Genetic relationships of Europeans, Asians and Africans and the origin of modern Homo sapiens

Abstract

To study the evolutionary relationships of the three major groups of humans, Europeans, Asians and Africans, the genetic distances between them were computed by using 4 different sets of genetic loci (84 protein loci, 33 blood group loci, 8 HLA and immunoglobulin loci, and 61 DNA markers). The results obtained indicate that the overall genetic distance between Europeans and Asians is significantly lower than that between Europeans and Africans of that between Asians and Africans and support the hypothesis of an African origin of modern humans. This seems to be the first study to establish the evolutionary relationships of the three major groups of humans at a statistically significant level.