@article{3056700,
    title = "Origin and spread of human mitochondrial DNA haplogroup U7",
    author = "Sahakyan, H. and Kashani, B.H. and Tamang, R. and Kushniarevich, A. and Francis, A. and Costa, M.D. and Pathak, A.K. and Khachatryan, Z. and Sharma, I. and Van Oven, M. and Parik, J. and Hovhannisyan, H. and Metspalu, E. and Pennarun, E. and Karmin, M. and Tamm, E. and Tambets, K. and Bahmanimehr, A. and Reisberg, T. and Reidla, M. and Achilli, A. and Olivieri, A. and Gandini, F. and Perego, U.A. and Al-Zahery, N. and Houshmand, M. and Sanati, M.H. and Soares, P. and Rai, E. and Šarac, J. and Šarić, T. and Sharma, V. and Pereira, L. and Fernandes, V. and Černý, V. and Farjadian, S. and Singh, D.P. and Azakli, H. and Üstek, D. and Trofimova, N.E. and Kutuev, I. and Litvinov, S. and Bermisheva, M. and Khusnutdinova, E.K. and Rai, N. and Singh, M. and Singh, V.K. and Reddy, A.G. and Tolk, H.-V. and Cvjetan, S. and Lauc, L.B. and Rudan, P. and Michalodimitrakis, E.N. and Anagnou, N.P. and Pappa, K.I. and Golubenko, M.V. and Orekhov, V. and Borinskaya, S.A. and Kaldma, K. and Schauer, M.A. and Simionescu, M. and Gusar, V. and Grechanina, E. and Govindaraj, P. and Voevoda, M. and Damba, L. and Sharma, S. and Singh, L. and Semino, O. and Behar, D.M. and Yepiskoposyan, L. and Richards, M.B. and Metspalu, M. and Kivisild, T. and Thangaraj, K. and Endicott, P. and Chaubey, G. and Torroni, A. and Villems, R.",
    journal = "Scientific Reports",
    year = "2017",
    volume = "7",
    publisher = "Nature Publishing Group",
    issn = "2045-2322",
    doi = "10.1038/srep46044",
    keywords = "Bronze Age;  Europe;  Holocene;  human;  human experiment;  language;  Middle East;  mitochondrial haplogroup;  Neolithic;  South Asia;  steppe;  Bayes theorem;  genetics;  geography;  haplotype;  molecular evolution;  mutation;  phylogeny, mitochondrial DNA, Bayes Theorem;  DNA, Mitochondrial;  Evolution, Molecular;  Geography;  Haplotypes;  Humans;  Mutation;  Phylogeny",
    abstract = "Human mitochondrial DNA haplogroup U is among the initial maternal founders in Southwest Asia and Europe and one that best indicates matrilineal genetic continuity between late Pleistocene hunter-gatherer groups and present-day populations of Europe. While most haplogroup U subclades are older than 30 thousand years, the comparatively recent coalescence time of the extant variation of haplogroup U7 (∼16-19 thousand years ago) suggests that its current distribution is the consequence of more recent dispersal events, despite its wide geographical range across Europe, the Near East and South Asia. Here we report 267 new U7 mitogenomes that - analysed alongside 100 published ones - enable us to discern at least two distinct temporal phases of dispersal, both of which most likely emanated from the Near East. The earlier one began prior to the Holocene (∼11.5 thousand years ago) towards South Asia, while the later dispersal took place more recently towards Mediterranean Europe during the Neolithic (∼8 thousand years ago). These findings imply that the carriers of haplogroup U7 spread to South Asia and Europe before the suggested Bronze Age expansion of Indo-European languages from the Pontic-Caspian Steppe region. © The Author(s) 2017."
}