Mtdna of Europe - which haplogroups are Paleolithic and which are Neolithic?

[Sikeliot]

This may be difficult to answer simply, but with y-dna for instance we can say with relative certainty that haplogroups E1b1b, J2, and G2 represent Neolithic influence in Europe. So what are the mtdna haplogroups that represent the Neolithic?

I've heard that all European mtdna is Paleolithic for the most part but I'd like to hear from someone who knows.

[Ibericus]

well, for example the most common mtDNA in europeans, hapolgroup H, was already found in man from 28,000 years ago in Italy. The reason haplogroups J or E in Europe are considered neolithic is because of the advance of fertile-crescent farmers in neolithic times (agriculture) from places loaded with J (levant, mesopotamia).

[Sikeliot]

So are almost all European mtdna's descended from women who lived in Europe prior to Neolithic times?

[Ibericus]

So are almost all European mtdna's descended from women who lived in Europe prior to Neolithic times?
Yes, apparently most of mtDNa in Europeans is pre-Neolithic.

[Nglund]

Aren't E1b, G2 and J2 YDNA? :confused:
Anyway, J1C2 PRIDE!!!

[Agrippa]

That is not easy to answer, since the estimates for the time spans vary in some cases a lot and if talking about a haplogroup like H, one has also to think about the various haplotypes it has.

If the ancestral form of HV was present in Europe and the Near East, just to make an example, you can't say for sure whether this or that line entered Europe at this or that time, simple as that.

But to put it that way, there are, despite all unanswered questions, haplogroups and subhaplogroups which are more or less likely to have been present in various parts of Europe before or just after the Neolithic transition.

To give an example, specific variants of U are surely older and local, various types of H are questionable and haplogroups like the descendents of JT seem to have entered Europe later.

The only secure proof is, it seems to me and at the moment, to test prehistoric remains.


Aren't E1b, G2 and J2 YDNA?

That's what she said or at least meant, to ask for potential pendants to this yDNA-haplogroups in the mtDNA field.

[Nglund]

Wups, didn't read, silly me...

[Prengs]

E-V13 is mesolithic according Battelle.

[Agrippa]

E-V13 is mesolithic according Battelle.

Now here is another funny part about such descriptions:

If we add to haplogroups such terms, we essentially mean that they entered Europe in this period of time (Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age etc.), it existed before in most of the time of course.

Talking about E-V13, I personally doubt it was widespread in Europe before the Neolithic period, but it could have been present in pre-Neolithic times inside of Europe already and expanded from there, with the Neolithic and Bronze Age transitions - later with the Greeks and Thrako-Illyrians too.

So there are two sides of this, variants which were not present in Europe before the Neolithic transition and variants which might have been present, but were not as widespread and became more successful with this transition.

Now how can we make sure with what we deal, unless individuals being tested, if the chronology is still disputed and so on?

[LC22]

I think this is interesting (the oldest time period maps are at the end) :

http://************/6jjkcht