Haplogroup R-DF27 (R1b, Iberian)
R-DF27 is the Iberian wing of R1b, the majority paternal lineage of Spain and Portugal, expanded there after the Beaker-era turnover. Explore the branch in the full Y-DNA haplotree: sub-branches, defining variants and where its testers live. Free, no account needed.
Paternal branch
Live tester counts
Free · no account needed
Paternal line
R-DF27
- Testers
- 38,210
- 249 on this exact branch
- Strongest today
- Cuba, Spain, Colombia
- Formed
- Oldest man on this line
Origin and distribution of R-DF27 (R1b, Iberian)
What is R-DF27? It is the Iberian wing of R1b and the majority paternal lineage of Spain and Portugal, formed around 4,200 years ago at the transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age, when the Y chromosome landscape of western Europe was thoroughly remodelled.
- How common it is
- Genotyping of 1,072 R1b-DF27 chromosomes puts it at frequencies around 40% in Iberian populations and up to 70% in Basques, dropping quickly to 6% to 20% in France.Source: Analysis of the R1b-DF27 haplogroup shows that a large fraction of Iberian Y-chromosome lineages originated recently in situ (2017)
- Its age and homeland
- The age of R1b-DF27 is estimated at about 4,200 years, and northeast Iberia is the most likely place of origin. Sub-branch frequencies are geographically structured in patterns reminiscent of the pre-Roman Celtic and Iberian divide and of the medieval Christian kingdoms.Source: Analysis of the R1b-DF27 haplogroup shows that a large fraction of Iberian Y-chromosome lineages originated recently in situ (2017)
- The turnover behind it
- By about 2000 BCE, people carrying steppe ancestry had replaced 40% of Iberia's ancestry and nearly 100% of its Y chromosomes, the sharpest paternal turnover documented anywhere in Europe.Source: The genomic history of the Iberian Peninsula over the past 8000 years (2019)
- Language and lineage
- Present-day Basques are best described as a typical Iron Age Iberian population that escaped the later admixture affecting the rest of the peninsula, yet their language is pre-Indo-European and their paternal lines are Beaker-descended.Source: The genomic history of the Iberian Peninsula over the past 8000 years (2019)
- Its best-known sub-branch
- R-M167, also called SRY2627, is concentrated in Catalonia, Valencia and across the Pyrenees into Gascony, a young founder cluster inside the wider Iberian sweep.
- What Ancestrify reports
- The free Y-DNA Clade Finder places your paternal line on this branch from a raw DNA export, at the resolution your file supports. Ancestry proportions come from the Ancient Ancestry (qpAdm) and Ancestry Map (Global25) reports, never from a haplogroup.
R-DF27 is the branch of R-M269 that made Iberia its home: the single most common paternal lineage in Spain and Portugal, where it accounts for the majority of the peninsula's dense R1b, with a second stronghold across southwestern France. It descends from the same Beaker-era expansion that reshaped all of Western Europe's paternal lines around 2500 BCE, the turnover Iberian ancient DNA records with particular clarity, as nearly the whole earlier Y-chromosome pool gave way within centuries.
Its best-known sub-branch, R-M167 (SRY2627), has been studied since the earliest days of Y genetics for its concentration in Catalonia, Valencia and across the Pyrenees into Gascony, a young, sharp founder cluster inside the broader Iberian sweep. Basque paternal lines, famously, are mostly DF27 as well: the language is pre-Indo-European, the paternal gene pool is Beaker-descended, the standing proof that languages and lineages keep separate books.
One line among many: your Y haplogroup traces a single paternal line, one ancestor per generation out of thousands, so it is a thread of deep ancestry, not an ethnicity and not a percentage of who you are. Two men in the same branch share a forefather, but the rest of their genomes can differ as much as any two strangers'.
The line through time
Each branch on this line from the root of the tree, oldest first.
Where testers are found
Counts of people who took a Y-DNA test and shared an origin. They describe the tested world, not ancient frequencies.
United States
2,198 · 22%
England
1,964 · 19%
France
1,031 · 10%
Spain
971 · 9.5%
Ireland
969 · 9.5%
Scotland
767 · 7.5%
Germany
640 · 6.3%
United Kingdom
605 · 5.9%
Plus 25,258 testers who gave no country. Shares are of testers with a known country.
1 of them fully sequenced
Where this branch runs strongest
The share of each country's testers who sit on this branch.
Cuba
1 in 3 · 29%
Spain
1 in 4 · 26%
Colombia
1 in 4 · 26%
What defines it
The changes on the Y chromosome that every man on this branch carries. Positions are on the GRCh38 reference.
Is this your line?
If you have tested with a consumer DNA company, your own branch is already in your raw data file. The free Clade Finder reads it and shows you where you sit on this tree.
Find my branch, freePrefer it read for you? The Ancient Ancestry report can carry your paternal haplogroup as an add-on, placed on this same tree beside your ancestry model.
Frequently asked questions
What is haplogroup R-DF27 (R1b, Iberian)?
R-DF27 is the Iberian wing of R1b, the majority paternal lineage of Spain and Portugal, expanded there after the Beaker-era turnover. It is a branch of the Y-DNA tree: everyone in it inherits the same set of defining mutations from one shared forefather.
How do I find out if I belong to R-DF27 (R1b, Iberian)?
If you have already tested with a consumer DNA company, the free Y-DNA Clade Finder reads a raw DNA export (23andMe, AncestryDNA, MyHeritage or a VCF) and places you on the tree at the resolution your file supports. It is free, and the file is discarded after analysis. A dedicated Y-DNA sequencing test resolves deeper branches than a genotyping chip can.
Does belonging to R-DF27 (R1b, Iberian) make me descend from one people?
No. A haplogroup follows a single paternal line, one ancestor per generation, while the rest of your ancestry doubles every generation back. It is a deep-time thread, not an ethnicity, and two members of the same branch can otherwise be as genetically different as any two strangers.
What does this page's tree data show?
The branch view on this page shows the branch inside the full Y-DNA haplotree of tested lineages: the line it descends from, the branches below it, the variants that define it, and the countries its testers report. Counts reflect people who have taken a Y-DNA test and shared an origin, so they describe the tested world, not ancient frequencies.
Keep exploring
Don't know your haplogroup yet? The free Y-DNA Clade Finder reads it from a raw DNA export. Or browse the whole tree in the Y-DNA Haplotree. Other major branches: