The majority of European men are descended from just a few Bronze Age male ancestors, says a genetic study published in the journal Nature Communications on May 19.
The presence of genetic material from just a few men in the Y-chromosome sequence resulted from a population explosion several thousand years ago, researchers said. There was a huge increase in the population 2,000 to 4,000 years ago, in a band from Greece and the Balkans to the British Isles and Scandinavia.
The researchers from the University of Leicester in England, headed by Professor Mark Jobling, determined the origin of DNA sequences of a big part of the Y chromosome in 334 men from 17 populations in Europe and the Middle East. They found three very young branches of DNA account for Y chromosomes of 64 percent of the men who gave genetic material for the study. The team used new methods for analyzing DNA variation, allowing them to give a clearer picture of diversity and to give a better estimate of timing of population variations than has been possible in past research.
