Mitochondrial DNA, Y chromosome and human population history

Many disciplines such as archaeology, anthropology, linguistic and palaeont ology are involved in the study of human origins. More recently, genetics a nd molecular biology have been used to shed light on human origins. For man y years, geneticists have studied the DNA variations among individuals and populations in order to establish relationships between different populatio ns. Of the DNA markers available, the most interesting are the uniparental inherited markers, which are the maternally inherited mtDNA and the paterna lly inherited Y-chromosome. They both escape from regular recombinational p recesses at meiosis and, consequently, these markers are transmitted togeth er as haplotypes preserving a unique record of mutational changes that have occurred in previous generations. While X chromosomes and autosomes each h ave multiple ancestors because of recombination, all modem mtDNAs could hav e a single maternal ancestor and Y-chromosomes could have a single paternal ancestor. Here iue review the general characteristics of the Y chromosome and the mtDNA and, using specific examples, we show how haplotypes can be u sed to determine human origins and study different population interactions in historical times.