bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/233502; this version posted December 13, 2017. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. 1 TITLE: 2 Carriers of mitochondrial DNA macrohaplogroup L3 basic 3 lineages migrated back to Africa from Asia around 70,000 years 4 ago. 5 1* 2 3,4 6 Vicente M. Cabrera , Patricia Marrero , Khaled K. Abu-Amero , 1 7 Jose M. Larruga 8 *Correspondence:
[email protected] 1 9 Departamento de Genética, Facultad de Biología, Universidad de 10 La Laguna, E-38271 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain. 11 12 ABSTRACT 13 Background: After three decades of mtDNA studies on human 14 evolution the only incontrovertible main result is the African origin of 15 all extant modern humans. In addition, a southern coastal route has 16 been relentlessly imposed to explain the Eurasian colonization of 17 these African pioneers. Based on the age of macrohaplogroup L3, 18 from which all maternal Eurasian and the majority of African 19 lineages originated, that out-of-Africa event has been dated around 20 60-70 kya. On the opposite side, we have proposed a northern route 21 through Central Asia across the Levant for that expansion. 22 Consistent with the fossil record, we have dated it around 125 kya. 23 To help bridge differences between the molecular and fossil record 24 ages, in this article we assess the possibility that mtDNA 25 macrohaplogroup L3 matured in Eurasia and returned to Africa as 26 basic L3 lineages around 70 kya.