mtDNA Haplogroup Tree

The human mtDNA phylogeny shows the relationships among mtDNA haplogroups. It is essentially a large family tree that shows how all people are connected through their maternal lineages. It is a stunning example of how humankind is connected and yet vastly diverse at the same time.

The red number located at the tip of a tree branch indicates the time, in thousand year intervals, to the most recent common ancestor (tMRCA) for people belonging to a particular haplogroup. For example, people who belong to haplogroup H1 share a common maternal ancestor approximately 10,000 years ago.

Technical note: The tMRCA for each cluster was estimated as the average sequence divergence on the phylogeny using an evolutionary rate estimate of 1.26 ± 0.08 x 10-8 base substitutions per nucleotide per year in the coding region (Mishmar et al. 2003), corresponding to 5,140 years per substitution in the whole coding region.