A major maternal lineage among the Paleolithic European hunter-gatherers
Haplogroup U5 is found throughout Europe with an average frequency ranging from 5% to 12% in most regions. U5a is most common in north-east Europe and U5b in northern Spain. Nearly half of all Sami and one fifth of Finnish maternal lineages belong to U5. Other high frequencies are observed among the Mordovians (16%), the Chuvash (14.5%) and the Tatars (10.5%) in the Volga-Ural region of Russia, the Estonians (13%), the Lithuanians (11.5%) and the Latvians in the Baltic, the Dargins (13.5%), Avars (13%) and the Chechens (10%) in the Northeast Caucasus, the Basques (12%), the Cantabrians (11%) and the Catalans (10%) in northern Spain, the Bretons (10.5%) in France, the Sardinians (10%) in Italy, the Slovaks (11%), the Croatians (10.5%), the Poles (10%), the Czechs (10%), the Ukrainians (10%) and the Slavic Russians (10%).
U5 is rarer in South Caucasus (3.5%), Iran (3%), Turkey (3%), Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt (all around 1.5%). It is only found at trace frequencies (<1%) in Jordan and the Arabian peninsula. In North Africa, U5 peaks in Morocco (4%), followed by Libya (3.5%), Tunisia and Algeria (both 2%).
U5 is also found in Central Asia and Siberia, where it was brought chiefly by the Indo-European migrations. U5 is most common in Tajikistan (7.5%), followed by Uzebekistan (3.5%), Turkmenistan (2.5%), Kyrgyzstan (2.5%), Kazakhstan (2.5%), among the Altaians (2%) and the Buryats (2%), and further east as far as Mongolia (1%).
[Text source: https://www.eupedia.com/]
Ancient mtDNA U5 distribution
[Graphic source: https://ancientdna.info]