Haplogroup U
Ancient DNA classified as belonging to the U* mitochondrial haplogroup has been recovered from human skeletal remains found in Western Siberia, which have been dated to c. 45,000 years ago.
[4] The mitogenome (33-fold coverage) of the Peştera Muierii 1 individual (PM1) from Romania (35 ky cal BP) has been identified as the basal haplogroup U6* not previously found in any ancient or present-day humans.
[8] and in a separate study, DNA extracted from a tooth the mummified head of a much older mummy of about 4,000 years ago Djehutynakht of the very end of the 11th or early 12th Dynasty who belonged to mtDNA haplogroup U5b2b5 (with no exact matches found in a modern population of U5 carriers) from a 2018 article by Odile Loreille et al.[9] Additionally, haplogroup U has been observed in ancient Guanche fossils excavated in Gran Canaria and Tenerife on the Canary Islands, which have been radiocarbon-dated to between the 7th and 11th centuries CE.
[15] The old age has led to a wide distribution of the descendant subgroups across Western Eurasia, North Africa, and South Asia.
[19] The U1a1a subclade has been observed in an ancient individual excavated at the Kellis 2 cemetery in the Dakleh Oasis, located in the southwestern desert of Egypt.
[20] Haplogroup U1 has also been found among specimens at the mainland cemetery in Kulubnarti, Sudan, which date from the Early Christian period (AD 550-800).
[21] DNA analysis of excavated remains now located at ruins of the Church of St. Augustine in Goa, India have also revealed the unique mtDNA subclade U1b.
[22] Since the genetic analysis corroborates archaeological and literary evidence, it is believed that the excavated remains belong to Ketevan the Martyr, queen of Georgia.
U5 has been found in human remains dating from the Mesolithic in England, Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Russia,[26] Sweden,[27] France[28] and Spain.
[29] Neolithic skeletons (~7,000 years old) that were excavated from the Avellaner cave in Catalonia, northeastern Spain included a specimen carrying haplogroup U5.
[30] Haplogroup U5 and its subclades U5a and U5b today form the highest population concentrations in the far north, among Sami, Finns, and Estonians.
This distribution, and the age of the haplogroup, indicate individuals belonging to this clade were part of the initial expansion tracking the retreat of ice sheets from Europe around 10,000 years ago.
[31][32] Additionally, haplogroup U5 is found in small frequencies and at much lower diversity in the Near East and parts of northern Africa (areas with sizable U6 concentrations), suggesting back-migration of people from Europe toward the south.
U haplogroups were present at 83% in European hunter gatherers before influx of Middle Eastern farmer and steppe Indo-European ancestry decreased its frequency to less than 21%.
Basal U6* was found in a Romanian specimen of ancient DNA (Peștera Muierilor) dated to 35,000 years ago.
The discovery of basal U6* in ancient DNA contributed to setting back the estimated age of U6 to around 46,000 years ago.
Haplogroup U6 is common (with a prevalence of around 10%)[33] in Northwest Africa (with a maximum of 29% in an Algerian Mozabites[58]) and the Canary Islands (18% on average with a peak frequency of 50.1% in La Gomera).
Two autochthonous derivatives of these clades (U6b1 and U6c1) indicate the arrival of North African settlers to the Canarian Archipelago in prehistoric times, most probably due to the Saharan desiccation.
Subclades U2, U3, U4, U7, U8 and U9 are now thought to be monophyletic, their common ancestor "U2'3'4'7'8'9" defined by mutation A1811G, arising between about 42,000 and 48,000 years ago (Behar et al., 2012).
Haplogroup U2b2 has been found in the remains of a 4500 year old female excavated from the Rakhigarhi site of Indus Valley civilisation, in present day state of Haryana, India.
The almost-entirely European distributed subclade, U3a1, dated at 4000 to 7000-years-ago, suggests a relatively recent (late Holocene or later) expansion of these lineages in Europe.
U3b is widespread across the Middle East and the Caucasus, and it is found especially in Iran, Iraq and Yemen, with a minor European subclade, U3b1b, dated at 2000 to 3000-years-ago.
[110] Mitochondrial DNA recovered from 3,500 to 3,300-year-old remains at the Bredtoftegård site in Denmark associated with the Nordic Bronze Age include haplogroup U4 with 16179T in its HVR1 indicative of subclade U4c1.
[113] Haplogroup U9 is a rare clade in mtDNA phylogeny, characterized only recently in a few populations of Pakistan (Quintana-Murci et al. 2004).
Its presence in Ethiopia and Yemen, together with some Indian-specific M lineages in the Yemeni sample, points to gene flow along the coast of the Arabian Sea.
Regardless of which coast of the Arabian Sea may have been the origin of U9, its Ethiopian–southern Arabian–Indus Basin distribution hints that the subclade's diversification from U4 may have occurred in regions far away from the current area of the highest diversity and frequency of haplogroup U4—East Europe and western Siberia.
[119] Genetic analysis of individuals associated with the Late Hallstatt culture from Baden-Württemberg Germany considered to be examples of Iron Age "princely burials" included haplogroup U7.
[120] Haplogroup U7 was reported to have been found in 1200-year-old human remains (dating to around 834), in a woman believed to be from a royal clan who was buried with the Viking Oseberg Ship in Norway.
[citation needed] Haplogroup K makes up a sizeable fraction of European and West Asian mtDNA lineages.
