Paternal lineages in southern Iberia provide time frames for gene flow from mainland Europe and the Mediterranean world

Abstract

Background: The geography of southern Iberia and an abundant archaeological record of human occupation are ideal conditions for a full understanding of scenarios of genetic history in the area. Recent advances in the phylogeography of Y-chromosome lineages offer the opportunity to set upper bounds for the appearance of different genetic components.

Aim: To provide a global knowledge on the Y haplogroups observed in Andalusia with their Y microsatellite variation. Preferential attention is given to the vehement debate about the age, origin and expansion of R1b-M269 clade and sub-lineages.

Subject and methods: Four hundred and fourteen male DNA samples from western and eastern autochthonous Andalusians were genotyped for a set of Y-SNPs and Y-STRs. Gene diversity, potential population genetic structures and coalescent times were assessed.

Results: Most of the analysed samples belong to the European haplogroup R1b1a1a2-M269, whereas haplogroups E, J, I, G and T show lower frequencies. A phylogenetic dissection of the R1b-M269 was performed and younger time frames than those previously reported in the literature were obtained for its sub-lineages.

Conclusion: The particular Andalusian R1b-M269 assemblage confirms the shallow topology of the clade. Moreover, the sharing of lineages with the rest of Europe indicates the impact in Iberia of an amount of pre-existing diversity, with the possible exception of R1b-DF27. Lineages such as J2-M172 and G-M201 highlight the importance of maritime travels of early farmers who reached the Iberian Peninsula.

Keywords:

• Andalusia
• Y-chromosome lineages
• R1b-M269
• population genetics
• neolithic

Acknowledgements

We sincerely thank all of the Andalusian donors for participating and providing blood samples as well as the doctors, nurses and sanitary institutions from Huelva and Granada provinces that were involved in the sampling process. Likewise, we are very grateful to Richard Rocca, Thomas Krahn and Andy Grierson for their invaluable and friendly help with R1b-DF27 genotyping.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

Financial support was provided by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through Research Projects CGL2010-15191/BOS and CGL2014-53985-R, both granted to RC. CLH is supported by a research contract linked to the latter Project.