Mitochondrial DNA signals of late glacial recolonization of Europe from near eastern refugia

Human populations, along with those of many other species, are thought to have contracted into a number of refuge areas at the height of the last Ice Age. European populations are believed to be, to a large extent, the descendants of the inhabitants of these refugia, and some extant mtDNA lineages can be traced to refugia in Franco-Cantabria (haplogroups H1, H3, V, and U5b1), the Italian Peninsula (U5b3), and the East European Plain (U4 and U5a). Parts of the Near East, such as the Levant, were also continuously inhabited throughout the Last Glacial Maximum, but unlike western and eastern Europe, no archaeological or genetic evidence for Late Glacial expansions into Europe from the Near East has hitherto been discovered. Here we report, on the basis of an enlarged whole-genome mitochondrial database, that a substantial, perhaps predominant, signal from mitochondrial haplogroups J and T, previously thought to have spread primarily from the Near East into Europe with the Neolithic population, may in fact reflect dispersals during the Late Glacial period, ∼19-12 thousand years (ka) ago. M.P. was supported by Marie Curie Early Stage Training “Advanced Genetic Analysis in the Postgenomic Era” (European Union MEST-CT-2004-504318) and by a Newton International Fellowship. This research was also supported by the Italian Ministry of Education, University, and Research: Progetti FIRB-Futuro in Ricerca 2008 (to A.A. and A.O.), and Progetti Ricerca Interesse Nazionale 2009 (to A.A., O.S. and A.T.); Fondazione Alma Mater Ticinensis (to A.T. and O.S.); the European Commission, Directorate-General for Research (FP7 Ecogene grant number 205419, to R.V.); the European Union Regional Development Fund (through the Centre of Excellence in Genomics, to R.V.); the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research (Basic Research grant numbers SF 0270177As08, to R.V., and SF 0270177Bs08, to E.M.); the Estonian Science Foundation (grant number 7858, to E.M.); and the FCT (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology), through research project PTDC/CS-ANT/113832/2009 and personal grants to J.B.P. (SFRH/BD/45657/2008) and P.S. (SFRH/BPD/64233/2009). P.S. also received support from the DeLaszlo Foundation. N.A.-Z. was supported by the Institute of International Education fellowship. IPATIMUP is an Associate Laboratory of the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology, and Higher Education (FCT) and is partially supported by FCT.