Western Atlantic Modal Haplotype
Anthropologists have been describing for many years that only a select % of all the males in past societies did the vast majority of fathering, while other males lost the opportunity to pass on their Y-Chromosomal genes.
On a lighter note it’s clear that R1b’s Western Atlantic Modal Haplotype has contributed much more than its ‘fair share’ in populating Western Europe.
Haplogroup – U5
My Origin
Haplogroups mark the branches on our shared maternal tree reaching back to Africa. Haplogroup U5 is between 24,900 and 35,600 years old. Researchers believe it was born to a woman living in West Asia. Its presence in both Mesolithic grave-sites in the Iberian Peninsula (Spain) and Iron Age grave-sites in the Altai Mountains indicate that it spread early across a wide area in Eurasia (Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, China). Bitter cold and ice forced members of this haplogroup who traveled to Europe as hunter-gathers during the Last Glacial Maximum into refugia. When the ice began to retreat, they were among the earliest settlers. The most common of these lineages in modern populations are U5a1, U5a2, U5b1, U5b2 and U5b3.
R-M269 Haplogroup: Western Europe
Haplogroup R-M269 is the dominant lineage in all of Western Europe today. It is found in low frequencies in Turkey and the northern Fertile Crescent, while its highest frequencies are in Western Europe.