U5a1a# were found in Normandy and Morbihan

U5a1a# were found in Normandy and Morbihan:

Our French study has also permitted to suggest information on the spread and/or origin of specific European haplogroups. This is the case of haplogroup U5a1a, for which the regional origin remains unclear, and that is reported to have differentiated very recently (between 2200 and 12 800 BP).9 The fact that three different haplotypes belonging to U5a1a# were found in Normandy and Morbihan suggests that this haplogroup appeared in north-western Europe: it would have subsequently spread across Europe from this centre. One part of U5a1a would have reached the Near East, and certainly subsequently back-migrated into Europe, as suggested by Richards et al9 Then, haplogroup U8 was found principally in Alpine and north-eastern European regions.9,22 Although it was previously described as diversity-free in most cases, U8 exhibits diversity in our Var sample. The age estimate of this cluster is 44 400plusminus27 010 years BP (calculated as in Saillard et al32 with Network 3.0 – http://www.fluxus-engineering.com, including all the 12 haplotypes previously described,9,22 and the three haplotypes from Var), and clearly shows that this cluster is of Palaeolithic origin. Haplogroup U8 has most probably differentiated on the west central Mediterranean coast during the Upper Palaeolithic, and has subsequently migrated into north-eastern Europe (possibly via Alpine region), during the population re-expansions that occurred after the LGM. Thus, this cluster suggests that the French Mediterranean coast acted as a refugium during the LGM, and indicates that, as well as haplogroup V, some other clusters have differentiated in Western Europe during the Upper Palaeolithic and could be taken into account to evaluate the impact of the post-LGM expansion on the present-day European gene pool.

http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/v12/n4/full/5201145a.html