Ena, Giacomo FrancescoGiménez, AaronCarballo Mesa, AnnabelLišková, PetraAraújo Castro E Silva, MarcosComas, David, 1969-2025-05-062025-05-062025Ena GF, Giménez A, Carballo-Mesa A, Lišková P, Araújo Castro E Silva M, Comas D. The genetic footprint of the European Roma diaspora: evidence from the Balkans to the Iberian Peninsula. Hum Genet. 2025 Mar 17. DOI: 10.1007/s00439-025-02735-z0340-6717http://hdl.handle.net/10230/70306Data de publicació electrònica: 17-03-2025The Roma people have a complex demographic history shaped by their recent dispersal from a South Asian origin into Europe, accompanied by continuous population bottlenecks and gene flow. After settling in the Balkans around 1,000 years ago, the Roma gradually dispersed across Europe, and approximately 500 years ago, they established in the Iberian Peninsula what is now one of the largest Roma populations in Western Europe. Focusing specifically on the Iberian Roma, we conducted the most comprehensive genome-wide analysis of European Roma populations to date. Using allele frequency and haplotype-based methods, we analysed 181 individuals to investigate their genetic diversity, social dynamics, and migration histories at both continental and local scales. Our findings demonstrate significant gene flow from populations encountered during the Roma's dispersal and confirm their South Asian origins. We show that, between the 14th and 19th centuries, the Roma spread westward from the Balkans in various waves, with multiple admixture events. Furthermore, our findings refute previous hypotheses of a North African dispersal route into Iberia and genetic connections to Jewish populations. The Iberian Roma exhibit ten times greater genetic differentiation compared to non-Roma Iberians, indicating significant regional substructure. Additionally, we provide the first genetic evidence of assortative mating within Roma groups, highlighting distinct mating patterns and suggesting a gradual shift towards increased integration with non-Roma individuals. This study significantly enhances our understanding of how demographic history and complex genetic structure have shaped the genetic diversity of Roma populations, while also highlighting the influence of their evolving social dynamics.application/pdfeng© The Author(s) 2025. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.GitanosGenètica de poblacions humanesinfo:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00439-025-02735-zinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess