This is an overview of the “Out of Africa” (OOA) concept and the concept is based upon experimental data. The article shows that said concept is based on data which are—as a rule—interpreted by the OOA proponents in a one-sided manner, that is to “prove” the OOA concept. The Y-chromosomal haplogroup tree in its most ancient part includes a number of nodes-haplogroups, which in the current classification are named A0-T, A1, and A1b. Bearers of those haplogroups are not identified in Africa or elsewhere. However, those three haplogroups are assigned by the proponents of the OOA “by default” to be the “African” haplogroups, which “automatically” makes all non-Africans “African descendants”. In fact, each of the three haplogroups represents a split into African and non-African haplogroups. As a result, the evolution (Y-chromosomal) tree produced at least five waves of migrants to Africa (haplogroups A00, A0, A1a, A1b1, and B), while the rest of the tree consists of four non-African (by origin) haplogroups, that is A0-T, A1, A1b, and BT, along with the downstream subclades of the latter. The tree is confirmed by the analysis employing STR (Short Tandem Repeat) and SNP (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism) mutations of the Y-chromosome. Indeed, according to many data, the tree shows a deep split between African and non-African (by origin) lineages. The last split, from haplogroup A1b (into African A1b1 and non-African—by origin—B) occurred 160,000 ± 12,000 years before present. Haplogroup B is by origin a non-African haplogroup, which is very distant—time-wise—from haplogroups A, by at least 250 - 300 thousand years, and could not possibly have descended from haplogroups A1a or A1b1, or their subclades. A similar pattern is observed with the mtDNA haplogroup tree, which shows a deep split between African L0 and non-African (by origin) haplogroups L1-L6. The article shows how recent OOA studies (as well as earlier ones) employ biased interpretations to artificially “prove” the OOA concept. The article shows that the same data can be—and more justifiably—interpreted as incompatible with the OOA concept, and giving support for a “into Africa” concept. It seems that from times of Neanderthals (seemingly having pale skin and fair hair, based on the identified Neanderthal MCR1 melanocortin receptor), our ancestors, of both Africans and non-Africans current populations, lived outside of Africa, apparently in Eurasia or maybe in Europe.
KeywordsY-ChromosomemtDNAMutationsHaplotypes
Arredi, B., Poloni, E. S., Paracchini, S., Zerjal, T., Fathallah, D. M., Makrelouf, M., Pascali, V. L., Novelletto, A., & Tyler-Smith, C. (2004). A predominantly neolithic origin for Y-chromosomal DNA variation in North Africa. American Journal of Human Genetics, 75, 338-345. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/423147
Atkinson, Q. D. (2011). Phonemic diversity supports a serial founder effect model of language expansion from Africa. Science, 332, 346-349. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1199295
Behar, D. M., van Oven, M., Rosset, S., Metspalu, M., Loogvali, E. L., Silva, N. M., Kivisild, T., Torroni, A., & Villems, R. (2012). A “copernican” reassessment of the human mitochondrial DNA tree from its root. American Journal of Human Genetics, 90, 675-684. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ajhg.2012.03.002
Behar, D. M., Villems, R., Soodyall, H., Blue-Smith, J., Pereira, L., Metspalu, E., Scozzari, R. et al. (2008). The dawn of human matrilineal diversity. American Journal of Human Genetics, 82, 1130-1140. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ajhg.2008.04.002
Benazzi, S., Douka, K., Fornai, C., Bauer, C. C., Kullmer, O., Svoboda, J. et al. (2011). Early dispersal of modern humans in Europe and implications for Neanderthal behaviour. Nature, 479, 525-528. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature10617
Campbell, M. C., & Tishkoff, S. A. (2010). The evolution of human genetic and phenotypic variation in Africa. Current Biology, 20, R166-R173. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2009.11.050
Cann, R. (2013). Y weigh in again on moden humans. Science, 341, 465-467. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1242899
Cann, R. L., Stoneking, M., & Wilson, A. C. (1987). Mitochondrial DNA and human evolution. Nature, 325, 31-36. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/325031a0
Carrigan, D., & Hammer, M. F. (2006). Reconstructing human origins in the genomic era. Nature Reviews Genetics, 7, 669-680. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nrg1941
Chiaroni, J., Underhill, P. A., & Cavalli-Sforza, L. L. (2009). Y-chromosome diversity, human expansion, drift, and cultural evolution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 106, 20174-20179. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0910803106
Cruciani, F., Trombetta, B., Massaia, A., Destro-Bisol, G., Sellitto, D., & Scozzari, R. (2011). A revised root for the human Y chromosomal phylogenetic tree: The orogin of patrilineal diversity in Africa. American Journal of Human Genetics, 88, 814-818. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ajhg.2011.05.002
Haplogroups
STR
SNP
Out-of-Africa
Into-Africa
SHV-1 (Simplex Herpes Virus)
Cruciani, F., Trombetta, B., Sellitto, D., Massaia, A., Destro-Bisol, G., Watson, E., Colomb, E. B., Dugoujon, J. M., Moral, P., & Scozzari, R. (2010). Human Y chromosome haplogroup R-V88: A paternal genetic record of early mid Holocene trans-Saharan connections and the spread of Chadic languages. European Journal of Human Genetics, 18, 800-807. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ejhg.2009.231
Curnoe, D., Xueping, J., Herries, A. I. R., Kanning, B., Tacon, P. S. C., Zhende, B., Fink, D. et al. (2012). Human remains from the Pleistocene-holocene transition of Southwest China suggest a complex evolutionary history for East Asians. PLOS ONE, 7, Article ID: e31918. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0031918
Edmonds, C. A., Lillie, A. S., & Cavalli-Sforza, L. L. (2004). Mutations arising in the wave front of an expanding population. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 101, 975-979. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0308064100
Fernandes, V., Alshamali, F., Alves, M., Costa, M. D., Pereira, J. B., Silva, N. M., Cherni, L., Harich, N., Cerny, V., Soares, P., Richards, M. B., & Pereira, L. (2012). The Arabian cradle: Mitochondrial relicts of the first steps along the Southern route out of Africa. American Journal of Human Genetics, 90, 347-355. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ajhg.2011.12.010
Forster, P. (2004). Ice Ages and the mitochondrial DNA chronology of human dispersals: A review. Philosophical Transactions of Royal Society B, 359, 255-264. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2003.1394
Forster, P., Torroni, A., Renfrew, C., & Rohl, A. (2001). Phylogenetic star contraction applied to Asian and Papuan mtDNA evolution. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 18, 1864-1881. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.molbev.a003728
Francalacci, P., Morelli, L., Angius, A., Berutti, R., Reinier, F., Atzeni, R., Pilu, R. et al. (2013). Low-pass DNA sequencing of 1200 Sardinians reconstructs European Y-chromosome phylogeny. Science, 341, 565-569. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1237947
Grine, F. E., Bailey, R. M., Harvati, K., Nathan, R. P., Morris, A. G., Henderson, G. M., Ribot, I., & Pike, A. W. G. (2007). Late Pleistocene human skull from Hofmeyr, South Africa, and modern human origins. Science, 315, 226-229. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1136294
Grine, F. E., Gunz, P., Betti-Nash, L., Neubauer, S., & Morris, A. G. (2010). Reconstruction of the late Pleistocene human skull from Hofmeyr, South Africa. Journal of Human Evolution, 59, 1-15. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2010.02.007
Hammer, M. (2013). Human hybrids. Scientific American, 308, 66-71. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican0513-66
Hammer, M. F., Woerner, A. E., Mendez, F. L., Watkins, J. C., & Wall, J. D. (2011). Genetic evidence for archaic admixture in Africa. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 108, 15123-15128. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1109300108
Hammer, M. F., Woerner, A. E., Mendez, F. L., Watkins, J. C., & Wall, J. D. (2011). Genetic evidence for archaic admixture in Africa. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
Hayden, E. C. (2013). African genes tracked back. Nature, 500, 514. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/500514a
Hellenthal, G., Auton, A., & Falush, D. (2008). Inferring human colonization history using a copying model. PLOS Genetics, 4, Article ID: e1000078. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1000078
Henn, B. M., Gignoux, C. R., Jobin, M., Granka, J. M., Macpherson, J. M., Kidd, J. M., Rodríguez-Botigué, L., Ramachandran, S., Hon, L., Brisbin, A., Lin, A. A., Underhill, P. A., Comas, D., Kidd, K. K., Norman, P. J., Parham, P., Bustamante, C. D., Mountain, J. L., & Feldman, M. W. (2011). Hunter-gatherer genomic diversity suggests a southern African origin for modern humans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 108, 5154-5162. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1017511108
Higham, T., Compton, T., Stringer, C., Jacobi, R., Shapiro, B., Trinkaus, E., Chandler, B., Groning, F., Collins, C., Hillson, S., O’Higgins, P., FitzGerald, C., & Fagan, M. (2011). The earliest evidence for anatomically modern humans in North-Western Europe. Nature, 479, 521-524. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature10484
Hublin, J. J. (2011). African origin. Nature, 476, 395. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/476395a
Hudjashov, G., Kivisild, T., Underhill, P. A., Endicott, P., Sanchez, J. J., Lin, A. A., Shen, P., Oefner, P., Renfrew, C., Villems, R., & Forster, P. (2007). Revealing the prehistoric settlement of Australia by Y-chromosome and mtDNA analysis. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 104, 8726-8730. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0702928104
Jobling, M. A., & Tyler-Smith, C. (2003). The human Y-hromosome: An evolutionary marker comes of age. Nature Reviews Genetics, 4, 598-612. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nrg1124
Ke, Y., Su, B., Song, X., Lu, D., Chen, L., Li, H., Qi, C. et al. (2001). African origin of modern humans in East Asia: A tale of 12,000 Y chromosomes. Science, 292, 1151-1153. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1060011
King, T. E., Parkin, E. J., Swinfield, G., Cruciani, F., Scozzari, R., Rosa, A., Lim, S. K., Xue, Y. L., Tyler-Smith, C., & Jobling, M. A. (2007). Africans in Yorkshire? The deepest-rooting clade of the Y phylogeny within an English genealogy. European Journal of Human Genetics, 15, 288-293. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/sj.ejhg.5201771
Klyosov, A. A. (2009). DNA genealogy, mutation rates, and some historical evidences written in Y-chromosome: I. Basic principles and the method. Journal of Genetic Genealogy, 5, 186-216.
Klyosov, A. A. (2011). The slowest 22 marker haplotype panel (out of the 67 marker panel) and their mutation rate constants employed for calculations timespans to the most ancient common ancestors. Proceedings of the Russian Academy of DNA Genealogy, 4, 1240-1257.
Klyosov, A. A. (2012). Ancient history of the Arbins, bearers of haplogroup R1b, from Central Asia to Europe, 16,000 to 1500 years before present. Advances in Anthropology, 2, 87-105. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/aa.2012.22010
Klyosov, A. A., & Rozhanskii, I. L. (2012a). Re-examining the “Out of Africa” theory and the origin of Europeoids (Caucasoids) in light of DNA genealogy. Advances in Anthropology, 2, 80-86. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/aa.2012.22009
Klyosov, A. A., & Rozhanskii, I. L. (2012b). Haplogroup R1a as the Proto Indo-Europeans and the legendary Aryans as witnessed by the DNA of their current descendants. Advances in Anthropology, 2, 1-13. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/aa.2012.21001
Kolb, A. W., Ane, C., & Brandt, C. R. (2013). Using HSV-1 genome phylogenetics to track past human migrations. PLoS ONE, 8, Article ID: e76267. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0076267
Lachance, J., Vernot, B., Elbers, C. E., Ferwerda, B., Froment, A., Bodo, J. M., Lema, G., Fu, W.Q., Nyambo, T. B., Rebbeck, T. R., Zhang, K., Akey, J. M., & Tishkoff, S. A. (2012). Evolutionary history and adaptation from high-coverage whole-genome sequences of diverse African hunter-gatherers. Cell, 150, 457-469. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2012.07.009
Lalueza-Fox, C., Rompler, H., Caramelli, D., Staubert, C., Catalano, G., Hughes, D., Rohland, N., Pilli, E., Longo, L., Condemi, S., de la Rasilla, M., Fortea, J., Rosas, A., Stoneking, M., Schoneberg, T., Bertranpetit, J., & Hofreiter, M. (2007). A Melanocortin 1 receptor allele suggests varying pigmentation among Neanderthals. Science, 318, 1453-1455. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1147417
Li, H., & Durbin, R. (2011). Inference of human population history from individual whole genome sequences. Nature, 475, 493-496. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature10231
Majumder, P. P. (2010). The human genetic history of South Asia. Current Biology, 20, R184-R187. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2009.11.053
Mellars, P. (2011). The earliest modern humans in Europe. Nature, 479, 483-485. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/479483a
Mendez, F. L., Krahn, T., Schrack, B., Krahn, A. M., Veeramah, K. R., Woerner, A. E., Fomine, F. L. M., Bradman, N., Thomas, M. G., Karafet, T. M., & Hammer, M. F. (2013). An African American paternal lineage adds an extremely ancient root to the human y chromosome phylogenetic tree. American Journal of Human Genetics, 92, 454-459. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ajhg.2013.02.002
Moorjani, P., Patterson, N., Hirschhorn, J. N., Keinan, A., Hao, L., Atzmon, G., Burns, E., Ostrer, H., Price, A. L., & Reich, D. (2011). The history of African gene flow into Southern Europeans, Levantines, and Jews. PLOS Genetics, 7, Article ID: e1001373. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1001373
Ottoni, C., Primativo, G., Kashani, B. H., Achilli, A., Martinez-Labarga, C., Biondi, G., Torroni, A., & Rickards, O. (2010). Mitochondrial haplogroup H1 in North Africa: An early holocene arrival from Iberia. Plos ONE, 5, Article ID: e13378. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0013378
Patin, E., Laval, G., Barreiro, L. B., Salas, A., Semino, O., Santachiara-Benerecetti, S., Kidd, K. K. et al. (2009). Inferring the demographic history of African farmers and Pygmy hunter-gatherers using a multilocus recequencing data set. PLOS Genetics, 5, 1-13. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1000448
Poznik, G. D., Henn, B. M., Yee, M. C., Sliwerska, E., Euskirchen, G. M., Lin, A. A., Snyder, M., Quintana-Murci, L., Kidd, J. M., Underhill, P. A., & Bustamante, C. D. (2013). Sequencing Y chromosomes resolves discrepancy in time to common ancestor of males versus females. Science, 341, 562-565. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1237619
Ramachandran, S., Deshpande, O., Roseman, C. C., Rosenberg, N. A., Feldman, M. W., & Cavalli-Sforza, L. L. (2005). Support from the relationship of genetic and geographic distance in human populations for a serial founder effect originating in Africa. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 102, 15942-15947. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0507611102
Rightmire, G. P. (2009). Middle and later Pleistocene hominins in Africa and Southwest Asia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 106, 16046-16050. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0903930106
Rito, T., Richards, M. B., Fernandes, V., Alshamali, F., Cerny, V., Pereira, L., & Soares, P. (2013). The first modern human dispersals across Africa. PLoS ONE, 8, Article ID: e80031.
Sahoo, S., Singh, A., Himabindu, G., Banerjee, J., Sitalaximi, T., Gaikwad, S., Trivedi, R., Endicott, P., Kivisild, T., Metspalu, M., Villems, R., & Kashyap, V. K. (2006). A prehistory of Indian Y-chromosomes: Evaluating demic diffusion scenarios. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 103, 843-848. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0507714103
Scozzari, R., Massaia, A., D’Atanasio, E., Myres, N.M., Perego, U.A., Trombetta, B., & Cruciani, F. (2012). Molecular dissection of the basal clades in the human Y chromosome phylogenetic tree. PLoS ONE, 7, Article ID: e49170. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0049170
Shi, W., Ayub, Q., Vermeulen, M., Shao, R. G., Zuniga, S., van der Gaag, K., de Knijff, P., Kayser, M., Xue, Y., & Tyler-Smith, C. (2010). A worldwide survey of human male demographic history based on Y-SNP and Y-STR data from the HGDP-CEPH populations. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 27, 385-393. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msp243
Skoglund, P. (2013). Reconstructing the human past using ancient and modern genomes. Uppsala Disssertation from the Faculty of Science and Technology, Uppsala Universitet, Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, Uppsala, 52 p.
Soares, P., Ermini, L., Thompson, N., Normina, M., Rito, T., Rohl, A., Salas, A., Oppenheimer, S., Macaulay, V., & Richards, M. B. (2009). Correcting for purifying selection: An improved human mitochondrial molecular clock. American Journal of Human Genetics, 84, 740-759.
Stewart, J. R., & Stringer, C. B. (2012). Human evolution out of Africa: The role of refugia and climate change. Science, 335, 1317-1321. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1215627
Stoneking, M., & Delfin, F. (2010). The human genetic history of East Asia: Weaving a complex tapestry. Current Biology, 20, R188-R193. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2009.11.052
Tattersall, I. (2009). Human origins: Out of Africa. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 106, 16018-16021. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0903207106
Thomson, R., Pritchard, J. K., Shen, P., Oefner, P. J., & Feldman, M. (2000). Recent common ancestry of human Y chromosomes: Evidence from DNA sequence data. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 97, 7360-7365. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.97.13.7360
Underhill, P. A., Shen, P., Lin, A. A., Jin, L., Passarino, G., Yang, W. H., Kauffman, E. et al. (2000). Y-chromosome sequence variation and the history of human populations. Nature Genetics, 26, 358-361. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/81685
Vigilant, L., Stoneking, M., Harpending, H., Hawkes, K., & Wilson, A. C. (1991). African populations and the evolution of human mitochondrial DNA. Science, 253, 1503-1507. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1840702
Wei, W., Ayub, Q., Xue, Y., & Tyler-Smith, C. (2013). A comparison of Y-chromosomal lineage dating using either resequencing or Y-SNP plus Y-STR genotyping. Forensic Science International: Genetics, 7, 568-572. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.fsigen.2013.03.014
Xue, Y., Zerjal, T., Bao, W., Zhu, S., Lim, S. K., Shu, Q., Xu, J. J., Du, R. F., Fu, S. B., Li, P., Yang, H. M., & Tyler-Smith, C. (2005). Recent spread of a Y-chromosomal lineage in Northern China and Mongolia. American Journal of Human Genetics, 77, 1112-1116. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/498583
Yotova, V., Lefebvre, J. F., Moreau, C., Gbeha, E., Hovhannesyan, K., Bourgeois, S., Bedarida, S. et al. (2011). An X-linked haplotype of Neandertal origin is present among all non-African populations. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 28, 1957-1962. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msr024