TY  - JOUR
A1  - Cerezo, María
A1  - Achilli, Alessandro
A1  - Olivieri, Anna
A1  - Perego, Ugo A.
A1  - Gómez-Carballa, Alberto
A1  - Brisighelli, Francesca
A1  - Lancioni, Hovirag
A1  - Woodward, Scott R.
A1  - López-Soto, Manuel
A1  - Carracedo, Ángel
A1  - Capelli, Cristian
A1  - Torroni, Antonio
A1  - Salas, Antonio
T1  - Reconstructing ancient mitochondrial DNA links between Africa and Europe
Y1  - 2012/05/01 
JF  - Genome Research 
JO  - Genome Research 
SP  - 821 
EP  - 826 
DO  - 10.1101/gr.134452.111 
VL  - 22 
IS  - 5 
UR  - http://genome.cshlp.org/content/22/5/821.abstract 
N2  - Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) lineages of macro-haplogroup L (excluding the derived L3 branches M and N) represent the majority of the typical sub-Saharan mtDNA variability. In Europe, these mtDNAs account for <1% of the total but, when analyzed at the level of control region, they show no signals of having evolved within the European continent, an observation that is compatible with a recent arrival from the African continent. To further evaluate this issue, we analyzed 69 mitochondrial genomes belonging to various L sublineages from a wide range of European populations. Phylogeographic analyses showed that ∼65% of the European L lineages most likely arrived in rather recent historical times, including the Romanization period, the Arab conquest of the Iberian Peninsula and Sicily, and during the period of the Atlantic slave trade. However, the remaining 35% of L mtDNAs form European-specific subclades, revealing that there was gene flow from sub-Saharan Africa toward Europe as early as 11,000 yr ago. 
ER  -