mtDNA U6 in Berbers

[Synapsid]

H1 and U6, particularly U6a2, U6a6 and U6a8 are mtDNA haplogroup common modern Amazigh populations. The origin of mtDNA H1 in modern North Africans is relatively straight forward, considering the presence of H1 in modern Iberians and aDNA samples from the cardial ware culture and its Anatolian roots, it is clear that H1 was introduced by EEF populations who originated in both Iberia and Sicily and crossed the seas to the other side. But U6 and its sub-clades is so ubiquitous with Berbers, that it serves as a marker for Berber admixture in certain cases. Marieke van de Loosdrecht et al. (2018) tested the DNA of seven 15,000-year-old modern humans from Taforalt Cave in northeastern Morocco, and six out of seven of them belonged to haplogroup U6a (clades U6a1b, U6a6b, U6a7 and U6a7b) - the last one belonging to M1b. The six males belonged to Y-DNA haplogroup E1b1b (M78). So U6 obviously has old roots in N.Africa but ultimately it comes from a Eurasian, but which Eurasian population exactly. Was it the Dzudzuana related ancestry that is found in Taforalt/Iberomasurian samples?

[Calpurnius]

One of the two Dzudzuana samples was indeed U6, so it's consistent. The first U6 in the record should be Muierii2 in paleolithic Romania, then Dzudzuana, then there's also one U6 in copper age Levant, may be a remnant of the same movement, I guess along the coast, east to west.