Sicilian Y-chromosomes: Greek and North African influences
In retrospect, posting my E-V13/Ancient Greek colonization theory a week before the appearance of this article was a very timely move. I was pondering whether I should wait in or post it; I'm glad I did not wait.
And here is the money shot:
Also of interest:
European Journal of Human Geneticsadvance online publication 6 August 2008; doi: 10.1038/ejhg.2008.120
Differential Greek and northern African migrations to Sicily are supported by genetic evidence from the Y chromosome
Cornelia Di Gaetano et al.
Abstract
The presence or absence of genetic heterogeneity in Sicily has long been debated. Through the analysis of the variation of Y-chromosome lineages, using the combination of haplogroups and short tandem repeats from several areas of Sicily, we show that traces of genetic flows occurred in the island, due to ancient Greek colonization and to northern African contributions, are still visible on the basis of the distribution of some lineages. The genetic contribution of Greek chromosomes to the Sicilian gene pool is estimated to be about 37% whereas the contribution of North African populations is estimated to be around 6%.
In particular, the presence of a modal haplotype coming from the southern Balkan Peninsula and of its one-step derivates associated to E3b1a2-V13, supports a common genetic heritage between Sicilians and Greeks. The estimate of Time to Most Recent Common Ancestor is about 2380 years before present, which broadly agrees with the archaeological traces of the Greek classic era. The Eastern and Western part of Sicily appear to be significantly different by the chi2-analysis, although the extent of such differentiation is not very high according to an analysis of molecular variance. The presence of a high number of different haplogroups in the island makes its gene diversity to reach about 0.9. The general heterogeneous composition of haplogroups in our Sicilian data is similar to the patterns observed in other major islands of the Mediterranean, reflecting the complex histories of settlements in Sicily.
http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2008/08/sicilian-y-chromosomes-greek-and-north.html?m=1
And here is the money shot:
The mutation rate used is the average of rates taken from Gusmao et al27 for DYS460 and from the Y Chromosome Haplotype Reference Database (YHRD, http://www.yhrd.org) for the other microsatellites.I feel slightly vindicated given my recent interest in Y-STR mutation rates.
Also of interest:
Haplogroup R1b1c-M269, the most frequent Y-chromosome Hg in Europeans, is differentially distributed among eastern (18.4%) and western (30.3%) areas of Sicily. ... E3b1a-M78, G2-P15 and J2-M172 show frequencies (0.22, 0.32,0.33), respectively. E3b1a2-V13 is present in both WSI (6.5%) and ESI (5.3%), whereas G2-P15 and J2-M172 are non-randomly distributed, occurring at higher frequencies in the eastern areas of the island ... Furthermore Q-P36- or M242-derived chromosomes also detected significant similarities between Sicily (2.54%) and Lebanese populations (1.53%).The G2 frequency looks like a typo to me. It's listed as 4.1% (West) and 7.02% (East). J-M241 is more frequent in the West (7.38%) than in the East (1.75%). The paragroup J2*(xM67, J2a1k) is more frequent in the East (14.91%) than the West (6.55%). The overall haplogroup I breakdown is (5.08% I-M253, 1.27 % I-M26, 0.42% I-M223, and 0.85% I*)
European Journal of Human Geneticsadvance online publication 6 August 2008; doi: 10.1038/ejhg.2008.120
Differential Greek and northern African migrations to Sicily are supported by genetic evidence from the Y chromosome
Cornelia Di Gaetano et al.
Abstract
The presence or absence of genetic heterogeneity in Sicily has long been debated. Through the analysis of the variation of Y-chromosome lineages, using the combination of haplogroups and short tandem repeats from several areas of Sicily, we show that traces of genetic flows occurred in the island, due to ancient Greek colonization and to northern African contributions, are still visible on the basis of the distribution of some lineages. The genetic contribution of Greek chromosomes to the Sicilian gene pool is estimated to be about 37% whereas the contribution of North African populations is estimated to be around 6%.
In particular, the presence of a modal haplotype coming from the southern Balkan Peninsula and of its one-step derivates associated to E3b1a2-V13, supports a common genetic heritage between Sicilians and Greeks. The estimate of Time to Most Recent Common Ancestor is about 2380 years before present, which broadly agrees with the archaeological traces of the Greek classic era. The Eastern and Western part of Sicily appear to be significantly different by the chi2-analysis, although the extent of such differentiation is not very high according to an analysis of molecular variance. The presence of a high number of different haplogroups in the island makes its gene diversity to reach about 0.9. The general heterogeneous composition of haplogroups in our Sicilian data is similar to the patterns observed in other major islands of the Mediterranean, reflecting the complex histories of settlements in Sicily.
http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2008/08/sicilian-y-chromosomes-greek-and-north.html?m=1
