Saami and Berbers - an unexpected mitochondrial DNA link.

[Hashim]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15791543


The sequencing of entire human mitochondrial DNAs belonging to haplogroup U reveals that this clade arose shortly after the "out of Africa" exit and rapidly radiated into numerous regionally distinct subclades. Intriguingly, the Saami of Scandinavia and the Berbers of North Africa were found to share an extremely young branch, aged merely approximately 9,000 years. This unexpected finding not only confirms that the Franco-Cantabrian refuge area of southwestern Europe was the source of late-glacial expansions of hunter-gatherers that repopulated northern Europe after the Last Glacial Maximum but also reveals a direct maternal link between those European hunter-gatherer populations and the Berbers.

[Pallantides]

[Sippola]

So, is the photo a Saami or Berber?

I am not trying to be funny; I have been surprised enough times in my life.

[Pallantides]

So, is the photo a Saami or Berber?

I am not trying to be funny; I have been surprised enough times in my life.

A Saami.

[Graham]

No way! Look how cold he looks. Some how wandered up North, on holiday.

[Pallantides]

No way! Look how cold he looks. Some how wandered up North, on holiday.

Maybe a descendant of some lost Moor expedition up North who got stranded on the northern coast of Finnmark.

[Cern]

Curly hair weird.

[Accountant]

This isn't exactly unexpected.

[Sikeliot]

This is about haplogroup V, right? Iberians have it too.

[evon]

My direct maternal line belongs to these people whom migrated north with the ice

Even found an Algerian Berber from Kabylia who match my U5b1b1 mtDNA linage But my closest match seem to be Swedish looking at the FTDNA Database and by genebase everything from Finland, Poland, Italy and Algeria..

Updated mtDNA tree:
http://www.phylotree.org/tree/subtree_U.htm

The original paper on the link between Scandinavia and North Africa is old though, some new lines have been added to the tree.