B Haplogroup Project Page

Project Background

While the y-chromosome, haplogroup B is the progenitor of all other y haplogroups save the much revered haplogroup A, it remains poorly understood and little-studied despite its royal and ancient lineage.

By most accounts, the y-chromosome, haplogroup B is the most diverse and therefore the oldest of all remaining y-chromosomes. With age estimates for the haplogroup ranging from 60 to 125 thousand years, members of the B haplogroup have survived every war, calamity and catastrophe known to man. Thus, by Darwin's survival-of-the-fittest postulate, B y-chromosomes are the most refined, best adapted, fittest and strongest of all y-chromosomes.

Further, it is likely the members of haplogroup B played a leading role in the development of civilization as well as tales of creation mythology. Since they had such a temporal head-start on all other hunter-gathers, they had time to adapt and develop superior technologies and establish themselves throughout Africa . This does not mean that one should expect present=day HgB concentrations to be high in all of these regions. Nor should one expect those concentrations to correspond to the group's cultural influence in any particular region. To the contrary, a noble-peasant model of influence where the nobility set the cultural tone of a people but do not significantly alter the gene pool of the peasantry is much more likely. One sees an example of this in the high-caste Brahmin of India who possess a much higher concentration of y-chromosome R1a than other castes in that society.