Portugal

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PORT OF THE GALLS, OR GAELS...

Portugal

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portugal

Its territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira...

Portugal is the oldest nation state on the Iberian Peninsula and one of the oldest in Europe... It was inhabited by pre-Celtic and Celtic peoples, visited by Phoenicians-Carthaginians, Ancient Greeks and ruled by the Romans, who were followed by the invasions of the Suebi and Visigothic Germanic peoples. After the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, most of its territory was part of Al-Andalus. Portugal as a country was established during the early Christian Reconquista. Founded in 868,... In the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal established the first global maritime and commercial empire... Portuguese explorers pioneered maritime exploration with the discovery of what would become Brazil (1500)....

Etymology: The word Portugal derives from the Roman-Celtic place name Portus Cale...The mainstream explanation for the name is that it is an ethnonym derived from the Castro people, also known as the Callaeci, Gallaeci or Gallaecia, who occupied the north-west of the Iberian Peninsula. The names Cale and Callaici are the origin of today's Gaia and Galicia.

Another theory proposes that Cale or Calle is a derivation of the Celtic word for port, like the Irish caladh or Scottish Gaelic cala. These explanations, would require the pre-Roman language of the area to have been a branch of Q-Celtic, which is not generally accepted because the region's pre-Roman language was Gallaecian Celtic, usually considered P-Celtic. However, scholars like Jean Markale and Tranoy propose that the Celtic branches all share the same origin, and placenames such as Cale, Gal, Gaia, Calais, Galatia, Galicia, Gaelic, Gael, Gaul, Wales, Cornwall, Wallonia and others all stem from one linguistic root.

Another theory has it that Cala was the name of a Celtic goddess (drawing a comparison with the Gaelic Cailleach a supernatural hag). Some French scholars believe the name may have come from 'Portus Gallus', the port of the Gauls or Celts.

Around 200 BC, the Romans took the Iberian Peninsula from the Carthaginians during the Second Punic War. In the process they conquered Cale, renaming it Portus Cale (Port of Cale) and incorporating it in the province of Gaellicia with its capital in Bracara Augusta (modern day Braga, Portugal). During the Middle Ages, the region around Portus Cale became known by the Suebi and Visigoths as Portucale. The name Portucale evolved into Portugale during the 7th and 8th centuries, and by the 9th century, that term was used extensively to refer to the region between the rivers Douro and Minho. By the 11th and 12th centuries, Portugale, Portugallia, Portvgallo or Portvgalliae was already referred to as Portugal....

the Castro culture (a variation of the Urnfield culture also known as Urnenfelderkultur) was prolific in Portugal and modern Galicia. This culture, together with the surviving elements of the Atlantic megalithic culture and the contributions that come from the more Western Mediterranean cultures, ended up in what has been called the Cultura Castreja or Castro Culture. This designation refers to the characteristic Celtic populations called 'dùn', 'dùin' or 'don' in Gaelic and that the Romans called castrae in their chronicles.... Strabo, Herodotus and Pliny the Elder...describing the Gallaeci of Northern Portugal as: "A group of barbarians who spend the day fighting and the night eating, drinking and dancing under the moon."...

Romans first invaded the Iberian Peninsula in 219 BC. The Carthaginians, Rome's adversary in the Punic Wars, were expelled from their coastal colonies....The Roman conquest of what is now part of Portugal took almost two hundred years and took many lives of young soldiers and the lives of those who were sentenced to a certain death in the slave mines when not sold as slaves to other parts of the empire....

In the early 5th century, Germanic tribes, namely the Suebi and the Vandals (Silingi and Hasdingi) together with their allies, the Sarmatians and Alans invaded the Iberian Peninsula...Kingdom of the Suebi... For the next 300 years and by the year 700, the entire Iberian Peninsula was ruled by the Visigoths....Another Germanic group that accompanied the Suebi and settled in Gallaecia were the Buri....

Islamic period and the Reconquista

Today's continental Portugal, along with most of modern Spain, was part of al-Andalus between 726 and 1249, following the Umayyad Caliphate conquest of the Iberian Peninsula. This rule lasted from some decades in the North to five centuries in the South....After defeating the Visigoths in only a few months, the Umayyad Caliphate started expanding rapidly in the peninsula. Beginning in 726, the land that is now Portugal became part of the vast Umayyad Caliphate's empire of Damascus, which stretched from the Indus river in the Indian sub-continent up to the South of France, until its collapse in 750. That year the west of the empire gained its independence under Abd-ar-Rahman I with the establishment of the Emirate of Córdoba.

After almost two centuries, the Emirate became the Caliphate of Córdoba in 929, until its dissolution a century later in 1031 into no less than 23 small kingdoms, called Taifa kingdoms....The Taifa period ended with the conquest of the Almoravids who came from Morocco in 1086 winning a decisive victory at the Battle of Sagrajas, followed a century later in 1147, after the second period of Taifa, by the Almohads, also from Marrakesh. Al-Andaluz was divided into different districts called Kura.... The Muslim population of the region consisted mainly of native Iberian converts to Islam (the so-called Muwallad or Muladi) and berbers. The Arabs were principally noblemen from Syria and Oman; and though few in numbers, they constituted the elite of the population. The Berbers were originally from the Rif and Atlas mountains region of North Africa and were nomads....

Apart from the Arabs from the South, the coastal regions in the North were also attacked by Norman and Viking raiders mainly from 844. The last great invasion, through the Minho (river), ended with the defeat of Olaf II Haraldsson in 1014 against the Galician nobility who also stopped further advances into the County of Portugal....

During the Reconquista period, Christians reconquered the Iberian Peninsula from Moorish domination.... At this time, Portugal covered about half of its present area. In 1249, the Reconquista ended with the capture of the Algarve and complete expulsion of the last Moorish settlements on the southern coast, giving Portugal its present-day borders, with minor exceptions.... In 1348 and 1349 Portugal, like the rest of Europe, was devastated by the Black Death. In 1373, Portugal made an alliance with England, which is the longest-standing alliance in the world....

Portugal spearheaded European exploration of the world and the Age of Discovery....

During this period, Portugal explored the Atlantic Ocean, discovering the Atlantic archipelagos the Azores, Madeira, and Cape Verde; explored the African coast; colonized selected areas of Africa; discovered an eastern route to India via the Cape of Good Hope; discovered Brazil, explored the Indian Ocean, established trading routes throughout most of southern Asia; and sent the first direct European maritime trade and diplomatic missions to China and Japan....

In 1415, Portugal acquired the first of its overseas colonies by conquering Ceuta, the first prosperous Islamic trade centre in North Africa. There followed the first discoveries in the Atlantic: Madeira and the Azores, which led to the first colonization movements.... In 1498, Vasco da Gama accomplished what Columbus set out for and became the first European to reach India by sea, bringing economic prosperity to Portugal and its population of 1.7 million residents, and helping to start the Portuguese Renaissance. In 1500, the Portuguese explorer Gaspar Corte-Real reached what is now Canada and founded the town of Portugal Cove-St. Philip's, Newfoundland and Labrador...In 1500, Pedro Álvares Cabral discovered Brazil and claimed it for Portugal....

With the occupation by Napoleon, Portugal began a slow but inexorable decline that lasted until the 20th century. This decline was hastened by the independence of Brazil, the country's largest colonial possession....In 1807, as Napoleon's army closed in on Lisbon, João VI of Portugal, the Prince Regent, transferred his court to Brazil and established Rio de Janeiro as the capital of the Portuguese Empire....demanded his return to Lisbon in 1821. Thus he returned to Portugal but left his son Pedro in charge of Brazil....Pedro, with the overwhelming support of the Brazilian elites, declared Brazil's independence from Portugal....

At the height of European colonialism in the 19th century, Portugal had already lost its territory in South America and all but a few bases in Asia....Portugal's last overseas and Asian colonial territory, Macau, was peacefully handed over to the People's Republic of China (PRC) on December 20, 1999...

R1b AND U HG'S ARE THE FIRST PEOPLE OF WEST EUROPE. R1b AS HIGH AS 90% IN SOME AREAS ALTHOUGH NOT ALL R1b IS PALEOLITHIC IN WEST EUROPE AS SOME R1b CAME IN AT DIFFERENT AGES FROM PALEOLITHIC TO PRESENT. U AND SOME OF HER LINEAGE ALTHOUGH THE MAJORITY AND DOMINANT IN PALEOLITHIC HAVE BEEN REPLACED IN PART BY H FEMALES OF THE NEOLITHIC. L FEMALES IS A SUBSAHARAN NIGGER LINE BROUGHT TO EUROPE AS SLAVES MAINLY FROM THE 15th CENTURY CAN BE AS HIGH AS 6% OVERALL BUT MAY ALSO BE IN PART FROM 8th CENTURY ABAB TAKEOVER. SOME JEWS ARE PRESENT PROBABLY FROM THEIR EXILE OUT OF EUROPE AS SLAVE MERCHANTS WHO BOUGHT AND SOLD NATIVE EUROPEAN SLAVES IBERIA WAS AMONG THE LAST TO BAN SLAVERY OF NATIVE EUROPEANS. AFTER WHITE NATIVE EUROPEANS WERE FREED FROM THEIR SLAVERY CAUSED AN INFLUX OF SUBSAHARAN NIGGER SLAVES TRADED BY JEWS/ARABS IN THE 15th CENTURY.

U6 BERBERS IN NORTH PORTUGAL ABOUT 2% AS RESULT OF ARAB TAKEOVERS OF NORTH AFRICA, AND UP INTO WEST EUROPE. NOT SURE IF THEY WERE PART MERCENARY MILITARY, CAPTURED SLAVES, OR RESISTING THE ARAB TAKEOVERS, OR ALL THE ABOVE. THE 15th CENTURY COLONIZING OF MADEIRA AND AZORES AND OTHER EXPANSIONS MAY HAVE BEEN THE RESULT TO EXILE THE SLAVE TRADE OFF EUROPEAN SOIL SENDING IT TO NEW LANDS ELSE THE WORLD BY NOW WOULD BE REPLACED WITH NIGGER AND JEW/ARAB BLOOD....

Portuguese Genetics: Abstracts and Summaries

http://www.khazaria.com/genetics/portuguese.html

Varieties of R1b, a common Y-DNA haplogroup in western Europe, are found in abundance among Portuguese men. About 60 percent of Southern Portuguese and about 83 percent of Northern Portuguese belong to the subclade of R1b known as the Atlantic Modal Haplotype (AMH). There are even some areas in Portugal where the AMH is found in about 90% of men.

The mtDNA haplogroups H, U, and L were found in substantial numbers in the population of Portugal in ancient times (including the Epipaleolithic, Neolithic, and Chalcolithic eras) just as they are today....

Some Portuguese of Portugal themselves have a small portion of black ancestry as well. This is true of the mainland, in part since African slaves were brought to southwestern Portugal's Alcácer do Sal region in the 1400s-1800s, but even more so for those from Madeira who often show Sub-Saharan African scores above 1 percent in 23andMe's ancestry composition reports, even as high as 4.8%. The vast majority of the African slaves imported into Madeira were from Senegal... Portuguese people occasionally match European Jews in the autosomal DNA databases as a result of having shared Sephardic Jewish ancestors. All Jews who stayed in Portugal after 1497 were forced to convert to Catholicism....

Patterns for the Iberian peninsula are similar, with both Spain and Portugal showing very few common ancestors with other populations over the last 2,500 years.... a typical Western European haplogroup composition was found in mainland Portugal, associated to high level of mitochondrial genetic diversity.... The mtDNA haplogroup L is identified as being of Sub-Saharan African origin. Some descendants brought L to the Iberian peninsula, where European mtDNA lineages remain predominant. In this study of 1045 people from Portugal and Spain, 5.83% of the Portuguese participants carried L lineages, which is higher than their 2.9% frequency in Spain. Such high frequencies are not typical of other Europeans. Haplogroup L is more common in southern Portugal (10.8% frequency) and central Portugal (9.7%) than in northern Portugal. Carriers of L probably descend from Sub-Saharan African slaves who were brought to work in Portugal during the 15th-18th centuries. The mtDNA haplogroup U6, of North African origin, is found in 2.39% of Iberian people, and the authors express surprise that it has a higher frequency in northern regions of Portugal compared to southern regions of Portugal, because they presume U6 came to Iberia during the period of Islamic rule from the 8th-15th centuries and "the Islamic political and cultural influence [...] lasted longer and was more intense in the south." ...U6 is "restricted to North Portugal whereas L was widespread all over the country."...

Haplogroup M1 was detected in 1.3% of Central Portuguese but not in the other two groups. Similarly, haplogroup N was found in 1.3% of Central Portuguese but absent in the other two groups. The most prevalent haplogroup by far in all three Portuguese groups is H, found in 41% of the northerners, 37.8% of the central populations, and 44.1% of the southerners. U* is also frequent, representing 16% of northern samples, 14.6% of central samples, and 11.9% of southern samples. The other Northern Portuguese frequencies are 11% for T, 8% for V, 6% for J, 3% for K, 2% for W, and 1% for I. The other Central Portuguese frequencies are 11% for T%, 7.3% for V, 6.1% for J, 7.3% for K, 1.3% for W, 3.6 for X, and 2.4% for other haplogroup(s). The other Southern Portuguese frequencies are 10.2% for T, 6.8% for V, 8.5% for J, 6.8% for K, 1.7% for I, 1.7% for X, and 3.4% for other haplogroup(s)....

Portuguese and Basques do not show the Mediterranean A33-B14-DR1 haplotype, suggesting a lower admixture with Mediterraneans...The paleo-North African haplotype A30-B18-DR3 present in Basques, Algerians, and Spaniards is not found in Portuguese either. The Portuguese have a characteristic unique among world populations: a high frequency of HLA-A25-B18-DR15 and A26-B38-DR13, which may reflect a still detectable founder effect coming from ancient Portuguese,...

Major studies of Islander Portuguese (Azores, Madeira)

The archipelagos of Madeira and the Azores were settled by Portuguese people in the 15th century. Years of slave trade involving Madeira, including the transport of slaves directly from West Africa to Madeira, explain Madeira's "stronger sub-Saharan imprint" in the modern gene pool, reflected in the mtDNA "haplogroups L1-L3 constituting about 13% of the lineages." The researchers also found the North African mtDNA U6 cluster in Madeira, but at a lesser frequency than Spain's Canary Islands, however both have more of it than in the Azores....

AZORES UNINHABITED UNTIL 15 CENTURY. mt LINEAGES MAINLY FROM PORTUGAL, AND SOME MADEIRA ISLANDS. H mtDNA HG IS AZORES MAJORITY 32% WITH V AT 10%. EXCEPTION IS WESTERN GROUP WHERE V IS 33% AND H IS 22%. THE MAJORITY OF mt HG's (81.25%) IS FROM EUROPE AND IS SHARED WITH IBERIANS MAINLY PORTUGAL PLUS SMALL INFLUENCE FROM NORTH EUROPE, NEAR EAST JEWS (7.5%), AND NORTH AFRICA (11.25%). THE WESTERN GROUP IS AN ISOLATED BRANCH. THE CENTRAL GROUP BRANCHES TO NEAR EAST JEWS. THE EASTERN GROUP BRANCHES WITH MOROCCO BERBERS. BUT MAJORITY OF ALL 3 GROUPS CAME FROM PORTUGAL. SLAVES WERE ALSO BROUGHT INTO THE ISLANDS....

Genetic Structure and Origin of Peopling in The Azores Islands (Portugal):

The View from mtDNA

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/144012812.pdf

The Azores islands (Portugal), uninhabited when discovered by Portuguese navigators in the fifteenth century...in the whole group of islands, the majority of mtDNA lineages originated from the Iberian Peninsula, mainly from Portugal (mainland). However contributions from other European populations, especially from Northern Europe, cannot be disregarded.... The distribution of haplogroups in the Western group is very atypical, being significantly different from what is observed in the Eastern and Central groups. Furthermore, the diversity values are, in general, lower than those observed in other populations used for comparison. African haplogroups were found in all the groups of islands. Therefore the presence of Moorish and African slaves on the islands, as reported in historical sources, is supported by the mtDNA genetic data, especially in the Eastern group. The presence of Jews in the Central group is also supported by the mtDNA data....

The peopling of the islands was a slow and difficult process, and was initiated in 1439 in the islands of Sta. Maria and S. Miguel; the small islands of Flores and Corvo were only inhabited towards the end of 16th century. According to historical records, the first settlers came mainly from various regions of mainland Portugal and from Madeira Island. However, people of different origin, such as Spanish, French, Italian, English, German and Flemish (whose important presence is always referred to in accounts of the peopling of the Central group), also made up part of the early settlers. There is clear evidence that Jews also contributed to the peopling of the archipelago. Sephardim Jews expelled from the Iberian Peninsula may have used the Azores as a refuge. The presence of African and Moorish slaves in the islands is also referred to in historical documents being well-documented especially for the Western group....

In the total sample of the Azores, all European haplogroups were found, as well as the African clusters U6, M1, L1, L2 and L3...and the Near Eastern N1b cluster... The analysis by groups revealed that in the Central group, all the main European haplogroups were found.... In the Eastern Group, and when considering European haplogroups, only I is absent. The most interesting features are the low frequency of haplogroup H (30%), with respect to European populations, and the higher number of sub-clusters of haplogroup U relative to the Western and Central groups of the archipelago. In the Eastern group, high frequencies of non-European sequences were observed, with members of the U6, M1, L2 and L3 African clusters and N1b Near Eastern cluster detected. The Western group exhibited a very atypical haplogroup distribution, where the I, J and W haplogroups are absent. Haplogroup U (excluding K) is under represented, and the few samples belonging to this cluster are members of the U2 and U6b sub-haplogroups, which are uncommon in European populations but more frequent in Near Eastern and North African populations, respectively. The most frequent haplogroup is not H, as it is in European populations, but V, the frequency of which was higher than 33%. In all the results published so far, frequencies of V higher than 10% were only found in Catalonia (12.5%), the Basque Country (12.4%) and the Skolt Saami (52%). Members of the East African M1 cluster were also found in this group of islands.

[ H mtDNA HG is majority in Azores at 32%, then V at 10%. But V is majority in the western group at 33% where H is 22%. ]

the majority of haplotypes is shared with Iberian Peninsula populations, principally with mainland Portugal. A small influence from other European (especially North European), Near East/Jewish and North African populations can also be confirmed....

Haplotypes represented by ACR31-H, F24-T, ACR30-W and SM49-U5a/b are shared with Northern European populations that were not included in the analysis; ACR8-T2, SM12-X and ACR7-T match with one sequence each, found, respectively, in Rome (Italy), Romany and Armenia; SM22, which belongs to the North African cluster U6a, is not shared with populations used for comparison, but was found in the Canary Islands and in Moroccan Berbers.

Haplotypes classified as J...This haplogroup is present at high frequencies in Northern European populations...Haplogroup J is absent in the Western group, but its frequency is close to 14% in both the Eastern and Central groups, higher than that observed in the Iberian Peninsula and similar to that observed in Northern European populations. Among the ten J haplotypes found in the Azores, six are private lineages...Flanders that was not included in the analysis is always mentioned in the peopling of the Central group. It is expected that this population, like the surrounding Northern European populations, would have high frequencies of haplogroup J...

All the M1 sequences found in the Azores have a very similar motif, and probably trace their origin to the same geographical region in East Africa. With respect to L1, L2 and L3 sequences, they are located in the network near to sequences from various sub-Saharan populations and from mainland Portugal African sequences. This indicates a common origin for both African sequences present in mainland Portugal and the Azores islands, which is consistent with the historical context of the 16th century, when Portugal was actively involved in the slave trade. The analysis of non-shared haplotypes indicates that the majority of the European private lineages have their probable origin in Northern European and Near Eastern populations....

Estimates of Admixture: Three major groups were defined for the origin of mtDNA in the Azores (Europe, Near East and Jews, and Africa).... a minimum of 11.25% of the haplotypes found in the Azores are originally from African populations; a minimum of 7.5% are derived from Near Eastern and Jewish populations; and a maximum of 81.25% are from European populations....

there are some differences among the three groups of islands:

The Eastern group exhibits the highest contribution from non-European populations (close to 25%), mainly African (18.2%), revealing the influence of slaves in the peopling of this group of islands. In the Central group, the non-European influence is approximately 15%, 10% from Near Eastern/Jewish populations, and 5% from African populations. The Western group exhibits the lowest contribution of non-European lineages (6.25%), which is exclusively African....

the Western group appears in a very profound and isolated branch, reinforcing the previous results that indicate a differentiation of this group of islands. The Central group is located in the same branch as Israel, while the Eastern group is positioned in the same branch as the Moroccan Berbers....

All the analyses support the idea that, in all the groups of islands, the majority of mtDNA lineages come from the Iberian Peninsula, mainly from Portugal, but the contribution of other European populations, especially from Northern Europe, cannot be disregarded. The presence of Moorish and African slaves in the islands is also supported by mtDNA genetic data, especially in the Eastern group, as well as the presence of Jews, mainly in the Central group....

The distinct analyses allow us to infer that the Azorean population does not present the typical characteristics of an isolated population, as is usually postulated for islands. However, the Azores archipelago has a recent demographic history, was peopled by individuals of multiple origins, which naturally leads to a population with high diversity, and it is probable that the effect of isolation, if it exists, remains undetectable at this time....

SIMILAR TO THE AZORES PORTUGAL SETTLE THE MADEIRA WITH MOSTLY H mtDNA HG IN THE 15TH CENTURY BRINGING SLAVES TO WORK PLANTATIONS THEN AS HOUSE SLAVES IN THE 16TH CENTURY MAINLY IN FUNCHAL WHERE THE NIGGER SLAVES MAKE UP 25% IN FUNCHAL. THERE IS A HIGH PERCENT OF J2 MALES IN PORTO SANTO PROBABLY JEW/ARAB SLAVE TRADERS....

Analysis of Y-chromosome and mtDNA variability in the Madeira Archipelago population

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0531513106000239

These islands were discovered and settled by the Portuguese in the 15th century... in the beginning of the colonization, the archipelago was divided into three parts (Southwest and Northeast in the Madeira Island, and Porto Santo). Many noblemen from Europe, namely Flanders, France and Italy came with the development of the sugar culture. Slaves from Guine´ came to work the fields and, in the middle of the 15th century, they were more than 10% of the population. In the 16th century, sugar culture decreased and most of the slaves came to Funchal where they worked in people’s homes....

Funchal had the lower gene diversity to Y-chromosome and one of higher values to mtDNA. The high percentage (almost 25% in Funchal) of African sub-Saharan haplotypes in mtDNA (like L and M1) can be explained by the fact that, through the 18th century, the number of illegitimate children represents about 50% of the newborn in Funchal. A founder effect to the Y-chromosome haplogroup J2 in Porto Santo is suggested. There is a high frequency of Y-chromosome haplogroup J2 in Porto Santo (30%) but the age of J2 is 10.3+/-2.8kyr, n =7, to the samples of Porto Santo against 21.8+/-7.2kyr, n =9, to the other samples of Madeira archipelago. One cannot verify, using J2 haplogroup, the reflex of the multiple invasions of the island by North African pirates because if this happened the frequency of haplogroup E3b2 (4.3%) would have been higher than this.

[ H mtDNA HG IS MAJORITY 36.6% OF THE MADEIRA ARCHIPELAGO. U/U6 IS NEXT AT 14.4%. U6 WERE THE BERBERS WHO FIRST POPULATED THE CANARY ARCHIPELAGO AROUND 1000BC. I WONDER IF THEY INHABITED MADEIRA DURING THAT TIME AS WELL AND TODAYS U6 MAY BE A PART OF THOSE FIRST BERBER SETTLERS IN 1000BC, OR ARE THEY THE BERBERS WHO MIGRATED TO MADEIRA FROM PORTUGAL IN THE 15TH CENTURY? ]

U6 MAY BE PALEOLITHIC IN BOTH NORTH AFRICA AND IN WEST EUROPE.

THIS ARTICLE SUGGESTS TRACES OF U6 IN IBERIA IN THE PALEOLITHIC AND NEOLITHIC WITHOUT ANY NORTH AFRICAN COMPONENT MUTATES INTO U6a1 ABOUT 19KYA THEN AGAIN 13KYA AS U6a1a. U6 IN MAGHREB 35 TO 45KYA. ABOUT 20KYA NORTH AFRICAN U6 IS SPREAD AROUND THE EUROPEAN MEDITERANEAN. THE EAST MED BRANCH REACHES IBERIA, ITALY, AND BACK TO MAGHREB IN THE NEOLITHIC VIA MARITIME. VARIOUS U6 CLADES FROM EUROPE TRAVEL TO NORTH AFRICA SINCE NEOLITHIC. SEVERAL MIGRATIONS OF U6 TO AND FROM EUROPE AND NORTH AFRICA AND LEVANT SOME ARE BACK MIGRATIONS TO AND FROM.

THIS ARTICLE IMPLIES U6 MUST HAVE DEVELOPED OUT OF NORTH AFRICA AND THEN MOST OF U6 WENT INTO NORTH AFRICA IN PALEOLITHIC BUT A TINY FRACTION MUST HAVE ALSO WENT INTO OR REMAINED IN EUROPE. OR U DEVELOPS INTO U6 IN NORTH AFRICA AND SOME U6 MIGRATE TO EUROPE SIMULTANEOUSLY AS THEY DEVELOP IN NORTH AFRICA. U6 BEING MOST FREQUENT IN THE WEST AND MIGRATION PATTERN TO THE EAST SHE MAY HAVE COME FROM ATLANTIS...

The history of the North African mitochondrial DNA haplogroup U6 gene flow into the African, Eurasian and American continents

https://bmcevolbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2148-14-109#Fig1

Reaching Europe

In general, haplogroup U6 has very low frequencies in Europe. It is more frequent in the Mediterranean countries, mainly in those with longer histories of Moorish influence since medieval times, such as Portugal (2.5%), Spain (1.1%) or Sicily (0.4%). In fact, there is a significant longitudinal gradient in Mediterranean Europe, with frequencies decreasing eastwards (r = −0.87; p = 0.008) that run parallel to that found in North Africa (r = −0.97; p < 0.001). Congruently, the presence of U6 in the Iberian Peninsula has been attributed to the historic Moorish expansion. However, without denying this historic gene flow, others have also suggested prehistoric inputs from North Africa.

Actually, the U6 phylogeny and the phylogeography of its lineages are better explained admitting both prehistoric and historic influences in Europe. Traces of Paleolithic and early Neolithic presence of U6 in Mediterranean Europe are the two Iberian lineages at the root of the U6a1 expansion of 18.6 kya, without involving any North African counterpart (Table 3). Again, when the next U6a1a radiation occurred at 13.1 kya, a lineage later expanded at its node as the U6a1a2 clade and only led to European sequences. There are also two sequences of Mediterranean European origin that directly emerged from the ancestral node of the East African cluster U6a2a (19.8 kya). The presence of a third Mediterranean European sequence identical to a Tunisian one that coalesces with a Palestinian sequence about 5.9 kya suggests that these eastern lineages most probably reached Italy, Iberia and the Maghreb from the Levant through maritime contacts since the Neolithic. Another Italian sequence that coalesces at 10.6 kya with a Levantine sequence forming the U6a4 clade reinforces such a conclusion. More difficult to ascertain is the presence of 3 additional Italian sequences that directly sprout from the basal node of the west sub-Saharan African clade U6a5 (12.7 kya). There are two clusters, U6a3a (9.6 kya) and U6a7a (7.6 kya), with mostly European sequences, that expanded in Neolithic times. Other European groups: U6a3a1, U6a7a1, U6a7a2, and U6c1 spread within the Chalcolithic period. Finally, at least 14 European lineages have coalescence ages in historic times. Some may be associated with the Roman conquest of Britain (U6d1a), the diaspora of Sephardic Jews (U6a7a1b), or the European colonization of the Americas (U6a1a1a2, U6a7a1a, U6a7a2a1, U6b1a). Roughly, 35 European lineages have prehistoric spreads and 50 sequences historic spreads. In all cases they are involved with clear North African counterparts.

With less accuracy, information from HVI sequences also provides a phylogeographic perspective of U6 in Europe (Table 1). The largest U6 Maghreb component in Europe is found in Portugal (69.9%), then in Spain (50.0%) and Italy (53.0%), and decreases sharply in the Eastern Mediterranean (25.0%). No U6b representatives have been detected in Italy, although it is present in Iberia to the west and in the Near East to the east. Regarding the Canarian motif, 33% and 50% of the U6b haplotypes found respectively in mainland Portugal and Spain belong to the Canary Islands autochthonous U6b1a subgroup. Curiously, it has not been detected in the Portuguese island of Azores and Madeira or in Cape Verde either. U6c is confirmed as a low-frequency Mediterranean haplogroup. All four identified U6 HVI components have representatives in Atlantic Europe. This Maghreb component could have arrived through Atlantic Copper or Bronze age networks, leaving the presence of U6c to Punic or more probably, Roman colonization.

On the other hand, the East African component in Europe has its peak in eastern Mediterranean area (62.5%) and gradually diminishes westward toward Italy (46.0%), Spain (28.3%) and mainland Portugal (20.0%). Complemented with the previous phylogeographic information obtained from complete sequences, it seems that the Levant component points to maritime contacts from the Neolithic onwards. Congruently, archaeological comparisons of the different prehistoric cultures that evolved on both shores of the Mediterranean Sea point to the conclusion that each region had its own technological traditions, despite some parallel developments. This finding weakens the hypothesis of important demic or cultural interchanges, at least until the beginning of the Neolithic when prehistoric seafaring started in the Mediterranean Sea. Indeed, the rapid spread of the Neolithic Cardial Culture, or the presence of the Megalithic culture on both sides of the Mediterranean during the Chalcolithic period, would suffice to explain the presence in Europe of U6 lineages with coalescence ages since Neolithic times onwards. However, at least two U6 lineages, U6a1a and U6a5, both with European coalescences around 13 kya, are left devoid of archaeological support. These would coincide with climatic improvement during the Late Glacial period. Curiously, several European mtDNA lineages, with similar coalescence ages, such as V, U5b1, H1 and H3, have been proposed as maternal footprints in North Africa of a hypothetical southward human spread after the Last Glacial period, from the Franco-Cantabrian refuge. This also lacks archaeological evidence. Accurate phylogeographic analysis of these and other mtDNA and Y-chromosome haplogroups are needed to disentangle these puzzling patterns.

Table 2 Geography and ages of the African and Canarian U6 sub-clades

https://bmcevolbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2148-14-109/tables/2

Table 3 Geography and ages of the European U6 sub-clades

https://bmcevolbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2148-14-109/tables/3

Haplogroup Age

U6a1 18600

U6a1a 13100

U6a1a2 16200

U6a4 10600

U6a3a 9600

U6a7a 7600

U6d1 5700

U6a3a1 5600

U6a7a1 4700

U6a7a2 4200

U6a7a1c 3500

U6a7a2a1 2600

U6a1b1b 2600

U6d1a 1700

U6a7a1b 1400

U6c1a 1300

U6a1a1a2 600

U6a7a1a 500

Cromlech Alemendres, Portugal: The Oldest Stone Circle in Europe?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GETlSYFbzAI

4,500-year-old 'timber circles' discovered in Portugal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVsu9Btj6sI

Xarez Megalithic Quadrangle & the Lost Monoliths of Ancient Portugal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKG4BNRnWZM

Castro culture

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castro_culture

(Galician: cultura castrexa, Portuguese: cultura castreja, Asturian: cultura castriega, Spanish: cultura castreña, meaning "culture of the hill-forts") is the archaeological term for the material culture of the north-western regions of the Iberian Peninsula (present-day northern Portugal together with Galicia, Asturias and western parts of Castile and León) from the end of the Bronze Age (c. 9th century BC) until it was subsumed by Roman culture (c. 1st century BC). It is the culture associated with the Gallaecians and Astures (a Celtic tribal federations). The most notable characteristics of this culture are: its walled oppida and hill forts, known locally as castros... This cultural area extended east to the Cares river and south into the lower Douro river valley. The area of Ave Valley in Portugal, was the core region of this culture,....The Castro culture emerged during the first two centuries of the first millennium BCE,...autonomous evolution of Atlantic Bronze Age communities, after the local collapse of the long range Atlantic network...from the Mediterranean and up to the British Isles... From the beginning of the first millennium, the network appears to collapse, possibly because the Iron Age had outdated the Atlantic tin and bronze products in the Mediterranean region...

Second Iron Age: Since the beginning of the 6th century BCE the Castro culture experienced an inner expansion:...one important change was the return of trade with the Mediterranean by the now independent Carthage...

Roman era: The first meeting of Rome with the inhabitants of the castros and cividades was during the Punic wars, when Carthaginians hired local mercenaries for fighting Rome in the Mediterranean and into Italy....Romans defeated the Asturians and Cantabrians in 19 BCE...new unfortified settlements were established in the plains and valleys, at the same time that numerous hill-forts and cities were abandoned....5th century, when the Germanic Suevi established themselves in Gallaecia...

Pollen analysis confirms the Iron Age as a period of intense deforestation in Galicia and Northern Portugal, with meadows and fields expanding at the expense of woodland....

Strabo wrote that the people of northern Iberia used boats made of leather, probably similar to Irish currachs and Welsh coracles, for local navigation.... Decorative motifs include rosettes, triskelions, swastikas, spirals, interlaces, as well as palm tree, herringbone and string motifs,...

Religion: most relevant was Lugus...Other pan-European deities include Bormanicus (a god related to hot springs), the Matres, and Sulis or Suleviae...More numerous are the votive inscriptions dedicated to the autochthonous Cosus, Bandua, Nabia, and Reue.... The largest number of indigenous deities found in the whole Iberian Peninsula are located in the Lusitanian-Galician regions... From a theonymical point of view, this suggest some ethno-cultural differences between the coast and inland areas. With the exception of the Grovii people, Pomponius Mela stated that all the populi were Celtic and Cosus was not worshipped there. Pliny also rejected that the Grovii were Celtic, he considered them to have a Greek origin....

Gallaecia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallaecia

Gallaecia, also known as Hispania Gallaecia, was the name of a Roman province in the north-west of Hispania, approximately present-day Galicia, northern Portugal, Asturias and Leon and the later Suebic Kingdom of Gallaecia. The Roman cities included the port Cale (Porto),... The Romans gave the name Gallaecia to the northwest part of the Iberian peninsula after the tribes of the area, the Gallaeci or Gallaecians.

The Gallaic Celts make their entry in written history in the first-century epic Punica of Silius Italicus on the First Punic War: (book III.344-7) "Rich Gallaecia sent its youths, wise in the knowledge of divination by the entrails of beasts, by feathers and flames— who, now crying out the barbarian song of their native tongue, now alternately stamping the ground in their rhythmic dances until the ground rang, and accompanying the playing with sonorous caetrae" (a caetra was a small type of shield used in the region).

Gallaecia, as a region, was thus marked for the Romans as much for its Celtic culture, the culture of the castros—hillforts of Celtic origin...This civilization extended over present day Galicia, the north of Portugal, the western part of Asturias, the Berço, and Sanabria and was distinctive from the neighbouring Lusitanian civilization to the south according to the classical authors Pomponius Mela and Pliny the Elder....

After the Punic Wars, the Romans turned their attention to conquering Hispania....137 BC...Roman victory... The final extinction of Celtic resistance was the aim of the violent and ruthless Cantabrian Wars fought under the Emperor Augustus from 26 to 19 BC. The resistance was appalling: collective suicide rather than surrender, mothers who killed their children before committing suicide, crucified prisoners of war who sang triumphant hymns, rebellions of captives who killed their guards and returned home from Gaul.... In 409, as Roman control collapsed, the Suebi conquests transformed Roman Gallaecia (convents Lucense and Bracarense) into the kingdom of Galicia...

On the night of 31 December 406 AD, several Germanic barbarian tribes, the Vandals, Alans, and Suebi, swept over the Roman frontier on the Rhine. They advanced south, pillaging Gaul, and crossed the Pyrenees. They set about dividing up the Roman provinces of Carthaginiensis, Tarraconensis, Gallaecia, and Baetica. The Suebi took part of Gallaecia, where they later established a kingdom. After the Vandals and Alans left for North Africa, the Suevi took control of much of the Iberian Peninsula. However, Visigothic campaigns took much of this territory back. The Visigoths emerged victorious in the wars that followed, and eventually annexed Gallaecia.

After the Visigothic defeat and the annexation of much of Hispania by the Moors, a group of Visigothic states survived in the northern mountains, including Gallaecia. In Beatus of Liébana (d. 798), Gallaecia became used to refer to the Christian part of the Iberian peninsula, whereas Hispania was used for the Muslim one. The emirs found it not worth their while to conquer these mountains filled with warlike tribes and lacking oil or wine....

Gallaeci

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallaeci

Thanks to Silius Italicus, it is known that between the years 218 and 201 BC, during the Second Punic War, some Gallaecian troops were involved in the fight in the ranks of Carthaginian Hannibal against the Roman army of Scipio Africanus. Silius described them as a contingent combined with Lusitanian forces and led by a commander named Viriathus... The first known military conflict between Gallaeci and Romans is mentioned in Appian of Alexandria's book Iberiké, narrating events during the Lusitanian War (155–139 BC)....The attack on these Southern Gallaecian peoples, near the border with Vettones, was punishment for Gallaecian support to Lusitanians. Orosius later mentioned that Brutus surrounded the Gallaeci, who were unaware, and crushed sixty thousand of them who had come to the assistance of the Lusitani....

Archaeologically, the Gallaeci were a local Atlantic Bronze Age people (1300–700 BC). During the Iron Age they received several influences, including from other Iberian cultures, and from central-western Europe (Hallstatt and, to a lesser extent, La Tène culture), and from the Mediterranean (Phoenicians and Carthaginians). The Gallaeci dwelt in hill forts (locally called castros), and the archaeological culture they developed is known by archaeologists as "Castro culture", a hill-fort culture with round houses. ...

Origin of the name: The Romans named the entire region north of the Douro, where the Castro culture existed, in honour of the castro people that settled in the area of Calle — the Callaeci. The Romans established a port in the south of the region which they called Portus Calle, today's Porto, in northern Portugal. When the Romans first conquered the Callaeci they ruled them as part of the province of Lusitania but later created a new province of Callaecia (Greek: Καλλαικία) or Gallaecia. The names "Callaici" and "Calle" are the origin of today's Gaia, Galicia, and the "Gal" root in "Portugal", among many other placenames in the region.

Bandua: Gallaecian God of War, similar to the Roman god, Mars.

Berobreus: god of the Otherworld and beyond.

Bormanicus: god of hot springs similar to the Gaulish god, Bormanus.

Nabia: goddess of waters, of fountains and rivers.

Cossus, warrior god,...was one of the most revered gods in ancient Gallaecia.

Reue, associated with the supreme God hierarchy, justice and also death.

Lugus, or Lucubo, linked to prosperity, trade and craft occupations.

Coventina, goddess of abundance and fertility. Strongly associated with the water nymphs, most Western Europe, from England to Gallaecia.

Endovelicus (Belenus), god of prophecy and healing, showing the faithful in dreams.

14 PORTUGESE SAMPLES DATING 4200BC TO 1430 BC IS SUBJECT TO MUCH INTERPRETATION. THIS ARTICLE ALONG WITH MY UNDERSTANDING FROM OTHER ARTICLES SUGGEST: REDUCED INFLUX INTO IBERIA DURING THIS TIME. THE MARITIME BEAKER ARRIVE IN PORTUGAL IN EARLY 3 MILLENIUM BC. THE BEAKER PEOPLE MIXED WITH STEPPE CORDED WARE OR SINGLE GRAVE CULTURE. IBERIA HAS HAD MANY LANGUAGES INCLUDING PRE INDO EUROPEAN EUSKARA WHICH MAY HAVE BEEN BROUGHT AND SPREAD TO IBERIANS FROM THE ANATOLIAN NEOLITHIC PEOPLE, AND REMAINED BECUZ OF LESS NEW INFLUX THRU THE BRONZE AGE. THE R1b-M269 HG AMONG THE BASQUE AT 87% ARE TODAYS EUSKARA SPEAKERS. REMAINING ISOLATED IN IBERIA FORMED A DISTINCT PORTUGESE CLUSTER PRESERVING THE NEOLITHIC LANGUAGE.

THE R1b PEOPLES EVOLVED IN EUROPE FROM THE K2 FATHERS. R1b ARE THE DESCENDANTS FROM THE FIRST MODERN MAN, OR SURVIVING FOUNDATION EUROPEAN BASE DURING THE PALEOLITHIC AND STRETCHED FROM WEST EUROPE TO SIBERIA. 2 WELL KNOWN ICE AGE R1b REFUGIAS ARE FOUND, ONE IN IBERIA, AND THE OTHER IN EURASIA. WHICH MEANS R1b ANCESTORS HAD MIGRATED AND BACK MIGRATED BETWEEN IBERIA AND SIBERIA SINCE AT LEAST THE PALEOLITHIC. THIS IS EVIDENT IN BASQUES IN IBERIA AND BASKIRS IN EURASIA BOTH R1b. THIS EXPLAINS THE MANY SUBCLADES OF R1b. THE SOUTHERN EUROPEANS FROM THE BALKANS MOSTLY I HG FIRST EXPAND INTO R1 TERRITORIES BETWEEN AT EARLIEST 19KYA TO 14KYA MIXING IN WITH THE INDIGENOUS NATIVE R1b PEOPLE. EVENTUALLY WIPING OUT MANY OF THE PALEOLITHIC R1b ANCESTORS. THEN AROUND 5000BC TO 4000BC THE EURASIAN R1b-269 YAMNAYA PEOPLE BACK MIGRATE TO IBERIA TO MIX WITH HIS EARLIER PALEOLITHIC ANCESTORS WHICH INCREASES R1b POPULATION AGAIN AFTER BEING DECIMATED BY THE NEOLITHIC SOUTHERN HG"S INVADERS FROM THE BALKANS, NEAR EAST, AND CAUCUS MOSTLY OF I HG, AND SOME G HG.....

The population genomics of archaeological transition in west Iberia:

Investigation of ancient substructure using imputation and haplotype-based methods

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1006852

We revealed subtle genetic differentiation between the Portuguese Neolithic and Bronze Age samples suggesting a markedly reduced influx in Iberia compared to other European regions... Europe's south Atlantic edge we analyse genomes from 14 ancient Portuguese samples from the Middle Neolithic (4200 to 3500 BC) to the Middle Bronze Age (1740 to 1430BC)... First, whereas dating and similarity of the Portuguese Neolithic sites to other Mediterranean regions point to a rapid spread of agriculture at around 5500 BC, local Mesolithic communities were sedentary, dense and innovative; they appear to have persisted for at least 500 years after the onset of the Neolithic and, along with those Brittany, may have had a role in the subsequent emergence of the earliest Megalithic tradition...

Second, in the transition to metallurgy, the Tagus estuary region of Portugal was a source for innovation. The distinctive Maritime Beaker, a key component of the Bell Beaker Package, characterised by grave goods including copper daggers and archery equipment first emerged there during the first half of the 3rd millennium BC. The Beaker package subsequently spread through Western Europe, where it is thought to have met and hybridized with the Steppe derived Corded Ware or Single-Grave culture. It remains an open question whether the influx of Steppe ancestry into North and Central Europe associated with Corded Ware, also had a third millennium impact in Iberia.

Third, modern Iberia has a unique diversity of language with the persistence of a language of pre-Indo European origin in the Basque region. Interestingly, the population of Euskera speakers shows one of the maximal frequencies (87.1%) for the Y-chromosome variant, R1b-M269, which is carried at high frequency into Northern Europe by the Late Neolithic/Bronze Age steppe migrations, although its arrival time in Iberia remains unknown....

Hunter-gatherer samples fall into 4 clusters (Fig 1B); interestingly the Paleolithic Bichon (Western_HG1), and Mesolithic Loschbour fall together (despite 6,000 years separation, hinting at some level of continuity in the Rhine basin. Earlier Neolithic individuals are separated into two groupings, one comprising NW Anatolian and Greek samples, as well as two LBK individuals from Hungary and Germany. The second consists of Hungarian individuals from the Middle Neolithic to Copper Age alongside a Spanish Cardial Early Neolithic. A large cluster of individuals from Atlantic Europe, spanning the Middle Neolithic to Copper Age, is also seen, including all Portuguese MN and LNCA samples.

Samples belonging to the Copper Age and subsequent time periods in Russia showed strong stratification... In contrast, Central/Northern European samples stretching from the Copper Age to Anglo Saxon period all clustered together with no detectable substructure

However, the Portuguese Bronze Age individuals formed a distinct cluster....

Increase in local hunter-gatherer ancestry in the Middle and Late Neolithic:

It has been previously shown that an individual (CB13) dating from the very beginning of the Neolithic in Spain showed ancestry closer to a Hungarian hunter-gatherer (KO1, found within a very early European Neolithic context) than to the more western HGs from LaBrana in Spain and Loschbour in Luxembourg. Furthermore, recent studies have highlighted an increase in western hunter-gatherer (WHG) admixture through the course of the Spanish Neolithic...

In Iberia, a clear shift in relative HG ancestry between the Early Neolithic (EN) to MN was observed, with greater haplotype donation from the Hungarian HG within the Cardial Neolithic sample CB13, when compared to other HG of more western provenance (Bichon, Loschbour and LaBrana). A reversal of this trend is seen in the later Neolithic and Chalcolithic individuals from Portugal and Spain, but intriguingly not in other Atlantic Neolithic samples from Ireland and Sweden....Iberian Neolithic samples receive significantly more haplotypes from west European HG (Bichon, Loschbour and LaBrana) than KO1 relatively to Neolithic samples from elsewhere in Europe suggesting a more prolonged hunter-gatherer interaction at the littoral. In the transition to the Portuguese Bronze Age, a second shift can be seen in relative hunter-gatherer ancestry with some increase in relative haplotype donation from KO1, which is seen more prominently in the majority of post-Neolithic Eurasian samples, hinting at some difference between the Portuguese Neolithic and Bronze Age....

Steppe-related introgression into the Portuguese Bronze Age:

Neolithic samples present an excess of genetic contribution to southern Europeans, in particular to modern Sardinians, when compared to Bronze Age samples, which in turn consistently share more haplotypes with northern/eastern groups. Consistent with this, when comparing Portuguese Neolithic to Bronze Age samples, the former presented an excess of haplotype donation to Sardinian and Spanish (p = 0.017). Northern/eastern ancestry is evident in the Bronze Age, with significantly increased enrichment in Chuvash, Orcadian (p = 0.017), Lezgin and Irish (p = 0.033). However, this shift from southern to northern affinity is markedly weaker than that observed between Neolithic and Bronze Age genomes in Ireland, Scandinavia, Hungary and Central Europe. These findings suggest detectable, but comparatively modest, Steppe-related introgression present at the Portuguese Bronze Age....

Bronze Age Y-Chromosome discontinuity.

Previous studies have demonstrated a substantial turnover in Y-chromosome lineages during the Northern European Late Neolithic and Bronze Age, with R1b haplogroup sweeping to high frequencies. This has been linked to third millennium population migrations into Northern Europe from the Steppe, hypothesised to have introduced Indo-european languages to the continent and with a strong male migration bias. Strikingly, the array of Y-chromosome haplotypes in ancient Iberia shifts from those typical of Neolithic populations to haplogroup R1b-M269 in each of the three BA males, of which two carry the derived allele at marker R1b-P312. Interestingly, modern Basque populations have the M269 variant at high frequency (87.1%)...

An increase in the dominant ancestral coefficient of European HG individuals (coloured red) is clear between early and subsequent Iberian Neolithic populations but no discernable difference in HG ancestry is visible between Portuguese MN individuals on the Atlantic coast and their contemporaries from Northeast Spain, suggesting similar admixture processes. This increase in WHG admixture in Portuguese MN and LNCA relative to an earlier Cardial Neolithic is also detectable through Statistic tests, with WHG from Spain, Switzerland and Luxembourg yielding higher levels of significance in comparison the Hungarian WHG KO1... Portuguese MN and LNCA individuals to share higher affinity to Early Neolithic samples from Spain and Greece over Hungarian, LBK and NW Anatolian groups. The Portuguese MN and LN formed clades with each other to the exclusion of all other groups tested, suggesting some level of regional continuity across the Middle to Late Neolithic of Portugal....

analyses of ancient northern Europeans is the appearance and subsequent dissemination within the Bronze Age of a component (teal) that is earliest identified in our dataset in HGs from the Caucasus (CHG). Unlike contemporaries elsewhere (but similarly to earlier Hungarian BA), Portuguese BA individuals show no signal of this component, although a slight but discernible increase in European HG ancestry (red component) is apparent. Statistic tests would suggest this increase is associated not with Western HG ancestry, but instead reveal significant introgression from several steppe populations into the Portuguese BA relative to the preceding LNCA... further genetic influx has occurred into the peninsula subsequent to the Middle Bronze Age...

European hunter-gatherers were genetically tall and a dramatic decrease in genetic height is associated with the transition to agriculture. During the Neolithic period, we see a steady increase, probably influenced by admixture with hunter-gatherers. Within this trend, Iberian individuals are typical of the Middle and Late Neolithic and we see no evidence of an Iberian-specific diminution...This increase continues through the Bronze Age, influenced in part by admixture with Steppe introgressors who have high predicted values, (Neolithic vs Yamnaya_Afanasievo) and into the early centuries AD where ancient Britons and Anglo-Saxons are among the tallest in the sample (ignoring the undoubted influence of differing environments). That Yamnaya and hunter-gatherer introgressions are major determinant of height variation is supported by strong correlations between these ancestral components and genetic height in modern European populations...

Previous data from north Mediterranean regions in Iberia have shown that the first farmers had predominantly Anatolian ancestry, with some increase in hunter-gatherer admixture occurring between the Early and Middle Neolithic....this pattern extends to the Atlantic coast of the peninsula, a region where a dense Mesolithic population persisted in the Neolithic for some 500 years. We support Middle Neolithic HG admixture having occurred locally, as there is greater haplotypic affinity of these Iberians to HG genomes from western Europe..

European hunter-gatherers are significantly taller than their early Neolithic farming counterparts. A pattern of increasing genetic height with time since the Neolithic is clear in these European individuals, which may be influenced by increasing admixture with populations containing higher ancestral components of Eurasian hunter-gatherers. This concords with the increased forager farmer admixture in the transition from the Early to Middle Neolithic; including within Iberian Neolithic individuals.... Genetic height increases through the Bronze Age are further influenced by Yamnaya introgression and continue through to a series of early Britons sampled from the early centuries AD. Within this time frame, the genetically tallest individual is an Anglo-Saxon from Yorkshire, followed by a Nordic Iron Age sample....

Taken together this is suggestive of small-scale migration into the Iberian Peninsula which stands in contrast to what has been observed in Northern, Central and Northwestern Europe where mass migration of steppe pastoralists during the Copper Age has been implied. The Y-chromosome haplotype turnover, albeit within a small sample, concords with this having been male-mediated introgression.

Several candidate windows for the entry of Steppe ancestry into Portugal exist. The first is the possible emergence of Bell Beaker culture in Southwest Iberia and subsequent establishment of extensive networks with Central and NW European settlements, opening up the possibility of back-migration into Iberia. Indeed, Central European Bell Beaker samples have been observed to possess both steppe-related ancestry and R1b-P312 Y-chromosomes. Furthermore, through the analysis of modern samples, it has been proposed that the spread of Western R1b-lineages fits with the temporal range of the Corded Ware and Bell Beaker complexes. An alternative is in the Iberian Middle to Late Bronze Age when individualized burials became widespread and bronze production began. At this time the spread of horse domestication enabled unprecedented mobility and connectedness....

Two alternate theories for the origin and spread of the Indo-European language family have dominated discourse for over two decades: first that migrating early farmers disseminated a tongue of Neolithic Anatolian origin and second, that the third Millennium migrations from the Steppe imposed a new language throughout Europe. Iberia is unusual in harbouring a surviving pre-Indo-European language, Euskera, and inscription evidence at the dawn of history suggests that pre-Indo-European speech prevailed over a majority of its eastern territory with Celtic-related language emerging in the west. Our results showing that predominantly Anatolian-derived ancestry in the Neolithic extended to the Atlantic edge strengthen the suggestion that Euskara is unlikely to be a Mesolithic remnant. Also our observed definite, but limited, Bronze Age influx resonates with the incomplete Indo-European linguistic conversion on the peninsula, although there are subsequent genetic changes in Iberia and defining a horizon for language shift is not yet possible. This contrasts with northern Europe which both lacks evidence for earlier language strata and experienced a more profound Bronze Age migration....

A CLEAR PATTERN SHOWING THE HUNTER GATHERER GROUPS ARE BEING PUSHED WESTWARD AND NORTH WITH TIME. PORTUGAL AND IRELAND RETAINING AND GAINING HUNTER GATHER POPULATIONS COMPARED TO THE REST OF EUROPE. R1b LINEAGE WAS A PURELY PATERNAL DOMINANT RANGING FROM WEST EUROPE TO SIBERIA DURING PALEOLITHIC. RARELY DID THEY ALLOW FOREIGN MALE HAPLOGROUPS INTO THEIR SOCIETIES. THEY GOT DIVERSITY FROM FEMALES. THEY WERE THE GENETIC BASE FOUNDATION EUROPEAN HUNTER GATHERER. THE I YDNA HG ARRIVE IN AND REMAIN IN BALKANS DURING PALEOLITHIC MIXES IN SPLITS R1b IN CENTRAL EUROPE IN THE MESOLITHIC. THE G YDNA HG SPREADS INTO EUROPE DURING THE NEOLITHIC. THE EHG R1b MIXES BACK IN WITH THE WHG R1b IN WEST EUROPE AS IS EVIDENT WITH THE PRESENCE OF R1b-P312 AND R1b-M269 WHICH ARE DIFFERENT AGES OF THE SAME R1b LINEAGE. THUS, THE BASQUES BEING A PALEOLITHIC R1b DESCENDANT OF K2, OR A MESOLITHIC R1b, AND/OR BOTH ARE THEN MIXED AGAIN WITH NEOLITHIC R1b, COPPER AGE R1b, BRONZE AGE R1b, AND MORE RECENT R1b FROM THE WEST AND EAST R1b. BUT, THE ADMIXTURES FROM THE EASTERN PEOPLE CHANGED THE WEST IBERIAN GENETIC PROFILE OVER TIME IN DIFFERENT DEGREES. THE WEST IBERIAN HAD LESS GENETIC INFLUX DURING CERTAIN PERIODS SINCE THE PALEOLITHIC. EUSKARA IS PROBABLY A NEOLITHIC LANGUAGE RETAINED BY THE BASQUE WHO DID NOT CHANGE AS FREQUENTLY AS THE REST OF EUROPE. EUROPEAN HUNTER GATHERERS ARE GENETICALLY TALL IN HEIGHT INCREASED THE HEIGHT OF THE NEOLITHIC FARMER GROUPS, AND MORE SO WITH STEPPE R1b BACK MIGRATION TO WEST EUROPE. WEST IBERIANS WERE MORE DISTINCT RETAINING MORE LOCAL HUNTER GATHERER COMPARED TO OTHER EUROPEANS. THIS ARTICLE DESCRIBES SOMEWHAT THIS TIME DEPENDANT TRANSITION IN WEST IBERIA...

The population genomics of archaeological transition in west Iberia: Investigation of ancient substructure using imputation and haplotype-based methods

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1006852

14 ancient individuals from Portugal distributed from the Middle Neolithic (4200±3500 BC) to the Middle Bronze Age (1740±1430BC).... While discontinuity is evident in the transition to agriculture across the region, sensitive haplotype-based analyses suggest a significant degree of local hunter-gatherer contribution to later Iberian Neolithic populations. A more subtle genetic influx is also apparent in the Bronze Age...contrasts with the major Steppe migration turnovers within third Millennium northern Europe... Changes in genomic estimates of individual height across Europe are also associated with these major cultural transitions... We revealed subtle genetic differentiation between the Portuguese Neolithic and Bronze Age samples suggesting a markedly reduced influx in Iberia compared to other European regions...

First, whereas dating and similarity of the Portuguese Neolithic sites to other Mediterranean regions point to a rapid spread of agriculture at around 5500 BC, local Mesolithic communities were sedentary, dense and innovative; they appear to have persisted for at least 500 years after the onset of the Neolithic and, along with those Brittany, may have had a role in the subsequent emergence of the earliest Megalithic tradition.

Second, in the transition to metallurgy, the Tagus estuary region of Portugal was a source for innovation. The distinctive Maritime Beaker, a key component of the Bell Beaker Package, characterised by grave goods including copper daggers and archery equipment first emerged there during the first half of the 3rd millennium BC. The Beaker package subsequently spread through Western Europe, where it is thought to have met and hybridized with the Steppe derived Corded Ware or Single-Grave culture. It remains an open question whether the influx of Steppe ancestry into North and Central Europe associated with Corded Ware, also had a third millennium impact in Iberia.

Hunter-gatherer samples fall into 4 clusters; interestingly the Paleolithic Bichon (Western_HG1), and Mesolithic Loschbour fall together (despite 6,000 years separation, hinting at some level of continuity in the Rhine basin. Earlier Neolithic individuals are separated into two groupings, one comprising NW Anatolian and Greek samples, as well as two LBK individuals from Hungary and Germany. The second consists of Hungarian individuals from the Middle Neolithic to Copper Age alongside a Spanish Cardial Early Neolithic. A large cluster of individuals from Atlantic Europe, spanning the Middle Neolithic to Copper Age, is also seen, including all Portuguese MN and LNCA samples.

Samples belonging to the Copper Age and subsequent time periods in Russia showed strong stratification, with previous insights into ancient population structure in the steppe corroborated by the formation of the Yamnaya_Afanasievo cluster and the Sintashta_Andronovo. In contrast, Central/Northern European samples stretching from the Copper Age to Anglo Saxon period all clustered together with no detectable substructure (CopperAge_to_AngloSaxon). However, the Portuguese Bronze Age individuals formed a distinct cluster. This was seen to branch at a higher level with the Atlantic_Neolithic rather than CopperAge_to_AngloSaxon, and in the PCA plot placed between the two....

Increase in local hunter-gatherer ancestry in the Middle and Late Neolithic:

In Iberia, a clear shift in relative HG ancestry between the Early Neolithic (EN) to MN was observed, with greater haplotype donation from the Hungarian HG within the Cardial Neolithic sample CB13, when compared to other HG of more western provenance (Bichon, Loschbour and LaBrana). A reversal of this trend is seen in the later Neolithic and Chalcolithic individuals from Portugal and Spain, but intriguingly not in other Atlantic Neolithic samples from Ireland and Sweden. This is confirmed by a Mann-Whitney test demonstrating that Iberian Neolithic samples receive significantly more haplotypes from west European HG (Bichon, Loschbour and LaBrana) than KO1 relatively to Neolithic samples from elsewhere in Europe suggesting a more prolonged hunter-gatherer interaction at the littoral. In the transition to the Portuguese Bronze Age, a second shift can be seen in relative hunter-gatherer ancestry with some increase in relative haplotype donation from KO1, which is seen more prominently in the majority of post-Neolithic Eurasian samples, hinting at some difference between the Portuguese Neolithic and Bronze Age....

Neolithic samples present an excess of genetic contribution to southern Europeans, in particular to modern Sardinians, when compared to Bronze Age samples, which in turn consistently share more haplotypes with northern/eastern groups. Consistent with this, when comparing Portuguese Neolithic to Bronze Age samples, the former presented an excess of haplotype donation to Sardinian and Spanish. Northern/eastern ancestry is evident in the Bronze Age, with significantly increased enrichment in Chuvash, Orcadian, Lezgin and Irish. However, this shift from southern to northern affinity is markedly weaker than that observed between Neolithic and Bronze Age genomes in Ireland, Scandinavia, Hungary and Central Europe. These findings suggest detectable, but comparatively modest, Steppe-related introgression present at the Portuguese Bronze Age.

An increase in the dominant ancestral coefficient of European HG individuals (coloured red) is clear between early and subsequent Iberian Neolithic populations but no discernable difference in HG ancestry is visible between Portuguese MN individuals on the Atlantic coast and their contemporaries from Northeast Spain, suggesting similar admixture processes. This increase in WHG admixture in Portuguese MN and LNCA relative to an earlier Cardial Neolithic is also detectable with WHG from Spain, Switzerland and Luxembourg yielding higher levels of significance in comparison the Hungarian WHG KO1.... both the Portuguese MN and LNCA individuals to share higher affinity to Early Neolithic samples from Spain and Greece over Hungarian, LBK and NW Anatolian groups. The Portuguese MN and LN formed clades with each other to the exclusion of all other groups tested, suggesting some level of regional continuity across the Middle to Late Neolithic of Portugal.

A recurring feature of ADMIXTURE analyses of ancient northern Europeans is the appearance and subsequent dissemination within the Bronze Age of a component (teal) that is earliest identified in our dataset in HGs from the Caucasus (CHG). Unlike contemporaries elsewhere (but similarly to earlier Hungarian BA), Portuguese BA individuals show no signal of this component, although a slight but discernible increase in European HG ancestry (red component) is apparent.... this increase is associated not with Western HG ancestry, but instead reveal significant introgression from several steppe populations into the Portuguese BA relative to the preceding LNCA.

Interestingly, the CHG component in ADMIXTURE is present in modern-day Spaniards

and to a lesser extent in the Basque population, suggesting further genetic influx has occurred into the peninsula subsequent to the Middle Bronze Age, potentially with less infiltration into the western Pyrenees. Correspondingly, the CHG component is also lowered in the Sardinian population when compared to mainland Italians.... Portuguese BA samples to display highest shared drift with Basque populations, followed by Sardinians, as previously observed for a Spanish Bronze Age sample. Portuguese LNCA and MN also share inflated levels of drift with Basques, though their highest affinities are seen for Sardinians, a recurring phenomenon in European Neolithic groups.

European hunter-gatherers were genetically tall and a dramatic decrease in genetic height is associated with the transition to agriculture. During the Neolithic period, we see a steady increase, probably influenced by admixture with hunter-gatherers. Within this trend, Iberian individuals are typical of the Middle and Late Neolithic and we see no evidence of an Iberian-specific diminution as has been previously suggested from a 180 SNP panel. This increase continues through the Bronze Age, influenced in part by admixture with Steppe introgressors who have high predicted values (Neolithic vs Yamnaya_Afanasievo) and into the early centuries AD where ancient Britons and Anglo-Saxons are among the tallest in the sample. That Yamnaya and hunter-gatherer introgressions are major determinant of height variation is supported by strong correlations between these ancestral components and genetic height in modern European populations....

Previous data from north Mediterranean regions in Iberia have shown that the first farmers had predominantly Anatolian ancestry, with some increase in hunter-gatherer admixture occurring between the Early and Middle Neolithic. Our analyses, using both observed haploid SNPs and imputed diploid haplotypes show this pattern extends to the Atlantic coast of the peninsula, a region where a dense Mesolithic population persisted in the Neolithic for some 500 years. We support Middle Neolithic HG admixture having occurred locally, as there is greater haplotypic affinity of these Iberians to HG genomes from western Europe than to a hunter-gatherer genome excavated from a much earlier point of contact within the spread of the Neolithic; that within a Hungarian settlement representative of the earliest agricultural cultures of southeast Europe. This affinity is not shared by the earlier genome from the classical Neolithic Cardial phase (7500±7100 BP) which supports the geographical adjacency of this Middle Neolithic HG admixture....

Most strikingly, we find that European hunter-gatherers are significantly taller than their early Neolithic farming counterparts. A pattern of increasing genetic height with time since the Neolithic is clear in these European individuals, which may be influenced by increasing admixture with populations containing higher ancestral components of Eurasian hunter-gatherers. This concords with the increased forager farmer admixture in the transition from the Early to Middle Neolithic; including within Iberian Neolithic individuals. Interestingly, this is in contrast to previous results which estimated a height decrease within this group.... Genetic height increases through the Bronze Age are further influenced by Yamnaya introgression and continue through to a series of early Britons sampled from the early centuries AD. Within this time frame, the genetically tallest individual is an Anglo-Saxon from Yorkshire, followed by a Nordic Iron Age sample.

Our analyses yield both signals of continuity and change between Portuguese Neolithic and Bronze Age samples. ADMIXTURE analysis showing similar ancestral components, and higher order branching in fineSTRUCTURE clustering suggest a level of continuity within the region. Also, both show a degree of local European HG admixture (relative to central European HG influence) that is not observed within other samples in the data set. However, final fineSTRUCTURE clustering and the PCA plot places the Portuguese BA as a separate group which is intermediate between Atlantic Neolithic samples and the Central European Bronze Age individuals. D-statistics support some influx of ancestral elements derived from the east, as is seen in the northern Bronze Age, and a distinct change in Y-chromosome haplotypes is clear - all three Iberian BA males are R1b, the haplogroup that has been strongly associated with Steppe-related migrations. Patterns of haplotype affinity with modern populations illustrate the Portuguese population underwent a shift from southern toward northern affinity to a distinctly reduced degree to that seen with other regional Neolithic-BA transitions.

Several candidate windows for the entry of Steppe ancestry into Portugal exist. The first is the possible emergence of Bell Beaker culture in Southwest Iberia and subsequent establishment of extensive networks with Central and NW European settlements, opening up the possibility of back-migration into Iberia. Indeed, Central European Bell Beaker samples have been observed to possess both steppe-related ancestry and R1b-P312 Y-chromosomes. Furthermore, through the analysis of modern samples, it has been proposed that the spread of Western R1b-lineages fits with the temporal range of the Corded Ware and Bell Beaker complexes...

Two alternate theories for the origin and spread of the Indo-European language family

have dominated discourse for over two decades: first that migrating early farmers disseminated a tongue of Neolithic Anatolian origin and second, that the third Millennium migrations from the Steppe imposed a new language throughout Europe. Iberia is unusual in harbouring a surviving pre-Indo-European language, Euskera, and inscription evidence at the dawn of history suggests that pre-Indo-European speech prevailed over a majority of its eastern territory with Celtic-related language emerging in the west. Our results showing that predominantly Anatolian-derived ancestry in the Neolithic extended to the Atlantic edge strengthen the suggestion that Euskara is unlikely to be a Mesolithic remnant. Also our observed definite, but limited, Bronze Age influx resonates with the incomplete Indo-European linguistic conversion on the peninsula, although there are subsequent genetic changes in Iberia and defining a horizon for language shift is not yet possible. This contrasts with northern Europe which both lacks evidence for earlier language strata and experienced a more profound Bronze Age migration....

PORTUGAL IS MORE THAN HALF R1b. IN THE PALEOLITHIC R1b LINEAGE WOULD BE CLOSER TO 100% (NOT COUNTING NEANDERTHAL). BUT SOME FOREIGN MIGRANTS ENTER IN NEOLITHIC. J-HAPLOGROUP ACCOUNT FOR 10% YEAR 2005AD. E3b AND J ARE ARAB AND JEW AND EAST AFRICAN. EXPELLED FROM SPAIN AND PORTUGAL IN 15TH CENTURY THE JEWS WENT TO NORTH AFRICA, AMSTERDAM, AND CONSTANTINOPLE. MOORS WENT TO IBERIA IN 711AD WAS MINIMAL AND SHORT LIVED. NOT MUCH SUBSAHARAN NIGGER IN PORTUGAL UNTIL 15TH CENTURY SLAVE TRADE. E3b* IN NORTH PORTUGAL 4KYA+/-2KYA. E3b2 IN PORTUGAL 8+/-3KYA. U6 mtDNA BERBER AND BERBER MALES ARE MAINLY IN NORTH PORTUGAL AND PREDATES 711AD MOORS. ALTHOUGH OTHER RESEARCH CLAIMS A TINY U6 PRESENCE IN PALEOLITHIC WEST EUROPE. A TINY PORTION OF U6 COULD HAVE TRAVELLED WITH THE K2, OR R1b MALES INTO PALEOLTHIC WEST EUROPE WHILE THE GREATER PORTION OF U6 DEVELOPED JUST PRIOR TO ENTERING NORTH AFRICA, OR SHE DEVELOPED IN AFRICA WITH A TINY PORTION IMMEDIATELY EXITING NORTH AFRICA...

Y-chromosome Lineages from Portugal, Madeira and A¸cores Record Elements of Sephardim and Berber Ancestry

https://www.academia.edu/4906877/Y_chromosome_Lineages_from_Portugal_Madeira_and_Acores_Record_Elements_of_Sephardim_and_Berber_Ancestry

(78–83% of each population) of the male lineages could be classified as belonging to three basic Y chromosomal haplogroups, R1b, J, and E3b. While R1b, accounting for more than half of the lineages in any of the Portuguese subpopulations, is a characteristic marker of many different West European populations, haplogroups J and E3b consist of lineages that are typical of the circum-Mediterranean region or even East Africa....

Expelled from Spain and Portugal in the 15th century, the Sephardim Jews (from “Sepharad” meaning Spain or “Espaniah”) went back to North Africa or migrated, mainly to Amsterdam and Constantinople... Moors, or Berbers from Mauritania, started to expand into Iberia in 711 AD. However, it is generally assumed that their presence in the north of Portugal was minimal and short-lived.... Although some sub-Saharans entered the Iberian Peninsula with the Berbers and Arabs, most of this component in Portugal dates back to the 15th century when the importation of sub-Saharan slaves accelerated... The Atlantic Archipelagos of Ac¸ores and Madeira were discovered and settled by the Portuguese in the first half of the 15th century and both archipelagos played a major role in the complex Atlantic trade network in the following centuries....

Haplogroup R1b (particularly R1b3) was found to be the most dominant Y chromosomal lineage in Portugal and the North Atlantic Archipelagos of the Ac¸ores and Madeira, covering more than half of the Y chromosomal lineages in each population. The high frequency of this haplogroup is typical in all West European populations, reflecting a cline and likely continuity of the Paleolithic gene pool in Europe....

These findings either suggest a pre-Neolithic migration from North Africa or a more recent origin from a founder population of small size that did not carry haplogroup E3a, which is a major component in North African populations today. TMRCA for Portuguese E1 lineages estimated as 22.9 ± 7.2 ky favours the first scenario, a possible parallel to mtDNA U6 cited in Gonzalez et al...

Table 2 Haplogroup age estimates:

Haplogroup TMRCA (±sd)

E1 22.9 (±7.2)

E3b∗ 4.5 (±2.9)

E3b1α 8.8 (±4.1)

E3b2 8.0 (±3.2)

E3b3 12.1 (±5.7)

J1 10.0 (±4.5)

Haplogroup E3b: Eastern Africa is seen as the homeland for E3b as there it has the highest number of different clades and microsatellite diversity and the almost exclusive presence of E3b∗, with estimates of ∼30 ky for the age of the M35 mutation... The clustering of E3b∗ lineages in North Portugal (with 3.8 ± 2.2 kya)... E3b1-M78 suggests that these lineages could have spread from the Balkans all over Europe during the Neolithic... In Northwest Africa ∼75% of the Y lineages are haplogroup E3b2-M81 although a much lower frequency of this clade is seen among the Arabs. E3b2-M81 in North Africa may have arisen near Egypt or Somalia and then spread westwards along the upper boundary of Africa... observed at variable frequencies in Iberian populations (1–12%) and is almost absent, or occurs at very low frequencies (<6%), elsewhere in Western Europe... the age STR variation at E3b2 in the Portuguese populations is actually identical to that of North Africa (8.1 ± 3.2 ky vs 8.6 ± 2.3 ky). All these findings suggest a flow of Berber-related lineages into the male Portuguese population... It is highly probable that the Berber dispersion in Portugal was population-structured: the average time of pairwise population divergence, more than 4 thousand years, well predates the Arab settlement. Central and North Portugal show a lower divergence time for E3b2-STR variation (800 to 2,200 years ago); these two regions might have diverged from the same North-West African populations. E3b3 has a clear affiliation with Mid-Eastern populations but is infrequent in Europe and North Africa...

Haplogroup J: More than 10% of Portuguese Y chromosomes could be classified in haplogroup J. The frequency of this haplogroup in Portugal is significantly higher than among the Spanish or other West European populations, with the exception of Italy as reported by Semino et al. (2004) and DiGiacomo et al. (2004). Haplogroup J is thought to have originated in the Middle East or North East Africa... J1 and J2 clusters appearing in the Levant at Neolithic times... Haplogroup J* (= J1-M267) lineages occur in both Jewish and other Semitic speaking non-Jewish populations in the Middle East and notably also in the Arabs of Oman. J1 is also present in Mediterranean Europe, especially Italy (3.9%.... The history of Jewish settlement in Iberia makes it plausible that one source of the haplogroup J1 in Portugal (which reaches 7% in the South) could be related to either Jewish or Arabian ancestry. Non-Jewish North Africans are also characterized by over 10% of J1-M267... Portuguese J1 lineages are not due to Arab gene flow, and could have entered the country independently....

The Portuguese populations reveal themselves as a highly heterogeneous group, clearly separated from other European populations... Interestingly, both North Africans and Middle-Easterners join the Portuguese populations through the “Sephardim” Jews as indicated by the MST. The most likely lineage groups responsible for differences on the axis distinguishing European-Iberian-MidEast populations are E3b (a characteristic of NA) and R1b (typical of West Europeans). The latter haplogroup is almost absent in North Africa and Middle East. Overall, the Portuguese show an affinity to Middle Eastern populations. So far, the degree of genetic contribution from peoples of Jewish, North African and sub-Saharan ancestry to the present day Portuguese has been uncertain. Our data suggests only minor influences from sub-Saharan males in Portugal and the Atlantic Islands, despite historical records indicating that slaves constituted at least 10% of the total population in Madeira and the South of the country in the 15th century. This contrasts mtDNA and HLA data, but provides genetic support to the view that mixing was highly asymmetrical by sex. The North African component at least for mtDNA, is mainly concentrated in the North of Portugal. The mtDNA and Y data indicate that the Berber presence in that region dates prior to the Moorish expansion in 711 AD. Our Y chromosome results are also consistent with a continuous and regular assimilation of Berbers in North of Portugal. This argues against previous interpretations of Moorish mediated contributions, based on Y chromosome data and provides an alternative view of an earlier Berber presence in the North of Portugal. Haplogroup J distribution in Portugal runs opposite to haplogroup E3b2, corroborating the hypothesis that J1 lineages were not introduced with North African E3b2 lineages during the Arab/Berber expansion. In addition, the J1 lineages are distinct from the common Arab haplotype, consistent with an independent source, possibly Sephardim and/or other Near East peoples. Until now, the only evidence supporting the presence of Berbers in Iberia was the high frequencies of haplogroup U6 in Northern Portugal. Our data indicate that male Berbers, unlike sub-Saharan immigrants, constituted a long-lasting and continuous community in the country.