Male ancestry structure and interethnic admixture in African-descent communities from the Amazon as revealed by Y-chromosome Strs.

Some genetic markers on both the Y chromosome and mtDNA are highly polymorphic and population-specific in humans, representing useful tools for reconstructing the past history of populations with poor historical records. Such lack of information is usually true in the case of recent African-descent populations of the New World founded by fugitive slaves throughout the slavery period in the Americas, particularly in Brazil, where those communities are known as quilombos. Aiming to recover male-derived ethnic structure of nine quilombos from the Brazilian Amazon, a total of 300 individuals, belonging to Mazagão Velho (N = 24), Curiaú (N = 48), Mazagão (N = 36), Trombetas (N = 20), Itacoã (N = 22), Saracura (N = 46), Marajó (N = 58), Pitimandeua (N = 26), and Pontal (N = 20), were investigated for nine Y-STRs (DYS393, DYS19, DYS390, DYS389 I, DYS389 II, DYS392, DYS391, DYS385 I/II).