Haplogroup X is a

human mitochondrial DNA Human mitochondrial genetics is the study of the genetics of human mitochondrial DNA (the DNA contained in human mitochondria). The human mitochondrial genome is the entirety of hereditary information contained in human mitochondria. Mitochondr ...

(mtDNA)

haplogroup A haplotype is a group of alleles in an organism that are inherited together from a single parent, and a haplogroup (haploid from the , ''haploûs'', "onefold, simple" and ) is a group of similar haplotypes that share a common ancestor with a sing ...

. It is found in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

Western Asia West Asia (also called Western Asia or Southwest Asia) is the westernmost region of Asia. As defined by most academics, UN bodies and other institutions, the subregion consists of Anatolia, the Arabian Peninsula, Iran, Mesopotamia, the Armenian ...

North Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...

, and the

Horn of Africa The Horn of Africa (HoA), also known as the Somali Peninsula, is a large peninsula and geopolitical region in East Africa.Robert Stock, ''Africa South of the Sahara, Second Edition: A Geographical Interpretation'', (The Guilford Press; 2004), ...

Haplogroup X diverged from haplogroup N roughly 30,000 years ago (just prior to or during the

Last Glacial Maximum The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), also referred to as the Last Glacial Coldest Period, was the most recent time during the Last Glacial Period where ice sheets were at their greatest extent between 26,000 and 20,000 years ago. Ice sheets covered m ...

). It is in turn ancestral to subclades X2 and X1, which arose 16-21 thousand and 14-24 thousand years ago, respectively.

Distribution

Haplogroup X is found in approximately 2% of native Europeans, and 13% of all native North Americans. Additionally, the Haplogroup is present in around 3% of Assyrians, with high concentrations in

Erzurum Erzurum (; ) is a List of cities in Turkey, city in eastern Anatolia, Turkey. It is the largest city and capital of Erzurum Province and is 1,900 meters (6,233 feet) above sea level. Erzurum had a population of 367,250 in 2010. It is the site of an ...

, Turkey as well. Notably, the haplogroup is especially common, at 14.3%, among the natives of Bahariya Oasis ( Western Desert, Egypt. The X1 subclade is much less frequent, and is largely restricted to North Africa, the

and the Near East. Subclade X2 appears to have undergone extensive population expansion and dispersal around or soon after the

, roughly 20,000 years ago. It is more strongly represented in the Near East, the

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region spanning Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is situated between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, comprising parts of Southern Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Caucasus Mountains, i ...

, and southern Europe, and somewhat less strongly present in the rest of Europe. The highest concentrations are found in the

Ojibwe The Ojibwe (; Ojibwe writing systems#Ojibwe syllabics, syll.: ᐅᒋᐺ; plural: ''Ojibweg'' ᐅᒋᐺᒃ) are an Anishinaabe people whose homeland (''Ojibwewaki'' ᐅᒋᐺᐘᑭ) covers much of the Great Lakes region and the Great Plains, n ...

(25%),

Sioux The Sioux or Oceti Sakowin ( ; Dakota/ Lakota: ) are groups of Native American tribes and First Nations people from the Great Plains of North America. The Sioux have two major linguistic divisions: the Dakota and Lakota peoples (translati ...

(15%),

Nuu-Chah-Nulth The Nuu-chah-nulth ( ; ), also formerly referred to as the Nootka, Nutka, Aht, Nuuchahnulth or Tahkaht, are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast in Canada. The term Nuu-chah-nulth is used to describe fifteen related tri ...

(12%),

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...

(8%),

Orkney Orkney (), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago off the north coast of mainland Scotland. The plural name the Orkneys is also sometimes used, but locals now consider it outdated. Part of the Northern Isles along with Shetland, ...

(7%), and amongst the

Druze The Druze ( ; , ' or ', , '), who Endonym and exonym, call themselves al-Muwaḥḥidūn (), are an Arabs, Arab Eastern esotericism, esoteric Religious denomination, religious group from West Asia who adhere to the Druze faith, an Abrahamic ...

in Israel (27%). Subclades of X2 are not present in South American Amerindian populations. whose 9000-year old remains were discovered in

Washington State Washington, officially the State of Washington, is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is often referred to as Washington State to distinguish it from the national capital, both named after George Washington ...

Archaeogenetics

Haplogroup X has been found in various other bone specimens that were analysed for ancient DNA, including specimens associated with the Alföld Linear Pottery (X2b-T226C, Garadna-Elkerülő út site 2, 1/1 or 100%), Linearbandkeramik (X2d1, Halberstadt-Sonntagsfeld, 1/22 or ~5%), and Iberia Chalcolithic (X2b, La Chabola de la Hechicera, 1/3 or 33%; X2b, El Sotillo, 1/3 or 33%; X2b, El Mirador Cave, 1/12 or ~8%) cultures. Abel-beth-maachah 2201 was a man who lived between 1014 and 836 BC during the

Levant The Levant ( ) is the subregion that borders the Eastern Mediterranean, Eastern Mediterranean sea to the west, and forms the core of West Asia and the political term, Middle East, ''Middle East''. In its narrowest sense, which is in use toda ...

Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...

and was found in the region now known as Abel Beth Maacah, Metula, Israel. He was associated with the Galilean cultural group. His direct maternal line belonged to mtDNA haplogroup X2b. Haplogroup X has been found in ancient Assyria and ancient Egyptian mummies excavated at the Abusir el-Meleq archaeological site in Middle Egypt, which date from the late New Kingdom and Roman periods. Fossils excavated at the Late Neolithic site of Kelif el Boroud in

Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...

, which have been dated to around 5,000 years old, have also been found to carry the X2 subclade.

Druze

In Eurasia, the greatest frequency and variety of haplogroup X is observed in the

, a minority population in

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

, and

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

, as much in X1 (16%) as in X2 (11%). The Druze also have much diversity of X lineages. This pattern of heterogeneous parental origins is consistent with Druze oral tradition. The

Galilee Galilee (; ; ; ) is a region located in northern Israel and southern Lebanon consisting of two parts: the Upper Galilee (, ; , ) and the Lower Galilee (, ; , ). ''Galilee'' encompasses the area north of the Mount Carmel-Mount Gilboa ridge and ...

Druze represent a population isolate, so their combination of a high frequency and diversity of X signifies a phylogenetic refugium, providing a sample snapshot of the genetic landscape of the Near East prior to the modern age.

North America

Haplogroup X is also one of the five haplogroups found in the

indigenous peoples of the Americas In the Americas, Indigenous peoples comprise the two continents' pre-Columbian inhabitants, as well as the ethnic groups that identify with them in the 15th century, as well as the ethnic groups that identify with the pre-Columbian population of ...

. (namely, X2a subclade). Although it occurs only at a frequency of about 3% for the total current indigenous population of the Americas, it is a bigger haplogroup in northern North America, where among the

Algonquian peoples The Algonquians are one of the most populous and widespread North American indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous American groups, consisting of the peoples who speak Algonquian languages. They historically were prominent along the East ...

it comprises up to 25% of mtDNA types. It is also present in lesser percentages to the west and south of this area—among the

(15%), the

Nuu-chah-nulth The Nuu-chah-nulth ( ; ), also formerly referred to as the Nootka, Nutka, Aht, Nuuchahnulth or Tahkaht, are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast in Canada. The term Nuu-chah-nulth is used to describe fifteen related tri ...

(11%–13%), the

Navajo The Navajo or Diné are an Indigenous people of the Southwestern United States. Their traditional language is Diné bizaad, a Southern Athabascan language. The states with the largest Diné populations are Arizona (140,263) and New Mexico (1 ...

(7%), and the Yakama (5%). In Latin America, Haplotype X6 was present in the Tarahumara 1.8% (1/53) and Huichol 20% (3/15) X6 and X7 was also found in 12% in Yanomani people. Unlike the four main Native American mtDNA haplogroups ( A, B, C, D), X is not strongly associated with

East Asia East Asia is a geocultural region of Asia. It includes China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan, plus two special administrative regions of China, Hong Kong and Macau. The economies of Economy of China, China, Economy of Ja ...

. The main occurrence of X in Asia discovered so far is in the

Altai people The Altai people (, ), also the Altaians (, ), are a Turkic peoples, Turkic ethnic group of indigenous peoples of Siberia mainly living in the Altai Republic, Russia. Several thousand of the Altaians also live in Mongolia (Altai Mountains) and C ...

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

. One theory of how the X Haplogroup ended up in North America is that the people carrying it migrated from central Asia along with haplogroups A, B, C, and D, from an ancestor from the Altai Region of Central Asia. Two sequences of haplogroup X2 were sampled further east of Altai among the

Evenks The Evenki, also known as the Evenks and formerly as the Tungus, are a Tungusic peoples, Tungusic people of North Asia. In Russia, the Evenki are recognised as one of the Indigenous peoples of the Russian North, indigenous peoples of the Russi ...

of Central Siberia. These two sequences belong to X2* and X2b. It is uncertain if they represent a remnant of the migration of X2 through Siberia or a more recent input. This relative absence of haplogroup X2 in Asia was one of the major factors used to support the Solutrean hypothesis during the early 2000s. The Solutrean hypothesis postulates that haplogroup X reached North America with a wave of European migration emerging from the

Solutrean The Solutrean industry is a relatively advanced flint tool-making style of the Upper Paleolithic of the Final Gravettian, from around 22,000 to 17,000 BP. Solutrean sites have been found in modern-day France, Spain and Portugal. Detai ...

culture, a stone-age culture in south-western

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

and in

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

, by boat around the southern edge of the

Arctic ice pack The Arctic ice pack is the sea ice cover of the Arctic Ocean and its vicinity. The Arctic ice pack undergoes a regular seasonal cycle in which ice melts in spring and summer, reaches a minimum around mid-September, then increases during fall a ...

roughly 20,000 years ago. Since the later 2000s and during the 2010s, evidence has turned against the Solutrean hypothesis, as no presence of mt-DNA ancestral to X2a has been found in Europe or the Near East. New World lineages X2a and X2g are not derived from the Old World lineages X2b, X2c, X2d, X2e, and X2f, indicating an early origin of the New World lineages "likely at the very beginning of their expansion and spread from the Near East". A 2008 study came to the conclusion that the presence of haplogroup X in the Americas does not support migration from Solutrean-period Europe. The lineage of haplogroup X in the Americas is not derived from a European subclade, but rather represent an independent subclade, labelled X2a. The X2a subclade has not been found in Eurasia, and has most likely arisen within the early Paleo-Indian population, at roughly 13,000 years ago. A basal variant of X2a was found in the

Kennewick Man Kennewick Man or Ancient One was a Native American man who lived during the early Holocene, whose skeletal remains were found in 1996 washed out on a bank of the Columbia River near Kennewick, Washington. Radiocarbon tests show the man lived a ...

fossil (ca. 9,000 years ago).

Subclades

Tree

This phylogenetic tree of haplogroup X subclades is based on the paper by Mannis van Oven and Manfred Kayser ''Updated comprehensive phylogenetic tree of global human mitochondrial DNA variation'' and subsequent published research. * X ** X1'2'3 *** X1'3 **** X1 ***** X1a ****** X1a1 ***** X1b ***** X1c ****** X3 ***** X3a *** X2 **** X2-G225A ***** X2a'j ****** X2a ******* X2a1 ******** X2a1a ********* X2a1a1 ******** X2a1b ********* X2a1b1 ********** X2a1b1a ******** X2a1c ******* X2a2 ****** X2j ***** X2b'd ****** X2b ******* X2b-T226C ******** X2b1 ******** X2b2 ******** X2b3 ******** X2b4 ********* X2b4a ********** X2b4a1 ******** X2b5 ******** X2b6 ********* X2b6a ******** X2b7 ******** X2b8 ******** X2b9 ******** X2b10 ********* X2b10a ******** X2b11 ******** X2b-T226C-C16192T ********* X2b12 ********* X2b13 ****** X2d ******* X2d1 ******** X2d1a ******* X2d2 ***** X2c ****** X2c1 ******* X2c1a ******* X2c1b ******* X2c1c ******** X2c1c1 ******* X2c1d ******* X2c1e ****** X2c2 ***** X2e ****** X2e1 ******* X2e1a ******** X2e1a1 ********* X2e1a1a ******* X2e1b ****** X2e2 ******* X2e2a ******** X2e2a1 ******** X2e2a2 ******* X2e2b ******** X2e2b1 ******* X2e2c ******** X2e2c1 ***** X2-G225A-G153A! ****** X2g ****** X2l ***** X2-G225A-T16223C ****** X2h ***** X2i ****** X2i-A225G! ******* X2i1 ***** X2m'n ****** X2m ******* X2m1 ******* X2m2 ****** X2n ***** X2o ****** X2o1 **** X2f ***** X2f1 **** X2g **** X2h **** X2k **** X2p ***** X2p1 ** X4

Notable members

* Steven J. Heine carries haplogroup X2c1.

References

External links

* Haplogroup X ** Mannis van Oven'
– mtDNA subtree X
** Ian Logan'

** Carolyn Benson'
X mtDNA Project
at

Family Tree DNA FamilyTreeDNA is a division of Gene by Gene, a commercial genetic testing company based in Houston, Texas. FamilyTreeDNA offers analysis of autosomal DNA, Y-DNA, and mitochondrial DNA to individuals for genealogical purpose. With a database ...

** FamilyTreeDNA's mtDNA Haplotree
Haplogroup X
** YFull MTree'
Haplogroup X
** MITOMAP'
Haplogroup X
*

from ''

National Geographic ''National Geographic'' (formerly ''The National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as ''Nat Geo'') is an American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. The magazine was founded in 1888 as a scholarly journal, nine ...

'' *
CBC, The Solutrean Hypothesis, and Jennifer Raff, A podcast with Jennifer Raff discussions claims in 2018 linking Haplogroup X to the Solutrean hypothesis