ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION Lutz Roewer Æ Peter J. P. Croucher Æ Sascha Willuweit Tim T. Lu Æ Manfred Kayser Æ Ru¨diger Lessig Peter de Knijff Æ Mark A. Jobling Æ Chris Tyler-Smith Michael Krawczak Signature of recent historical events in the European Y-chromosomal STR haplotype distribution Received: 13 May 2004 / Accepted: 13 September 2004 / Published online: 20 January 2005 Ó Springer-Verlag 2005 Abstract Previous studies of human Y-chromosomal single-nucleotide polymorphisms (Y-SNPs) established a link between the extant Y-SNP haplogroup distri- bution and the prehistoric demography of Europe. By contrast, our analysis of seven rapidly evolving Y-chromosomal short tandem repeat loci (Y-STRs) in over 12,700 samples from 91 different locations in Europe reveals a signature of more recent historic events, not previously detected by other genetic markers. Cluster analysis based upon molecular vari- ance yields two clearly identifiable sub-clusters of Western and Eastern European Y-STR haplotypes, and a diverse transition zone in central Europe, where haplotype spectra change more rapidly with longitude than with latitude. This and other observed patterns of Y-STR similarity may plausibly be related to par- ticular historical incidents, including, for example, the expansion of the Franconian and Ottoman Empires. We conclude that Y-STRs may be capable of resolving male genealogies to an unparalleled degree and could therefore provide a useful means to study local pop- ulation structure and recent demographic history. Introduction The population dynamic processes that created the subtle gradation pattern of European culture, and eventually shaped the continent’s genetic structure, are unparalleled in world history. It is widely accepted that extant Europeans have their earliest roots in the scat- tered Palaeolithic hunter-gatherer communities of around 40,000–43,000 years ago (Boyd and Silk 1997). Some 10,000 years before present (YBP), the rise of agriculture in the Near East led to the migration into Europe of a rapidly expanding farming population, al- though the extent of concomitant genetic change has been a matter of some dispute (Ammerman and Cavalli- Sforza 1984; Chikhi et al. 2002). Archaeological evi- dence suggests that the oldest rural villages in Europe developed on the western coast of the Aegean Sea and in L. Roewer and P.J.P. Croucher contributed equally to this paper. L. Roewer Æ S. Willuweit Institute of Legal Medicine, Humboldt-University, Berlin, Germany P. J. P. Croucher First Department of Medicine, Christian-Albrechts-University, Kiel, Germany P. J. P. Croucher Æ T. T. Lu Æ M. Krawczak (&) Institute of Medical Informatics and Statistics, Christian-Albrechts-University, Brunswiker Strasse 10, Kiel, Germany E-mail: krawczak@medinfo.uni-kiel.de Tel.: +49-431-5973200 Fax: +49-431-5973193 M. Kayser Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany M. Kayser Department of Forensic Molecular Biology, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands R. Lessig Institute of Legal Medicine, University of Leipzig, Germany P. de Knijff Forensic Laboratory for DNA Research, Leiden University, The Netherlands M. A. Jobling Department of Genetics, University of Leicester, UK C. Tyler-Smith The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton, UK Hum Genet (2005) 116: 279–291 DOI 10.1007/s00439-004-1201-z