There is only one study in the internet that talks about the DNA of Saudies and their haplogroup frequencies (Abu-Amero et al), all other studies and internet websites cites this study, giving the illusion that they are multiple studies that reached to the same results. Because this is the only existing one on Saudies and so widely cited I decided to write this report analyzing the study and giving some information on the racial or sub-racial groups in Saudi Arabia as a future reference, which could be applied to most of Arabia.
The study is flawed for many reasons, first of all, the small sample size.
Which is connected and leads to the second and biggest methodological flaw in the study which is that they only sampled from one city, when Saudi Arabia is 2 million km2 with some differences in some areas, and some of these differences are large.
Which leads to the third possible flaw, which is that since they did not mention which city this sample was taken from, there is a big possibility that it was taken from the westside (Hejaz), the biggest city in this area is Jeddah, unofficially considered the second capital and the 2nd largest city. This issue with this study being possible only made using samples from this area is that this area, especially Jeddah, is an outlier in Saudi Arabia in terms of ethnical and racial origins. This area (Hejaz) houses the two holy cities in Islam, Mecca and Madina. Muslims from through the world, for centuries have migrated and settled in this area.
This migration significantly increased with the discovery of oil in the 1930s, Saudi Arabia became a destination for economic immigrants, especially from Sub Saharan Africa, Iran, and Central and south Asia. People from these places can be seen until these days, but some of them mixed with the native population. The way these immigrants come is usually by traveling with a pilgrimage visa (to the Holy city of Mecca) and then not going back to their countries.
If the sample was not taken from Riyadh, the capital, then it was most likely taken from Jeddah, being the Second largest city. Therefor this city and area in general is an outlier and not a representative to the rest of Saudi population due to recent immigrations.
Locals in that region are aware of these mixed racial and ethnical backgrounds but consider themselves as Saudies and some of them consider themselves Arabs, although they only recently migrated to Saudi Arabia, this is why the criteria that the study used is not sufficient
Relatively hight frequencies from Central (Iran, Afghanistan..etc) and south east asian, in addition to sub saharan Africa conforms my doubts that the sample was taken from Jeddah or in Hejaz.
There is no way that this sample is representative to most Saudies, even if the sample was taken elsewhere other than Jeddah. Many reasons to think that, first is observation, second is the strict marriage traditions among natives. In short to get married you have to count at least 6 or 7 generations of your lineage ending in an Arabian tribe's name, this lineage will be conformed with the tribe and in other ways. This might not have prevented mixing, but should significantly limit it to a lesser degree than these results.
Also, this same study (Abu-Amero et al) cited another study (Y-chromosome diversity characterizes the Gulf of Oman Alicia M Cadenas, Lev A Zhivotovsky, Luca L Cavalli-Sforza, Peter A Underhill and Rene J Herrera) And gives this results:
This study about Yemen which gives a relatively higher percentage of sub-saharan trace in Yemenis that I think exits (although its still small even in this study). I say this for the same reasons I just exmpaned about the Study on Saudies by (Abu-Amero et al). There is a similar situation happening in Yemen with recent immigrants from Somalia, Ethiopia..etc in the last 100 years (in many waves). Being the closest country to Africa Yemen is the bridge for illegal immigrations from Africans to Yemen itself, but also to rich Gulf countries. These imitations are relatively recent and economically motived, in Yemen they (and their decedents) live in big cities and represent a sizable minority, especially in the south. The study that was made on Yemenies is by a foreigner, and if someone does not know these small details he may fall in the mistake of thinking that the population distribution of some big cities is equally representative for all Yamen. Plus the sample size is mall (67)
I have results for some Saudi Samples but I can't put the link for some reason (forum rules) But I have been checking the results of Saudi Samples for a a long time, and an estimate of the frequency distribution for each haplogrou is usually within these ranges, with some regions as outliers to the overall population
J1: 55-70%
J2: 15-20
E1b1b 10-20
T: 5-10
Other: <1 - 10
A final note here is that the term (Bedouin) means (Nomad). Gulf people call some areas in central Asia "Turk Bedouins" some of Iran as (Persian Bedouins). Since this is a European site I'll give a relevant example, we can call Proto-indo-European as Aryan Bedouins, then when they moved to urban areas them became urbanized and no longer bedouins, even though they are the same people genetically. People seem to think that the term Bedouins refers to distinct group, thus saying things such as "Bedouins have more of such and such DNA than Saudies, Qataries..etc) but its more of a loss term. 60 years ago most of Arabia described themselves as Bedouins, a 100 years ago even more people described themselves as such (maybe 85%-90%). After oil, people that adopted an urban lifestyle dropped the term (Bedouin). The ones that hung on to this lifestyle or some of it still describe themselves as Bedouins. But both groups are the same, so most of the time (but not all of the time) it is wrong to distinguish between the two groups in a genetic sense.
The study is flawed for many reasons, first of all, the small sample size.
Which is connected and leads to the second and biggest methodological flaw in the study which is that they only sampled from one city, when Saudi Arabia is 2 million km2 with some differences in some areas, and some of these differences are large.
Which leads to the third possible flaw, which is that since they did not mention which city this sample was taken from, there is a big possibility that it was taken from the westside (Hejaz), the biggest city in this area is Jeddah, unofficially considered the second capital and the 2nd largest city. This issue with this study being possible only made using samples from this area is that this area, especially Jeddah, is an outlier in Saudi Arabia in terms of ethnical and racial origins. This area (Hejaz) houses the two holy cities in Islam, Mecca and Madina. Muslims from through the world, for centuries have migrated and settled in this area.
This migration significantly increased with the discovery of oil in the 1930s, Saudi Arabia became a destination for economic immigrants, especially from Sub Saharan Africa, Iran, and Central and south Asia. People from these places can be seen until these days, but some of them mixed with the native population. The way these immigrants come is usually by traveling with a pilgrimage visa (to the Holy city of Mecca) and then not going back to their countries.
If the sample was not taken from Riyadh, the capital, then it was most likely taken from Jeddah, being the Second largest city. Therefor this city and area in general is an outlier and not a representative to the rest of Saudi population due to recent immigrations.
Locals in that region are aware of these mixed racial and ethnical backgrounds but consider themselves as Saudies and some of them consider themselves Arabs, although they only recently migrated to Saudi Arabia, this is why the criteria that the study used is not sufficient
Relatively hight frequencies from Central (Iran, Afghanistan..etc) and south east asian, in addition to sub saharan Africa conforms my doubts that the sample was taken from Jeddah or in Hejaz.
There is no way that this sample is representative to most Saudies, even if the sample was taken elsewhere other than Jeddah. Many reasons to think that, first is observation, second is the strict marriage traditions among natives. In short to get married you have to count at least 6 or 7 generations of your lineage ending in an Arabian tribe's name, this lineage will be conformed with the tribe and in other ways. This might not have prevented mixing, but should significantly limit it to a lesser degree than these results.
Also, this same study (Abu-Amero et al) cited another study (Y-chromosome diversity characterizes the Gulf of Oman Alicia M Cadenas, Lev A Zhivotovsky, Luca L Cavalli-Sforza, Peter A Underhill and Rene J Herrera) And gives this results:
This study about Yemen which gives a relatively higher percentage of sub-saharan trace in Yemenis that I think exits (although its still small even in this study). I say this for the same reasons I just exmpaned about the Study on Saudies by (Abu-Amero et al). There is a similar situation happening in Yemen with recent immigrants from Somalia, Ethiopia..etc in the last 100 years (in many waves). Being the closest country to Africa Yemen is the bridge for illegal immigrations from Africans to Yemen itself, but also to rich Gulf countries. These imitations are relatively recent and economically motived, in Yemen they (and their decedents) live in big cities and represent a sizable minority, especially in the south. The study that was made on Yemenies is by a foreigner, and if someone does not know these small details he may fall in the mistake of thinking that the population distribution of some big cities is equally representative for all Yamen. Plus the sample size is mall (67)
I have results for some Saudi Samples but I can't put the link for some reason (forum rules) But I have been checking the results of Saudi Samples for a a long time, and an estimate of the frequency distribution for each haplogrou is usually within these ranges, with some regions as outliers to the overall population
J1: 55-70%
J2: 15-20
E1b1b 10-20
T: 5-10
Other: <1 - 10
A final note here is that the term (Bedouin) means (Nomad). Gulf people call some areas in central Asia "Turk Bedouins" some of Iran as (Persian Bedouins). Since this is a European site I'll give a relevant example, we can call Proto-indo-European as Aryan Bedouins, then when they moved to urban areas them became urbanized and no longer bedouins, even though they are the same people genetically. People seem to think that the term Bedouins refers to distinct group, thus saying things such as "Bedouins have more of such and such DNA than Saudies, Qataries..etc) but its more of a loss term. 60 years ago most of Arabia described themselves as Bedouins, a 100 years ago even more people described themselves as such (maybe 85%-90%). After oil, people that adopted an urban lifestyle dropped the term (Bedouin). The ones that hung on to this lifestyle or some of it still describe themselves as Bedouins. But both groups are the same, so most of the time (but not all of the time) it is wrong to distinguish between the two groups in a genetic sense.
