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https://www.nature.com/articles/s41431-020-00747-z
The first two attempts to sub-divide hg R1a1 [22, 23] focused on the relationships [23] between European and Asian sub-haplogroups. A more recent study resequenced almost 500 hg R1a1 chromosomes, but concentrated on the history of sub-lineages among Ashkenazi Levite Jews [24]. None of these studies has addressed the question of the possible Viking origin of R1a1 sub-haplogroups.
Previously, we generated extensive MSY sequence data in each of 448 human males [25]. These included samples from Norway, Orkney, England and Denmark, giving a total of 27 hg R1a1 Y chromosomes, in which many novel sequence variants were ascertained. Here we exploit this resource to further investigate R1a1 sub-haplogroups in Scandinavia and western Europe. We compare the frequency of R1a1 and its sub-lineages with regions showing lower and higher Scandinavian autosomal contribution estimated in the PoBI cohort [8] and with the Danelaw, and investigate the expansion histories of sub-lineages using multiple short-tandem repeats (STRs).
The European samples display a much greater variety of the distinguishable sub-haplogroups, and with strong geographical structuring that is consistent with the distribution suggested by the phylogeny (Fig. 2). Central Europe is dominated by sub-haplogroups R1a1-GML5*, R1a1-GML6*, R1a1-GML7 and R1a1-M458 (blue and green colours in Fig. 3b), but in the British Isles, Iceland, Norway and Sweden the sub-haplogroups R1a1-GML8* and R1a1-GML9 predominate (purple and magenta; 70% of hg R1a1; n = 256). These sub-lineages are relatively rare in continental Europe (5% of hg R1a1; n = 79) and are absent from our Danish sample. The sub-haplogroup R1a1-GML2 (orange) is found widely, though at low frequency, throughout western Europe; most Danish hg R1a1 chromosomes belong to this sub-haplogroup, and it also comprises 8% of hg R1a1 in Norway, and 20% of hg R1a1 in Sweden. Interestingly, R1a1-GML2 lies phylogenetically basal to the previously defined Asian-European split [23], yet is absent from our Asian samples, and also from central and eastern Europe. European examples of chromosomes belonging to the paragroup R1a1-GML3* are also observed (including in the British Isles), but not in central Europe or in Scandinavia.
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