Modern samples of Rare, Ancient J-M241 Branches Expected to Shed Light on Our Ancient Origins

There are a few recent exciting developments affecting both branches of J-M241, mostly European J-L283 and mostly Indian/West Asian J-Z2432.

Flor Veseli has found that an Uzbek J-M102(xZ534) has a SNP in common with the ancient sample from Tepe Abdul Hosein. This makes is likely that the ancestor of all J-M102 lived somewhere between Iran and Uzbekistan.

A new sample has been found, we don't yet know who he his, processing on YFull in the position ABOVE J-M241 known as Z593. All we know about this branch is that another man from Scotland is positive for it and negative for M241. I do not interpret the modern Scottish presence of this basal J-Z593 as evidence that the J-Z593 ancestor lived in Scotland because it would require a neolithic migration from Scotland to India for descendant J-Z2432 which is not supported by any information I have read. Hopefully this new sample will shed additional light once we know where they trace their descent.

We have identified one man with an English surname who appears about equally distantly related to J-L283 as he does to J-Z2432. If he is negative for both, he would form his own third branch below J-M241, or possibly split this branch. This would be a major and unexpected breakthrough.

SNP testing has revealed that the ancestor of the J-M241 Biebers of Alsace are negative for branch Z597. A Big Y is processing and we expect the sample to fall between L283 and Z615.

A second cluster which is Norwegian and German appears to fall in the same range between L283 and Z615, though they do not appear closely related to the first cluster. We are waiting on the Big Y result of one of the Norwegians.

We hope that some of these new northern European samples end up forming new subclades with existing YFull samples. The more geographically consistent, older subclades of J-L283 we find, the better we may trace the path of the main L283 lineages through Europe. The interesting question is when did these L283 lineages become established in NW Europe.

We are also still waiting for Dante Labs results of an Azorean lineage which I had predicted to be Z2432. They would be the first confirmed European Z2432.

We are also waiting on a Big Y from a cluster of Syrian Christians who trace descent to India that are L283>Z597(xZ638).

Some recent developments in J-Z2432 have resulted in the discovery of four successive subclades under Y978>Y958>Z8326>Z8316 which formed in a one hundred year period during 4400-4300 BC. These men may have been members of a powerful dynasty in NW India. Four of the samples on the YFull tree are not attributed to a more specific location than India so NW India is a tentative prediction. The timing corresponds to the Pre-Harappan/Early-Harappan stage of the Indus Valley Civilization.

Modern samples living in Goa, Arunchal Pradesh and Bahrain would be outliers if the Y978 ancestor did in fact live in the Indus Valley Civilization. Modern descendants living in Punjabi are however consistent with this theory. Additional samples with accurate paternal ancestor locations are needed to have a more reliable theory.

Another interesting J-L283 development is the establishment of an Albanian-Spanish subclade called Y161916 below Z38300. Their most recent common ancestor lived 1100 BC, only 200 years after Z38300's most recent common ancestor.

We have also identified numerous likely Z40052 and Y23094 clusters consisting of NW Europeans which have yet to establish their exact position on the YFull tree.

These posts are the opinion of Hunter Provyn, a haplogroup researcher in J-M241 and J-M102.

9 thoughts on “Modern samples of Rare, Ancient J-M241 Branches Expected to Shed Light on Our Ancient Origins”

  1. Hunter, thanks for the update, the depth of your research is outstanding. I’m not sure how you feel about “Ethnicity”? I recently had ancestry.com read my DNA again. They did it many years ago. They say I’m 73% England, Wales and Northwestern Europe. 24% Ireland and Scotland. They don’t provide Haplogroups in their results, even though I have mine. This bothers me, because it seem to me that they are researching “Surnames” rather than DNA. I look forward to your continued progress.

    John Bridges

    1. Hi John,
      I think ethnicity breakdowns can be useful in determining the origins of various unknown family members via process of elimination. Some people are so skeptical of the results to suggest they are meaningless, but I read Ancestry’s white paper on their statistical methodology and I believe that unless someone is very heavily admixed, the result should be useful as long as the reference populations are screened correctly and the math is done properly.
      It won’t be exactly right for everyone as there may be subgroups within a population defined as “West European” which have allele frequencies that mimic those found in a higher proportion in neighboring populations.

      Keep in mind that ethnic breakdowns like this are computed from all your DNA, not just your Y DNA. So for haplogroup research the ethnic breakdowns are not informative of who your male line ancestor was several hundreds of years ago because his contribution to your overall DNA would be so diluted as to approach zero. That’s why many haplogroup researchers simply say autosomal DNA is useless for determining haplogroups. In ancient DNA it can sometimes be useful for explaining how a rare haplogroup intruded into a particular region if the ancient sample was only a few generations after the original migrant.

  2. I recently had my DNA analysis from Ancestory DNA. My paternal Y-chromosomal dna is J-M241, with origins traced to Kurds, Sephardic and Azkhenazy jews, Balochistan, Sindh and South India. I am South Indian in origin. Further research, suggests that a group called Hurrians [part of Hittites] were the earliest J-M241 [origin 21000 years ago, at the end of the last ice age], with a breakaway group going west forming Sephardic and Azkhenazy jews. The Hurrians possibly migrated into the Indus valley region as far back as 12000 years ago settling in Mehrgarh in Balochistan and subsequently into Sindh around 2500 BCE. Indus valley civilization ceased in 1900 BC due to a major catastrophe. It is likely that they moved into South India to avoid that. Is this analysis plausible?

    1. The Hurrians were a people of the Bronze Age Near East. Going back 12000 years with them is not possible.

  3. J-M241 from Goa, India. Just commenting for representation. There is so much scattered information about this Haplogroup. Would you be able to recommend a good source?

    1. Hello distant cousin! You are most likely in the branch that migrated to South Asia by the Neolithic, most likely from the direction of Iran.

      I have an article about that.

      https://phylogeographer.com/links-between-j-z2449-and-the-south-asian-neolithic/

      For other links you may ask in the Facebook group. I don’t focus on the J2b-Z2432 lineage, I focus instead on my branch of J2b-M241 that had migrated to Europe which is J2b-L283.

      https://www.facebook.com/groups/577326878950978

    1. Hello,

      This means that your autosomal test doesn’t help you determine which specific branch of J2b-M241 you are.

      However if you are from Europe you are most likely J2b-L283 and if from South Asia or Western Asia, more likely J2b-Z2432.

      You could order the J2b-M12 SNP Panel test at YSEQ to determine your exact subclade.

      https://www.yseq.net/product_info.php?products_id=45234

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