Abstract: Haplogroup E-M96 represents a significant evolutionary marker for understanding the evolutionary history of populations in Mediterranean Europe, southeastern Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and East Africa. Additionally, Haplogroup E-M96 represents almost all the Y-chromsome genetic diversity in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Within the E-M96 main haplogroup several variants stand as especially informative mutations for deciphering the correlation between linguistic and genetic diversity. E-U174 and E-U175 mutations carry the Bantu expansion southwards from West Central Africa. Proto-Berber and E-M81 co-expanded across North-Africa. E-V22 and E-M34 represent Afro-Asiatic agriculturalists that entered North and East Africa during the Neolithic. E-V12, E-M33, and E-M41 are genetic relics of pre-agricultural Nilo-Saharan populations. E-V32 represents the demic expansion of Nilo-Saharan and/or Afro-Asiatic pastoralists into East Africa. Pastoralism later expanded from this region with E-M293. E-V13 raises the possibility that some prehistoric Europeans may have spoken a proto-Afro-Asiatic language.