"The ethnic and religious diversity is fascinating. Really.
We know where G-M3302 comes from, and we can see exactly where it went. "  -Ted Kandell

G-M201>G-P287>G-P15>G-L1259>G-L30>G-CTS574>G-M406>G-M3317>G-FGC5089>G-M3302

Click here for the most current G-M3302 Tree

Search detailed Information on M406 Ancient DNA

Find our M406 map of Ancient Samples Here

G-M3302: Logical Steps
Compiled by Todd Paradine (Last updated December 2021)

The prevailing theory regarding those bearing the M3302 SNP mutation is that it likely first formed around 6,000 BCE among Native Anatolians living along the bend of the Halys (Kızılırmak) River as well as the southern coast of the Black Sea in Central Anatolia.  In those days, the now barren landscape of Central Anatolia was in part covered by dense forest.  The men of M3302 likely lived along side men of its sister clades downstream from M406 and FGC5089 in small semi-permanent settlements which would be abandoned for more favorable nearby locations as resources and materials ran dry.  

They do not appear to have developed permanent settlements or experienced the population explosion during the Neolithic that famously spurred their G2a cousins into Europe.  Instead, these men almost certainly made up a percentage of the Hattian civilization that flourished in the Early Bronze Age

Today all men bearing G-M3302 appear to descend from a man bearing the mutation who lived about 5,000 BCE, at a time when the first metal implements made with copper began to appear in Anatolia.  The oldest G-M3302 YDNA sample was found in Camlibel Tarlasi (near the ancient city of Hattusa) circa 3500 BCE.  Autosomally, the sample shared about 50% of its ancestry with its G2a cousins to the south and west who occupied some of the world's first settlements like Çatalhöyük, Boncuklu, Göbekli Tepe, Hasilar, Pinarbasi, etc. suggesting a common descent sometime during the Mesolithic period.  In addition the sample held about 30% Caucuses Hunter Gatherer, 15% Natufian (Levant), and about 10% from the Iranian Mesolithic. 

The settlement of Camlibel Tarlasi was situated on a low plateau within a narrow valley branching off from the main plain.  They were likely drawn to the site due to a nearby deposit of copper ore and evidence of metallurgical activity is found throughout the site.  The houses unearthed at the sight contained graves under the floors and several skeletons show signs of body modification and skull elongation.  Livestock, particularly pigs played a large role in their sustenance.  There was also evidence of trade from exotic Flint blades, to Mediterranean shells, and Obsidian from Cappadocia. 

Due to its deposits of Copper, Central Anatolia played an important role in the advancement of metallurgy that led to the Bronze Age.  The Native Anatolians flourished as bronze metallurgy spread to Anatolia from the Kura-Araxes culture in the late 4th millennium BCE.  Settlements began to prosper in the region as a result of an enhance trade network and innovations.  One city, Hattusa, became the focal point of what would become known as the Hattian civilization. The Hattians were a non-Indo-European indigenous people and almost certainly G-M3302 (FGC5089 and M406) made up a sizable percentage of it's male lines.

The Hattians had a special relationship with Assyrians traders from Mesopotamia who provided them with the tin needed to make bronze and connected Anatolia with the greater Mesopotamian world at large. These trading posts or Karums played an important role in Anatolia the fall or Assyria and the rise of the Hittites in around 1700 BC. These Karums represented separate residential areas where the traders lived, protected by the Hattians, and paying taxes in return.  We find an ancient M406 sample in the burnt remains of an Assyrian trade building at Kaman-Kalehöyük.  The sample dated from 2000-1750 BCE and was likely killed in the Hittite destruction of the city. 

The Hittites were an Indo-European people who many scholars speculate had occupied some areas of Anatolia for hundreds of years before they came into direct and sustained conflict with the Hattian people.  By about 1600 BCE, the Hittites subjected and assimilated the native Hattian people, although many aspects of Hattian society remained.  The Hittites adopted the Hattian capital of Hatusa as their own and even called themselves "Hittites" as in "People of the land of Hatti".  In all likelihood the conquest was a merging of the two cultures, and almost assuredly the smaller Hattian farming communities that supplied larger Hittite strongholds remained primarily Hattian in ancestry.  They were Iron Age pioneers who began manufacturing iron artifacts around 1400 BCE. This is significant because the Hittites’ use of iron and steel created tools and weapons that were more efficient than their Bronze Age contemporaries. 

While the Hittites would become strong enough to control much of Anatolia by 1350 BCE, their power in Asia Minor waxed and waned.  In part this was because the Hittites were under constant attack, mainly from the Kaska, a non-Indo-European people settled in the mountain regions along the central Black Sea coast.  The Kaska were possibly a wilder, unvanquished remnant of the Hattic peoples and may have had sizable percentages of G-M3302, G-FGC5089, and G-M406.  Men with this lineage were also likely found among the Hayasa-Azzi, a territory hostile to the Hittites, west of Hatussa.  The Hayasans are thought to have played a role in the ethnogenesis, or genetic makeup of the Armenians who today have a sizable percentage of G-M406.

Despite periods of decline, the Hittite empire was quite powerful, waging war and establishing tributary states along the western shore of the Aegean Sea.  For a time, the empire even rivaled the Egyptians, standing toe to toe with them at the famous battle of Kanesh in 1274 BCE.  It is very likely men of G-M3302, G-FGC5089, and G-M406 marched in the Hittite armies, farmed the empire's fields, and potentially settling in other areas of Anatolia as the empire shifted and expanded. 

Ultimately however, the Hittite Empire vanished from historical records around 1180 BCE during a period known as the Bronze Age collapse.  While the identity of the peoples who enveloped the once mighty empire is unknown, some speculate it was a combined onslaught from new waves of invaders, the Kaska, Phrygians, Bryges, and possibly the Hayasans.   As Anatolia and the Mediterranean World began to shift into the Iron Age, Anatolian states such as Phrygia and Lydia occupied parts of Central and Western Anatolia.  In addition, colonists from mainland Greece began to Hellenize the Western coast of Asia Minor forming flourishing Ionian, Aeolian, and Dorian Greek cities that were genetically Greek and Anatolian.  In Lebanon and Syria, remnants of the Hittite Empire persisted known as the Syro-Hittite states possibly leaving a genetic impact on the later sea faring Phoenicians.

The Phoenicians famously colonized North Africa, founding Carthage a city who itself founded colonies in Sicily, Sardinia, France, and Spain.  Meanwhile, the Ionian city state Miletus founded many colonies along the Black Sea.  Other Greek cities in Asia Minor would heavily colonize Sicily and Southern Italy.  In addition one city, Phocaea was famous for founding the Southern French Port City of Massalia (Marseilles) as well as others in France, Sicily, Corsica, and Spain.  One theory on how G-M3302, G-FGC5089, and G-M406 reached Europe is via this colonization ultimately carrying men who descended from Anatolia to the Western Mediterranean. Certainly the Roman Empire is a prime candidate for how G-M3302 may have spread out of places like Sicily and Southern Italy, and into places like France, Germany, Belgium, and England.  The men of Anatolia provided many men for the Roman Legions and have been proven to have migrated to Rome as either lower class citizens or slaves.

The Persians conquered Lydia in 547 BCE and turned their attention to the Greek City states on the eastern shores of the Aegean Sea.  The Greeks, particularly under the reign of Darius in 500 BCE, resisted Persian rule.  One aspect of this resistance was an increased incentive to colonize safer locations in the Western Mediterranean.  However, after several years of fighting the Persians crushed the rebelling Greek cities in Asian Minor and is said to have deported many of the Greek rebels to India [Perisan lands on the eastern side of their Empire] as punishment.

With the final defeat of the Persians by Alexander the Great of Macedonia, the Greek cities of Asia Minor were freed and Greek influence began to spread throughout Anatolia.  As Alexanders armies pushed eastward, it conquered territories in modern day Pakistan known as Bactria.  After Alexander's death, Greeks settled and occupied the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom from 256 to 125 BCE and even an Indo-Greek Kingdom that spanned from 180 BCE to 10 CE.  Could these forces of history have left a Bronze Age Anatolian imprint among the peoples of Afghanistan and Pakistan?  It is possible.  There is an ancient G-M406 skeleton found along the Oxus River Valley in Tajikistan, 40 miles from the Ancient City of Bactra and dating to around 0 CE.  While it appeared the ancient man identified culturally as a Kushan (and perhaps may have been more Kushan than Greek), these were the people who conquered the Bactrians Greeks and may have quite easily assimilated some of the Greco Bactrians of mixed heritage.

In the time after Alexander, the empowered former Greek colonies along the Black Sea founded the Kingdom of Pontus.  This entity occupied much of the coastal territory inhabited by the Hattians, Kaska, and Hayasans and their Hittite enemies a thousand years before.  Later it would be absorbed into the Roman Empire and subsequently to the Byzantines.  The Byzantines themselves reconquered and possessed holdings in Southern Italy for several centuries after the fall of the West.

The Southern Arc papers from 2022 show a significant influx of Anatolian ancestry in Roman Italy during the Imperial Age. It seems the most likely explanation for this is that Anatolia fed the Roman slave markets that at one point supported up to 1/3rd of the metropolis's population.

There are many more historical examples of migration that would have also spread this genetic signature around the world, including the rather recent flow of peoples out of Central Anatolia such as the Armenians and Pontic Greeks who often reestablished themselves in the Caucuses, Russia, and in Mainland Greece. 

The goal of YDNA testing is to get enough data to identify the times when the geographical splits of G-M3302 occurred.  We know it is present today in Anatolia, Italy, Sicily, Portugal, Spain, Germany, France, Ukraine, the Caucuses, Pakistan, Kuwait, Lebanon, England and more.  How did it get there?  When did it get there?  As more data comes in, we will be able to refine what we know and reexamine some of the most valid theories that exist at present.