As The Ice Age Ended... How Was Europe Repopulated? Refugees From The Ice Age

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Until the new findings, it was thought that there were two principal safe havens for humans as the Ice Age, or Last Glacial Maximum, descended, approximately 26,000 years ago. They were a “Franco-Cantabrian” area roughly coinciding with northern Spain/southern France, and a “Periglacial province” on the Ukrainian plains.

Now Dr Pala and her colleagues have greatly added to this picture by analysing large quantities of mitochondrial DNA from Europeans who belong to two major lineages – who share a common genetic ancestor – named J and T. It is known that these haplogroups originated in the Middle East and until the latest research it was thought that they migrated to Europe in the Neolithic age, approximately 9,000 years ago.

The research project outlined in the American Journal of Human Genetics presents evidence that humans belonging to the J and T haplogroups actually migrated to Europe much earlier than previously believed, as the Ice Age drew to a close.

“The end of the Last Glacial Maximum allowed people to recolonise the parts of Europe that had been deserted and this expansion allowed increase of human populations,” says Sardinian-born Dr Pala, who begun research into the topic while at the University of Pavia in Italy.

She later relocated to the UK and is now a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Huddersfield, where archaeogenetics research – in newly equipped laboratories – is headed by

Professor Martin Richards, a leader in a field of science which combines archaeology with genetics to learn about the early history of humans and how they colonised the planet.

In addition to purely scientific challenges and discoveries, Dr Pala believes that archaeogenetics has important lessons to teach humanity.

“It helps us to revaluate the perception of our identity. We are highly focussed on identifying ourselves as Italians, British or whatever, but by analysing DNA we discover that originally, not such a long time ago, we came from a common source.”

Contacts and sources:
University of Huddersfield 

 Citation: Mitochondrial DNA Signals of Late Glacial Recolonization of Europe from Near Eastern Refugia

Maria Pala, Anna Olivieri, Alessandro Achilli, Matteo Accetturo, Ene Metspalu, Maere Reidla, Erika Tamm, Monika Karmin, Tuuli Reisberg, Baharak Hooshiar Kashani, Ugo A. Perego, Valeria Carossa, Francesca Gandini, Joana B. Pereira, Pedro Soares, Norman Angerhofer, Sergei Rychkov, Nadia Al-Zahery, Valerio Carelli, Mohammad Hossein Sanati, Massoud Houshmand, Jiři Hatina, Vincent Macaulay, Luísa Pereira, Scott R. Woodward, William Davies, Clive Gamble, Douglas Baird, Ornella Semino, Richard Villems, Antonio Torroni, Martin B. Richards

The American Journal of Human Genetics – 4 May 2012 (Vol. 90, Issue 5, pp. 915-924) doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2012.04.003