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New Native American Mitochondrial DNA Haplogroups

Roberta Estes

At the November 2016 Family Tree DNA International Conference on Genetic Genealogy, I was invited to give a presentation about my Native American research findings utilizing the Genographic Project data base in addition to other resources. I was very pleased to be offered the opportunity, especially given that the 2016 conference marked the one year anniversary of the Genographic Project Affiliate Researcher program.

The results of this collaborative research effort have produced an amazing number of newly identified Native American mitochondrial haplogroups. Previously, 145 Native American mitochondrial haplogroups had been identified. This research project increased that number by 79% added another 114 haplogroups, raising the total to 259 Native American haplogroups.

Guilt by Genetic Association

Bennett Greenspan, President of Family Tree DNA, gave a presentation several years ago wherein he described genetic genealogy as “guilt by genetic association.” This description of genetic genealogy is one of the best I have ever heard, especially as it pertains to the identification of ancestral populations by Y and mitochondrial DNA.

As DNA testing has become more mainstream, many people want to see if they have Native ancestry. While autosomal DNA can only measure back in time relative to ethnicity reliably about 5 or 6 generations, Y and mitochondrial DNA due to their unique inheritance paths and the fact that they do not mix with the other parent’s DNA can peer directly back in time thousands of years.

Native American Mitochondrial DNA

Native American mitochondrial DNA consists of five base haplogroups, A, B, C, D and X. Within those five major haplogroups are found many Native as well as non-Native sub-haplogroups. Over the last 15 years, researchers have been documenting haplogroups found within the Native community although progress has been slow for various reasons, including but not limited to the lack of participants with proven Native heritage on the relevant matrilineal genealogical line.

In the paper, “Large scale mitochondrial sequencing in Mexican Americans suggests a reappraisal of Native American origins,” published in 2011, Kumar et al state the following:

For mtDNA variation, some studies have measured Native American, European and African contributions to Mexican and Mexican American populations, revealing 85 to 90% of mtDNA lineages are of Native American origin, with the remainder having European (5-7%) or African ancestry (3-5%). Thus the observed frequency of Native American mtDNA in Mexican/Mexican Americans is higher than was expected on the basis of autosomal estimates of Native American admixture for these populations i.e. ~ 30-46%. The difference is indicative of directional mating involving preferentially immigrant men and Native American women.

The actual Native mtDNA rate in their study of 384 completely sequenced Mexican genomes was 83.3% with 3.1% being African and 13.6% European.

This means that Mexican Americans and those south of the US in Mesoamerica provide a virtually untapped resource for Native American mitochondrial DNA.

The Genographic Project Affiliate Researcher Program

At the Family Tree DNA International Conference in November 2015, Dr. Miguel Vilar announced that the Genographic Project data base would be made available for qualified affiliate researchers outside of academia. There is, of course, an application process and aspiring affiliate researchers are required to submit a research project plan for consideration.

I don’t know if I was the first applicant, but if not, I was certainly one of the first because I wasted absolutely no time in submitting my application. In fact, my proposal likely arrived in Washington DC before Dr. Vilar did!

One of my original personal goals for genetic genealogy was to identify my Native American ancestors. It didn’t take long before I realized that one of the aspects of genetic genealogy where we desperately needed additional research was relative to Native people, specifically within Native language groups or tribes and from individuals who unquestionably know their ancestry and can document that their direct Y or mtDNA ancestors were Native.

Additionally, we needed DNA from pre-European-contact burials to ascertain whether haplogroups found in Europe and Africa were introduced into the Native population post-contact or existed within the Native population as a result of a previously unknown/undocumented contact. Some of both of these types of research has occurred, but not enough.

Slowly, over the years, additional sub-haplogroups have been added for both the Y and mitochondrial Native DNA. In 2007, Tamm et al published the first comprehensive paper providing an overview of the migration pathways and haplogroups in their landmark paper, “Beringian Standstill and the Spread of Native American Founders.” Other research papers have added to that baseline over the years.

“Beringian Standstill and the Spread of Native American Founders” by Tamm et al

In essence, whether you are an advocate of one migration or multiple migration waves, the dates of 10,000 to 25,000 years ago are a safe range for migration from Asia, across the then-present land-mass, Beringia, into the Americas. Recently another alternative suggesting that the migration may have occurred by water, in multiple waves, following coastlines, has been proposed as well – but following the same basic pathway. It makes little difference whether the transportation method was foot or kayak, or both, or one or more migration events. Our interest lies in identifying which haplogroups arrived with the Asians who became the indigenous people of the Americas.

Haplogroups

To date, proven base Native haplogroups are:

Y DNA:

Mitochondrial DNA

Given that the Native, First Nations or aboriginal people, by whatever name you call them, descended from Asia, across the Beringian land bridge sometime between roughly 10,000 and 25,000 years ago, depending on which academic model you choose to embrace, none of the base haplogroups shown above are entirely Native. Only portions, meaning specific subgroups, are known to be Native, while other subgroups are Asian and often European as well. The descendants of the base haplogroups, all born in Asia, expanded North, South, East and West across the globe. Therefore, today, it’s imperative to test mitochondrial DNA to the full sequence level and undergo SNP testing for Y DNA to determine subgroups in order to be able to determine with certainty if your Y or mtDNA ancestor was Native.

And herein lies the rub.

Certainty is relative, pardon the pun.

We know unquestionably that some haplogroups, as defined by Y SNPs and mtDNA full sequence testing, ARE Native, and we know that some haplogroups have never (to date) been found in a Native population, but there are other haplogroup subgroups that are ambiguous and are either found in both Asia/Europe and the Americas, or their origin is uncertain. One by one, as more people test and we obtain additional data, we solve these mysteries.

Let’s look at a recent example.

Haplogroup X2b4

Haplogroup X2b4 was found in the descendants of Radegonde Lambert, an Acadian woman born sometime in the 1620s and found in Acadia (present day Nova Scotia) married to Jean Blanchard as an adult. It was widely believed that she was the daughter of Jean Lambert and his Native wife. However, some years later, a conflicting record arose in which the husband of Radegonde’s great-granddaughter gave a deposition in which he stated that Radegonde came from France with her husband.

Which scenario was true? For years, no one else tested with haplogroup X2b4 that had any information as to the genesis of their ancestors, although several participants tested who descended from Radegonde.

Finally, in 2016, we were able to solve this mystery once and for all. I had formed the X2b4 project with Marie Rundquist and Tom Glad, hoping to attract people with haplogroup X2b4. Two pivotal events happened.

At Family Tree DNA, we found other occurrences of X2b4 in:

Was it possible that X2b4 could be both European and Native, meaning that some descendants had migrated east and crossed the Beringia land bridge, and some has migrated westward into Europe?

Dr. Doron Behar in the supplement to his publication, “A Copernican” Reassessment of the Human Mitochondrial DNA Tree from its Root” provides the creation dates for haplogroup X through X2b4 as follows:

These dates would read 31,718 years ago plus or minus 11,709 (eliminating the numbers after the decimal point) which would give us a range for the birth of haplogroup X from 43,427 years ago to 20,009 years ago, with 31,718 being the most likely date.

Given that X2b4 was “born” between 2,992 and 8,186 years ago, the answer has to be no, X2b4 cannot be found both in the Native population and European population since at the oldest date, 8,100 years ago, the Native people had already been in the Americas between 2,000 and 18,000 years.

Of course, all kinds of speculation could be (and has been) offered, about Native people being taken to Europe, although that speculation is a tad bit difficult to rationalize in the Czech Republic.

The next logical question is if there are documented instances of X2b4 in the Native population in the Americas?

I turned to the Genographic Project where I found no instances of X2b4 in the Native population and the following instances of X2b4 in Europe.

The conclusion relative to X2b4 is clearly that X2b4 is European, and not aboriginally Native.

The Genographic Project Data Base

As a researcher, I was absolutely thrilled to have access to another 700,000+ results, over 475,000 of which are mitochondrial.

The Genographic Project tests people whose identity remains anonymous. One of the benefits to researchers is that individuals in the public participation portion of the project can contribute their own information anonymously for research by answering a series of questions.

I was very pleased to see that one of the questions asked is the location of the birth of the participant’s most distant matrilineal ancestor.

Tabulation and analysis should be a piece of cake, right? Just look at that “most distant ancestor” response, or better yet, utilize the Genographic data base search features, sort, count, and there you go…

Well, guess again, because one trait that is universal, apparently, between people is that they don’t follow instructions well, if at all.

The Genographic Project, whether by design or happy accident, has safeguards built in, to some extent, because they ask respondents for the same or similar information in a number of ways. In any case, this technique provides researchers multiple opportunities to either obtain the answer directly or to put 2+2 together in order to obtain the answer indirectly.

Individuals are identified in the data base by an assigned numeric ID. Fields that provide information that could be relevant to ascertaining mitochondrial ethnicity and ancestral location are:

I utilized these fields in reverse order, giving preference to the earliest maternal ancestor (green) fields first, then maternal grandmother (teal), then mother (yellow), then the tester’s place of birth (grey) supplemented by their location, language and ethnicity if applicable.

Since I was looking for very specific information, such as information that would tell me directly or suggest that the participant was or could be Native, versus someone who very clearly wasn’t, this approach was quite useful.

It also allowed me to compare answers to make sure they made sense. In some cases, people obviously confused answers or didn’t understand the questions, because the three earliest ancestor answers cannot contain information that directly contradict each other. For example, the earliest ancestor place of birth cannot be Ireland and the language be German and the ethnicity be Cherokee. In situations like this, I omitted the entire record from the results because there was no reliable way to resolve the conflicting information.

In other cases, it was obvious that if the maternal grandmother and mother and tester were all born in China, that their earliest maternal ancestor was not very likely to be Native American, so I counted that answer as “China” even though the respondent did not directly answer the earliest maternal ancestor questions.

Unfortunately, that means that every response had to be individually evaluated and tabulated. There was no sort and go! The analysis took several weeks in the fall of 2016.

By Haplogroup – Master and Summary Tables

For each sub-haplogroup, I compiled, minimally, the following information shown as an example for haplogroup A with no subgroup:

The “Previously Proven Native” link is to my article titled Native American Mitochondrial Haplogroups where I maintain an updated list of haplogroups proven or suspected Native, along with the source(s), generally academic papers, for that information.

In some cases, to resolve ambiguity if any remained, I also referenced Phylotree, mtDNA Community and/or GenBank.

For each haplogroup or subgroup within haplogroup, I evaluated and listed the locations for the Genographic “earliest maternal ancestor place of birth” locations, but in the case of the haplogroup A example above, with 4198 responses, the results did not fit into the field so I added the information as supplemental.

By analyzing this information after completing a master tablet for each major haplogroup and subgroups, meaning A, B, C, D and X, I created summary tables provided in the haplogroup sections in this paper.

Family Tree DNA Projects

Another source of haplogroup information is the various mitochondrial DNA projects at Family Tree DNA.

Each project is managed differently, by volunteers, and displays or includes different information publicly. While different information displayed and lack of standardization does present challenges, there is still valuable information available from the public webpages for each mitochondrial haplogroup referenced.

Challenges

The first challenge is haplogroup naming. For those “old enough” to remember when Y DNA haplogroups used to be called by names such as R1b1c and then R1b1a2, as opposed to the current R-M269 – mitochondrial DNA is having the same issue. In other words, when a new branch needs to be added to the tree, or an entire branch needs to be moved someplace else, the haplogroup names can and do change.

In October and November 2016 when I extracted Genographic project data, Family Tree DNA was on Phylotree version 14 and the Genographic Project was on version 16. The information provided in various academic papers often references earlier versions of the phylotree, and the papers seldom indicate which phylotree version they are using. Phylotree is the official name for the mitochondrial DNA haplogroup tree.

Generally, between Phylotree versions, the haplogroup versions, meaning names, such as A1a, remain fairly consistent and the majority of the changes are refinements in haplogroup names where subgroups are added and all or part of A1a becomes A1a1 or A1a2, for example. However, that’s not always true. When new versions are released, some haplogroup names remain entirely unchanged (A1a), some people fall into updated haplogroups as in the example above, and some find themselves in entirely different haplogroups, generally within the same main haplogroup. For example, in Phylotree version 17, all of haplogroup A4 is obsoleted, renamed and shifted elsewhere in the haplogroup A tree.

The good news is that both Family Tree DNA and the Genographic project plan to update to Phylotree V17 in 2017. After that occurs, I plan to “equalize” the results, hopefully “upgrading” the information from academic papers to current haplogroup terminology as well if the authors provided us with the information as to the haplogroup defining mutations that they utilized at publication along with the entire list of sample mutations.

A second challenge is that not all haplogroup projects are created equal. In fact, some are entirely closed to the public, although I have no idea why a haplogroup project would be closed. Other projects show only the map. Some show surnames but not the oldest ancestor or location. There was no consistency between projects, so the project information is clearly incomplete, although I utilized both the public project pages and maps together to compile as much information as possible.

A third challenge is that not every participant enters their most distant ancestor (correctly) nor their ancestral location, which reduces the relevance of results, whether inside of projects, meaning matches to individual testers, or outside of projects.

A fourth challenge is that not every participant enables public project sharing nor do they allow the project administrators to view their coding region results, which makes participant classification within projects difficult and often impossible.

A fifth challenge is that in Family Tree DNA mitochondrial projects, not everyone has tested to the full sequence level, so some people who are noted as base haplogroup “A,” for example, would have a more fully defined haplogroup is they tested further. On the other hand, for some people, haplogroup A is their complete haplogroup designation, so not all designations of haplogroup A are created equal.

A sixth challenge is that in the Genographic Project, everyone has been tested via probes, meaning that haplogroup defining mutation locations are tested to determine full haplogroups, but not all mitochondrial locations are not tested. This removes the possibility of defining additional haplogroups by grouping participants by common mutations outside of haplogroup defining mutations.

A seventh challenge is that some resources for mitochondrial DNA list haplogroup mutations utilizing the CRS (Cambridge Reference Sequence) model and some utilize the RSRS (Reconstructed Sapiens Reference Sequence) model, meaning that the information needs to be converted to be useful.

Resources

Let’s look at the resources available for each resource type utilized to gather information.

The table above summarizes the differences between the various sources of information regarding mitochondrial haplogroups.

Before we look at each Native American haplogroup, let’s look at common myths, family stories and what constitutes proof of Native ancestry.

Family Stories

In the US, especially in families with roots in Appalachia, many families have the “Cherokee” or “Indian Princess” story. The oral history is often that “grandma” was an “Indian princess” and most often, Cherokee as well. That was universally the story in my family, and although it wasn’t grandma, it was great-grandma and every single line of the family carried this same story. The trouble was, it proved to be untrue.

Not only did the mitochondrial DNA disprove this story, the genealogy also disproved it, once I stopped looking frantically for any hint of this family line on the Cherokee rolls and started following where the genealogy research indicated. Now, of course this isn’t to say there is no Native IN that line, but it is to say that great-grandma’s direct matrilineal (mitochondrial) line is NOT Native as the family story suggests. Of course family stories can be misconstrued, mis-repeated and embellished, intentionally or otherwise with retelling.

Family stories and myths are often cherished, having been handed down for generations, and die hard.

In fact, today, some unscrupulous individuals attempt to utilize the family myths of those who “self-identify” their ancestor as “Cherokee” and present the myths and resulting non-Native DNA haplogrouip results as evidence that European and African haplogroups are Native American. Utilizing this methodology, they confirm, of course, that everyone with a myth and a European/African haplogroup is really Native after all!

As the project administrator of several projects including the American Indian and Cherokee projects, I can tell you that I have yet to find anyone who has a documented, as in proven lineage, to a Native tribe on a matrilineal line that does not have a Native American haplogroup. However, it’s going to happen one day, because adoptions of females into tribes did occur, and those adopted females were considered to be full tribal members. In this circumstance, your ancestor would be considered a tribal member, even if their DNA was not Native.

Given the Native tribal adoption culture, tribal membership of an individual who has a non-Native haplogroup would not be proof that the haplogroup itself was aboriginally Native – meaning came from Asia with the other Native people and not from Europe or Africa with post-Columbus contact. However, documenting tribal membership and generational connectivity via proven documentation for every generation between that tribally enrolled ancestor and the tester would be a first step in consideration of other haplogroups as potentially Native.

In Canada, the typical story is French-Canadian or metis, although that’s often not a myth and can often be proven true. We rely on the mtDNA in conjunction with other records to indicate whether or not the direct matrilineal ancestor was French/European or aboriginal Canadian.

In Mexico, the Caribbean and points south, “Spain” in the prevalent family story, probably because the surnames are predominantly Spanish, even when the mtDNA very clearly says “Native.” Many family legends also include the Canary Islands, a stopping point in the journey from Europe to the Caribbean.

Cultural Pressures

It’s worth noting that culturally there were benefits in the US to being Native (as opposed to mixed blood African) and sometimes as opposed to entirely white. Specifically, the Native people received head-right land payments in the 1890s and early 1900s if they could prove tribal descent by blood. Tribal lands, specifically those in Oklahoma owned by the 5 Civilized Tribes (Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole) which had been previously held by the tribe were to be divided and allotted to individual tribal members and could then be sold. Suddenly, many families “remembered” that they were of Native descent, whether they were or not.

Culturally and socially, there may have been benefits to being Spanish over Native in some areas as well.

It’s also easy to see how one could assume that Spain was the genesis of the family if Spanish was the spoken language – so care had to be exercised when interpreting some Genographic answers. Chinese can be interpreted to mean “China” or at least Asia, meaning, in this case, “not Native,” but Spanish in Mexico or south of the US cannot be interpreted to mean Spain without other correlating information.

Language does not (always) equal origins. Speaking English does not mean your ancestors came from England, speaking Spanish does not mean your ancestors came from Spain and speaking French does not mean your ancestors came from France.

However, if your ancestors lived in a country where the predominant language was English, Spanish or French, and your ancestor lived in a location with other Native people and spoke a Native language or dialect, that’s a very compelling piece of evidence – especially in conjunction with a Native DNA haplogroup.

What Constitutes Proof?

What academic papers use as “proof” of Native ancestry varies widely. In many cases, the researchers don’t make a case for what they use as proof, they simply state that they had one instance of A2x from Mexico, for example. In other cases, they include tribal information, if known. When stated in the papers, I’ve included that information on the Native American Mitochondrial Haplogroups page.

Methodology

I have adopted a similar methodology, tempered by the “guilt by genetic association” guideline, keeping in mind that both FTDNA projects and Genographic project public participants all provide their own genealogy and self-identify. In other words, no researcher traveled to Guatemala and took a cheek swab or blood sample. The academic samples and samples taken by the Genographic Project in the field are not included in the Genographic public data base available to researchers.

However, if the participant and their ancestors noted were all born in Guatemala, there is no reason to doubt that their ancestors were also found in the Guatemala region.

Unfortunately, not everything was that straightforward.

Examples:

Because of ambiguity, in the master data table (not provided in this paper) for each base haplogroup, I have listed every one of the sub-haplogroups and all the locations for the oldest ancestors, plus any other information provided when relevant in the actual extracted data.

When in doubt, I have NOT counted a result as Native. When the data itself is questionable or unreliable, I removed the result from the data and count entirely.

I intentionally included all of the information, Native and non-Native, in my master extracted data tables so that others can judge for themselves, although I am only providing summary tables here. Detailed information will be provided in a series of articles or in an academic paper after both the Family Tree DNA data base and the Genographic data base are upgraded to Phylotree V17.

The Haplogroup Summary Table

The summary table format used for each haplogroup includes the following columns and labels:

Color Legend:

Additional Information:

The following table shows only the A haplogroups that have now been proven Native, omitting haplogroups proven not to be Native through this process, although the original master data table (not included here) includes all information extracted including for haplogroups that are not Native. Summary tables show only Native or potentially Native results.

Let’s look at the summary results grouped by major haplogroup.

Haplogroup A

Haplogroup A is the largest Native American haplogroup.

More than 43% of the individuals who carry Native American mitochondrial DNA fall into a subgroup of A.

Like the other Native American haplogroups, the base haplogroup was formed in Asia.

Family Tree DNA individual participant pages provide participants with both a Haplogroup Frequency Map, shown above, and a Haplogroup Migration Map, shown below.

The Genographic project provides heat maps showing the distribution of major haplogroups on a continental level. You can see that, according to this heat map from when the Genographic Project was created, the majority of haplogroup A is found in the northern portion of the Americas.

Additionally, the Genographic Project data base also provides a nice tree structure for each haplogroup, beginning with Mitochondrial Eve, in Africa, noted as the root, and progressing to the current day haplogroups.


Haplogroup A Projects

I enjoy the added benefit of being one of the administrators, along with Marie Rundquist, of the haplogroup A project at Family Tree DNA, as well as the A10, A2 and A4 projects. However, in this paper, I only included information available on the projects’ public pages and not information participants sent to the administrators privately.

The Haplogroup A Project at Family Tree DNA is a public project, meaning available for anyone with haplogroup A to join, and fully publicly viewable with the exception of the participant’s surname, since that is meaningless when the surname traditionally changes with every generation. However, both the results, complete with the Maternal Ancestor Name, and the map, are visible. HVR1 and HVR2 results are displayed, but coding region results are never available to be shown in projects, by design.

The map below shows all participants for the entire project who have entered a geographic location. The three markers in the Middle East appear to be mis-located, a result of erroneous user geographic location input. The geographic locations are selected by participants indicating the location of their most distant mitochondrial ancestor. All 3 are Spanish surnames and one is supposed to be in Mexico. Please disregard those 3 Middle Eastern pins on the map below.

Haplogroup A Summary Table

The subgroups of haplogroup A and the resulting summary data are shown in the table below.

Haplogroup B

Haplogroup B is the second largest Native American haplogroup, with 23.53% of Native participants falling into this haplogroup.

The Genographic project provides the following heat map for haplogroup B4, which includes B2, the primary Native subgroup.

The haplogroup B tree looks like this:

B4 and B5 are main branches.

You will note below that B2 falls underneath B4b.

Haplogroup B Projects

At Family Tree DNA, there is no haplogroup B project, but there is a haplogroup B2 project, which is where the majority of the Native results fall. Haplogroup B Project administrators have included a full project display, along with a map. All of the project participants are shown on the map below.

Please note that the pins colored other than violet (haplogroup B) should not be shown in this project. Only haplogroup B pins are violet.

Haplogroup B Summary Table

Haplogroup C

Haplogroup C is the third largest Native haplogroup with 22.99% of the Native population falling into this haplogroup.

Haplogroup C is primarily found in Asia per the Genographic heat map.

The haplogroup C tree is as follows:

Haplogroup C Project

Unfortunately, at Family Tree DNA, the haplogroup C project has not enabled their project pages, even for project members.

When I first began compiling this data, the Haplogroup C project map was viewable.

Haplogroup C Summary Table

Haplogroup D

Haplogroup D is the 4th largest, or 2nd smallest Native haplogroup, depending on your point of view, with 6.38% of Native participants falling into this haplogroup.

Haplogroup D is found throughout Asia, into Europe and throughout the Americas.

Haplogroups D1 and D2 are the two subgroups primarily found in the New World.

The haplogroup D1 heat map is shown above and D2 is shown below.

The Tree for haplogroup D is a subset of M.

Haplogroup D begins as a subhaplogroup of M80..

Haplogroup D Projects

D is publicly viewable, but shows testers last name, no ancestor information and no location, so I utilized maps once again.

Haplogroup D Summary Table

Haplogroup X

Haplogroup X is the smallest of the known Native base haplogroups.

Just over 3% of the Native population falls into haplogroup X.

The heat map for haplogroup X looks very different than haplogroups A-D.

The tree for haplogroup X shows that it too is also a subgroup of M and N.

Haplogroup X Project

At Family Tree DNA, the Haplogroup X project is visible, but with no ancestral locations displayed. I utilized the map, which was visible.

This map of the entire haplogroup X project tells you immediately that the migration route for Native X was not primarily southward, but east. Haplogroup X is found primarily in the US and in the eastern half of Canada.

Haplogroup X Summary Table

Haplogroup M

Haplogroup M, a very large, old haplogroup with many subgroups, is not typically considered a Native haplogroup.

The Genographic project shows the following heat map for haplogroup M.

The heat map for haplogroup M includes both North and South America, but according to Dr. Miguel Vilar, Science Manager for the Genographic Project, this is because both haplogroups C and D are subsets of M.

The haplogroup M migration map from the Genographic Project shows haplogroup M expanding across southern Asia.

The tree for haplogroup M, above, is abbreviated, without the various subgroups being expanded.

The M1 and M1a1e haplogroups shown above are discussed in the following section, as is M18b, below.

The Haplogroup M Project

The haplogroup M project at Family Tree DNA shows the worldwide presence of haplogroup M and subgroups.

Native Presence

Haplogroup M was originally reported in two Native burials in the Americas. Dr. Ripan Malhi reported haplogroup M (excluding M7, M8 and M9) from two separate skeletons from the same burial in China Lake, British Columbia, Canada, about 150 miles north of the Washington State border, dating from about 5000 years ago. Both skeletons were sequenced separately in 2007, with identical results and are believed to be related.

While some researchers are suspicious of these findings as being incomplete, a subsequent paper in 2013, Ancient DNA-Analysis of Mid-Holocene Individuals from the Northwest Coast of North America Reveals Different Evolutionary Paths for Mitogenomes, which included Mahli as a co-author states the following:

Two individuals from China Lake, British Columbia, found in the same burial with a radiocarbon date of 4950+/−170 years BP were determined to belong to a form of macrohaplogroup M that has yet to be identified in any extant Native American population [24], [26]. The China Lake study suggests that individuals in the early to mid-Holocene may exhibit mitogenomes that have since gone extinct in a specific geographic region or in all of the Americas.

Haplogroup M Summary Table

One additional source for haplogroup M was found in GenBank noted as M1a1e “USA”, but there were also several Eurasian submissions for M1a1e as well. However, Doron Behar’s dates for M1a1e indicate that the haplogroup was born about 9,813 years ago, plus or minus 4,022 years, giving it a range of 5,971 to 13,835 years ago, meaning that M1a1e could reasonably be found in both Asia and the Americas. There were no Genographic results for M1a1e. At this point, M1a1e cannot be classified as Native, but remains on the radar.

Hapologroup M1 was founded 23,679 years ago +-4377 years. It is found in the Genographic Project in Cuba, Venezuela and is noted as Native in the Midwest US. M1 is also found in Colorado and Missouri in the haplogroup M project at Family Tree DNA, but the individuals did not have full sequence tests nor was additional family information available in the public project.

The following information is from the master data table for haplogroup M potentially Native haplogroups.

Haplogroup M Master Data Table for Potentially Native Haplogroups

The complete master data tables includes all subhaplogroups of M, the partial table below show only the Native haplogroups.

Haplogroup M18b is somewhat different in that two individuals with this haplogroup at Family Tree DNA have no other matches.  They both have a proven connection to Native families from interrelated regions in North Carolina.

I initiated communications with both individuals who tested at Family Tree DNA who subsequently provided their genealogical information. Both family histories reach back into the late 1700s, one in the location where the Waccamaw were shown on maps in in the early 1700s, and one near the border of Virginia and NC. One participant is a member of the Waccamaw tribe today. A family migration pattern exists between the NC/VA border region and families to the Waccamaw region as well. An affidavit exists wherein the family of the individual from the NC/VA border region is sworn to be “mixed” but with no negro blood.

In summary:

The Dark Horse Late Arrival – Haplogroup F

I debated whether I should include this information, because it’s tenuous at best.

The American Indian project at Family Tree DNA includes a sample of F1a1 full sequence result whose most distant matrilineal ancestor is found in Mexico.

Haplogroup F is an Asian haplogroup, not found in Europe or in the Americas.

Haplogroup F, according to the Genographic Project, expands across central and southern Asia.

According to Doron Behar, F1a1 was born about 10,863 years ago +- 2990 years, giving it a range of 7,873 – 13,853.

Is this Mexican F1a1 family Native? If not, how did F1a1 arrive in Mexico, and when? F1a1 is not found in either Europe or Africa.

In August, 2015, an article published in Science, Genomic evidence for the Pleistocene and recent population history of Native Americans by Raghaven et al suggested that a secondary migration occurred from further south in Asia, specifically the Australo-Melanesians, as shown in the diagram below from the paper. If accurate, this East Asian migration originating further south could explain both the haplogroup M and F results.

A second paper, published in Nature in September 2015 titled Genetic evidence for two founding populations of the Americas by Skoglund et al says that South Americans share ancestry with Australasian populations that is not seen in Mesoamericans or North Americans.

The Genographic project has no results for F1a1 outside of Asia.

I have not yet extracted the balance of haplogroup F in the Genographic project to look for other indications of haplogroups that could potentially be Native.

Haplogroup F Project

The haplogroup F project at Family Tree DNA shows no participants in the Americas, but several in Asia, as far south as Indonesia and also into southern Europe and Russia.

Haplogroup F Summary Table

Haplogroup F1a1 deserves additional attention as more people test and additional samples become available.

Native Mitochondrial Haplogroup Summary

Research in partnership with the Genographic Project as well as the publicly available portions of the projects at Family Tree DNA has been very productive. In total, we now have 259 proven Native haplogroups. This research project has identified 114 new Native haplogroups, or 44% of the total known haplogroups being newly discovered within the Genographic Project and the Family Tree DNA projects.

Acknowledgements

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