The Possible Origin of HG3 Haplogroup in South/West Asia?
The Possible Origin of HG3 in South/West Asia?
M17 / R1a is Tyler-Smith System's HG3, Semino's EU19, and Su's H16 (Source), and is often classified the Aryan marker in India that the Kurgan invaders brought from the black sea region.
However, the presence of the marker in high frequency and WITH high diversity even in South Indian non-Aryan speaking tribals, the likely hood of it being Aryan marker sounds less and less realistic. In fact, lower Indus Valley could very well be the source of differentian of the marker, deep in pre-history... and not brought by invaders.
Source: Kivisild et al. (2003) Origins of Indian Castes and Tribes. American Journal of Human Genetics 72:313-332
When compared with European and Middle Eastern populations (Semino et al. 2000), Indians (i) share with them clades J2 and M173 derived sister groups R1b and R1a, the latter of which is particularly frequent in India; and (ii) lack or show a marginal frequency of clades E, G, I, J*, and J2f.
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Clades Q and R share a common phylogenetic node P in the Y-chromosomal tree defined by markers M45 and 92R7 (YCC 2002). The P*(xM207) chromosomes are widespreadalthough found at low frequencies over central and eastern Asia (Underhill et al. 2000) and were also found only in two Indian samples (fig. 3) [One in South Indian Lambadi caste, and another in Gujaratis]. In contrast, their sister branch R, defined by M207, accounts for more than one-third of Indian Y chromosomes and is the most common clade throughout northwestern Eurasia. Its daughter clades R1 and R2 are both found in tribal and caste groups. Clade R1 splits into R1a and R1b, which are similarly variable in Indians (fig. 3) and western Asians but are less so in Estonians, Czechs, and central Asians (table 5). R2 (previously misidentified as "P1" [YCC 2002]) has a more specific spread, being confined to Indian, Iranian, and central Asian populations (table 3).
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The most common Y-chromosomal lineage among Indians, R1a, also occurs away from India in populations of diverse linguistic and geographic affiliation. It is widespread in central Asian Turkic-speaking populations and in eastern European Finno-Ugric and Slavic speakers and has also been found less frequently in populations of the Caucasus and the Middle East and in Sino-Tibetan populations of northern China (Rosser et al. 2000; Underhill et al. 2000; Karafet et al. 2001; Nebel et al. 2001; Weale et al. 2001). No clear consensus yet exists about the place and time of its origins. From one side, it has been regarded as a genetic marker linked with the recent spread of Kurgan culture that supposedly originated in southern Russia/Ukraine and extended subsequently to Europe, central Asia, and India during the period 3,000-1,000 B.C.
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Interestingly, the high frequency of the M17 mutation seems to be concentrated around the elevated terrain of central and western Asia. In central Asia, its frequency is highest (>50%) in the highlands among Tajiks, Kyrgyz, and Altais and drops down to <10% in the plains among the Turkmenians and Kazakhs (Wells et al. 2001; Zerjal et al. 2002). Our low STR diversity estimate of haplogroup R1a in central Asians is also consistent with the low diversities found by Zerjal et al. (2002) and suggests a recent founder effect or drift being the reason for the high frequency of M17 in southeastern central Asia[Tajiks etc].
In Pakistan, except for the Hazara, who are supposedly recent immigrants in the region, the frequency of M17 was similarly high in the upper and lower courses of the Indus River valley (Qamar et al. 2002).
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Unexpectedly, both southern Indian tribal groups examined in this study carried M17. The presence of different STR haplotypes and the relatively high frequency of R1a in [South Indian tribal] Chenchus (26%) make M17 less likely to be the marker associated with male "Indo-Aryan" intruders in the area. Moreover, in two previous studies involving southern Indian tribal groups such as the Valmiki from Andhra Pradesh (Ramana et al. 2001) and the Kallar from Tamil and Nadu (Wells et al. 2001), the presence of M17 was also observed, suggesting that M17 is widespread in tribal southern Indians.
Given the geographic spread and STR diversities of sister clades R1 and R2, the latter of which is restricted to India, Pakistan, Iran, and southern central Asia, it is possible that southern and western Asia were the source for R1 and R1a differentiation.
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