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Monday, March 1, 2010

Reviewing the mtDNA L lineages (notes): L3, L4 and L6


And here it goes the last note of the series. See previous posts for
L0, L1, L2 and L5.

Again based on PhyloTree and Behar 2008. However I have also considered Tishkoff 2007 for the case of the Hadza and Sandawe within L4b2 (formerly L4g or L3g).

As in previous posts, only coding region mutations were considered and labelled as ">". Here it goes the reference for L3, L4 and L6:

>>>>>L1''6
_____>>>>L1
_____>>>>L2''6
_________>>>>L5
_________>>>>>>>L2'3'4'6
________________>>>>>L2
________________>>L3'4'6
__________________>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>L6 [L6a: Yemen, Egypt]
______________________________________>L6b [Ethiopia, Yemen]
__________________>>>L3'4
_____________________>L4
______________________>>>>>>>>L4a
______________________________>>>>>L4a1 [Ethiopia, Arabia]
______________________________>L4a2 [Ethiopia, Yemen]
______________________>>L4b
________________________>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>L4b1 [Yemen]
________________________>>>>>>L4b2 [unspecified clade: Hadza, Sandawe]
______________________________>>L4b2a
________________________________>>>>L4b2a1 [Ethiopia]
________________________________>>>L4b2a2 [Ethiopia, Arabia, Khoisan]
______________________________>>>>>>>>>>>>>L4b2b [CAR]
_____________________>>L3
_______________________>L3a [Ethiopia]
_______________________>L3b'f
________________________>>>>>>>>>L3b [L3b*: Chad, Kenya]
_________________________________>L3b1
__________________________________>L3b1a [West Africa, NA, SA, Chad, Ethiopia, Arabia, Makran]
__________________________________>>L3b1b [Burkina, NA]
_________________________________>L3b2 [West Africa]
________________________>>>L3f
___________________________>>L3f1
_____________________________>>>>>L3f1a [Chad, Ethiopia]
_____________________________>>>>>>L3f1b [L3f1b*: West Africa, Levant, Ethiopia, Egypt]
___________________________________>>L3f1b1 [SA, Khoisan]
___________________________________>L3f1b2 [Yemen, Jordan]
___________________________________>>>L3f1b3 [Chad]
___________________________________>L3f1b4 [SA, Kenya, Oman]
___________________________>L3f2 [L3f2*: Ethiopia]
____________________________>>>>>>L3f2b [Chad, Egypt]
___________________________>>>>>>>>>>L3f3 [Ethiopia, Chad]
_______________________>L3c'd'j
________________________>>>>>>>>>>>>L3c [Ethiopia, Yemen]
________________________>>>>>L3d
_____________________________>L3d1-5 [L3d1-5*: Kenya, Chad, Syria]
______________________________>L3d1
_______________________________>>>L3d1a [L3d1a*: Yemen]
__________________________________>L3d1a1 [West Africa, Chad, Kenya, SA, Yemen, Brahui]
_______________________________>L3d1b [West Africa, Chad, Ethiopia]
_______________________________>>>>>L3d1c [North Africa]
_______________________________>>L3d1d [SA]
______________________________>>L3d2 [Burkina]
______________________________>>>L3d3 [L3d3*: Jordan]
_________________________________>>>>L3d3a [SA]
________________________>>>>>>>>>>>>L3j [Sudan]
_______________________>L3e'i'k'x
________________________>>L3e [L3e*: Chad, Tunisia, Levant]
__________________________>>>>>L3e1
_______________________________>L3e1a1 [Arabia]
_______________________________>>>>L3e1a2 [SA, Khoisan]
_______________________________>L3e1a3 [SA, Oman]
_______________________________>L3e1b [SA, Palestine]
_______________________________>>>>>L3e1c [Chad, Syria]
_______________________________>>>L3e1d [SA]
_______________________________>L3e1e [Kenya, Cameroon]
__________________________>L3e2 [L3e2b*: Ethiopia, Zaire, G. Bissau, Jordan]
___________________________>>>L3e2a [West Africa, NA]
___________________________>L3e2b1 [Burkina]
___________________________>L3e2b2 [Oman, Egypt]
__________________________>L3e3'4'5
___________________________>L3e3'4
____________________________>>>>>>L3e3
__________________________________>>L3e3a [SA, Kenya, Arabia]
__________________________________>>>>>L3e3b [Cameroon, Burkina, Chad]
____________________________>>>>L3e4 [G. Bissau, SA, Lebanon]
___________________________>>L3e5 [Ethiopia, Burkina, NA]
________________________>L3i
_________________________>>>L3i1
____________________________>>>L3i1a [Sudan]
____________________________>>L3i1b [Ethiopia, Yemen]
_________________________>>>>>>L3ei2 [Ethiopia, Oman]
________________________>>>>>>L3k [NA]
________________________>>>>>>L3x
______________________________>L3x1 [Ethiopia, Yemen]
______________________________>L3x2
_______________________________>L3x2a [Ethiopia, Arabia]
_______________________________>>>>>>>L3x2b [Algeria]
_______________________>>L3h
_________________________>>>>>L3h1
______________________________>L3h1a
_______________________________>>>>>>>>>>L3h1a1 [Sudan]
_______________________________>L3h1a2 [L3h1a2*: Egypt, Lebanon]
________________________________>>>>>>>>>L3h1a2a [Tanzania, Ethiopia, Yemen]
______________________________>>L3h1b [L3h1b*: G. Bissau, Tunisia]
________________________________>L3h1b1a [Ethiopia, Chad]
_________________________>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>L3h2 [Ethiopia]
_______________________>>>M [Eurasia, Oceania, America]
_______________________>>>>>N [Eurasia, Oceania, America]


Notes: "SA" means non-Khoisan Southern Africans (often Mozambicans), "NA" means North Africa (several locations), "Arabia" means Arabian Peninsula and Levant (several locations).

Considerations:

L6 is either Ethiopian or Yemeni by origin. Probably Yemeni.

L4 looks Ethiopian by origin or at least East African.

L3 is, naturally, a more complex clade. It has 7 basal sublineages, most subdivided in many further branches. Let's see:

L3a is clearly Ethiopian again.

L3b'f has two subclades: One is L3b, whose main sublineage, L3b1 looks West African but whose upstream "asterisk" diversity appears more easterner (Chad, Kenya). L3f has three subclades: L3f2 and L3f3 look original from somewhere between Chad and Ethiopia, L3f1 is more scattered but should also have that same area of origin overall. So I guess that L3b'f as a whole originated around the Upper Nile, with only L3b1 being clearly a West African offshoot.

Of L3c'd'j three subclades, two are small and concentrated again around the Upper Nile: L3c in Ethiopia/Yemen and L3j in Sudan. The other lineage, L3d, is widely scattered but, considering all the details in Behar's data, I'd say that it also expanded from that Upper Nile area.

Of L3e'i'k'x, two of its four sublineages (L3i and L3x) appear again to be original from the Upper Nile area, L3k seems restricted to North Africa (with an age estimate by Behar of almost 40 Ka), while L3e is again the largest and most complicated sublineage. I'll make some risky bets here and suggest that L3e1 originated in East Africa, L3e2 somewhere in the Central-West African Savanna, L3e3'4 around Southern Chad or the CAR and L3e5 in Egypt. Overall the Nile looks like the most likely origin for L3e'i'k'x.

L3h looks Ethiopian by origin.

M has an obvious South Asian origin, while N may have spread from SE Asia.

Overall L3 looks like having coalesced at the Upper Nile: maybe in Ethiopia or not too far away in any case.

And that's all folks.

61 comments:

Charles said...

I did a test on my L3b1a. The largest dot in the STR test was in Ethiopia. A much smaller dot showed in Morocco. NO dot showed in West or South Africa. To top that off, the results made me look like a Chinese, Australian aboriginal Euro mix! It is clear that a branch of my L3 left Ethiopia and moved to Asia and Australia. I understand that L3b1a is seen as West Africa. I believe this is where they are concentrated. My L3b1a does not seem to show as much Affinity to West Africa as she does to North East Africa. In my DNA Tribes analysis, she shows as 8% East African and 8% Egyptian. Her closest tribe in Africa is Upper Egypt.

Maju said...

I would need to see your test and know whatever you know about your genealogy by non-genetic means to make any meaningful comment. But be warned that you can perfectly have an African lineage and be Asian for 99%. It's strange but unilineal descent does not necessarily say much about overall ancestry, specially in America.

Charles said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Maju said...

Your grandma shows clear (secondary but notable) genetic affinities with Africa, adding up to more than 30% when North Africa is included, much of it (19%) from West and East Africa. So that would be it, IMO. Her purely patrilineal (and surely other) ancestry may be from Galicia and Andalusia as you say but she also clearly has a lot from Africa, including, it seems the purely matrilineal lineage would come from Africa but where exactly from? How? Is it from North Africans established in Andalusia or from West Africans brought as slaves to the Caribbean? Or... West Africans conquering Andalusia (the famous Almoravids) or West Africans brought as slaves to Andalusia (that also happened)? Or is it an African lineage stuck in West Iberia since the Neolithic?

Very messy. But I think harder to imagine a link only to Ethiopia, because the connections with Iberia or even the Caribbean were very thin.

Anyhow your reports only talk of the autosomal affinities and not, what I think I was asking about: the mtDNA lineage in detail. I wanted, I think, to confirm if the connection with Ethiopia/North Africa to the exclusion of West Africa was correct.

But, well, I guess you can check that yourself as well.

Charles said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Charles said...

Capitán Sebastián Antonio de Villafaña was born in 1686 and María del Rosario Aranda was born in 1685. Both in San Lúcar de Barremada.

Charles said...

Had she been a slave at all, it would've been a moro slave. At any rate, I believe that the Admixture in Spain 500 years ago was very different from the one you see today. It is probable she my grandmother's ancestors may have preserved an older admixture due to isolation and endogamy in the Caribbean.

Maju said...

But, really, do you know your purely maternal ancestry mother after mother (a single man breaks up the line) up to those times. That would certainly be a very rare occurrence. It happens rarely with patrilineages but matrilineages are never known beyond a couple of generations or so. Example, my mother's matrilineage is aristocratic (aristocrats have genealogy as very important) and she would not be able to pin-point it beyond a few generations, instead he patrilineage... that one goes to the Illiad (so they say).

But my own commoner matrilineage, I don't know before a 19th century lady from Balmaseda to whom certain captain took off her eye (sic) by getting his sword (sic) through an old-style lock (sic) she was spying through. Most adults in my family assume that means she married after getting pregnant (it's unclear if she was one-eyed at all).

But I'm ranting (coffee, please!), what I mean is how can you know the purely maternal lineage so many centuries back when not even some aristocrats do? True that, if you know, it's generally more reliable than paternal ancestry but even then adoptions and such can't be fully discarded. Many people seem to idealize their ancestry as a pure in-marriage sequence but even if that is probably true for some generations the line must break at some point (and is most probable that you don't know because infidelities or adoptions were usually kept at home, if it was not someone's strict secret).

I'll get back to you once I've checked the sequence and learned as much as possible about it. Soon.

Maju said...

Never mind: I realized I do not have enough time to dedicate to others' personal affairs (much less for free to someone I met online). My apologies. This seems more complicated than I though at first because I guess I though that key markers would be more readily available and that you'd knew a bit more on all it.

Honestly, I don't like much DNA Tribes: the look non-serious to me but whatever the case the markers I did check before surrendering (two hours later) are coincident (mostly) with L3b1a.

You can get yourself crazy looking at the many possibilities at PhyloTree (http://www.phylotree.org/) or other resources. I can save you some time by telling you that this is the list of actual differences re. the RSRS (mitochondrial Eve):


G5773A, T6221C, G8697A, C9449T, G9947A, A10086G, G10373A, G10646A, A11002G, C11257T, G15301A, A15311G, A15824G, C15946T, T16362C

Only the last one is from the HVR(I) zone, all the rest are coding region transitions. HVR info however is usually informative.

Take care.

Charles said...

Much my maternal genealogy I can trace thanks to the work of other Puerto Rican genealogists that have worked for many years to complete their own trees. I am riding on their backs so to speak. It is estimated that one in ten Puerto Ricans descend from the two ancestors I showed you. My ancestry clearly goes to the 1790's without any controversy. I have plenty of paperwork to back that up! Puerto Rico was a Spanish colony and had the same prejudices that the metropolis had. If you wanted to buy a government post, you may have needed a 'limpieza de sangre' if someone questioned your 'alcurnia'. I have an ancestor that in 1810 had to summon 33 witnesses to prove his pedigree! This is why those that descend from that line know so much about those distant ancestors! Cause he had to prove to the Spanish courts his pedigree! I have a clear English line on the father's side from the Victorian Era. My maternal line is very important to me for many reasons.

I have not used DNA Tribes alone. I have researched my and grandma's DNA using all sorts of tools. DNA Tribes is one more tool in the tool box. What matters for me is the size of samples. The larger the sample population, the larger the power as they say in statistics. Fortunately I have a friend that has been my DNA consultant for the last half decade so I don't need to pay anyone.

Anyway, thanks for your time and 'adios'.

Maju said...

Don't get me wrong: I'm not asking for money, just that reviewing all would take me more time that I'm willing to spend for someone I just met online.

As for the "limpieza de sangre" stuff... it's just paperwork. As Spaniards say: "hecha la ley, hecha la trampa": roughly: "new law: new trick". It is very clear to me from your grandmother's autosomal analysis that she has too much African, blood but whatever you wish to believe.

Charles said...

That is normal in the Caribbean. There is an L3b1a that matches all my mutations and was in Puerto Rico as well. He shows up to 30% Ethiopian. So I know there is an important correlation there. I know a puerto rican genealogist that has even MORE African than my grandmother and can trace her direct lineages to Spain! She's an L2! People mixed up alot in the Americas! Spain has engaged in centuries of white washing their cultural, historical and genetic heritage, so I understand there there will be all sorts of denials regarding the obvious past. In fact, this is the reason why Spain flooded Puerto Rico in the 19th century with white Europeans: because it needed Europeans loyal to the crown to keep what it had left of its colonies. People before that were very mixed. Most of the L3b1a's I have seen that are related to me have little to no African DNA. There is a Cuban Canarian L3b1a that has about as much African as the Spanish do. It's all a matter of where you ended up. If you ended up in Haiti or the Dominican republic, you would end up with alot more African. Well. Enough of New World history lessons for now.

Charles said...

Most North Africans have substantial African DNA. My grandma clusters in different plots with the Berbers in the African plots. Moros. Having African West or East or South or North in and of itself does not mean anything. What matters is who she clusters with.

Maju said...

It's your ancestry and I wouldn't want to be annoying but, sincerely, I have heard that "Moroccan" story before from Creole Americans. The reality is that there was no effective migration from Morocco into colonial America, certainly not as "blood clean" (but maybe a few as slaves in the first centuries when slavery was based on religion rather than race).

Notice that to be "blood clean", "castellano viejo", you could not be descendant of Muslims nor Jews - at least in theory, so most people from the territories conquered after Navas de Tolosa (Granada, North African plazas) were not in that segregationist category at all.

Native L(xM,N) lineages are extremely rare in Iberia, although not unheard of, specially in the West, where there seems to be a deep North African genetic influence, maybe of Neolithic origins. For example some variants of L1b have been claimed to be native Iberian.

But, even if there were other such lineages (L3d2 variants?), it would be quite a coincidence to find them in America, specially when very few women emigrated from Castile to the colonies. This last detail is most important: women almost never emigrated to the Indies, at least in the first centuries; it was essentially a men's affair. And men married or had concubinage with native, black or mixed-blood women, depending on availability.

I can only imagine that some of these mixed-blood women lineages of America became whiter and whiter and eventually claimed pure European ancestry, which was useful in a segregated society.

There is still the possibility that it was a native Canarian lineage (where there was some notable L(xM,N) before and after conquest, similar to what is found in Morocco). But then again the amount of L3b found is anecdotal and no L3b1 is apparent anywhere.

"There is a Cuban Canarian L3b1a"...

How certain are you of he/she that it is a native Canarian lineage and not an imported one (Canary islands was also a destination for slave trade initially). How certain you guys are that Canarian ancestry is 100% correct. Remember that most Black Cubans arrived from Spain proper (Andalusia largely) in the early 19th century, when slavery was abolished in the metropolis but not in the colonies (so owners sent them overseas before the law applied).

"Having African West or East or South or North in and of itself does not mean anything".

If the analysis is well done, with sufficient comparable samples (such as North Africans), it is very meaningful because the Caucasoid and the Tropical African clusters are quite distinct in terms of genetic distance, so harder to get them confused. The East African component is more likely to be Maasai (who are mostly Tropical African) than Ethiopian (who are quite more mixed). It's probable that the Maasai have a bit of West Eurasian admixture but not too much.

So we'd be talking of c. 15-20% Tropical African ancestry and I don't think that can be noise (of course a second test is always useful for contrast: autosomal genetics is multidimensional enough to require more than one angle). Your usual North African can show c. 20% Tropical African ancestry, but your granny has most of her ancestry from Europe and only a small fraction from what would seem to be North Africa, so she does not fit in that scheme.

She obviously has (with a very high likelihood) some notable Tropical African ancestry. Maybe from many different mixed ancestors but she has it in any case.

Charles said...

No one is questioning her tropical African! I would say (as I have stated before) that it is due to genetic drift (AKA mixing up with the natives which were already mixed!). I am well aware of how the slaves became free and mixed up with the natives there. I am also well aware that many Spaniards left without wives early in the colonization period. BUT, my ancestry is from the 17th-18th century! Thus, the Caribbean was very well colonized by then and in some cases even comfortable (for the higher classes!). The fact is that my grandma is 60% European. She is the exact opposite of an Afro American! (70% Afro and up to 30% Euro). As mixed as people were back then, they still had their social classes! So, after some centuries, the numbers evened out in Puerto Rico. I have analyzed several L3b1as. There is one in fact that has almost NO African DNA. Her ancestry was Spanish from Lima Peru. I am well aware that mitochondrial L is currently rare in Spain. That wasn't necessarily the case three to four centuries ago. The Spanish had a clear policy of forbidding exit of their moros and conversos (the "otherness" that Spain wanted to get rid of!); yet the Spanish turned a blind eye for the most part as they overtly or covertly left Spain for the colonies. My grandma's European and Iberian are comparable with certain European groups such as the Canarians and Jews. I DO have Canarian heritage! BUT, my genealogy traces my grandma to Cádiz. Until I obtain further info, that is what stands. I agree that my grandma's mix is somewhat unique.

Charles said...

My grandmother is also a carrier of the Famelial Mediterranean Fever mutation. One out of every 1,000 Turks is thought to have FMF. In Arab populations, the prevalence has been estimated to be one in 2,600. One out every 250 to 1,000 Sephardic Jews is thought to be affected, and in Armenians the estimated prevalence is one out of every 500 people.

I have also analyzed around 50 genomes using Dieneke's tools. My grandmother clusters with Euro's and North Afro-Levantines. I have a genome of a Puerto Rican female of known African descent. As mixed as she is (practically mulatta), you can still clearly picture her in Tropical Africa on the PCA plots. I have studied genomes for over half a decade now and I am very very thorough before making any type of statement! I also have a DNA consultant for back up.

CIAO

Maju said...

The average Afroamerican from the USA is 80% African and 20% European but individual apportions vary a lot. However there are very few in the high European fraction because those could pass as Whites and became Whites in fact in most cases.

The Moriscos (Muslisms forcibly converted to Christianity since 1492) were essentially Native Iberians, whose forefathers had converted to Islam. There was only very limited immigration with the Islamic rule. Some Berbers would come as soldiers maybe but the bulk (c. 90%) of the population were peasants and those came from nowhere. Nor went nowhere either. Nor would they be granted "limpieza de sangre" status unless they managed to corrupt the system.

"My grandmother is also a carrier of the Famelial Mediterranean Fever mutation".

That means nothing because she obviously has a complex ancestry. What you are looking with the mtDNA is not your grandmother but an ancestor, X centuries ago, by purely maternal line.

You claim to have documents of an intermediate person in that purely maternal line (something I don't understand how because maternal lines are almost never known with such accuracy because of sociological Patriarchy) but you can't not know if that person is your actual biological ancestor or an adoptive one (well, you could in theory test her ancient DNA but that's surely not feasible).

But whatever.

Charles said...

The only two African American females I have ever seen that can pass as white are on 23 and me. They were one of the few that passed the white black barrier. Sure, it was much more porous in Latin America. The Puerto Rican African that is essentially triracial still clearly shows as being African on the PCA plots. And so with so many other's of Puerto Rican African descent on 23 and me. You can see clearly where they come from. You can see if there was recent African admixture or not. It is clear as day. Half of the genomes I have collected (25 or so) are of a Canarian, a Portuguese, a Franco-Spaniard and many others of Iberian descent. They ALL cluster together. 'Desde Isabel la Católica hasta Franco' has there been a white washing campaign to deny there was any North African worth talking about. That is because the Spanish were very thorough in persecuting and getting rid of its minorities to achieve a "purity" that never really existed. As Jarabe de Palo sang: 'En lo puro no hay futuro. La pureza está en la Mezcla'. Many Moors and Jews, to escape the Inquisition, hid among the Spanish Gypsies. Gypsies in Spain are a mix. They are not pure Roma from India. There are historical documents that support this. I am currently studying this subject very clearly. I know there are remnants of 'la limpieza de sangre'. There are L's in high concentrations in certain isolated places. Even Guzman el Bueno, first Duke of Medina Sidonia, was a white washed moor! As the right wing sticks out its ugly head once again in Europe in response to Islamic immigrant, there may yet be another Franco to white wash Iberian history some more!!!

Charles said...

Yes. I do have many documents supporting my genealogy. I have no problem tracing back my female ancestors all the way back to 1810 with no problem because they were 'lonjevas'. Through a cousin genealogist, I obtained another female ancestor with church documents that trace her back further to 1790. Via another genealogist, I have been able to push her back to 1620. The reason I have been able to do this is because people of the new world are very keen in knowing their roots, so they have dedicated many painstaking years in doing research. People from Europe know where they come from.

Charles said...

Out of 700 cousins my grandmother has on 23 and me, only several of them are of clear African origin. Those are for the most part distant cousins. That is about average for any person of European descent. 60 of her distant cousins are of Ashkenazi descent. She clusters with Europeans. If it quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, than most likely it is a duck. As my DNA consultant says, people get way too hung up on mitochondria and Y DNA. He and also others have told me that you are what you cluster with, irregardless of the admixture. You are a basque from basqueland. It is real easy for you to see things in a certain way based on your own particular history, culture and genetics. I know how very concerned the basque are in remaining basque. I am well aware of the isolation of the basque throughout history. For many of us, that is not the case at all. We are far more genetically, culturally and historically cosmopolitan. So our stories can be far more3 complex. I marvel at how easy it is to read genetically my northern European friends. That has not been the case at all for me when I have analyzed people of Euro descent that have ended in certain parts of the Americas.

Charles said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Charles said...

Just to give you the mildest idea of how keen new world genealogists are, here is an example of a cousin of mine. His ancestor Don José María Flores Fonseca married my direct maternal ancestor Doña María Juana de León de Rivera. Both were born in 1810:

http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/b/u/r/Luis-R-Burset/WEBSITE-0001/UHP-Index.html

Here is the index of another that has tens of thousands of entries of Spanish colonials, and some slaves as well. People can know if they descend from slaves or not:

http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/k/r/i/Eunice--Kritsidimas/COL4-0649.html

Spanish colonial's social status depended on their 'alcurnia'; so of course they were concerned! Social mobility depended on it! You can dismiss it all as none sense if you want. I think the Spanish obsession for an unobtainable purity was indeed alot or rubbish.

Charles said...

Alot of people were burnt at the stake, mass executed, extradited, had their possessions confiscated, were forcefully taken from their parents to be brought up as good white catholics, were forced to stop speaking their language and practicing their culture and were forced to marry a good white catholic. I am sure my own ancestors were forced to forget their own heritage. And that is why it is important to me to recover what I can of that lost heritage thanks to the church and state that did everything in their power to divest my ancestors of their roots. The same thing happened here and the united states and elsewhere in the colonial world. But I truly don't know how much you can empathize with this at all; considering your own isolated heritage.

Charles said...

But then again. Perhaps you can. I am well aware of the many attempts of Spain to integrate Basqueland. Perhaps a bit of you can understand via your culture what we ourselves had to endure in the colonies.

Maju said...

People with less than c. 20% any kind of ancestry will normally not show it (depends on recombination flukes so it's just an statistical average). For example Finns do not look East Asian (at most the occasional minor trait) but some 15% of their ancestry is from that region and about 50% of their paternal lineages.

Simlarly the once-known as "octoroons" would show only or almost only the dominant ancestry, they would pass as pure white or as pure black (in fact the average African American is 20% white - but not apparent).

"Half of the genomes I have collected (25 or so) are of a Canarian, a Portuguese, a Franco-Spaniard and many others of Iberian descent".

I don't understand this: are they L3b1a?

"That is because the Spanish were very thorough in persecuting and getting rid of its minorities to achieve a "purity" that never really existed".

As someone familiar with Spanish culture, I am quite sure it's not the case at all. Even the Fascist concept of "race" was much more similar to that of a "Mestizo race" than anything similar to Hitler's nonsense: Latin culture is assimilationist, not strongly racist, as may be Germanic culture instead. That does not mean that Spaniards can't be racist but that the overall cultural trend is assimilationist, same in France or Portugal: it's part of the Latin cultural baggage: Romans did not conquer the world by rejecting other peoples and cultures but, mostly, by absorbing them.

"Many Moors and Jews, to escape the Inquisition, hid among the Spanish Gypsies. Gypsies in Spain are a mix".

Not really. Genetic studies show that Western and Northern European Roma derive from a single founder effect of some 1000 people who migrated from the Balcans, where Roma have much greater genetic diversity. Since then they have mixed somewhat but the general trend is to remain segregated (this can't be blamed only or mostly to Payos, it's part of the traditional Gitano culture, which is strongly communitarian-xenophobic and Patriarchal, what seems to be a remnant of the Indian jatis/castes, where they originated).

"I have analyzed several L3b1as. There is one in fact that has almost NO African DNA. Her ancestry was Spanish from Lima Peru".

Find it in Spain proper. It may be the case but I'm anything but persuaded. Peru is very far away.

"But I truly don't know how much you can empathize with this at all; considering your own isolated heritage".

More than you can imagine (also my ancestry is quite mixed in fact but I and everybody else consider me Basque: Basque identity is defined by identity and language not blood).

Basques were among the peoples who most suffered the Inquisition (even Basque priests were accused of being irreverent, womanizers, dance-lovers and witches) and also Basque states like Navarre were always protective of their religious minorities like Muslims or Jews, eventually converting to Puritanism and leading the Protestant camp in the French Wars of Religion. If Pamplona/Navarre survived it was largely at first thanks to the support of our Muslim brothers from Tudela and vice versa.

But of course Basques also participated in the European explorations and exploitations of the World, either under French or Castilian or even occasionally Portuguese (Francis Xavier) or Aragonese banners (almogavars). No nation is a collective saint.

What I say is that your claims are exceptional and that exceptional claims need exceptional evidence. That's how science work.

Charles said...

Time may prove my exceptionality as you say. L3b is not an odd ball in the Middle East. As 23 and me states:

Haplogroup L3b
The Ice Age expansion of the polar ice sheets played a critical role in the history of L3b... Climate changes associated with the Ice Age brought dramatic cooling and drying in Africa and an expansion of the Sahara Desert about 22,000 years ago, when haplogroup L3b arose in western Africa. But when the Ice Age subsided about 10,000 years later the Sahara became much more hospitable. Migrants carried L3b all the way to the Mediterranean coast and even into the Near East, passing through well-vegetated landscapes that are nothing but sand dunes today. Now L3b is most common in western, northern and northeastern Africa.

So there is nothing scientifically "exceptional" about an L3b1a being an Egyptian and moving into Spain during the Moorish period. An absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

The assimilationism of Iberia as you put it was strictly stratified. Social upper mobility depended on your past ancestral credentials. Many did indeed a fake 'limpieza' to fit in. No doubt.

There is plenty of historical documentation denoting how Spain used the New World to get rid of its undesirable elements. This happened as well with other colonial powers. There was a constant tension between the 'peninsulares' and the 'criollos'. There were other substratifications that depended strictly on how mixed with African or Native you were. These tensions led inevitably to revolutions.

In Puerto Rico, there were periods of some assimilation in the 15 and 1600's. This came to a stand still in the 17 and 1800's as Spain began to pay some attention to it's neglected colony by infusing it with Euro DNA. This kept the colony faithful to the crown until 1898.

I suppose I am not even trying to prove anything to you. Your mind seems well made up. I am just presenting my position. I have no reason to believe my grandma was a recent slave. There is nothing to indicate this. L3 is Eur-African. My maternal family genetically and phenotypically fit perfectly with the North-North East Africans. Her western African only implies admixture along with her Native. Her 9% Native does not make her a Native American. Neither does her 10% West African nor her 6% South African. These are slave elements that the Portuguese brought in the 15 and 1600's to the Caribbean most likely. This is well documented historically. I don't know what "evidence" you refer to. You cannot solve every human conundrum with DNA and science alone. That is not possible. You need history, culture, and so on to fill the gaps.

Charles said...

I truly do not understand how you can say that Spain was assimilationist with a straight face. Certainly, certain aspects were assimilated after forceful marriages and conversions. But the majority of Jews were given the ultimatum to convert or leave. I don't believe the moors were even given the chance!


The Spanish policy was an ambivalent policy. The perfect example is that of the gypsies. There were periods of assimilation and periods of persecution. A Dr. Jeckle and Mr. Hyde syndrome.

If the Nazi Germans got rid of 12 million Jews, wiped away all traces of Jews ever had lived in Europe and won the war; centuries later they could also flat out lie and state that the Jews never really existed in any great numbers and really did not make much of an impact at all on European history or genetics. They could argue they were a myth and nothing more. History is written by the victors. That is rigged "evidence". This is why Franco and Hitler were 'dos alas de un solo pájaro.'

Maju said...

L3b1a is found in West Asia and North Africa, yes. You say that you checked and your closest Old World relatives are from North Africa and Ethiopia. Fine.

Just that I don't see it as clearly related to Spain unless you can pinpoint the lineage still surviving (or in ancient DNA) in the Iberian peninsula or Canary islands. So I find the claim odd.

Notice please that for Christians, Muslims and Jews, the primary relevant ancestry was all the time paternal. For example Abd Al-Rahman III was proclaimed Caliph because of being an Ummayad, but his mother and paternal grandmother were Basques (mother was a princess, granny was a slave).

"So there is nothing scientifically "exceptional" about an L3b1a being an Egyptian and moving into Spain during the Moorish period".

A woman? Not too likely, sincerely. Remember that all your ancestors by that line were women (not a single men is possible because then the mtDNA line would get broken). Even for men, traveling such long distances was uncommon, unless they belonged to some very rare classes like Jews (merchants) or high dignataries. For women it was much much rarer.

I do not know many of the details about Puerto Rican history but my impression is that it was since the beginning a secondary or even tertiary colony nobody cared too much about (unlike for example Cuba, Mexico or Peru).

"Her 9% Native does not make her a Native American. Neither does her 10% West African nor her 6% South African".

I don't understand this: are you trying by any chance to adapt the complex reality of genetics to the absurd "one-drop-rule" of the USA Jim Crow apartheid mentality? I'm missing some cultural clue here, sincerely. If one is 10% Native American one is 10% Native American and that's it, being Native American or any other category is not in genetic terms a yes-no alternative but a complex reality. Similarly if one is 15-20% West African, one is 15-20% West African and that's it.

Now whether that one person decides to embrace more or less lovingly or reject altogether his/her ancestry, it's a personal decision, not something that genetics can decide.

"These are slave elements that the Portuguese brought in the 15 and 1600's to the Caribbean most likely".

There was a lot of slave trade in the Caribbean, first by the Portuguese, later by the Dutch and the British mostly. In theory Castilians were banned from taking part in the trade but they were consumers anyhow, what is kind of hypocritical. I don't know why you can know this is specifically Portuguese-brought. In fact, the life in plantations was so hard that most slaves died, first Native Americans, later Africans (but also Irish and whatever else).

In the USA for the last century of slavery and because of the constitutional prohibition of importing slaves, there was a whole breeding industry (although also smuggling) but in other parts of America like Brazil the raw brutality of the exploitation continued until abolition, meaning continuous new imports of forced workers from Africa.

Or in some cases from Europe, like said Andalusian slaves sent to Cuba with the arrival of the bourgeois order to Europe. I was told by a history teacher years ago that Cadiz city had 20% of Black (slave) inhabitants before abolition and that they were all sent to Cuba.

"You need history, culture, and so on to fill the gaps".

Precisely. And I do not see many women migrating from Egypt to Iberia and then Caribbean. It is a very marked historical unlikelihood.

Is it possible? Almost everything is possible as most unlikely fluke but that's about it.

Now, if you could trace the lineage to Iberia, Canary Islands or at least some very likely spot of North Africa (certainly not Egypt), the chances grow somewhat.

Maju said...

"But the majority of Jews were given the ultimatum to convert or leave. I don't believe the moors were even given the chance!"

They were given the chance, even forced to convert at sword point in some cases, I imagine.

Actually there was strong local resistance to enforcing these laws because most peasants in some areas (Andalusia, Aragon, Valencia...) were Muslims and expelling them was extremely uneconomic for the elites. You can't expel 20-50% or more of the workers without consequences.

Also notice that these decrees happened at a very specific period, when Granada was conquered and the Turk/Barbary pirates' threat was growing dramatically. Before that, there had been many centuries of tolerance. Notice that Las Navas de Tolosa (near Jaén) was in 1212 and the conquest of Granada in 1492, almost 300 years later. Official historiography describes the Reconquista as something lasting eight centuries but it was actually almost all between 1031 (implosion of the Cordoba Caliphate) and 1212 (Battle of Navas de Tolosa): less than 200 years. Most of the time tolerance was the rule in fact but brief episodes of intolerance like the Almohad or Almoravid dominations or the forced conversion/expulsion of 1492-93 and the excess of the Inquisition in the subsequent century seem to be more defining of history than all the good will and tolerance for so many centuries.

It's the same with Germany and Poland, for centuries a major fraction of their population was Jewish but a few years of Nazism changed it all. Or look at Bosnia: people of the three communities lived side by side... until the ethnic cleansing of the 1990s.

In general I'd say that Castile was assimilationist, although also somewhat racist in practical terms. In America it was Mestizos who made up the backbone of the Empire, even if the top posts were controlled by Iberian aristocrats with no roots most of the time. And who was Mestizo? Whoever who was not anymore just Indian. That's assimilationism.

It's not a friendly welcome for all "just because" but a selectively open hand for those who the regime finds useful. Similarly Romans conceded citizenship only (initially) to those who served the Republic (not yet Empire) well, regardless of ancestry. I don't want to idealize it but it's not a perpetually closed door just because of ancestry: it's always somewhat open. It's a way to make allies out of former enemies.

Did not Cortés marry Malinche? Did not Urdaneta go back to Valladolid and Hernani with a mixed-blood illegitimate daughter? Was not that also the case of the daughter of Lope de Aguirre? Maybe they were daughters of slaves but they were treated as full daughters, not as slaves. Instead people like Washington were selling their own colored daughters at the market. That's particularly brutal, I feel.

I wouldn't like to idealize Spanish imperialism. Not at all but there was an element of assimilation in all three Latin colonial empires in America that is completely lost in the English one instead. In Europe similarly you see very different attitudes: France and Spain make you French and Spaniard by force, Britain instead keeps the differences even today. This has good (allows Scottish or Irish self-determination for example) and bad aspects but the difference should be apparent in any case.

Unknown said...

(My mtdna l3d1c of North Africa)
(My elder cousin who shares the same mtdna as I ) results on global similarity advance on 23andme.com shows that we best cluster with the mozabites of Algeria do this mean I possibly had a maternal ancestor From this berber group ...any help

Charles said...

Now, if you could trace the lineage to Iberia, Canary Islands or at least some very likely spot of North Africa (certainly not Egypt), the chances grow somewhat.

I already presented to you my links to Iberia. I sincerely don't know why that is so hard to swallow! My fellow Canarian Cuban L3b1a immigrated from the Canary Islands in the late 19th century! She was a Spaniard! I truly do not understand why that would be so difficult to fathom. Spain kicked much of it's undesirables out. Many conversos or new christians ended up in the Canaries on their way tot he new world. This does not signify necessarily that they were native guanche. That may or may not be the case.

Looking at my grandmother's admixture, there is no way of saying she was a slave. All the admixture does is say what she is now. Not what she was 500 years ago.

No one drop rule here. We are way much too mixed to care about such things!

I understand about the importance of the male line. My male line is not in question. My female line is important to me for my own reasons. My female line was the one that brought me up and taught me values. So that line means alot to me.

I have seen more than enough L's from North Africa/Southern Europe to know that it is more than possible. They were concentrated in certain populations in Spain. Populations the Spanish whites actively targeted, discriminated against, discarded or in some instances integrated.

If I found tomorrow, that my grandmother had been a slave. That would be fine with me. If I found she had been brought as a wife via the Saharan slave trade in the middle ages. That would be fine. If I find she was a neolithic L3 from Iberia. That would be fine. I want the truth. So far, after half a decade, I have seen more than enough genetics and genealogical evidence to convince myself my grandmother is primarily an Iberianized North African/Middle Easterner. You will see things as you see fit. I will see them as I see them. Two will look at the same thing and come up with completely different conclusions. Such is human nature. Science alone cannot unravel the messy history that is Iberia and Latin America.

Charles said...

My grandmother's closest population on the Dienekes tools is Sephardic Jew. The Moroccan also comes up quite alot. Moroccans have the same amount of Egyptian as my grandmother does. There are gypsies in Iberia of North African Middle Eastern and Sephardic origin. This occurred because those peoples were targeted. Many ended up part of the gypsy troupes to avoid persecution or extradiction. This is in your historical records. They were not one type only in Spain. Iberian history had a role to play in the mixing of these peoples.

In McDonald's and FTDNA analysis, my grandma shows as 60% Spanish! I have seen no modern era African slaves with that amount of European.

You underestimate the massive population movements that occurred in the middle east, north Africa and Iberia as a consequence of the surge of Islam.

Maju said...

@Charles: I just say that the lineage has not been found in Iberia, past or present, what makes your case weaker. But why would you care to persuade me: I don't have all the clues.

Also Canary Islands is not Iberia and is full of non-Iberian, African, mtDNA lineages (some of which are native/Berber but others are surely product of the slave trade). Canary Islands were an important slave trade hub, although not as much as nearby Madeira, the first overseas plantation colony ever.

"If I found tomorrow, that my grandmother had been a slave".

Your grandmother? Not very likely if you ask me. If anything it'd be someone much more ancient.

"My grandmother's closest population on the Dienekes tools is Sephardic Jew".

But that can be an artifice because of similar admixture apportions. And it doesn't matter because the carrier of the lineage 500 years ago may have got a very different mix. Autosomal DNA recombines every single generation: you can't reconstruct the past with it easily.

A very different thing might be if you found some Jews with that mtDNA lineage but that's not the case, is it?

"Many ended up part of the gypsy troupes to avoid persecution or extradiction".

I don't believe this part. Never read such thing ever before.

"In McDonald's and FTDNA analysis, my grandma shows as 60% Spanish! I have seen no modern era African slaves with that amount of European".

I have not said that your grandma was a slave (that would be absurd because there is no formal slavery today - fortunately). We'd be considering someone like 20-30 generations removed, I guess.

Your grandma has some 16-20% Tropical African ancestry for what I have seen, what is the equivalent to one of her great-grandparents (or more) being pureblood Black. But it can come from several lines.

In any case it has nothing to do with the autosomal ancestry because that can well be so diluted today to be not noticeable.

You all the time confuse both things: mtDNA and Y-DNA lineages are persistent, they do not mix, but autosomal DNA recombines every generation, so you have approx. 50% from each of your parents, 25% from each of your grandparents (exact amount may vary), 12.5% from each of your great-grandparents, 6% from each of your great-great-grandparents, 3% from each of your great-great-great-grandparents (the Neanderthal ancestry equivalent in Eurasians), 1.5% from each of your great-great-great-great-grandparents (some 200-250 years ago), etc.

As you go back in time the influence of each of your ancestors becomes more and more negligible (unless there is endogamy, with the same ancestors appearing in several roots). Instead the purely maternal or paternal lineages remain.

So the autosomal influence of your hypothetical Black African ancestor 300 or 500 years ago would not be apparent anymore. But you would still have the mtDNA lineage if the female line is uninterrupted.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Maju said...

@Les: as I told you in the other blog, it seems to me correct that L3d1c appears to be a NW African specific lineage. You should however write the first letter capitalized (not all the others). Cheers.

Unknown said...

Thanks for the reply and appreciate you for taking your personal time to dedicate it to concerned people who need importnant info

Maju said...

@Charles: I've been checking your list of markers versus Behar's data (see supp. material of his paper - link in main article) and I could not find any further info. Why? Because the tested markers are not relevant: it could be any sublineage of L3b1a (except one from South Africa - as far as I could see with a quick review).

IF you are so interested in pinpointing the origin of that lineage, you should review that sheet, take due note of all the relevant markers defining each sublineage and sub-sublineage and pay for a personalized test at the DNA testing company of your choice.

By testing for at least one coding region marker in each of the lines, you can determine which are not and, hopefully which one is it in fact. That's the scientific method.

Still maybe by checking carefully you can find one locus I did not spot shared between your sequence and a L3b1a sublineage but I could not spot any.

For Les is much easier: there are only three sublineages of L3d1c: one from Egypt, another from Tunisia and the third one from the USA (somewhat related to the Tunisian one).

Charles said...

You all the time confuse both things: mtDNA and Y-DNA lineages are persistent, they do not mix, but autosomal DNA recombines every generation, so you have approx. 50% from each of your parents, 25% from each of your grandparents (exact amount may vary), 12.5% from each of your great-grandparents, 6% from each of your great-great-grandparents, 3% from each of your great-great-great-grandparents (the Neanderthal ancestry equivalent in Eurasians), 1.5% from each of your great-great-great-great-grandparents (some 200-250 years ago), etc.

I am well aware of how this works. In Puerto Rico, the average is 15% Afro, 15% Native and 70% Euro. This evened out across the population over the centuries.

I wasn't talking about my grandmother literally being a slave! I would venture a possibility she may have been a slave during the Islamic Medieval period. I don't have evidence for her ever having been one in the modern era; not genealogical and not genetic. So I cannot chance guess it based on L3b1a mitochondria alone, because L3b1a is as much Eurafrican as it is Tropical African. It can go either way. This makes it much more complicated.

In fact I am in the process of taking a further test. I do not believe it will give me any more info than what I already have. Most of my L3b1a matches in FTDNA are Hispanic and can trace their roots to Spain. The ONLY only that is distantly related that is African at all is from Eastern Africa. The common ancestor with this one would've been well over a thousand years ago.

Maju said...

"Most of my L3b1a matches in FTDNA are Hispanic and can trace their roots to Spain."

Fair enough.

Charles said...

I recently found this study which found in Zamora a total of four samples of L3b1a. My grandma matches all the mutations they discovered. This region was an early buffer zone and no man's land between Christians and Muslims. Spain, unlike Portugal, does not have much historical records regarding slavery in the region. However, there is a strong North African heritage here. My grandmother does not cluster with Tropical Africans. She clusters with North Africans: http://www.academia.edu/1270087/Mitochondrial_DNA_patterns_in_the_Iberian_Northern_plateau_population_dynamics_and_substructure_of_the_Zamora_province

So yes. L3b1a is rare. But it isnot impossible to find! L samples were also found in a Berber 8th century necropolis in Pamplona Spain (page 29):

http://www.seaf.net/xviicongreso/Posters.pdf

Maju said...

I do not consider those lineages of NW Iberia (not circumscribed to Zamora but also further North in the Maragatería district of León, etc.) as Muslim. The main reason is precisely that there is not at all any "expected" S-N cline or SE-NW one but in fact the "North African" lineages seem concentrated in the West of Iberia (see here for Y-DNA, but AFAIK mtDNA follows the same pattern), so IMO they are either Neolithic or pre-Neolithic.

The mention of which must be the only Berber cemetery in Pamplona ever is puzzling, I admit, but I haven't been able as of now to open the poster, so I can't make any specific criticism. I'm updating my system right now and I'll try after that again.

Maju said...

Nope: can't open the poster PDF (it claims it's damaged or something). Sorry.

Charles said...

If you part from the premise that Iberia has never been "stained" by African genetics, except by the pristine and untainted paleolithics, then all evidence will point to you in this direction. The work presented to you gives indication that the Genetic markers they found may be indicative of a North African Berber presence in the region.

Here is the evidence of Berber L's in Pamplona. It shows that the Islamic advanced and colonized areas as far north as Basque land. I understand that the Spanish have been trying to white wash their history for centuries in order to feel more European, but the evidence is there and should be taken objectively without cultural prejudice.

Nº: 88
Tema: Diversidad Genética de Poblaciones Humanas
Tipo de presentación: Póster
Título: Variabilidad genética de la población adulta de la Maqbara de Pamplona (Navarra s.
VIII)
Autores: Fontecha L, Hervella M, López S, Alonso S, Izagirre N, de la Rúa C
Institución: Universidad del País Vasco (UPV/EHU), Facultad de Ciencia y Tecnología.
Departamento de Genética, Antropología Física y Fisiología Animal; 48080 Bilbao, Spain.
Contacto: Lara.fontecha@ehu.es
Resumen: En la maqbara de la Plaza del Castillo (Pamplona, Navarra) datada en el s. VIII, se
han recuperado restos humanos de 167 individuos, 74 de ellos adultos. Con el fin de valorar si
la influencia cultural islámica tiene una correspondencia a nivel biológico, se ha recuperado el
ADN de 66 individuos adultos, realizándose además el análisis por duplicado de todos ellos. Se
ha analizado la secuencia del HVR-I y la posición nucleotídica 73 de la HVR-II, así como la
determinación de algunos SNPs de la región codificante. En algunos casos (CRS), se ha
secuenciado además el HVR II con el fin de identificar distintos haplotipos. Los 66 individuos
analizados han proporcionado 46 haplotipos diferentes (diversidad genética de 0.7156 ±
0.0565). Si bien la mayoría de estos haplotipos mitocondriales son frecuentes en las
poblaciones actuales, 12 de ellos son secuencias únicas en la maqbara y 6 haplotipos
presentan origen africano (L3b1a, L2b, L3f2, L3f2, L3b1d, L3e2b). En cuanto al cromosoma Y,
los primeros datos obtenidos mediante el análisis de SNPs, indican frecuencias relevantes de
haplogrupos de origen africano, como el haplogrupo E. Estos resultados sugieren la existencia
de flujo génico entre África y el Norte de la Península Ibérica, en una época correspondiente a
los primeros años de la conquista islámica. El análisis completo que incluya también a los
subadultos, permitirá establecer posibles asimetrías del flujo génico y la interpretación
biosocial del grupo humano enterrado en la maqbara de Pamplona.
AGRADECIMIENTOS: La investigación contenida en este trabajo, ha sido realizada gracias a la
financiación del MCeI (CGL-2004-03300 y GCL-2007-65515) y del Gobierno Vasco (IT453-07 y
IT542-10). Además de la concesión de una beca predoctoral del Gobierno Vasco a L. Fontecha
(BFI08.33).

Maju said...

I don't part from that "premise that Iberia has never been "stained" by African genetics, except by the pristine and untainted paleolithics". I find, with others, that the genetic legacy of North Africa in Iberia does not fit the Muslim era assumption at all:

1. It is concentrated in the Western third of the peninsula and has no S-N nor SE-NW cline whatsoever.

2. It lacks important North African lineages, notably Y-DNA J1, which does not reach >3% anywhere (>1% on average, most notable in historically Muslim places: East Andalusia, Portugal, Southern Castile, Valencia and Majorca).

Of course the Muslim invasion left some genetic legacy, but it is minimal and concentrated in the Y-DNA side and in the regions where one would expect to find it (the South essentially).

But E1b-M81 (and other E1b) is instead concentrated in the Western Third, especially: West Andalusia (10%+5%), León region (10%+8%), Extremadura (8%+8%), Galicia (9%+8%), South Portugal (8%+7%). Also notable in the "other E1b" category are Asturias (a Christian stronghold) with 0% M81 but 15% other E1b and North Portugal with 3% M81 but 7% other E1b.

This "other E1b" is not too common in North Africa (10%) but, for what I have been told, is only exceptionally the Balcanic-Neolithic E-V13, so it may well correspond to some other and/or very ancient migration within E1b in general, which spilled over to the Western third of Iberia. Whether this ancient migrations are Neolithic or Paleolithic (Solutrean-Oranian interactions which probably also originated the 30% SW European mtDNA, H and V, in NW Africa) I can't say for sure. Maybe both but certainly only limitedly post-Neolithic.

The Pamplona cemetery data is very interesting, thanks, but it does not indicate that those people (surely soldiers, Pamplona was Muslim-occupied only between 715-755, plus a brief interlude later on 778-799, caused by Charlemagne's destruction of the city walls before the First Battle of Roncevaux Pass) had any significant impact in the modern genetic pool. Considering that the Muslim occupation and emphasis was in the South (Andalusia) and East (Valencia, Zaragoza, Majorca), it is totally inconsistent with the relative lack of E1b-M81, the most dominant North African patrilineage by far (54%, 62% in Morocco - but only 2% in East Andalusia, 4% in Valencia, 2% in Majorca and 3% in Aragon).

Main ref. Adams 2008 (especially fig. 1): http://www.cell.com/AJHG/fulltext/S0002-9297%2808%2900592-2

Maju said...

Typo ">1% on average" should be "<1% on average".

Charles said...

I will give you the benefit of the doubt that the L3b in question is neolithic. More research is needed. On the other hand, my L3b not only matches Sayago L3b mutations, but I also have a 3rd cousin on 23 and me that has a maternal L3b that matches all my mitochondrial mutations. His mother is Puerto Rican and his father is Moroccan. He clusters closely with Galicians genetically. And Galicia is right next to the Zamora province. So I am confident that my L3b is closely linked to the Sayago L3b. At any rate, it has been a pleasure to discuss L3 with you. Forgive me if I am passionate about the topic, but keep in mind we are talking about my maternal heritage! :-)

Maju said...

I enjoy sharing what I have learned along the years. My pleasure.

Anyhow, consider also that I'm pretty sure of having located L3(xM,N), most likely L3d, in a sample from Epipaleolithic Portugal, sequenced by Chandler, Sykes & Zilhao 2005 but then described as N* (quite wrongly in my opinion). See my ancient mtDNA maps of Europe page.

Also in a recent study on L(xM,N) lineages in Europe (not sure if I mentioned before - see here), the authors conclude that several L1b sublineages seem to be established in Europe (and particularly in Iberia) since very ancient times. L3d1b1a also looks in this paper as possibly European (only located in Italy).

Some L lineages must have been in North Africa and Arabia since the times of the migration out-of-Africa. Therefore there's nothing really strange that some of them have permeated to Europe since time immemorial.

However I can't find anything specific about L3b1a, just that L3b makes up 6% of European L(xM,N).

Enjoy.

Charles said...

I also have two more genetic L3b1a 3rd cousins that do not match our mitochondria perfectly, but have all the 3 key Sayago L3b mutations. They too are from Puerto Rico. I have a third that matches all 3 key mutations. The third is a distant cousin at best. So I have a statistical sample of 5 L3b1a samples so far; which is statistically significant. So I seem to come from a cluster of L3b's that may have left that area of Sayago in the 1600's to seek better opportunities elsewhere.

At any rate, it has been a pleasure to debate with you. :-)

Charles said...

I also just completed a k36 on gedmatch and my grandma shows up with 6.46% West Mediterranean. Only pure Spanish and French show up with more than her. Out of the 170+ participants that have participated on a discussion of this particular on 23 and me, only about 6 individuals have more West Mediterranean than my grandma. Two of those are Canarian. One is a maternal L3b from the Cantabrian region. So I definitively have to be open to the possibility that my grandma is a neolithic L3b that acquired her African when her ancestors arrived in the Caribbean. It is this African drift genetic material actually makes her look genetically Berber.

Charles said...

I recently completed a Canarian project using SPA software developed at UCLA and using the Eurogenes West Eurasian model. I included 30 genomes of pure Canarians, pure Berbers, Iberians, and Canarian diaspora from Cuba, Puerto Rico and Uruguay. My grandmother's genome is the only one that actually touches the Canaries. Not only is she located in the Canaries, but she is also located just one Island due west from Tenerife, where I believe (based on genealogical evidence)she is from. There is another genome that is located just due north and east of her. That genome represents a genetic third cousin that matches all my grandmother's mitchondrial mutations. His mother is Puerto Rican and his father Moroccan. Most Puerto Ricans of white peasant stock are of Canarian descent. This is the map of the thirty genomes. Each blue dot on the map represents a genome:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-gtF2Hah8JISmc4STV4a1JXbWs/edit?usp=sharing

You have been historically open to the possibility that some percentage of L in the Canaries is indigenous to the Islands:

"Maju said...
IMO, it's hard to say for sure that the so-called "subsaharan African" mtDNA, that is L(xM,N) is necesarily of recent Tropical origin (i.e. slave trade). These clades are common enough in North Africa as to be considered native from that area or at least estabilished since long ago (possibly Capsian period).

In your other post on Tinerfeño aDNA it's said that 15.6% L meant the high importance of slave trade, but now this study on Canarian aborigines also shows a high incidence of L (albeit lower: 7%), what implies that at least a fraction of Canarian L was not directly from Tropical Africa. And this must be also applied to North African L in general."


http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2009/04/ancient-mtdna-from-la-palma-canary.html

The fact is that L in general never stayed in one place. It moved everywhere following the changing climate and the animal herds. And some even broke free from Mother Africa. :-)

Maju said...

Congratulations for your findings, Charles. I am a bit perplex about the blue dots on that map that are in the middle of the ocean but I'm not really sure what they mean, so guess it makes sense somehow.

"You have been historically open to the possibility that some percentage of L in the Canaries is indigenous to the Islands".

Indeed, as is the case in North Africa in general (and also to a lesser extent in Western Iberia - surely an ancient minor flow from North Africa). In my updated understanding of the matter NW Africa was its own very African region by ancestry (Aterian culture, dating surely to the time of the OoA migration, c. 125 Ka ago) until the LGM, when people with Gravetto-Solutrean culture seem to have migrated from SE Iberia and initiated the Oranian culture (AKA Iberomaurusian). The subsequent interaction with the natives must have produced some backflow into Iberia with lesser founder effects in the Western areas (Portugal and Asturias especially but later affecting all the Western third of the peninsula). I am pretty sure, on aDNA studies, that there were some L(xM,N) lineages in Epipaleolithic Portugal and also in Syria, so it's absolutely no wonder that they also existed in North Africa, as Fregel found in fact among ancient Guanches.

When some 125-90 Ka ago people migrated out of Africa, they brought with them a variety of African lineages. Most of them did not go far (North Africa and Arabia Peninsula essentially, judging from present day data) and only two L3 variants (M and N) made it to India and beyond, being the ones which experienced a secondary expansion from India and SE Asia and are now the largest by far in numerical terms.

As the expanded and rather expansive "Eurasian" population looked for new niches they went to Australia, Siberia and the Western "Neanderlands" (Europe, much of West Asia and all Central Asia) but also back into Africa. As I see it now, this wave back into Africa were actually two: first the c. 50 Ka BP "mode 4" flow into NE Africa (Y-DNA J1 and T mainly, mtDNA M1, X1... trigger of African LSA surely - although it could be the other way around) and later the c. 22 Ka BP wave from Iberia into the NW. The two components are very apparent in autosomal analysis of North Africans, along with some ultra-Saharan blood and, interestingly, what seems to be some "residual" Aterian blood (ultra-aboriginal NW African), with highest frequencies in Southern Morocco. These "Aterians" were certainly not M/N but carried L(xM,N) lineages.

Finally the Capsian wave from Egypt/Nubia conformed the last layer on the NW African genetic landscape (although it may have two sublayers: an Epipaleolithic and a Neolithic one). More recent inflows should not account for more than 25% of the ancestry, probably quite less.

Maju said...

Something that is quite intriguing and may interest you are the results of Moreno Estrada 2013:

http://forwhattheywereweare.blogspot.com/2013/06/caribbean-autosomal-ancestry.html

The intriguing matter is that the "European" ancestry in modern Caribbean peoples is "unnaturally" or counter-intuitively dominated by a component (black) that seems vaguely "Mediterranean" but that is nowhere in Europe as dominant at all as in the Caribbean (relatively to the other European component, red in fig. S2 or red and pink in fig. 1). Since I read that, I'm wondering what kind of founder effect that may represent and so far my best guess is that it is not really pointing to Europe but to North Africa (possibly, not sampled in that paper). However mainland North Africa was certainly not any major origin of Caribbean Criollos, so I wonder: were the Canary Islands the source of the vast majority of Spanish settlers?

On first sight one would think it very unlikely but we know only so much of the "little history" of Canarias back then. We know that the Pope repeatedly issued bulls against the enslaving of Christian Guanches, what was unheeded by the Portuguese repeatedly and undoubtedly played in favor of Castilian final conquest. Castile, much like Portugal, was not any such nest of willing settlers for overseas. There were some adventurers in search of gold and glory but where did all the common people come from? It's generally accepted by default that from the Peninsula but how real is that? Could it be that instead of enslaving the Christian Guanches, Castile recruited them as pawns for the settlement of America?

There could be other explanations but the anomaly is quite suggestive and at the very least demands deeper research, contrasting with North African samples, as well as regionalized Spanish ones, if we want to clarify this matter.

Charles said...

Yes. I have to agree with that suggestion. The fact is that my ancestors in the 19th century had titles of Don and Doña in caps in church documents. In Spanish imperial times that could only mean two things: either they were wealthy or they were of noble descent. My maternal ancestors in the 19th century were not wealthy and were documented as 'blanco' on the church documents (there were separate listings for the 'blancos'and the 'negros y mulatos' back then):

http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/b/u/r/Luis-R-Burset/WEBSITE-0001/UHP-1285.html

So this led me to the Díaz line on Tenerife. They were one of only two noble Guanche families 'que hicieron las paces' with the Spanish crown. This coincides with my great grandma's story of descending from an indigenous princess being raped by a Spaniard, since that seems to be precisely what happened to Pelinor's daughter in the 1490's shortly after the conquest. I obtained that information here:

http://mdc.ulpgc.es/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/aea/id/1704/rv/singleitem

I can trace my direct maternal lineage in Puerto Rico to the 1700's Bayamón and the Toas, which were founded by Canarian immigrants. They took to the hills quickly to grow coffee and tobacco (And to avoid mixing with outsiders; since they were very clannish people!). This is where my ancestors were located for centuries: hilly country. Hilly country in Puerto Rico was dominated by the white peasants while the low lands were dominated by the Spanish (metro areas), the blacks and mulatos (beach and urban areas like Río Piedras and Santurce) and the mestizos (The few male Native Americans that survived the 'conquista' mainly in the cave systems to the west of the Islands; far from the metro areas). The elite families also lived to the western part of the island. These little details do matter! :-)

It seems that my ancestors came as a consequence of the Tributo de Sangre. The Tibuto de Sangre was a forced migrational policy designed to fill depopulated parts of the Empire that were vulnerable to conquest by foreign powers. It was also designed as a 'válvula de escape' to decrease social unrest in the Canaries. It also served the purpose to try to make the colonies more profitable to the Crown (since they extracted all the gold they could by then!):

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tributo_de_sangre

Most that came from this Spanish policy came to Puerto Rico between 1720 and 1730. Unfortunately there are only estimates of how many families came (perhaps the documentation was eaten up by book worms! :-) ) It wasn't until the Cédula de Gracia in the early 1800's that you finally began to see a huge European influx into the Island (mainly do to the elite of other former colonies finding refuge in the last Spanish holdings in Latin America: Cuba and Puerto Rico).

Charles said...

When you look phenotypically at the Puerto Ricans, they come across mainly as an Iberian-Berber mix with Native American (the Spanish killed off most Native men and kept the Woman for marriage; over 60% by genetic estimates.) and Some African Woman (The Atlantic slave trade favored MEN two to one unlike the Transaharan slave trade. Only like 16% of the mitochondria found in Puerto Rico is attributable to Tropical Africa; and a substantial part of those African mitochondria can just as well be North African, since there are substantial amounts of those in North Africa as well.)

My Great Great Grandma María Fonseca was said to be blonde and blue eyed. My family favored recessive traits (As most Canarians typically did on the Island.). And like the Guanche, there were direct maternal descendants that grew up with blonde hair such as my cousin Janet and My Great Uncle 'El Cano':

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-gtF2Hah8JIcFVvdlNoQmRjeWc/edit?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-gtF2Hah8JIVkx6UHpPdmdsMG8/edit?usp=sharing

It's the kind of blonde hair that turns brown as an adult. Certainly not the trait of a Tropical African and it's rare in Latin America to have blondes at all! :-) Plus my family had hazel, blue, and amber eyes (I have amber colored eyes). So genetically, genealogically and phenotypically, my family looks far more like Canarian Guanche Iberian mix than they do Tropical African. :-)

So yea. I agree. It is a complex situation. That's why each person needs to do their own research and draw their own conclusions based on that research. :-)

I think, in the end, I think the Spanish saw the Canarians the same way the English saw the Irish and Scots (since I am of English descent on my father's side, I have an interesting perspective on that!). The Canarians were convenient and served as convenient pawns as you say to keep the empire well lubricated. They were in some ways like indentured servants. But the Spanish never had the same kind of iron fist policies the English had!

Charles said...

The fact is also that Puerto Rico never played a mayor roll in the slave trade. For example, most of the African slaves ended up in Brazil! In Cuba, for every white European you had on the Island, there were 9 Tropical Africans! This is why the culture, language, religions and customs of the tropical Africans survived so well! Most of the Cubans that made it to Florida after the take over of Castro were in fact of White Canarian descent; because they had the money and the means to leave Cuba! :-)

Puerto Rico suffered a century long recession in the 1600's that did not enable it to have the economy needed to even need to import much slave labor. So the Bourbon policies of the early 1700's via the Tributo de Sangre were an attempt to revitalize the economy with 'peones' and/or salaried workers if you will. This set the tone for the influx of the 19th century and the abolition of slavery on the Island in the late 1870's.

Charles said...

I also agree with what you said that populations such as the North West Africans, the Jews and the Roma need to be included to better understand the Caribbean mix. For example, my grandma shows up with a whopping ten percent Hungarian! The only way I can explain that is that my great grandfather Daniel (Who looks precisely like a Hungarian Roma!)Must've been a descendant of the Spanish Roma (Which were called 'húngaros' by the Spaniards themselves!).

That would also explain why my grandma has over 80 distant genetic cousins that are ashkenazi jewish! How else to explain that except Jews fleeing the Spanish inquisition both to the Canaries (sephardics) and to Eastern Europe (sephardics mixing with ashkenazi)?

Charles said...

Unlike the 'Peninsulares' that came to the Islands mainly to do business and then go back to Spain, the 'Isleños' tended to stay and set roots on the Island:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmRIxmMxY6c

Charles said...

I compared my Great maternal grandma Lola (middle) to a Canarian Cuban (left) and a Guanche mummy (right). I must say that their phenotypes are indeed very similar:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-gtF2Hah8JIczhueGY1a19YT2M/edit?usp=sharing

I also compared my maternal grandma (right) to a Canarian Guanche playing a Guanche princess in a documentary (left):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-gtF2Hah8JIcnRYYVZtRzg2N1k/edit?usp=sharing

Finally there is me (left) compared to a sketch of a Guanche completed in the 1500's (right). I would say we look quite alike!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-gtF2Hah8JITy1LbkMyRnFiSzQ/edit?usp=sharing

I have done this on both sides of the maternal family. It seems we are a Guanche (female side) Iberian (male side) mix for the most part, with Tropical African and Native American admixture. :-)

Maju said...

All you say here is most interesting. I have of course some doubts about crypto-Jews (the so-called "marranos" in inquisitorial and similar texts) being such an important source of settlers and I have absolutely no idea how many Roma (Gitanos) may have joined the colonial adventure. These last should look genetically distinct from Berbers/Guanches, although Jews may be confused with them on shallow analysis (North Africa and the southern parts of West Asia have significant shared ancestry from very old -Capsian, etc.- but they are also distinct in many aspects). Although not excluding some crypto-Jewish influence in the colonization of Latin America, genetic studies of alleged "Jewish ancestry" populations in Mexico, for example, have clearly dispelled such claims as mythical, so I must be very cautious on this aspect.

But all the Canarian link is most interesting. I was unaware of this Tributo de Sangre policy (although there are some that consider it largely a myth: http://www.historiadecanarias.com/canarii/12/el-mito-del-tributo-de-sangre-en-la-emigracion-canaria) but what seems quite clear by now is that Canarias was one of the most important sources of colonial settlers, very especially in the "less important" Caribbean islands.

Thanks a lot for this insight. I will right away comment in the other entry I linked to (at my "new" blog "For what they were...", this one was closed in Oct. 2010) because the insight you provide here is very helpful, really.

Charles said...

Thanks Maju!

It's conversations like these that I find the most productive! :-)

Saludos! :-)

Unknown said...

My mtdna is L4b1a. Is this out of Yemen or Ethiopia?

Unknown said...

Y'DNA J and T didn't came to North Africa 50Kya