A Look at Warren Buffet and my Mitochondrial DNA

Warren Buffet is also H4a.

A few years ago, I had the gift of meeting my half sister, Carla Anderson. She is ten years my junior, and we share the same birth mother. I flew to the Northwest to meet her, and we have continued our

relationship through facebook, email, text and phone.

Carla recently had her DNA done, and has shared the results. Of course, I am only concerned with the maternal line, as my paternal line is unknown to me.

I now know that my maternal haplogroup is H4, subgroup H4a. Maternal haplogroups are families of mitochondrial DNA types that all trace back to a single mutation at a specific place and time. Haplogroup H, the parent of H4, originated in the Near East and expanded throughout Europe after the peak of the Ice Age. Haplogroup H is the most common and most diverse maternal lineage in Europe, in most of the Near East and in the Caucasus region. The frequency of haplogroup H in Europe usually ranges between 40% and 50%.
H4 soon spun off its own sub-branch, H4a, which spread north and west from the Caucusus region or neighboring Turkey into eastern Europe about 10,000 years ago, possibly in association with the spread of farming. The location of its origin is still not certain. The haplogroup is most common today in Poland, where about 5% of the population carries it.
The next highest concentration of H4a is in Ireland, where about 3% of the population falls into the category. Those people may be descended from women who migrated to Britain and Ireland with 5th- and 6th-century Saxon invaders or during the later Viking period.

In an article published in NATURE COMMUNICATIONS, April 2013, entitled "Neolithic mitochondrial haplogroup H genomes and the genetic origins of Europeans" two skeletons associated with a Bellbeaker Culture burial in southeast Germany were carefully analyzed to H4a, using the most stringent and cutting edge techniques to eliminate any contamination.  Around 2200 BC, this culture was associated with agriculture, including the keeping of livestock, and may also indicate that the origins of the H4a were via the Black Sea, likely through Anatolia (Turkey).

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