Abstract
Previous genetic, anthropological and linguistic studies have shown that Roma (Gypsies) constitute a founder population dispersed throughout Europe whose origins might be traced to the Indian subcontinent. Linguistic and anthropological evidence point to Indo-Aryan ethnic groups from North-western India as the ancestral parental population of Roma. Recently, a strong genetic hint supporting this theory came from a study of a private mutation causing primary congenital glaucoma. In the present study, complete mitochondrial control sequences of Iberian Roma and previously published maternal lineages of other European Roma were analyzed in order to establish the genetic affinities among Roma groups, determine the degree of admixture with neighbouring populations, infer the migration routes followed since the first arrival to Europe, and survey the origin of Roma within the Indian subcontinent. Our results show that the maternal lineage composition in the Roma groups follows a pattern of different migration routes, with several founder effects, and low effective population sizes along their dispersal. Our data allowed the confirmation of a North/West migration route shared by Polish, Lithuanian and Iberian Roma. Additionally, eleven Roma founder lineages were identified and degrees of admixture with host populations were estimated. Finally, the comparison with an extensive database of Indian sequences allowed us to identify the Punjab state, in North-western India, as the putative ancestral homeland of the European Roma, in agreement with previous linguistic and anthropological studies.
Highlights
The dispersion of the Roma (Gypsies) through Europe represents one of the most remarkable people movements in recent historical times
We provide additional 214 mitochondrial DNA complete control region sequences from Roma individuals from the Iberian Peninsula and analyze them in the context of the previously published studies on other Roma populations
Sequence diversity values for hypervariable region I (HVR-I) were systematically lower in Roma groups compared to host populations
Summary
The dispersion of the Roma (Gypsies) through Europe represents one of the most remarkable people movements in recent historical times. Linguistic, anthropological, historical and genetic evidences point out India as the origin of the Roma populations, which may have left the continent approximately between the 5th–10th centuries [3]. Historical documents testify that by the early 15th century Roma were present in Catalonia and by the end of the century they were spread all over Spain and Portugal. Three more recent migration waves have to be taken into account in the formation of the present-day Roma populations from Western Europe. The dispersion that occurred during the end of the 19th century, after the abolition of Roma slavery in the Romanian Old Kingdom [1,3,4]; second, out of Yugoslavia, during the 1960s and 1970s; and third, during the last decade, following the political and economic changes in Eastern Europe [5]
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