Genographic Results
I checked Tuesday night on my Genographic results and it was posted on the National Geographic website. My Y-Chromosome haplotype is R1a1. The main identifying gene sequence of R1a1 is called M17 and I had that sequence. Genographic provides a nice short narrative on all the branches going back to Africa that leads up to your own personal type.
The latest research indicates that the R1a1 group originated in western Asia on the Russian Steppes, somewhere near present day Ukraine around 15-10 thousand years ago. This information is based on the genetic variation of R1a within that area. The idea being that that if a chromosome has been in an area for a longer period of time it will show greater variability within the population. Then sometime after R1a1 emerged, people with this Y chromosome migrated out of the region. This happened to correspond with the retreating glaciers from the last Ice Age. One R1a1 group migrated to Northern India, Iran, while still others went west into Poland and Eastern Europe. Today over >50% of Hungarians and Poles carry this Y chromosome and a large portion of Pakistanis, Tajiks, and Northern Indians do also. In Norway it’s a less common Haplotype. Of male Norwegians the numbers are something like 17-26% have R1a1, depending on the sampling size and the study you read. The two other major groups in Norway are R1b (Western European) and I1a (Scandinavian), which the later make up the majority of Norwegians. I’ve also seen some talk on the internets that the Viking hordes spread the R1a1 Y to the British Isles and Iceland. This would make sense since Iceland is exclusively populated by Scandinavians and with roughly the same portion of R1a1 as in Scandinavia.
One thing to remember is that these Haplogroups pre-date modern ethnic groups. There are roughly 40 generations within a thousand years, so it could have been as many as 500 generations since my paternal lineage migrated into Scandinavia from Eastern Europe. This might be the upper limit but the lower limit for migration could be as recent as the Reformation in the 16th century. A lot can happen even within a couple generations.
Our DNA is a record of ages past and it’s clear that we’re the product of thousands of years of mixing and matching. It’s emerging technology to be able to sequence DNA and the costs are coming down so even more studies will definitely reveal more light on our deep ancestry. Now I’m curious what my Mitochondrial DNA will reveal. Stay tuned.
More on the R1a1 halpotype on Wikipedia: