Algeria – A Place

Algeria is officially the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria. It is a country in North Africa. It sits between Morocco and Tunisia. Other border countries are Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Tunisia, and Western Sahara.

Algeria borders the Mediterranean Sea. The climate is arid to semiarid. There are mild wet winters and hot dry summers along the coast. Inland there are drier cold winters and hot summers on high plateau. There the sirocco is a hot dusty and sand-laden wind especially common in summer.

Most of the country is high plateau and desert. There are the Atlas Mountains in the far north and the Hoggar Mountains in the south. On the coastline, there is narrow discontinuous coastal plain.

History

Much of Algeria’s history has been dominated by Arabs. This was true until the Berber revolt of 740 CE. This revolt led to various communities been formed in Algeria. The communities include Berbers, Arabs, Sunni, and Persian Muslim states among many others. Although the majority of Algerians are still Muslims, Christianity arrived in the 2nd century. Almost 200 years after that, many areas have accepted Christianity including the Berber tribes.

Algeria was also a historic slave trade center because it was near Europe. Merchants from France and Spain contributed to the trade center immensely.

Algeria is situated in the affluent Northern part of Africa. The area is popular because of the role it played and still plays in serving as a transit region for people moving to Europe and the Middle East. The population of Algeria has become so diverse for this very reason. The country welcomes people from different parts of Africa and Europe.

On July 3, 1962, Algeria was declared an independent nation by France. Before long, it had its first president in Ahmed Ben Bella.

Modern Times

The population of Algeria consists of Berbers and the native people of Algeria. The country has a few smaller groups of Turkish people, Italians, French, and Spaniards. The majority of Algerians (99%) are ethnically Arab-Berber.

Modern Standard Arabic (literary Arabic) and Tamazight (Berber) are Algeria’s official languages. The native languages of Algerians (99%) are Algerian Arabic (72%) and Berber (27.4%). The most spoken Berber language is Kabyle in the country, though it’s partly co-official.

The population of Algeria (97%) is dominated by the Muslim religion, the majority of whom follow Sunni Islam. There are also 3,50,000 Christians and 2,000 Jews.

Genetics

This section is under development.

mtDNA

Genographic ProjectGeno 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 results over to build 17.

Hg ID	Hg Build 16	Birth Country	Mother's Birth Country	Maternal Grandmother's Birth Country
Hap10003676	H1	Algeria	Algeria	Algeria
Hap10005090	H7	France	Algeria	Algeria
Hap10007634	HV0	Algeria	Unspecified	Unspecified
Hap10010970	H1e1a	France	Algeria	Algeria
Hap10012235	H1e1a	Algeria	Algeria	Algeria
Hap10027754	H1b	Panama	Andorra	Algeria
Hap10028773	H58a	France	Algeria	Algeria
Hap10029227	H1c	Algeria	Algeria	Algeria
Hap10030112	H7c1	Israel	Algeria	Algeria
Hap10045793	C4a2	Algeria	Antigua and Barbuda	Algeria
Hap10051153	J1c	Algeria	Algeria	Algeria
Hap10051323	J1c1	Algeria	Algeria	Algeria
Hap10051324	J1c1	Algeria	Algeria	Algeria
Hap10057756	J2a2b2	Algeria	Algeria	Algeria
Hap10057757	J2a2b2	France	France	Algeria
Hap10057824	J2b1	Algeria	Algeria	Algeria
Hap10062800	K1a4a1h	Algeria	Algeria	Unspecified
Hap10063745	K1c1	France	Algeria	Algeria
Hap10066067	K2b1a	Algeria	Algeria	Algeria
Hap10066099	K2b1a	Algeria	Unspecified	Unspecified
Hap10068125	L2a1l3	Algeria	Algeria	Algeria
Hap10069991	M1a1i	Algeria	Algeria	Unspecified
Hap10070071	M1b1a	Algeria	Algeria	Algeria
Hap10073116	T1a	France	Algeria	Algeria
Hap10076593	T2b	Algeria	Algeria	Unspecified

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Sources and Resources

Background

• Algeria – CIA World FactBook
• Algeria – Wikipedia
• Algeria History – Wikipedia

Journal Articles

• Arredi, B.; Poloni, E.; Paracchini, S.; Zerjal, T.; Fathallah, D.; Makrelouf, M.; Pascali, V.; Novelletto, A. & Tylersmith, C. (2004). A Predominantly Neolithic Origin for Y-Chromosomal DNA Variation in North Africa. American journal of human genetics, 75(2), 338-345.
• Robino, C.; Crobu, F.; Di Gaetano, C.; Bekada, A.; Benhamamouch, S.; Cerutti, N.; Piazza, A.; Inturri, S. & Torre, C. (2008). Analysis of Y-chromosomal SNP haplogroups and STR haplotypes in an Algerian population sample. International journal of legal medicine, 122(3), 251-255.