Haplogroup H & V (mtDNA)

Haplogroup H is by far the most common all over Europe, amounting to about 40% of the European population. It is also found (though in lower frequencies) in North Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, Northern Asia, as well as along the East coast of Africa as far as Madagascar.

H1, H3 and V are the most common subclades of HV in Western Europe. H1 peaks in Norway (30% of the population) and Iberia (18 to 25%), and is also high among the Sardinians, Finns and Estonians (16%), as well as Western and Central European in general (10 to 12%) and North-West Africans (10 to 20%). H3 is commonest in Portugal (12%), Sardinia (11%), Galicia (10%), the Basque country (10%), Ireland (6%), Norway (6%), Hungary (6%) and southwestern France (5%). Haplogroup V reaches its highest frequency in northern Scandinavia (40% of the Sami), northern Spain, the Netherlands (8%), Sardinia, the Croatian islands and the Maghreb. It is likely that H1, H3 and V, along with haplogroup U5, were the main haplogroups of Western European hunter-gatherers living in the Franco-Cantabrian refuge during the last Ice Age, and repopulated much of Central and Northern Europe from 15,000 years ago.

Haplogroup H13 is most common in Sardinia and around the Caucasus. Its distribution is reminiscent of Y-DNA haplogroup G2a. The same is true of H2 to a lower extent. This would suggest a Caucasian or Anatolian origin.

H5 and H7 are also common in the Caucasus, but their lower incidence around the Mediterranean, and higher frequency from Anatolia to the Alps via the Danube suggest a possible link with the spread of agriculture (YDNA E1b1b, J2 and T) or of the Indo-Europeans (R1b1b2).