Genetic Map of Europe
The genetic map of Europe, which shows the genetic relationships between various European populations and which was published in Current Biology, “bears a clear structural similarity to the geographic map,” the New York Times’s Nicholas Wade writes. “The major genetic differences are between populations of the north and south (the vertical axis of the map shows north-south differences, the horizontal axis those of east-west). The area assigned to each population reflects the amount of genetic variation in it.” Finland is quite divergent, as is, to a lesser extent, southern Italy. Thanks to Richard for the link.
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They say in the NYTimes article that the axes represent north-south and east-west variability, but they are labeled as eigenvectors which I assume are extracted from the DNA data, i.e. the axes are a best representation of the data that “naturally” appears in it. So their apparent correlation with the cardinal directions is a pretty profound testament to the importance of physical geography in shaping human populations.
One correction to this article from my reading: not all of the migrations into Europe were from the south, the more recent ones were from the East: just remember the Teutons, the Vandals, the Huns, etc. There is also genetic evidence of extensive migration from the east over many millennia. See, for example, Spencer Wells’ “The Journey of Man”.
One oddity from my reading: the Finns and the Hungarians are closely related linguistically (both suggesting origination in northern Siberia). One expects a genetic correlation as well. Presumably the lack of one is because the Hungarians have been able to intermingle so much more with the rest of the European population.