Overview
Q-M120 is an eastern Eurasian branch of haplogroup Q that represents the main Q lineage in East Asia and adjacent Siberia. It is the only primary branch of Q1a1a (F746) and likely arose somewhere in East Asia or south Siberia in the Late Upper Paleolithic. While Q-M3 and Q-Z780 are primarily associated with the founding of the Americas, Q-M120 tracks an independent east Asian trajectory that connects Siberian forest and steppe populations with Han Chinese and other East Asian groups. Its age and distribution make it an important marker of north Asia to East Asia connections that intensified after the Last Glacial Maximum.
Geographic distribution
Q-M120 occurs at low to moderate frequency across a wide range of East and north Asian populations. It has been reported in Han Chinese, Dungans, Nivkhs, Koryaks, Yukaghirs, Koreans, Japanese, Mongols, Tibetans, Tuvans, Kalmyks, Vietnamese and Hmong groups, as well as in small samples from Bhutan, Hazara, Brunei, Gujarat and Balochistan. The clade tends to be more common in northern East Asia and the Amur and Okhotsk coastal zone than in Southeast Asia, reflecting its ties to north Asian hunter fisher communities. Rare occurrences in the Americas, including a Peruvian sample in the 1000 Genomes Project, represent either recent migration or a minor back migration rather than a founding Native American lineage.
Ancient DNA
- Ancient DNA work has identified Q-M120 or closely related lineages in Bronze Age individuals from the Khövsgöl region of Mongolia, indicating that the clade was already integrated into north Asian steppe and forest steppe societies by the early to mid Holocene.
- Q-M120 related lineages have been reported among nomadic groups such as Cimmerians in eastern Europe, suggesting westward excursions of an originally east Asian branch during the first millennium BCE.
- The temporal placement of Q-M120, together with its scattered representation in both Siberia and East Asia, fits a scenario in which postglacial expansions from a Central or east Siberian source contributed paternal lineages to multiple linguistic families, including Tungusic, Mongolic, Turkic and Sino Tibetan speaking groups.
Phylogeny & subclades
Phylogenetically, Q-M120 sits under Q1a1a (F746) and forms a compact but structured cluster on YFull and FTDNA trees. The clade is defined by M120 and M265 (also known as N14) and includes basal Q-M120* paragroups along with several named subbranches such as Q-Y647 and downstream regional clusters that show differentiation between Siberian and East Asian samples. Internal divergence times around the early to middle Holocene suggest that Q-M120 expanded as climatic conditions improved and as early farming and complex foraging systems developed in East Asia.
- Q-M120* (basal East Asian paragroup)
- Q-Y647 and related north Asian clusters
- Additional regional microclades identified in Han Chinese and Siberian samples
Notes & context
Q-M120 is essential for understanding how haplogroup Q fits into East Asian population history. Its presence in both Siberian and East Asian populations indicates that Q did not remain confined to Central Asia and the Americas but also contributed to the paternal pool of communities involved in early contacts between north Asia and the East Asian heartland. Because most Q research has focused on Native American and Central Asian branches, Q-M120 remains relatively under sampled, and further full Y chromosome sequencing is likely to reveal additional structure that refines our view of Holocene dispersals in northeast Asia.
References & external links