Reconstructing the Indian origin and dispersal of the European Roma: a maternal genetic perspective - PubMed (original) (raw)

. 2011 Jan 10;6(1):e15988.

doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0015988.

Cristina Valente, Alfredo Gusmão, Cíntia Alves, Verónica Gomes, Ana Goios, Walther Parson, Francesc Calafell, Luis Alvarez, António Amorim, Leonor Gusmão, David Comas, Maria João Prata

Affiliations

Reconstructing the Indian origin and dispersal of the European Roma: a maternal genetic perspective

Isabel Mendizabal et al. PLoS One. 2011.

Abstract

Previous genetic, anthropological and linguistic studies have shown that Roma (Gypsies) constitute a founder population dispersed throughout Europe whose origins might be traced to the Indian subcontinent. Linguistic and anthropological evidence point to Indo-Aryan ethnic groups from North-western India as the ancestral parental population of Roma. Recently, a strong genetic hint supporting this theory came from a study of a private mutation causing primary congenital glaucoma. In the present study, complete mitochondrial control sequences of Iberian Roma and previously published maternal lineages of other European Roma were analyzed in order to establish the genetic affinities among Roma groups, determine the degree of admixture with neighbouring populations, infer the migration routes followed since the first arrival to Europe, and survey the origin of Roma within the Indian subcontinent. Our results show that the maternal lineage composition in the Roma groups follows a pattern of different migration routes, with several founder effects, and low effective population sizes along their dispersal. Our data allowed the confirmation of a North/West migration route shared by Polish, Lithuanian and Iberian Roma. Additionally, eleven Roma founder lineages were identified and degrees of admixture with host populations were estimated. Finally, the comparison with an extensive database of Indian sequences allowed us to identify the Punjab state, in North-western India, as the putative ancestral homeland of the European Roma, in agreement with previous linguistic and anthropological studies.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1. MtDNA haplogroups corresponding to founder lineages in the European Roma populations.

Percentages of non-founder lineages are shown in white in the circles. Sample sizes (n) and sequence diversity (Ĥ) are shown for each Roma sample.

Figure 2

Figure 2. Non-metric Multidimensional Scaling plot (NMDS) of the pairwise differences between Roma and the corresponding host populations (stress value = 0.068).

The labels “Roma Bulgaria 1”, “Roma Bulgaria 2” and “Roma Bulgaria 3” stand for Bulgarian Roma populations grouped according to history of migrations as in Gresham et al. .

Figure 3

Figure 3. Median-joining network of the mtDNA sequences belonging to the M5*, M51a, M25, M35 and M18 haplogroups in the Roma and Indian populations (numbers represent mutation defining these haplogroups).

Similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Liégeois J-P, editor. Strasbourg: Council of Europe Press; 1994. Roma, Gypsies, Travellers.
    1. Marushiakova E, Popov V. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang; 1997. Gypsies (Roma) in Bulgaria.
    1. Fraser A, editor. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers; 1992. The Gypsies.
    1. Hancock I. The emergence of Romani as a koine outside of India. In: Acton T, editor. Scholarship and Gypsy struggle: commitment in Romani studies. Hatfield: Unviersity of Hertfordshire Press; 1987. pp. 1–13.
    1. Reyniers A. Paris: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development; 1995. Gypsy populations and their movements Within Central and Eastern Europe and Towards Some OECD Countries. International Migration and Labour Market Policies Occasional Papers 1.

Publication types

MeSH terms

Substances

LinkOut - more resources