shed light on the structure of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) phylogeny at the dawn of Homo sapiens, we constructed a matrilineal tree composed of 624 complete mtDNA genomes from sub-Saharan Hg L lineages. We paid particular attention to the Khoi and San (Khoisan) people of South Africa because they are considered to be a unique relic of hunter-gatherer lifestyle and to carry paternal and maternal lineages belonging to the deepest clades known among modern humans. Both the tree phylogeny and coalescence calculations suggest that Khoisan matrilineal ancestry diverged from the rest of the human mtDNA pool 90,000-150,000 years before present (ybp) and that at least five additional, currently extant maternal lineages existed during this period in parallel. Furthermore, we estimate that a minimum of 40 other evolutionarily successful lineages flourished in sub-Saharan Africa during the period of modern human dispersal out of Africa approximately 60,000-70,000 ybp. Only much later, at the beginning of the Late Stone Age, about 40,000 ybp, did introgression of additional lineages occur into the Khoisan mtDNA pool. This process was further accelerated during the recent Bantu expansions. Our results suggest that the early settlement of humans in Africa was already matrilineally structured and involved small, separately evolving isolated populations.

Introduction
Current genetic data support the hypothesis of a predominantly single origin for anatomically modern humans. The phylogeny of the maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) has played a pivotal role in this model by anchoring our most recent maternal common ancestor to sub-Saharan Africa and suggesting a single dispersal wave out of that continent which populated the rest of the world much later. However, despite its importance as the cradle of humanity and the main location of anatomically modern humans for most of their existence, the initial Homo sapiens population dynamics and dispersal routes remain poorly understood. The potential to use present-day genetic patterns to detect the existence, or lack thereof, of matrilineal genetic structure among early Homo sapiens populations in sub-Saharan Africa is therefore of particular interest.
The human mtDNA phylogeny can be collapsed into two daughter branches, L0 and L1'2'3'4'5'6 (L1'5), located on opposite sides of its root (Figure 1). The L1'5 branch is far more widespread and has given rise to almost every mtDNA lineage found today, with two clades on this branch, (L3)M and (L3)N, forming the bulk of worldwide non-African genetic diversity and marking the out-of-Africa dispersal 50,000-65,000 years before present (ybp) (Figure 1). Current models, predating the recognition of L0 as sister to L1'5, suggest that the contemporary sub-Saharan mtDNA gene pool is the result of an early expansion of modern humans from their homeland, often suggested to be East Africa, to most of the African continent by exclusively L1 Hg clades, before being overwhelmed by a later expansion wave of L2 and L3 clades dated to 60,000-80,000 ybp. A more recent geographically restricted enrichment of the African maternal gene pool was shown to have occurred during the early Upper Paleolithic, when populations carrying mtDNA clades M1 and U6 arrived to north and northeast Africa from Eurasia, hardly penetrating the sub-Saharan portion of the continent, except Ethiopia. Therefore, the current sub-Saharan mtDNA gene pool is overwhelmingly a rich mix of L0 and L1'5 clades, found at varying frequencies throughout the continent.

Source: The American Journal of Human Genetics (AJHG) [Open Access Paper]http://www.ajhg.org/AJHG/fulltext/S0002-9297(08)00255-3?large_figure=...

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek [Thanks John Roth]

On Apr 26, 10:32�pm, "Robert Karl Stonjek" <ston...@ozemail.com.au
wrote:





Copyright � 2008 The American Society of Human Genetics. All rights reserved.
The American Journal of Human Genetics, 24 April 2008

doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2008.04.002

The Dawn of Human Matrilineal Diversity

Doron M. Behar1, 13, Richard Villems2, 13, Himla Soodyall3, Jason Blue-Smith4, Luisa Pereira5, 6, Ene Metspalu2, Rosaria Scozzari7, Heeran Makkan3, Shay Tzur1, David Comas8, Jaume Bertranpetit8, Lluis Quintana-Murci9, Chris Tyler-Smith10, R. Spencer Wells4, Saharon Rosset11, 12, The Genographic Consortium14

1 Molecular Medicine Laboratory, Rambam Health Care Campus, Haifa 31096, Israel
2 Department of Evolutionary Biology, University of Tartu and Estonian Biocentre, Tartu 51010, Estonia
3 School of Pathology, Division of Human Genetics, National Health Laboratory Service and University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2000, South Africa
4 Mission Programs, National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C. 20036, USA
5 Instituto de Patologia e Imunologia Molecular da Universidade do Porto, Porto 4200-465, Portugal
6 Medical Faculty, University of Porto, Porto 4200-319, Portugal
7 Dipartimento di Genetica e Biologia Molecolare, Sapienza Universit� di Roma, Rome 00185, Italy
8 Evolutionary Biology Unit, Department of Experimental and Health Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona 08003, Catalonia, Spain
9 Unit of Human Evolutionary Genetics, CNRS URA3012, Institut Pasteur, Paris 75724, France
10 The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambs CB10 1SA, UK
11 Data Analytics Research Group, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, USA
12 Department of Statistics and Operations Research, School of Mathematical Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel
13 These authors contributed equally to this work.
14 See Acknowledgments.

Abstract
The quest to explain demographic history during the early part of human evolution has been limited because of the scarce paleoanthropological record from the Middle Stone Age. To shed light on the structure of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) phylogeny at the dawn of Homo sapiens, we constructed a matrilineal tree composed of 624 complete mtDNA genomes from sub-Saharan Hg L lineages. We paid particular attention to the Khoi and San (Khoisan) people of South Africa because they are considered to be a unique relic of hunter-gatherer lifestyle and to carry paternal and maternal lineages belonging to the deepest clades known among modern humans. Both the tree phylogeny and coalescence calculations suggest that Khoisan matrilineal ancestry diverged from the rest of the human mtDNA pool 90,000-150,000 years before present (ybp) and that at least five additional, currently extant maternal lineages existed during this period in parallel. Furthermore, we estimate that a minimum of 40 other evolutionarily successful lineages flourished in sub-Saharan Africa during the period of modern human dispersal out of Africa approximately 60,000-70,000 ybp. Only much later, at the beginning of the Late Stone Age, about 40,000 ybp, did introgression of additional lineages occur into the Khoisan mtDNA pool. This process was further accelerated during the recent Bantu expansions. Our results suggest that the early settlement of humans in Africa was already matrilineally structured and involved small, separately evolving isolated populations.

Introduction
Current genetic data support the hypothesis of a predominantly single origin for anatomically modern humans. The phylogeny of the maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) has played a pivotal role in this model by anchoring our most recent maternal common ancestor to sub-Saharan Africa and suggesting a single dispersal wave out of that continent which populated the rest of the world much later. However, despite its importance as the cradle of humanity and the main location of anatomically modern humans for most of their existence, the initial Homo sapiens population dynamics and dispersal routes remain poorly understood. The potential to use present-day genetic patterns to detect the existence, or lack thereof, of matrilineal genetic structure among early Homo sapiens populations in sub-Saharan Africa is therefore of particular interest.
The human mtDNA phylogeny can be collapsed into two daughter branches, L0 and L1'2'3'4'5'6 (L1'5), located on opposite sides of its root (Figure 1). The L1'5 branch is far more widespread and has given rise to almost every mtDNA lineage found today, with two clades on this branch, (L3)M and (L3)N, forming the bulk of worldwide non-African genetic diversity and marking the out-of-Africa dispersal 50,000-65,000 years before present (ybp) (Figure 1). Current models, predating the recognition of L0 as sister to L1'5, suggest that the contemporary sub-Saharan mtDNA gene pool is the result of an early expansion of modern humans from their homeland, often suggested to be East Africa, to most of the African continent by exclusively L1 Hg clades, before being overwhelmed by a later expansion wave of L2 and L3 clades dated to 60,000-80,000 ybp. A more recent geographically restricted enrichment of the African maternal gene pool was shown to have occurred during the early Upper Paleolithic, when populations carrying mtDNA clades M1 and U6 arrived to north and northeast Africa from Eurasia, hardly penetrating the sub-Saharan portion of the continent, except Ethiopia. Therefore, the current sub-Saharan mtDNA gene pool is overwhelmingly a rich mix of L0 and L1'5 clades, found at varying frequencies throughout the continent.

Source: The American Journal of Human Genetics (AJHG) [Open Access Paper]http://www.ajhg.org/AJHG/fulltext/S0002-9297(08)00255-3?large_figure=...

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek [Thanks John Roth]

===================
Refreshing read and many thanks for sharing! Was wondering
what about Neanderthals? Did these ancients arise out of
Africa as well?

On Apr 28, 12:10 pm, GoldLions <GoldLi...@aol.com> wrote:





On Apr 26, 10:32�pm, "Robert Karl Stonjek" <ston...@ozemail.com.au
wrote:

Copyright � 2008 The American Society of Human Genetics. All rights reserved.
The American Journal of Human Genetics, 24 April 2008

doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2008.04.002

The Dawn of Human Matrilineal Diversity

Doron M. Behar1, 13, Richard Villems2, 13, Himla Soodyall3, Jason Blue-Smith4, Luisa Pereira5, 6, Ene Metspalu2, Rosaria Scozzari7, Heeran Makkan3, Shay Tzur1, David Comas8, Jaume Bertranpetit8, Lluis Quintana-Murci9, Chris Tyler-Smith10, R. Spencer Wells4, Saharon Rosset11, 12, The Genographic Consortium14

1 Molecular Medicine Laboratory, Rambam Health Care Campus, Haifa 31096, Israel
2 Department of Evolutionary Biology, University of Tartu and Estonian Biocentre, Tartu 51010, Estonia
3 School of Pathology, Division of Human Genetics, National Health Laboratory Service and University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2000, South Africa
4 Mission Programs, National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C. 20036, USA
5 Instituto de Patologia e Imunologia Molecular da Universidade do Porto, Porto 4200-465, Portugal
6 Medical Faculty, University of Porto, Porto 4200-319, Portugal
7 Dipartimento di Genetica e Biologia Molecolare, Sapienza Universit� di Roma, Rome 00185, Italy
8 Evolutionary Biology Unit, Department of Experimental and Health Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona 08003, Catalonia, Spain
9 Unit of Human Evolutionary Genetics, CNRS URA3012, Institut Pasteur, Paris 75724, France
10 The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambs CB10 1SA, UK
11 Data Analytics Research Group, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, USA
12 Department of Statistics and Operations Research, School of Mathematical Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel
13 These authors contributed equally to this work.
14 See Acknowledgments.

Abstract
The quest to explain demographic history during the early part of human evolution has been limited because of the scarce paleoanthropological record from the Middle Stone Age. To shed light on the structure of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) phylogeny at the dawn of Homo sapiens, we constructed a matrilineal tree composed of 624 complete mtDNA genomes from sub-Saharan Hg L lineages. We paid particular attention to the Khoi and San (Khoisan) people of South Africa because they are considered to be a unique relic of hunter-gatherer lifestyle and to carry paternal and maternal lineages belonging to the deepest clades known among modern humans. Both the tree phylogeny and coalescence calculations suggest that Khoisan matrilineal ancestry diverged from the rest of the human mtDNA pool 90,000-150,000 years before present (ybp) and that at least five additional, currently extant maternal lineages existed during this period in parallel. Furthermore, we estimate that a minimum of 40 other evolutionarily successful lineages flourished in sub-Saharan Africa during the period of modern human dispersal out of Africa approximately 60,000-70,000 ybp. Only much later, at the beginning of the Late Stone Age, about 40,000 ybp, did introgression of additional lineages occur into the Khoisan mtDNA pool. This process was further accelerated during the recent Bantu expansions. Our results suggest that the early settlement of humans in Africa was already matrilineally structured and involved small, separately evolving isolated populations.

Introduction
Current genetic data support the hypothesis of a predominantly single origin for anatomically modern humans. The phylogeny of the maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) has played a pivotal role in this model by anchoring our most recent maternal common ancestor to sub-Saharan Africa and suggesting a single dispersal wave out of that continent which populated the rest of the world much later. However, despite its importance as the cradle of humanity and the main location of anatomically modern humans for most of their existence, the initial Homo sapiens population dynamics and dispersal routes remain poorly understood. The potential to use present-day genetic patterns to detect the existence, or lack thereof, of matrilineal genetic structure among early Homo sapiens populations in sub-Saharan Africa is therefore of particular interest.
The human mtDNA phylogeny can be collapsed into two daughter branches, L0 and L1'2'3'4'5'6 (L1'5), located on opposite sides of its root (Figure 1). The L1'5 branch is far more widespread and has given rise to almost every mtDNA lineage found today, with two clades on this branch, (L3)M and (L3)N, forming the bulk of worldwide non-African genetic diversity and marking the out-of-Africa dispersal 50,000-65,000 years before present (ybp) (Figure 1).. Current models, predating the recognition of L0 as sister to L1'5, suggest that the contemporary sub-Saharan mtDNA gene pool is the result of an early expansion of modern humans from their homeland, often suggested to be East Africa, to most of the African continent by exclusively L1 Hg clades, before being overwhelmed by a later expansion wave of L2 and L3 clades dated to 60,000-80,000 ybp. A more recent geographically restricted enrichment of the African maternal gene pool was shown to have occurred during the early Upper Paleolithic, when populations carrying mtDNA clades M1 and U6 arrived to north and northeast Africa from Eurasia, hardly penetrating the sub-Saharan portion of the continent, except Ethiopia. Therefore, the current sub-Saharan mtDNA gene pool is overwhelmingly a rich mix of L0 and L1'5 clades, found at varying frequencies throughout the continent.

Source: The American Journal of Human Genetics (AJHG) [Open Access Paper]http://www.ajhg.org/AJHG/fulltext/S0002-9297(08)00255-3?large_figure=....

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek [Thanks John Roth]

===================
Refreshing read and many thanks for sharing! Was wondering
what about Neanderthals? Did these ancients arise out of
Africa as well?

Ultimately all hominids originate from Africa, bhere's now quite a lot
of evidence that Neanderthals evolved as a distinct lineage in Europe
from the early humans who were evolving in Africa. DNA evidence from
late Neanderthals such as the old man from La Chapelle Aux Saints
suggests last common ancestor with modern humans to be ca. 600KYA,
although this is a subject of warm debate. But there are older
fossils  such as the heidelbergensis fossils from Europe (300-600
KYA?) & the Homo "antecessor" fossils from Sima de los Huesos
(possibly 900 KYA?) that have some morphological features that appear
to be precursors to the distinct Neanderthal morphologies. I can't
quote the references off the top of my head but they are around & have
been discussed before...

Ross Macfarlane- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

On Apr 28, 8:43 pm, rmacfarl <rmacf...@alphalink.com.au> wrote:

...
=========================> Hello Ross Macfarlane,

      Interesting, but do these dates apply to just how old the
fossils are or regarding how more closely we are RELATED to each
fossil?
Think about it, in some ways it's the LATER Neanderthals that
are more specialized and different morphologically from "us",
(Homo Sapiens Sapiens) than the earlier fossils, particuarly
their bizarre elongated midfaces and nasal bones/sinuses which
is unique from all earlier hominids.
So then my question here is why would the later fossils be
genetically "closer" to the modern day human lineage? If
anything shouldn't their lineage from our tree be more
distant?......

On Apr 30, 10:51 am, GoldLions <GoldLi...@aol.com> wrote:





On Apr 28, 8:43 pm, rmacfarl <rmacf...@alphalink.com.au> wrote:

...
=========================> > Hello Ross Macfarlane,

      Interesting, but do these dates apply to just how old the
fossils are or regarding how more closely we are RELATED to each
fossil?
Think about it, in some ways it's the LATER Neanderthals that
are more specialized and different morphologically from "us",
(Homo Sapiens Sapiens) than the earlier fossils, particuarly
their bizarre elongated midfaces and nasal bones/sinuses which
is unique from all earlier hominids.
So then my question here is why would the later fossils be
genetically "closer" to the modern day human lineage? If
anything shouldn't their lineage from our tree be more
distant?......

They aren't. That's the point - the evidence is that the last common
ancestor (LCA) for anatomically modern humans and Neanderthals was at
least 600,000 years ago, and hence AMH & Ns were evolving apart for
all of that time...

Ross Macfarlanehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_heidelbergensishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_antecessorhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Chappelle-aux-Saints_1- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

On Apr 28, 8:43Â pm, rmacfarl <rmacf...@alphalink.com.au> wrote:
On Apr 28, 12:10Â pm, GoldLions <GoldLi...@aol.com> wrote:





On Apr 26, 10:32�pm, "Robert Karl Stonjek" <ston...@ozemail.com.au
wrote:

Copyright � 2008 The American Society of Human Genetics. All rights reserved.
The American Journal of Human Genetics, 24 April 2008

doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2008.04.002

The Dawn of Human Matrilineal Diversity

Doron M. Behar1, 13, Richard Villems2, 13, Himla Soodyall3, Jason Blue-Smith4, Luisa Pereira5, 6, Ene Metspalu2, Rosaria Scozzari7, Heeran Makkan3, Shay Tzur1, David Comas8, Jaume Bertranpetit8, Lluis Quintana-Murci9, Chris Tyler-Smith10, R. Spencer Wells4, Saharon Rosset11, 12, The Genographic Consortium14

1 Molecular Medicine Laboratory, Rambam Health Care Campus, Haifa 31096, Israel
2 Department of Evolutionary Biology, University of Tartu and Estonian Biocentre, Tartu 51010, Estonia
3 School of Pathology, Division of Human Genetics, National Health Laboratory Service and University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2000, South Africa
4 Mission Programs, National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C. 20036, USA
5 Instituto de Patologia e Imunologia Molecular da Universidade do Porto, Porto 4200-465, Portugal
6 Medical Faculty, University of Porto, Porto 4200-319, Portugal
7 Dipartimento di Genetica e Biologia Molecolare, Sapienza Universit� di Roma, Rome 00185, Italy
8 Evolutionary Biology Unit, Department of Experimental and Health Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona 08003, Catalonia, Spain
9 Unit of Human Evolutionary Genetics, CNRS URA3012, Institut Pasteur, Paris 75724, France
10 The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambs CB10 1SA, UK
11 Data Analytics Research Group, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, USA
12 Department of Statistics and Operations Research, School of Mathematical Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel
13 These authors contributed equally to this work.
14 See Acknowledgments.

Abstract
The quest to explain demographic history during the early part of human evolution has been limited because of the scarce paleoanthropological record from the Middle Stone Age. To shed light on the structure of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) phylogeny at the dawn of Homo sapiens, we constructed a matrilineal tree composed of 624 complete mtDNA genomes from sub-Saharan Hg L lineages. We paid particular attention to the Khoi and San (Khoisan) people of South Africa because they are considered to be a unique relic of hunter-gatherer lifestyle and to carry paternal and maternal lineages belonging to the deepest clades known among modern humans. Both the tree phylogeny and coalescence calculations suggest that Khoisan matrilineal ancestry diverged from the rest of the human mtDNA pool 90,000-150,000 years before present (ybp) and that at least five additional, currently extant maternal lineages existed during this period in parallel. Furthermore, we estimate that a minimum of 40 other
evolutionarily successful lineages flourished in sub-Saharan Africa during the period of modern human dispersal out of Africa approximately 60,000-70,000 ybp. Only much later, at the beginning of the Late Stone Age, about 40,000 ybp, did introgression of additional lineages occur into the Khoisan mtDNA pool. This process was further accelerated during the recent Bantu expansions. Our results suggest that the early settlement of humans in Africa was already matrilineally structured and involved small, separately evolving isolated populations.

Introduction
Current genetic data support the hypothesis of a predominantly single origin for anatomically modern humans. The phylogeny of the maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) has played a pivotal role in this model by anchoring our most recent maternal common ancestor to sub-Saharan Africa and suggesting a single dispersal wave out of that continent which populated the rest of the world much later. However, despite its importance as the cradle of humanity and the main location of anatomically modern humans for most of their existence, the initial Homo sapiens population dynamics and dispersal routes remain poorly understood. The potential to use present-day genetic patterns to detect the existence, or lack thereof, of matrilineal genetic structure among early Homo sapiens populations in sub-Saharan Africa is therefore of particular interest.
The human mtDNA phylogeny can be collapsed into two daughter branches, L0 and L1'2'3'4'5'6 (L1'5), located on opposite sides of its root (Figure 1). The L1'5 branch is far more widespread and has given rise to almost every mtDNA lineage found today, with two clades on this branch, (L3)M and (L3)N, forming the bulk of worldwide non-African genetic diversity and marking the out-of-Africa dispersal 50,000-65,000 years before present (ybp) (Figure 1). Current models, predating the recognition of L0 as sister to L1'5, suggest that the contemporary sub-Saharan mtDNA gene pool is the result of an early expansion of modern humans from their homeland, often suggested to be East Africa, to most of the African continent by exclusively L1 Hg clades, before being overwhelmed by a later expansion wave of L2 and L3 clades dated to 60,000-80,000 ybp. A more recent geographically restricted enrichment of the African maternal gene pool was shown to have occurred during the early Upper
Paleolithic, when populations carrying mtDNA clades M1 and U6 arrived to north and northeast Africa from Eurasia, hardly penetrating the sub-Saharan portion of the continent, except Ethiopia. Therefore, the current sub-Saharan mtDNA gene pool is overwhelmingly a rich mix of L0 and L1'5 clades, found at varying frequencies throughout the continent.

Source: The American Journal of Human Genetics (AJHG) [Open Access Paper]http://www.ajhg.org/AJHG/fulltext/S0002-9297(08)00255-3?large_figure=...

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek [Thanks John Roth]

===================
Refreshing read and many thanks for sharing! Was wondering
what about Neanderthals? Did these ancients arise out of
Africa as well?

Ultimately all hominids originate from Africa, bhere's now quite a lot
of evidence that Neanderthals evolved as a distinct lineage in Europe
from the early humans who were evolving in Africa. DNA evidence from
late Neanderthals such as the old man from La Chapelle Aux Saints
suggests last common ancestor with modern humans to be ca. 600KYA,
although this is a subject of warm debate. But there are older
fossils  such as the heidelbergensis fossils from Europe (300-600
KYA?) & the Homo "antecessor" fossils from Sima de los Huesos
(possibly 900 KYA?) that have some morphological features that appear
to be precursors to the distinct Neanderthal morphologies. I can't
quote the references off the top of my head but they are around & have
been discussed before...

Ross Macfarlane- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

=========================> Hello Ross Macfarlane,

Interesting, but do these dates apply to just how old the
fossils are or regarding how more closely we are RELATED to each
fossil?
Think about it, in some ways it's the LATER Neanderthals that are more
specialized and different morphologically from "us", (Homo Sapiens
Sapiens) than the earlier fossils, particuarly their bizarre elongated
midfaces and nasal bones/sinuses which is unique from all earlier
hominids.
So then my question here is why would the later fossils be genetically
"closer" to the modern day human lineage? If anything shouldn't their
lineage from our tree be more distant?......

Anyway, if we had a (random & isolated) speciation event at 600 kya,
what does that imply about the so-called five races of hss, who
developed independently for at least 40 kya?  possibly 200kya?  
snip

On Apr 30, 8:47 pm, "caldervang...@gmail.com"<caldervang...@gmail.com> wrote:

snip>> Anyway, if we had a (random & isolated) speciation event at 600 kya,
what does that imply about the so-called five races of hss, who
developed independently for at least 40 kya?  possibly 200kya?  

snip

  calder:
  What are these five races, please?
  The are only two "independent" groups in "The Dawn of Human
Matrilineal Diversity":
souther Africans (Khoisan) and eastern Africans (everybody else).
  If you are referring to Caucasians, Mongolians, Negros, Australians,
and
I-don't-know-what-else, then I would have to say that those categories
of people
did not develop independently for at least 40 kya, but rather they
came into existence
in the last century, as abstract (and proven-inaccurate and -
inadequate) categories
intended to simplify the very wide and intermingled range of
variations on Hss.

just curious,
Daryl Krupa