The Genetic Legacy of Paleolithic Homo sapiens sapiens in Extant Europeans: A Y Chromosome Perspective

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The coalescence time for the lineages M173 and M170 was calculated on 209 and 73 Y chromosomes, respectively, by using the variation at YCAIIa, YCAIIb, and DYS19 microsatellite loci (28). The variances obtained from these microsatellite data were computed with equation 2 from Goldstein et al. (29). The initial variance of the CA repeats was considered to be null. A constant population size of 4500 and a generation time of 27 years were assumed as suggested (29). Mutational rates of 5.6 × 10⁻⁴ for YCAII loci and 1.1 × 10⁻³ for DYS19 were used [for a discussion of the mutational rates, see (30)].

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We thank all the men who donated DNA, K. Kyriakou for the Syrian samples, H. Cann for the French samples, A. Piazza for some of the Italian samples, and G. Brumat for helping us in some blood sample collections. We are also grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their constructive criticisms. Supported by NIH grants GM 28428 and GM 55273 to L.L.C.-S. and by funds from the Italian Ministry of the University “Progetti di ricerca ad interesse Nazionale” and PF “Beni culturali” to A.S.S.-B.