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New Native Mitochondrial DNA Haplogroups Extrapolated from Anzick Match Results

Roberta Estes

I’ve been working with the ancient DNA results these past few days, as discussed in two previous articles, Utilizing Ancient DNA at GedMatch and Analyzing the Native American Clovis Anzick Ancient Results.

As I worked with the Anzick matches at GedMatch at all of the various threshold levels between 1cM and 7cM, each of which produced 1500 matches, except for the 7cM, which produced 1466 matches.  The matches were not always the same, because obviously the sort order was different depending on how matches actually occurred before and after the 1500 cutoff threshold.

Given that, and given the autosomal ethnicity analysis of several individuals, and given that mitochondrial haplogroups A, B, C, and D are not known to be routinely found in the European population, I decided to extract all of the associated mitochondrial DNA haplogroups.  Furthermore, parts of haplogroup X are known to be Native, and haplogroup M, which is quite rare, has long been suspected, but unproven.

In some cases, looking at the Anzick matches, we know that because of the very high level of Native heritage, the individual is either not admixed or only very slightly admixed.  In other words, it makes perfect sense that their mitochondrial DNA is indeed Native as well as their Y haplogroup.  At nearly 100% Native, both of those lines would have to be Native.

We found some surprises.

We found repeated instances of many mitochondrial haplogroups not previously identified as Native.  In fact, with the exception of a couple subgroups of the M and X haplogroups, all of the Native haplogroups were found repeatedly in these samples.

Many of the participants tested at 23andMe, so even if we were to ask them for actual results, they don’t have any to give.  However, even the haplogroup alone is useful, for just this reason – it can be identified as Native.

I maintain an exhaustive list of all Native American mitochondrial haplogroups that have been documented and attributed to Native Americans, along with the source.  To date, there are 62.  I compared the list extracted from the Anzick matches with the known list of proven haplogroups, and found quite a surprise.

There are a total of 85 new haplogroups extracted from this group.  Now granted, there may be a few that will not stand up to scrutiny, in particular, perhaps haplogroup X2b which has long been debated as to whether it is Native as well as European.  Additionally, some of the very basic haplogroups, such as A, B, C, etc. might be broken down further with full sequence testing if that hasn’t already been done. However, the majority of these haplogroups are found repeatedly and in individuals with little or no admixture.  In addition, a paper was released in 2013 that reported that 85-90% of Mexican women’s DNA was indeed Native American.

I view this list of haplogroups as an incredible gift from the analysis of that Anzick child’s remains.  If we can discover this much from the full genomic sequencing of one Native American, imagine what we could do with more.  This new list of 85 provisional Native haplogroups is more, in one fell swoop, than the 62 we have to date from more than 15 years of research.  We’ve increased the list by 138% to a total of 147.

Provisional Native American Haplogroups Extrapolated from Anzick Match Results

I’ll be confirming these as far as possible and  preparing a new comprehensive Native haplogroup list shortly.

 

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