North African Berber and Arab Influences in the Western Mediterranean Revealed by Y-Chromosome DNA Haplotypes

Human Biology, Jun 2006 by G�rard, Nathalie, Berriche, Sala, Aouiz�rate, Annie, Di�terlen, Florent, Lucotte, G�rard

We had previously established (Lucotte et al. 2001) that haplotype V showed a gradient of decreasing frequencies with latitude in Iberia, and we interpreted this pattern as a consequence of the historical Islamic occupation of the peninsula (Conrad 1998). The results reported in the present study concerning subhaplotypes Vb and Va (subhaplotype isofrequencies maps given in Figures 2 and 3) have again shown both of these gradients. From this perspective, the opposite pattern of gradient frequencies observed in Iberia for the western European haplotype XV (Di�terlen and Lucotte 2005) is reconciled with the slow reconquest of the Iberian peninsula from the north by the Christians, which lasted seven centuries and ended in Granada in 1492.

Acknowledgments We thank B. F. Michel for providing us with the French blood samples from Marseilles, S. De Suza for the Portuguese blood samples, G. Di Maria, E. Pianese, and B. Cebella for the Italian blood samples, and C. Bathelier for the DNA extraction. We also thank A. Arnaiz-Villena for helpful comments on the first draft of our manuscript. This research has been included in our previous Genetic Diversity Program, which we have developed in order to study the molecular anthropology of European populations.

Received 26 May 2005; revision received 28 March 2006.

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