Haplogroup W is believed to have originated around 23,900 years ago in Western Asia.
[3] It is widely distributed at low frequencies, with a high concentration in Northern Pakistan.
Additionally, the clade has been observed among ancient Egyptian mummies excavated at the Abusir el-Meleq archaeological site in Middle Egypt, which date from the Ptolemaic Kingdom.
[8] Ancient DNA analysis found that the medieval individual Sungir 6 (730-850 cal BP) belonged to the W3a1 subclade.
[9] This phylogenetic tree of haplogroup W subclades is based on the paper by Mannis van Oven and Manfred Kayser Updated comprehensive phylogenetic tree of global human mitochondrial DNA variation[2] and subsequent published research.