Haplogroup F · Root Of Most Non-African Lineages
Haplogroup F
The lineage from which G through T descend, accounting for the overwhelming majority of men outside Africa.
Approximate region of emergence
Southwest or South Asia, shortly after the exit from Northeast Africa
Estimated time depth
Roughly 45,000 to 55,000 years before present
Ancestral parent lineage
CF
Major descendant branches
F1–F3 (basal F*) · GHIJK · G · HIJK · IJK · K and downstream lineages
Overview
What this lineage represents
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.
F itself is defined by a set of mutations that arose shortly after the main out-of-Africa dispersal, most likely in Southwest or South Asia, though a Northeast African origin remains on the table.
Rare basal F* lineages survive in South Asia, Southeast Asia and among a few Sardinian and Portuguese samples, giving glimpses of the branching that preceded the great Eurasian expansions.
Lineage tree
From parent lineage to modern descendants
Select any node to read its estimated age, parent lineage, regions and descendant branches.
Ancient distribution
Where early carriers are believed to have lived
F does not have a meaningful ancient African record. It is included here because it is the sister structure to the African lineages in this atlas: understanding what left the continent clarifies what remained and diversified within it.
Migration
Origin → Expansion → Migration → Modern distribution
Origin
~55,000–45,000 ybp
After the exit
F arises among populations that had recently left Northeast Africa.
Expansion
~45,000–35,000 ybp
Branching in Asia
GHIJK, IJK and K form in quick succession, seeding most later Eurasian lineages.
Migration
~35,000–10,000 ybp
Continental spread
Descendant lineages reach Europe, Siberia, East Asia, Oceania and the Americas.
Modern
Last 10,000 years
Back into Africa
Farming, trade and later movements bring F-derived lineages such as J, R and T into North Africa, the Sahel and the Horn at low to moderate frequency.
Estimated pathways
Modern distribution
Where major branches are documented today
Europe
R1b, R1a, I, J, G
Nearly all men carry F-derived lineages.
South Asia
R1a, H, L, J, F*
Includes rare basal F* lineages.
East and Southeast Asia
O, N, Q
Downstream of K.
North Africa
J1, R1b, T
Present alongside the predominant E-M81.
Sahel and Horn of Africa
J1, T, R1b-V88
Low to moderate frequency; linked to pastoral and trade movements.
The Americas
Q, R
Q among Indigenous peoples; R via later colonial migration.
Major subclades
Downstream branches
| Branch | Marker | Regions | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| F* | Basal F | South and Southeast Asia | Rare surviving basal lineages. |
| G | G-M201 | Caucasus, Europe | Caucasus and Neolithic farming branch. |
| J | J-M304 | Arabia, Levant, Maghreb | Southwest Asian branch, present in North Africa and the Horn. |
| R1b-V88 | R-V88 | Chad, Cameroon, Nigeria | A Sahelian branch of R found among Chadic speakers. |
| K | K-M9 | Eurasia, Oceania, the Americas | Ancestral to N, O, P, Q and R. |
Populations
Frequently observed in
These are populations in which particular branches have been reported. Each of them carries several paternal lineages; the listed branches are not a definition of the group.
Chadic speakers
Sahel
R1b-V88, E-M2
Beja
Northeast Africa
J1, E-M78
Sardinians
Mediterranean
I2, G2, rare F*
South Asian tribal groups
South Asia
F*, H, C-M356
A haplogroup traces one unbroken father-to-son line. It says nothing about the rest of a person's ancestry, and it is not a marker of ethnicity or identity.
Research notes
Where the science is still unsettled
- F is included for context: it frames what left Africa against the lineages that stayed.
- Rare F* lineages are undersampled, so the shape of the earliest F branching may still change.
Citations for this lineage
- Karafet, T. M. et al. (2008). New binary polymorphisms reshape and increase resolution of the human Y chromosomal haplogroup tree. Genome Research
- Poznik, G. D. et al. (2016). Punctuated bursts in human male demography inferred from 1,244 worldwide Y-chromosome sequences. Nature Genetics
- Underhill, P. A. et al. (2000). Y chromosome sequence variation and the history of human populations. Nature Genetics
Continue exploring
Ancient Lineage
Explore some of the deepest surviving branches of the human Y-chromosome tree.
BEarly African Lineage
Explore ancient paternal branches found among populations across Central, Eastern and Southern Africa.
CCoastal Aboriginal Lineage
One of the earliest lineages to leave Africa, carried along the southern coastal route to Arabia, South Asia, Australia and the Americas.
DDeep 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.
EThe 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.
E1aAfrican 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.
E1bAfrica & Beyond
Explore a highly diversified lineage with branches distributed throughout Africa and neighbouring regions.