Our 8th paternal marker in our Cremean linage

Branch: M343

Age: 17,000 – 22,000 Years Ago

Location of Origin: South Asia or West Asia

The first members of this lineage lived as hunter-gatherers on the open savannas that stretched from Korea to Central Europe. They took part in the advances in hunting technology that allowed for population growth and expansions.

When the Earth entered a cooling phase, most from this line sheltered in refugia to the southeast of Europe and in West Asia. It was from these refugia that their populations rapidly expanded when the ice once more receded. Some traveled west across Europe. Others moved back toward their distant ancestors’ homelands in Africa, passing through the Levant region. Through these movements and the population boom triggered by the Neolithic Revolution, this lineage and its descendant lineages came to dominate Europe.

Today, it has a wide distribution. In Africa, geneticists have found this lineage in Northern Africa (6 percent) and central Sahel (23 percent). Its frequency in Europe is at times high and at other times moderate. It represents about 7 percent of Russian male lineages, about 13 percent of male lineages in the Balkans, about 21 percent of Eastern European male lineages, 55 to 58 percent of Western European lineages, and about 43 percent of Central European male lineages. In Asia, most men of this lineage are found in West Asia (6 percent) and South Asia (5 percent). However, trace frequencies of around half a percent from this lineage are present in East Asia.