Summary

Age: 24,208.8 ± 4,905.8; CI=95% (Behar et al., 2012b)
Origin: Asia
Mutations: A235G A663G A1736G T4248C A4824G C8794T C16290T G16319A
Parent Branch: N
Descendant branch(s): A1 A10 A11 A12 A13 A14 A15 A16 A17 A18 A19 A2 A20 A21 A22 A23 A24 A25 A26 A3 A5 A6 A7 A8 A9

Background

Haplogroup A is a branch on the maternal tree of human kind. Its age is between 19,300 and 29,100 years (Behar et al., 2012b). Through historic migrations, A members are part of native populations across Asia and the Americas.

The first members of haplogroup A likely lived in Asia. That is where most members of this line live today. However, some descendants spread into East Asia while others traveled to the Americas. They belong to the A2 branch.

Very few people today belong to the main branch of haplogroup A. Instead, they belong to one of its descendant branches. However, there are some. There are three such samples in the GenBank database. The first person is an ethnic Han from Wuhan, Hubei. Their result was published in Kong et al., 2003. The second and third are also Han Chinese. They are part of the 1K genomes data set and were published in Zheng et al., 2011. In Genographic data, members of this branch that do not belong to a daughter branch come from Afghanistan, China, Japan, Malaysia, Poland, and Turkey.

mtDNA Haplogroup A Phylotree History

Phylotree.org is the maternal (mtDNA) tree of humanity. It is maintained by Dr. Mannis Van Oven. Each build is a major update to the tree. The current build is #17.

mtDNA Haplogroup A Data Sources

GenBank Samples

GenBank is a database of genetic sequence data. It is run by the United States National Institute of Health. It serves as the main repository for mtDNA full sequence profiles. Samples come both from published academic literature and donations from genetic genealogy community members. In addition to GenBank samples, listings below may include other samples published but not submitted to GenBank such as those from the HapMap project.

Note: GenBank results currently use Phylotree build 16. I am working on changing resuts over to build 17.

Geno 2.0 Data

Data from Geno 2.0 is derived from the The National Geographic Society’s Genographic Project — the DAR. The Hg ID is specific to this site and is used to protect the identities of those who take part in Genographic research. Birth Country, Mother's Birth Country, and Maternal Grandmother's Birth Country have been normalized from DAR database fields. The Maternal Origin is determined based on the three previous fields.

Note: Geno 2.0 results currently use Phylotree build 16. I am working on changing resuts over to build 17.

If you use the information in this table, please credit both this site and The National Geographic Society’s Genographic Project.

Sources & Resources

Related Sources

• Behar, D.M., van Oven, M., Rosset, S., Metspalu, M., Loogväli, E.L., Silva, N.M., Kivisild, T., Torroni, A. and Villems, R. (2012). A “Copernican” reassessment of the human mitochondrial DNA tree from its root. American journal of human genetics, 90(4), 675-684.
• Fan, L., & Yao, Y. G. (2011). MitoTool: a web server for the analysis and retrieval of human mitochondrial DNA sequence variations. Mitochondrion, 11(2), 351-356.
• Fan, L., & Yao, Y. G. (2013). An update to MitoTool: using a new scoring system for faster mtDNA haplogroup determination. Mitochondrion, 13(4), 360-363.
• Kong, Q.P., Yao, Y.G., Sun, C., Bandelt, H.J., Zhu, C.L. and Zhang, Y.P. (2003). Phylogeny of East Asian Mitochondrial DNA Lineages Inferred from Complete Sequences. The American Journal of Human Genetics, 73(3), 671-676.
• Pilipenko, A.S., Cherdantsev, S.V., Trapezov, R.O., Zhuravlev, A.A., Babenko, V.N., Pozdnyakov, D.V., Konovalov, P.B. and Polosmak, N.V. (2017). Mitochondrial DNA diversity in a Transbaikalian Xiongnu population. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, -, 1-14.
• Van Oven, M., & Kayser, M. (2009). Updated comprehensive phylogenetic tree of global human mitochondrial DNA variation. Human mutation, 30(2), E386-E394.
• Zheng, H.X., Yan, S., Qin, Z.D., Wang, Y., Tan, J.Z., Li, H. and Jin, L. (2011). Major Population Expansion of East Asians Began before Neolithic Time: Evidence of mtDNA Genomes. PLoS ONE, 6(10), e25835+.

Additional Resources

• Ian Logan's mtDNA Pages
• Ian Logan's Instructions for mtGenome Genbank Donation
• James Lick's mtDNA Utility
• The FTDNA Haplogroup Project for Haplogroup A2
• The Wikipedia Article for Haplogroup A

mtDNA Consultants

The following members of the community offer paid consulting for those seeking help with mtDNA results. Inclusion on this list is not a recommendation or endorsement of any service.

• DNA Explorers – Robert Sliwinski
• Genetic Genealogy Consultant – Ugo Perego
• Your DNA Guide – Diahan Southard