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My Paternal Haplotype
Apr. 2nd, 2018 06:37 pmThe story of M81 is very unusual in that it is so young and diversified into a multitude of subclades within just a few centuries. M81 has two immediate subclades A5604 and M183 (aka PF2477 or PF2546). Under the latter no less than eight subclades have been identified at present: A930, A2227, CTS12227, FGC22844, PF2578, PF6794, MZ99 and Z5009. This indicates that a single man may have had nine sons who went on to have numerous children of their own. What is even more surprising is that these subclades do not show any consistent geographic pattern.
If the estimate of 2,100 years is correct, that would correspond approximately to the time when the Romans defeated the Carthaginians in what is now Tunisia. That would mean that the M81 lineage only started to expand in Roman times, and continued to diffuse within all the borders of the Roman Republic/Empire - not just North Africa, but also Iberia, France, Italy, Greece, Turkey and the Levant. This is a remarkably fast expansion that would have required a male line of considerable wealth and influence within the Roman Republic/Empire, and therefore probably a family of rich patricians or even a Roman emperor, not necessarily of Roman descent himself. The advantage of this hypothesis is that M81 is indeed found exclusively within the borders of the Roman Empire, and in a big part of the empire. Even within Britain it is found mainly in Wales, a region known to have served as a refuge for the Romano-British population during the Anglo-Saxon invasions.
Of course, the TMRCA is only an estimate and could vary by a few centuries. Therefore this lineage could actually have emerged a few centuries earlier, during the Phoenician/Carthaginian period. Indeed the distribution pattern and frequency of M81 matches much better the Phoenician maritime empire, with its origins in the Levant, and its dispersal along the cost of North Africa, but also Iberia, Sardinia and Sicily. In this scenario, M81 could have been the lineage of Carthaginian kings, or of a particularly prolific aristocratic familiy during the Carthaginian Republic. The merits of this hypothesis is that it would explain why M81 is so much more common in the Maghreb, and particularly in Tunisia, than in Italy today. The Carthaginians founded cities in Spain, including Carthago Nova (the New Carthage, now Cartagena in Murcia), but also in Sardinia and Sicily, where M81 is the most common today within Italy. The weak point of this hypothesis is that it doesn't explain how M81 reached places like France, Britain, Greece or Turkey, nor even northern Spain.
In whichever scenario, it is clear that M81 benefited from a potent founder effect in the Maghreb, a region that was first dominated by the Carthaginian elite, but quickly became one of the favourite regions of residence for the Roman elite within the empire (along with Spain, France and Greece). Therefore both hypotheses are plausible. A combination of the two scenarios could provide an even better explanation. M81 would first have spread with the Carthaginian elite, then once they were defeated by the Romans and annexed to the empire, their descendants would have been free to migrate to various parts of the empire from North Africa, Sicily, Sardinia and Iberia, some eventually reaching France and Britain. The original Phoenician M81 in the Levant could also have diffused across the Eastern Mediterranean over the centuries, during the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman periods.
If the estimate of 2,100 years is correct, that would correspond approximately to the time when the Romans defeated the Carthaginians in what is now Tunisia. That would mean that the M81 lineage only started to expand in Roman times, and continued to diffuse within all the borders of the Roman Republic/Empire - not just North Africa, but also Iberia, France, Italy, Greece, Turkey and the Levant. This is a remarkably fast expansion that would have required a male line of considerable wealth and influence within the Roman Republic/Empire, and therefore probably a family of rich patricians or even a Roman emperor, not necessarily of Roman descent himself. The advantage of this hypothesis is that M81 is indeed found exclusively within the borders of the Roman Empire, and in a big part of the empire. Even within Britain it is found mainly in Wales, a region known to have served as a refuge for the Romano-British population during the Anglo-Saxon invasions.
Of course, the TMRCA is only an estimate and could vary by a few centuries. Therefore this lineage could actually have emerged a few centuries earlier, during the Phoenician/Carthaginian period. Indeed the distribution pattern and frequency of M81 matches much better the Phoenician maritime empire, with its origins in the Levant, and its dispersal along the cost of North Africa, but also Iberia, Sardinia and Sicily. In this scenario, M81 could have been the lineage of Carthaginian kings, or of a particularly prolific aristocratic familiy during the Carthaginian Republic. The merits of this hypothesis is that it would explain why M81 is so much more common in the Maghreb, and particularly in Tunisia, than in Italy today. The Carthaginians founded cities in Spain, including Carthago Nova (the New Carthage, now Cartagena in Murcia), but also in Sardinia and Sicily, where M81 is the most common today within Italy. The weak point of this hypothesis is that it doesn't explain how M81 reached places like France, Britain, Greece or Turkey, nor even northern Spain.
In whichever scenario, it is clear that M81 benefited from a potent founder effect in the Maghreb, a region that was first dominated by the Carthaginian elite, but quickly became one of the favourite regions of residence for the Roman elite within the empire (along with Spain, France and Greece). Therefore both hypotheses are plausible. A combination of the two scenarios could provide an even better explanation. M81 would first have spread with the Carthaginian elite, then once they were defeated by the Romans and annexed to the empire, their descendants would have been free to migrate to various parts of the empire from North Africa, Sicily, Sardinia and Iberia, some eventually reaching France and Britain. The original Phoenician M81 in the Levant could also have diffused across the Eastern Mediterranean over the centuries, during the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman periods.
