Repeating Islands

Approximately eight percent of the Cuban population has in its DNA genes belonging to the nearly extinct aboriginal people living in the Caribbean before the arrival of Christopher Columbus, said Spanish researcher  Antonio Arnainz-Villena, the cubaheadlines.com site reports.
At the recent Second Anthropology Convention of Anthropology in Havana, Arnainz-Villena said that researchers in his Universidad Complutense de Madrid team analyzed the HLA (transplant genes) of natives of Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico and other nations of Central and South America. They determined that in the case of Cuba the remaining elements of the genetic profile of former aboriginal people was due to the commingling of European and aboriginal DNA that resulted from forced subjugation and intermarriage with native women.

The study also determined that the dominant genes in Cubans come from the Iberian Mediterranean, with sub-Saharan Africans as second contributors.
Researchers also reported that the population of Cuba dates back more than four thousand years ago and involved migration of aboriginal peoples from present-day Florida and the Bahamas in the north and Guatemala to the south, who came through the arc of the Lesser Antilles.
The researchers also analyzed DNA samples extracted from 700 people from Turkey and other Spanish Mediterranean coasts, and found that they share genetic profiles with each other and with the present-day populations of North Africa. The similarities are attributed to the centuries-long occupation of western Mediterranean coasts by the Moors. This DNA profiles were in turn brought to the Americas through colonization, becoming part of the genetic makeup of today’s Cubans.
For the original report go to  http://www.cubaheadlines.com/2011/03/27/30349/aboriginal_dna_genes_remains_in_the_cuban_population.html#ixzz1HlIJ51T0