Haplogroup R is associated with the peopling of Eurasia after about 70,000 years ago, and is distributed in modern populations throughout the world outside of sub-Saharan Africa.

Tribes and castes of Western and Southern India show higher diversity than the other regions, possibly suggesting their autochthonous status.

[8] Larruga et al. (2017) found mtDNA R spread out to Eurasia and Australia from a core area along the Southeast Asian coast.

[9][10] Haplogroup R has also been observed among Egyptian mummies excavated at the Abusir el-Meleq archaeological site in Northern Egypt, which date from the Pre-Ptolemaic/late New Kingdom, Ptolemaic, and Roman periods.

[11] Subclade R2 was observed in the remains of a Neolithic human from western Iran in Tepe Abdul Hosein.