Which European groups have phenotypical overlap with the Middle East & North Africa?

[Carlitos]

^^^

They look at the whites of the eyes.

Both are very beautiful, but never the mistake.

The look of a Spanish woman is unique and unmistakable.

 

[oreo_cookie]

Penelope Cruz is slightly ambiguous though, a pan-Mediterranean type so to speak. Paz Vega to me is more distinctively Spanish.

 

[Carlitos]

^^

Could be

 

[Riccardo]

A lot! Italians (Northerns and Southerns), Greeks, Spainards, Portugueses, Romanians, Bulgarians, Serbians, Croatians, Sardinians...And Provençals too I would say.

 

[oreo_cookie]

Some Armenians:

 

[Sybilla]

I voted "other" becouse Middle Easterns and Northern Africans AREN'T the same people and actually genetically they are very different (Northern Africans are mostly camitic and belong to the haplogroup family E, while Middle Easterns are mostly semitic and belong to the family J1). In Europe autosomals have shown that the highest concentration of Northern African genes are among Portugueses, while the highest Middle Eastern in Greeks, Albanians, Romanians and Sicilians/Calabrians (all with hight frequences of J2, not J1 btw). Yet these peoples cannot be considered Northern Africans or Middle Easterns, becouse obviously pure Middle Easterns/Northern Africans are very different in genetics, culture and language.
Considering also countries that are not fully Europe but can be included in it, the most Middle Eastern of all is Turkey, while the most Northern African one are Malta and Madeira.

 

[oreo_cookie]

In Europe autosomals have shown that the highest concentration of Northern African genes are among Portugueses, while the highest Middle Eastern in Greeks, Albanians, Romanians and Sicilians/Calabrians (all with hight frequences of J2, not J1 btw).

This is true.
Also I know that J1 is usually thought of as a Semitic haplogroup whereas J2 is more associated with Anatolia which is likely the source of the J2 you find in Greece, Albania, Sicily and others. So the affinity with the Middle East is more with West, not Southwest Asia, which I think is what you're saying.

 

[Carlitos]

The J and E which are in Europe are Europeans, like those who have come from India or elsewhere, if they are in Europe and are European.

 

[oreo_cookie]

Anyone of haplogroups J or E in Europe would trace it back to the Near East from the Neolithic.

 

[Sybilla]

This is true.
Also I know that J1 is usually thought of as a Semitic haplogroup whereas J2 is more associated with Anatolia which is likely the source of the J2 you find in Greece, Albania, Sicily and others. So the affinity with the Middle East is more with West, not Southwest Asia, which I think is what you're saying.

J2 seems to have arrived in Europe from Anatolia through the so called "Pelasgian peoples", that is an old Greek word used to call those people living in the northern mediterranean area before the indo-european migrations (J2 is found indeed in the whole Southern Europe, including Hiberia, the Balkans, Bulgaria, Romania, but the highest concentrations are in Greece, Portugal and Southern Italy).
It cannot be connected only to one people, even Etruscans belonged mostly to J2 (or at least did its aristocracy).
MODERN Anatolia and Arabia are mostly J1. J2 and J1 have a common stock but J2 shifted mostly in Europe (although it is still present in Middle East and among the high castas of India, the Brahmins).

Ethnically J2 can be connected to Minoics, Cretans, Etruscans, Pelasgians, Iberians, Indian Brahmins (as well as R1a).

Anyone of haplogroups J or E in Europe would trace it back to the Near East from the Neolithic.

Apparenly these haplogroups entered in Europe from Turkey in the neolithic. Yet ancient Turkey was very different from modern Turkey, becouse migrations from Central Asia and Europe had not happened yet). In Hiberia J2 holders found the local population holding R1b, in Italy J2 holders probably arrived for first, but later, with the arrivals of the Italics, the peninsula was invaded by R1b holders arriving from central Europe (indeed the R1b of Hiberia and Italy are a bit different). In Greece J2 was also older, followed, during the Doric times, by invasions of peoples arriving from the Balkans and holding R1b and R1a.
The haplogroup E entered first in the Balkans, where it has its highest concentration or at least it had in the past and from there it was spread in the Adriatic area, including Italy, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania. An other arrival happened in Spain.
Finally J2 arrived also in central Europe but with a far less intensity during the Neolithic era: peoples from Anatolia, crossing the Balkans, arrived in Western Germany.

This is what I know. Infos about this are spread here and there on the net.

 

[oreo_cookie]

Isn't there some link between haplogroup J2 and the Caucasus and Mesopotamia?

 

[Carlitos]

Around 45,000 years before present, a mutation took place in the DNA of a woman who lived in the Near East or Caucasus. Further mutations took place in the J line which can be identified as J1a1 (27,000 yrs ago), J2a (19,000 yrs ago), J2b2 (16,000 years ago), J2b3 (5,800 yrs ago), etc. Haplogroup J (along with ‘T’) is associated with the spread of farming and herding in Europe during the Neolithic Era (8,000-10,000 yrs ago).

 

[oreo_cookie]

I know J2b is heavily associated with Greece.

 

[Sybilla]

In a popular version it is, but Greece holds also R1a, E3b, G, R1b... J2b is mostly an haplogroup that originated in South East Europe from the stock J, arrived from Mesopotamia.

 

[iapetoc]

In a popular version it is, but Greece holds also R1a, E3b, G, R1b... J2b is mostly an haplogroup that originated in South East Europe from the stock J, arrived from Mesopotamia.

messopotamia or west minor Asia?


highest is in caucas Georgia

 

[iapetoc]

Isn't there some link between haplogroup J2 and the Caucasus and Mesopotamia?

J1 is connected with Semitic and Levant and arab populations,
J1 is also strong among avars in Dagestan.


J2 is connected with Greece and minor asia, also with south asia.
depends the M or the DYS etc
also with Levant

it depends the parameters


J is wide spread, accordind the rest parameters could mean south asian, shephardic jews, Greeks etc, the highest is in Georgia,
just give what kind of J you are interested.

 

[Reinaert]

Well J and E aren't a people anywhere in Europe. They are however a rather small minority in most European countries, that have fully integrated in those countries for maybe a 1000 years or more.
There are 2 possibilities:
1) J and E came to Europe via the trading routes from the Mediterranean Sea to the waters around England, France, Belgium and The Netherlands. Maybe Phoenicians, Carthaginians and other sea people.
2) J and E came to the rest of Europe in the times of the Roman Empire. Soldiers, traders and so on.


My opinion is that this poll makes no sense at all.

 

[oreo_cookie]

Well J and E aren't a people anywhere in Europe. They are however a rather small minority in most European countries, that have fully integrated in those countries for maybe a 1000 years or more.
There are 2 possibilities:
1) J and E came to Europe via the trading routes from the Mediterranean Sea to the waters around England, France, Belgium and The Netherlands. Maybe Phoenicians, Carthaginians and other sea people.
2) J and E came to the rest of Europe in the times of the Roman Empire. Soldiers, traders and so on.


My opinion is that this poll makes no sense at all.

While that might be true for the most part, I think it makes more sense to overall connect the spread of J and E in Europe to the Neolithic and not to any "historical" populations (Romans, Greeks, etc.) except in cases like the Greek colonization of the southern Balkans and parts of Italy, or the Phoenicians in southern Spain, etc. The Romans actually would have been more likely to be R1b than J or E.

 

[iapetoc]

While that might be true for the most part, I think it makes more sense to overall connect the spread of J and E in Europe to the Neolithic and not to any "historical" populations (Romans, Greeks, etc.) except in cases like the Greek colonization of the southern Balkans and parts of Italy, or the Phoenicians in southern Spain, etc. The Romans actually would have been more likely to be R1b than J or E.

are you sure? etruscans were G and J enough.

offcourse not E

 

[oreo_cookie]

are you sure? etruscans were G and J enough.

offcourse not E

Well central Italy today has the following (according to the table here)

10% I
3.5% R1a
43% R1b
8.5% G
21.5% J
10% E
3.5% T

So of that, there's still a pretty high amount of R1b.. almost half. But there is a significant amount of J as well.