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From: Philip Ritter <>
Subject: [DNA] The Human Y Chromosome Haplogroup Tree: Nomenclature and Phylogeography of Its Major Divisions
Date: Thu, 07 Nov 2002 16:20:33 -0800
In-Reply-To: <125.198aed1b.2afc4d20@aol.com>


I just read an interesting article by the above title from the Annual
Review of Anthropology (2002:303-21) by Hammer and Zegura. They found 18
major haplogroups in a global sample of 2007 males plus a regional study of
Siberia (n=902). They label their Haplogroups A through R. Am I correct
in inferring that their haplogroups are likely to include the HG1, HG2, and
HG3 that we have discussed on this list? From their frequency chart by
regions, I might infer that their haplogroup R corresponds to HG1 (it is
about 45% of Europe/Middle East's population). But since they don't
distinguish Western Europe from the Middle East I probably would be
wrong. R is defined by the mutation M207 (I assume this is a unique event
polymorphism and either a SNP or a indel--Hammer and Zegura use the term
"binary marker"). R seems to be most closely related to Q and Q is the
most frequent haplogroup in the Americas (80%), followed by R (about
10%). R is also fairly common in Asia (ca. 12%). The authors seem to
estimate the split between R and Q at about 16-17,000 years ago, making it
very unlikely that R would be equivalent to HG1. I and J are the next two
most common haplogroups in Europe/Middle East (ca.11 or 12%) and presumably
correspond to each to either HG1,2 or 3. Have any of you experts looked at
this article and determined what the correspondences might be?

Sometime ago I inquired if we are likely to find some number of sons of
Adam equivalent to the daughters of Eve. The 18 major haplogroups appear to
represent something like the 18 sons of Adam, although depending on when
you make the division, you could find two sons (A versus everyone else), 3
(A, B and everyone else), 6 (A, B, C, D, E and everyone else), 11 (A
through J and everyone else), etc. Would it be too cost prohibitive for
the labs that do our STR's to throw in a few "binary markers"? They might
tell us a lot more about where our long-ago patrilineal ancestors came
from, but would also prove useful in providing negative evidence of common
ancestor (I presume that two people with different binary markers are
almost certain not to share a common patrilineal ancestor within several
millennia).

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