The Sami (or Saami)

Share Button
Unlike in most of Europe, the life of the Saami people has not changed much in the past few centuries.

In northern Scandinavia (Lapland), 24% of people are HLA-B27 positive, while 1.8% have associated ankylosing spondylitis.

A small group (<0.5%) of people infected with HIV are able to remain symptom-free for many years without medication. These long-term nonprogressors appear to be significantly common among people who are HLA-B27 positive.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17892849
Comparing mtDNA V frequencies to HLA-B27 distribution, the similarities are striking.

Another area that stands out is Lappland, mainly the northern part of Norway and Finland, home of the Sami.
This is of interest even though according to Cavalli-Sforza, the Sami of Norway and Finland have between 5 and 7% rh negatives amongst them which is not a lot.

Anthropologists have been studying the Sami people for hundreds of years for their assumed physical and cultural differences from the rest of the Europeans. Recent genetic studies have indicated that the two most frequent maternal lineages of the Sámi people are the haplogroups V and U5b, ancient in Europe.

Haplogroup V is a relatively rare mtDNA haplogroup, occurring in around 4% of native Europeans. Its highest concentration is among the Saami people of northern Scandinavia (~59%). It has been found at a frequency of approximately 10% among the Maris of the Volga-Ural region, leading to the suggestion that this region might be the source of the V among the Saami. Additionally, haplogroup V has been observed at higher than average levels among Cantabrian people (15%) of northern Iberia, and at a lower percentage among the adjacent Basque (10.4%).

Haplogroup V is also found in parts of Northwest Africa. It is mainly concentrated among the Tuareg inhabiting Burkina Faso (18.42%), Sahrawi in the Western Sahara (17.9%), and Berbers of Matmata, Tunisia (16.3%). The rare V7a subclade occurs among Algerians in Oran (1.08%) and Reguibate Sahrawi (1.85%).

Alessandro Achilli and colleagues noted that the Sami and the Berbers share U5b1b, which they estimated at 9,000 years old, and argued that this provides evidence for a radiation of the haplogroup from the Franco-Cantabrian refuge area of southwestern Europe.

This is all pretty intersting but not subject of this post, but those who want to read more on it, can continue at:
The Rh Negative Connection: The History of the Basques, Berbers, Samis and Guanches
The Guanches of the Canarian Islands are also of interest as mtDNA haplogroup U subclade U6b1 is Canarian-specific and is the most common mtDNA haplogroup found in aboriginal Guanche archaeological burial sites.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17892849

Share Button