"It helps explain the provenance of the paternal haplogroup T, which occurs at frequencies as high as 80% among Somalis. This clade is also found among more southerly Cushitic speakers, Siwa Berbers, and Tuareg Berbers, the latter of whom show especially close phenotypic ties with Somalis (see discussion below). In the archaeogenetic record, this lineage has been observed in a Pre-Pottery Neolithic B specimen excavated in the Levant (cf. Lazaridis et al. (2016), Table S6.1). Since the PPN makers are distinguished from their Mesolithic Natufian ancestors by the elevated Anatolian Neolithic admixture they bear, this suggests that the newcomers who brought the T clade to the Levant also introduced Anatolian Neolithic ancestry. Additionally, the T lineage has been detected among persons buried at Kelif el-Boroud, a late Neolithic site in Morocco. One of these ancient individuals was matched to the T-L208 (T1a1a) clade, which is ancestral to the T-Y45591 subhaplogroup that is most common among Somalis (cf. Fregel et al. (2018); YFull). According to Fregel et al. (2018), “although scarce and broadly distributed today, this haplogroup has also been observed in European Neolithic individuals” (e.g. in the Linear Pottery culture or Linearbandkeramik; see Mathieson et al. (2015)). The scientists further indicate that the Kelif el-Boroud people are largely characterized by the Anatolian Neolithic component. A southward diffusion of haplogroup T from North Africa into the Horn region is likewise supported by Sirak et al. (2021), who observed examples of both the LT parent clade and some T subclades (viz. T-L208 and T-Y31477) among Christian-era Nubian samples interred at the Kulubnarti site in Sudan (cf. Supplementary Figure 6). We have good reason to believe that LT has been in the Nile Valley for a long time since, besides its T derivative, the haplogroup L descendant lineage has also been found among ancient local specimens; Gad et al. (2020a) announced that an unidentified 18th Dynasty Egyptian royal carried the L clade. Moreover, Harney et al. (2018) report that their Chalcolithic period samples from Peqi’in Cave in Israel, which bore significant Anatolian Neolithic-related ancestry, belonged to the paternal haplogroup T. Wang et al. (2020) (discussed below) indicate that this Chalcolithic Levant sample is the best-fitting proxy for the distal source of the West Eurasian ancestry which defines the ancient Cushites of the Pastoral Neolithic."
80%? Since when? I thought it was closer to around 10%?
Amongst somalis it's around 15%-20%
What? wtf happened the T haplogroup progenitors in the middle east?
It most likely travelled down via the Sinai, since J1 and T travelled together, until we get more tests done in NEA we won't know what route it travelled across the Red Sea or via the Sinai, I could be wrong so take my words with a grain of salt, still learning.
There's so many theories. I can't count the amount of times I've heard of people saying it travelled south from Iraq/Iran, through Yemen and made its way to Somalia. The thing that never made sense to me was how the J migration from Yemen to Ethiopia never managed to take a foothold in Northern Somalia like Jabuuti while T migration through the same route did, if you believe in T migration being through Yemen?
This leads me to believe T went through the Sinai since it's also found as far as Tanzania with southern Cushites, without more people taking the big Y it simply shows up as T-L208.
Until more people do Big Y-700 for now it's the closest, I wasn't stating they were the same just pointing out T can also be found in those regions.
The correct t migration for the somali T-Y45591 is via Levant > Arab peninsula > Yemen > Northern Somalia (highly concentrated in the region)
