Exploration hub

Eight paternal lineages

Each lineage below follows the same information architecture — overview, estimated origin, lineage tree, ancient distribution, migration, modern distribution, subclades, populations and research notes — so they can be read side by side.

Compare lineages side by side

Ancient Lineage

Explore some of the deepest surviving branches of the human Y-chromosome tree.

Haplogroup A sits at or near the root of the human paternal tree. Its branches separate earlier than any other surviving Y-chromosome lineage, which is why researchers use it to anchor estimates of when the most recent common paternal ancestor of living men lived.

Estimated time depth: Root branches estimated between roughly 200,000 and 300,000 years before present
Parent lineage: Y-chromosomal Adam (root of the surviving human Y tree)

Early African Lineage

Explore ancient paternal branches found among populations across Central, Eastern and Southern Africa.

Haplogroup B branches off very early in the human paternal tree, shortly after the split that separates the A lineages from everyone else. It is found essentially only in Africa.

Estimated time depth: Roughly 90,000–130,000 years before present (range)
Parent lineage: BT (the branch that also leads to all non-African lineages)

Coastal Aboriginal Lineage

One of the earliest lineages to leave Africa, carried along the southern coastal route to Arabia, South Asia, Australia and the Americas.

Haplogroup C (C-M130) descends from CF, one of the two branches of haplogroup F's parent line, and is one of the oldest surviving non-African paternal lineages.

Estimated time depth: Roughly 45,000 to 60,000 years before present
Parent lineage: CF (CT derived)

Deep Relative Of E

The sister branch of haplogroup E within DE, today found in Tibet, Japan and the Andaman Islands, with rare deep African branches.

Haplogroup D (D-M174) and haplogroup E are the two branches of DE. That relationship is the reason DE is sometimes called the super-haplogroup that links Africa to the earliest Asian settlement.

Estimated time depth: Roughly 55,000 to 75,000 years before present
Parent lineage: DE

The African Macro-Lineage

Originated in Africa, yet the oldest indigenous paternal lineage in the Levant and Arabia as well; the most frequently observed paternal lineage in Africa and its diaspora; parent of both E1a and E1b.

Haplogroup E (E-M96) is the branch of DE that stayed in Africa and diversified there. It is by far the most frequently observed paternal lineage on the continent today.

Estimated time depth: Roughly 50,000 to 70,000 years before present
Parent lineage: DE

E1a

African Expansion

A deep paternal lineage that traces an African origin through the Green Sahara, the Mediterranean world, and into the Sahel and West African empires.

Haplogroup E1a (E-M132) emerged roughly 50,000 years ago, around the time of the out-of-Africa migrations. Its phylogenetic path runs CT → DE → E-M96 → E-P147 → E1a, placing it within the broader E family that is strongly associated with African and adjacent Near Eastern populations.

Estimated time depth: Roughly 50,000 years before present
Parent lineage: E-P147 (downstream of E-M96)

E1b

Africa & Beyond

Explore a highly diversified lineage with branches distributed throughout Africa and neighbouring regions.

E1b is the most numerous and most internally structured African paternal lineage. Its two great branches — E1b1a (E-V38 / E-M2) and E1b1b (E-M215 / E-M35) — have almost complementary distributions.

Estimated time depth: Roughly 30,000–50,000 years before present for E1b (range)
Parent lineage: E1 (downstream of E-M96)

Root Of Most Non-African Lineages

The lineage from which G through T descend, accounting for the overwhelming majority of men outside Africa.

Haplogroup F (F-M89) is the ancestor of haplogroups G, H, I, J, K and everything downstream of K, including N, O, P, Q and R. Roughly nine in ten living men outside Africa descend from it.

Estimated time depth: Roughly 45,000 to 55,000 years before present
Parent lineage: CF

Frequencies described on these pages are read as "frequently observed in" a population, never as a definition of it. Every population carries multiple paternal lineages.