Mitochondrial DNA of prehistoric Europeans
Mitochondrial DNA of prehistoric Europeans
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The testing of ancient DNA helped understand how long each haplogroup has been in Europe. Only a few such tests have been successfully conducted so far. Mitochondrial DNA was extracted from the skeleton of a 28,000 year-old Cro-Magnon from southern Italy, and the haplogroup was determined as HV or pre-HV. Still preceding the Neolithic expansion from the Middle East, the 9,000 year-old Cheddar Man was found to belong to haplogroup U5a.
Autochtonous (Cro-Magnoid) Europeans must have therefore belonged at least to haplogroups HV (and its offspring H and V) as well as U5a, which also happen to be the most common mitochndrial haplogroup everywhere in Europe. It has been speculated that over half of the matrilineal lineages in Europe descend directly from Paleolithic Europeans. Their male counterpart are Y-DNA haplogroup I.