Dr Michael Hammer gave an interesting presentation at the FTDNA Conference today on R1b origins. Highlights included:

Recent work on sibling Y haplogroup K suggests that R ancestors migrated out of Africa and into SouthEast Asia then moved back west into Anatolia. This implies changes are needed in the migration maps presented by FTDNA & Genographic project.

Recap that no R1b found at ancient DNA sites from Europe.

R1b subgroups and cultural markers evidence several expansion centers in Europe,

Overall, P311 marker which is distinctly European part of R1b probably arose AFTER agriculture started in Europe but expanded rapidly and replaced G2a in the population. By contrast MtDNA pattern seems more conserved, especially in Northern Europe.

With expansion of SNPs we are starting to get SNPs in the historic era. By implication, these are starting to correspond to population groups recorded in history.

SNP CTS1122 seems like a distinctly Scottish Marker. Just as M222 is concentrated in Ireland and DF21 in England.

There will be 21 new SNPs under M222 and all of them are tested on the NatGeo Geno 2.0 test. Plans to update the results page for these changes on the FTDNA result pages are well underway.

Copies of Dr Hammer’s slides are supposed to be posted in the near future.