Haplogroup CT (Y-DNA) - General

General

The most recent common male line ancestor (MRCA) of all CT men today probably pre-dated the "Out of Africa" migration of anatomically modern humans, a migration in which some of his descendants participated. He is therefore thought to have lived in Africa before this proposed migration.

In keeping with the concept of the "Y Chromosome Adam" (the most recent common male line ancestor (MRCA) of all living men), CT-M168 has been referred to in popularized accounts as being the lineage of "Eurasian Adam" (the most recent common male ancestor of all non-Africans).

No male in paragroup CT* has yet been discovered, which means in other words that all men in this haplogroup are also defined as being in one of the several major branch clades. All known surviving descendant lineages of CT are in one of two major sub-clades, CF and DE. Both of these appear to have arisen only a few thousand years after the original common ancestor of CT. In turn, DE is divided into an Asian haplogroup D and a predominantly Africa-distributed haplogroup E, while CF is divided into an East Asian, American, and Oceanian haplogroup C and haplogroup F, which dominates most non-African populations.

Haplogroup CT is therefore the common ancestral male lineage of most men alive today, including most Africans, among whom haplogroup E is predominant, and most non-Africans, among whom haplogroup F is predominant.