GEOGRAPHIC CLUSTERING OF HUMAN Y-CHROMOSOME HAPLOTYPES

Five polymorphic markers on the Y-chromosome (mostly microsatellites) were typed in 121 individuals from 13 populations around the world. Wi th these markers 78 different haplotypes were detected. Haplotypes pre sent more than once tend to be shared by individuals from the same pop ulation or continent. A reconstruction of haplotype phylogeny also ind icates significant geographic structure in the data. Based on the simi larity of the haplotypes, population relationships were examined and f ound to be largely concordant with those obtained with other markers. Even though the sample size and the number of markers are small, there is very significant clustering of the haplotypes by continent of orig in.