This ancient haplogroup may have first appeared in North Africa, the Levant, or the Arabian Peninsula as much as 50,000 years ago: 50,300±6500, Hammer and Zegura 2002; 48,000(38,700-55,700)[1]. It is sometimes believed to represent a "second-wave" of expansion out of Africa. However, the location of this lineage's first expansion and rise to dominance appears to have been in India or somewhere close to it within South Asia or the Middle East; all of Haplogroup F's descendant haplogroups also show a pattern of radiation from South Asia (haplogroups H and K) or the Middle East (haplogroups G and IJ).
Several lineages derived from Haplogroup F appear to have migrated into Africa from a homeland in Southwest Asia sometime during prehistory. Y-chromosome haplogroups associated with this hypothetical "Back to Africa" migration include J, R1b, and T. The occurrence of haplogroups J, R1b, and T among precolonial populations of Africa is highly correlated with the distribution of languages of the Afro-Asiatic phylum. However, certain subclades of Haplogroup E, which commonly occurs among all modern populations of Africa, are also closely associated with the distribution of Afro-Asiatic languages, both within Africa and in Southwest Asia, which many scholars have taken to support the hypothesis of a Northeast African origin of the Afro-Asiatic languages and subsequent colonization of Southwest Asia by Haplogroup E3b-bearing Semites. Under the scenario of an African origin of Afro-Asiatic language (the most popular theory), the occurrence of Eurasian Y-chromosome haplogroups J, R, and T among Afro-Asiatic-speaking populations of North Africa and East Africa would imply Eurasian immigration or gene flow into northern Africa.
Derivative haplogroups
Haplogroup F is an ancestral haplogroup to Y-chromosome haplogroups G (M201), H (M52), I (M170), J (12f2.1), and K (M9) along with K's descendant haplogroups (L, M, N, O, P, Q, and R).
Besides the major clades G, H, IJ, and K, other patrilines derived from Haplogroup F-M89 can still be detected at a very low frequency among many populations of the southern fringe of Eurasia and Oceania, from Portugal in the west to Korea and the Malay Archipelago in the east. India, Korea, and the Ailao Mountains of Yunnan Province in southwestern China appear to be the only regions where such lineages, which are grouped for convenience as Haplogroup F*, comprise a significant portion of the Y-chromosome diversity of the modern populations. Haplogroup F* Y-chromosomes have been found to be particularly common among the Kucong or Yellow Lahu, a group of hunter-gatherers who live in the Ailao Mountains of Yunnan.[2] Korean F* probably reflects a rare brother clade of haplogroups G, H, IJ, and K that may have experienced a geographically limited expansion during historical times, as such Haplogroup F* Y-chromosomes have not been found among the neighboring Japanese.
Subclades
The rare clades F1 (P91, P104) and F2 (M427, M428) have been identified among some of the Haplogroup F-M89 Y-chromosomes that formerly were classified as F*. The extent of the distribution of haplogroups F1 and F2 is not yet known for certain, but these two clades, like F*, seem to occur only at a very low frequency among modern human populations and primarily only among populations of India and East Asia.
The subclades of Haplogroup F with their defining mutation(s), according to the 2006 ISOGG tree (abbreviated for clarity to a maximum of five steps away from the root of Haplogroup F):
G5 (M377) Almost exclusively found in low numbers among Ashkenazi Jews
H (M69) Generally limited to South Asia; typical of Central, East, and South Indian population as well as the Roma of Europe
H*
H1 (M52)
H1*
H1a (M82)
H1a*
H1a1 (M36, M197)
H1a2 (M97)
H1a3 (M39, M138)
H1b (M370)
H2 (Apt)
IJ (M429, P123, P124, P125, P126, P127, P129, P130, S2, S22) per ISOGG 2008
I (M170, P19, M258, P38, P212, U179) Haplogroup I notation updated to ISOGG 2008
I*
I1 (M253, M307, M450/S109, P30, P40, S62, S63, S64, S65, S66, S107, S108, S110, S111) (formerly I1a) Typical of populations of Scandinavia and Northwest Europe, with a moderate distribution throughout Eastern Europe
I1*
I1a (M21) (formerly I1a2)
I1b (M227) (formerly I1a1) Appears to be limited to a marginally low frequency of approximately 1% among Slavic and Uralic peoples of Eastern Europe; also detected in a single Lebanese man
I2a (P37.2) (formerly I1b1) Typical of the South Slavic peoples of the Balkans, especially the populations of Bosnia and Croatia; also found with high haplotype diversity values, but lower overall frequency, among the West Slavic populations of Slovakia and the Czech Republic; a node of elevated frequency in Moldavia correlates with that observed for Haplogroup I2a (but not for Haplogroup I1)
I2a*
I2a1 (M423)
I2a1*
I2a1a (P41.2/M359.2) (formerly I1b1a) Typical of the population of the so-called "archaic zone" of Sardinia; also found at low frequencies among populations of Southwest Europe, particularly in Castile, Béarn, and the Basque Country
I2b1 (M223, P219/S24, P220/S119, P221/S120, P222/U250/S118, P223/S117) (formerly I1b2a - old I1c) Occurs at a moderate frequency among populations of Northwest Europe, with a peak frequency in the region of Lower Saxony in central Germany; minor offshoots appear in Moldavia and Russia (especially around Vladimir, Ryazan, Nizhny Novgorod, and the Republic of Mordovia)
I2b1*
I2b1a (M284) (formerly I1b2a1) Generally limited to a low frequency in Great Britain
J2b1 (M102) Mainly found in the Balkans, Greece, and Italy (possibly from Ancient Greeks)
K (M9) Typical of populations of northern Eurasia, eastern Eurasia, Melanesia, and the Americas, with a moderate distribution throughout Southwest Asia, northern Africa, and Oceania
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