May 20, 2005

The origin of M1

Here is the page of a doctoral student working on the origin of mtDNA haplogroup M1:
In addition, I am looking at a possible correlation between the presence of M1 in North and East Africa, and the Afro-Asiatic language family, which exists in a generally comparable region as M1. Further research in this area may help to understand more fully the relationship between genetic and linguistic change.

African Language Families: Illustrates the diverse linguistic families of the African continent. The Afro-Asiatic Language family may be related to the M1 mitochondrial haplogroup, as both are present in the same general areas of Africa and the Middle East.
I had referenced this work recently inspired by an abstract which appeared in the annual meeting of the AAPA:
The second great puzzle is mtDNA haplogroup M1 which occurs in East and North Africa, West Asia and Southern Europe, but not apparently anywhere else. M1 is a branch of the mainly Asian macrohaplogroup M, which is of great antiquity in Asia and likely originated there. According to a recent abstract, Holden et al. indicate that M1 is found at high frequencies in East and Northern Africa but not in Sub-Saharan Africa, and hint that it may be linked to the Afro-Asiatic language family. This suggestion is reasonable, and in my opinion the correspondence between M1 and Y-chromosome haplogroup E3b is quite remarkable throughout the broad peri-Mediterranean region, with E3b also reaching high frequencies in Afro-Asiatic speakers.

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