M1 is not a Sub-Saharan African marker

The Nordic supremacist author of Refuting Racial Myths makes the claim that mtDNA haplogroup M1 is a Sub-Saharan African marker:

"Considering the foregoing, it should come as no surprise that Richards et al. (2000) detected Ethiopian mtDNA haplogroup M1 in Greece. Other sub-Saharan haplogroups are found in Greece's neighbors. "

M1 occurs both in Eastern Africa and the Near East. The authors of the most recent study do not take it to be an indicator of Sub-Saharan ancestry.

Note, that M1 is the only candidate of a potentially Sub-Saharan African marker that occurs in Greeks, at a frequency of 0.8%. Now that it is confirmed that M1 is not necessarily a Sub-Saharan African marker, the confirmed frequency of maternal Sub-Saharan African influence in the Greek population is 0%. No paternal Sub-Saharan African influence in the Greek population has ever been detected.

Hence, at present there exists no modern genetic evidence for the presence of Sub-Saharan African genetic influence in the modern Greek population.

Sub-Saharan African influence is low in most European populations, ranging from none (as in Greeks) to ~2% (in Iberia). A sample of white Americans had 0.7% Sub-Saharan African influence (and 3.2% Amerindian).

For various Western European populations there is a varying proportion of Sub-Saharan African influence, 0.2% in English, 0.35% in North Germans, 0.7% in the French, 1.45% in Galicians, 1.1% in Northern Portuguese, to 4.3% in South Portuguese. Sicilians, often thought as being significantly mixed due to the island's history have only 0.3% detectible Sub-Saharan African ancestry, according to a recent extensive study [1].

I note that while the author of Refuting Racial Myths wants to promote the idea that Southern Europeans are more racially mixed than northern Europeans, he purposefully avoids listing the frequency of reported Sub-Saharan African markers in Greeks (=0%), since this contradicts his theory.

I sincerely hope that he will come to his senses.

[1] Annals of Human Genetics. Volume 67 Issue 1 Page 42 - January 2003. V. Romano et. al. Autosomal Microsatellite and mtDNA Genetic Analysis in Sicily (Italy)

PS: I have no problem with Sub-Saharan ancestry. It's not unlikely that some time in the future Sub-Saharan African markers may be detected in Greeks at low frequencies. We will just have to see. However, it is quite annoying to see how the evidence is twisted in the service of racial supremacism.

Am. J. Hum. Genet., 72:1058-1064, 2003
0002-9297/2003/7204-0030$15.00
© 2003 by The American Society of Human Genetics. All rights reserved.

"Two haplogroups, (pre-HV)1 and M1, have a distribution that spans the Red Sea. Haplogroup (pre-HV)1 occurs widely throughout the Near East, reaching highest frequency in Arabia, but is also common in Ethiopia and Somalia (Watson et al. 1997; Richards et al. 2000). Given its close phylogenetic relationship with other Eurasian clusters, this haplogroup probably originated in the Near East and spread later into eastern Africa. Haplogroup M1, however, has been assigned an African origin, despite the facts that (i) all other basal branches of haplogroup M are restricted to South Asia, East Asia, and Australasia, and (ii) the diversity of M in Asia is greater than in Africa (Quintana-Murci et al. 1999). It is restricted to the Near East and north and eastern Africa, concentrated in Somalia and Ethiopia (Watson et al. 1997). It is therefore unclear whether any particular M1 sequence type in the Near East arrived recently from Africa; an Asian origin with back-migration to Africa is possible."

"Our estimates of sub-Saharan African ancestry in the Near East are, therefore, based on haplogroup L1-L3A lineages, but we show also the distribution of these other clusters present both in the Near East and East Africa. "

Source (requires access)

Posted by Dienekes at April 24, 2003 11:08 PM | PermaLink