Autosomal map : Mediterranean admixture (from Dodecad)

[Angela]

@ Joey,

There is no IBD sharing between Ashkenazim and the major Italian groups. Maybe tomorrow some paper will come out finding it in some group, but for now that's the story.

They have found IBD sharing between Poles and Ashkenazim, which can probably be extended to Russians, Lithuanians etc.

[Joey D]

King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, by the grace of God, King and Queen of Castile, Leon, Aragon, Sicily, Granada, Toledo, Valencia, Galicia, the Balearic Islands, Seville, Sardinia, Cordoba, Corsica, Murcia, Jaen, of the Algarve, Algeciras, Gibraltar, and of the Canary Islands, count and countess of Barcelona and lords of Biscay and Molina, dukes of Athens and Neopatria, counts of Rousillon and Cerdana, marquises of Oristan and of Gociano...

[New Englander]

@Angela

I thought I knew my history pretty well, but your taking this to a whole new level. Im going to have to do weeks of research in order to respond to this haha.

When I say "MENA", I am taking not about Neolithic Stuttgart. But, more along the lines of the East Med, West Asian, South West Asian, and South Asian components that are found in Italy, Greece, and Jewish populations at a significant level.

CHG is found all over Europe, as well as the ENF components, these are not what Im talking about, as these are the Bronze age Indo-Europeans I think?.

[New Englander]

So you are saying that Jews did not mix with the Romans or Greeks in the classical era, and are strictly the result of Eastern Mediterranean populations mixing with NE Euros, and than bottle necking?

[Angela]

@Angela

I thought I knew my history pretty well, but your taking this to a whole new level. Im going to have to do weeks of research in order to respond to this haha.

When I say "MENA", I am taking not about Neolithic Stuttgart. But, more along the lines of the East Med, West Asian, South West Asian, and South Asian components that are found in Italy, Greece, and Jewish populations at a significant level.

CHG is found all over Europe, as well as the ENF components, these are not what Im talking about, as these are the Bronze age Indo-Europeans I think?.

Then I really don't know what you mean. There's almost nothing left. The "West Asian" cluster was tracking CHG in the calculators before the Kotias and Satsurblia samples were discovered. My point was that some came with the Indo-Europeans, and some may have come separately to southern Europe in the Copper or Bronze Age or even later. Maybe that's how Otzi got some. We won't know until we get ancient genomes. Even when we do, you're going to say the same genetic component isn't MENA if it came in with Indo-Europeans in the third millenium BC through central Europe but it is MENA if it came 500 or a thousand years later through the southeast?

Southwest Asian was tracking Natufian, some of which was already in Otzi in the Copper Age, although some may have, once again, come later. So what percentage is MENA? Said another way, is all the southwest Asian a later arrival or did some come with Cardial, and shows up in some Neolithic populations but not others? There's no appreciable South Asian in Italy.

You've already said that you don't include EN, as in Barcin, LBK etc. as MENA. So, what's left....Mozabite? Yet, some was present in the Neolithic. Was it all wiped out to be all re-introduced later? How do we know without the appropriate genomes from southeast Europe? Maybe some of the Iranian Neolithic, of which there's not very much anywhere? Was it MENA when it was in the Bell Beaker samples? Maybe a portion of Southwest Asian? The same applies to it as to "Mozabite". East Med is precisely Barcin, Natufian (some of which is incorporated into the Anatolian Neolithic) etc. None of the academic papers talk about it. It's an anthrofora term. ALL "Med" on the calculators comes originally from the eastern Med. The Sardinian samples from the isolated interior were and usually still are the modal for "Mediterranean" in the calculators, and they plot very near the EN farmers who came from...wait for it...the Eastern Mediterranean, i.e. the Levant and Anatolia. They just have some additional WHG.

This is not just me saying some of this...From the creator of the spreadsheet:

"- It's nice how the old "West Asian/Caucasus" component in Admixture runs based solely on modern populations predicted the CHG population. CHG peaks at some 62-63% in Georgians and Abkhasians, just like "West Asian" did in some of those calculators.

- Also the "Gedrosia" component of those runs predicted nicely the Iran_Neolithic population, both peaking in Brahui.

- Same goes for the "South West Asian" component predicting the Natufian population, both very BedouinB-like.

- Not such a good job with WHG and EHG, where Admixture could never really show what we see with ancient DNA. I don't remember any West Eurasian component peaking around the Urals (it seems that EHG peaks in Udmurts among modern populations). It was broadly a North European/Baltic component that contained both WHG and EHG."

Go back and look at the percentages from the spread sheet.

I'm not, I should add, saying this analysis is the be all and end all or that one should take these percentages as gospel. I'm just trying to show the complexities and how you have to use more than Admixture runs to figure this all out. Most important, we need ancient dna.

As to Jewish ethnogenesis, if I had the answer and could prove it, I'd publish a paper on it. I hate to sound like a broken record, but until we get a first century AD "Jewish" genome from Israel we're really in the dark. As I said above, the Italian populations which have been compared to the Ashkenazim show no IBD sharing. Maybe tomorrow some population that has been overlooked will show it, or a new way to look at IBD will emerge, but for now, despite all the theories that it's Roman conversions in the Classical Era or a group of Italian women from around Tuscany or just north who were absorbed before the Jews went to the Rhineland, it doesn't appear. There's one other remote possibility, I suppose. Perhaps the Philistines were Sardinians or Aegean peoples and they changed the "Jewish" genome of Israel. I don't know. That's totally unsupported speculation that I've seen floating around.

[New Englander]

I think its because I'm thinking of a diffrent GEDmatch test.

Ill have to find the spread sheets, and PM you.

[Sile]

The very same law also removed all Jews from Sicily, which by that time, came under the Spanish crown.

It came under the house of Angevins ( french rule ) from 1493 to 1503 ...............Isabella of Castille died in 1504 ..........ferdinand of Aragon pursued the princess of navarre and then got sicily back under the house of Aragon.

The French period is the period when the sephatic jews where kicked out of Spain .....................I doubt that ferninand and the aragon cortes pursued this anti-jew law as much as Isabella and the castillian cortes did.

south Italian peninsula never came under the castilian rule until the 18th century ..............the Aragon rule was not that rigid ..... in its second period from ~1504 to 1720ish

Also Aragon needed the jews in Italy for the money, they where involved in the 55year long "Italian wars" from 1496 to 1551

[Pax Augusta]

Indeed. I've taken the position in the past that the Lombard contribution is limited and mostly a factor in northeastern Italy, Lombardia etc. My opinion was in large part based on the low frequency and the distribution of U106 and I1 in Italy as well as the history and archaeology of those regions and time periods.

I'm a bit less sure now. I want to see the yDna of the Lombards not only from the earliest arrival periods in Italy but from the "staging" eras in central-eastern Europe. Could they have already had some U152 L2, for example? I don't know. Hopefully we'll soon see. I also want to see yDna from the Gauls/Celts, and down to the subclade level. Only then will we know what the Gauls carried versus the Italics who arrived so much earlier.

U152 L2, among the Germanic Lombards? I guess not. I mean, if it existed it was a minor line.

Map based on the frequency of R-U106, I-M253, I-M223 in Italy made by user Passa at Anthrogenica. Of course it's not a peer reviewed map and we need specific studies based on Medieval yDna.

[Hauteville]

It came under the house of Angevins ( french rule ) from 1493 to 1503 ...............Isabella of Castille died in 1504 ..........ferdinand of Aragon pursued the princess of navarre and then got sicily back under the house of Aragon.

The French period is the period when the sephatic jews where kicked out of Spain .....................I doubt that ferninand and the aragon cortes pursued this anti-jew law as much as Isabella and the castillian cortes did.

south Italian peninsula never came under the castilian rule until the 18th century ..............the Aragon rule was not that rigid ..... in its second period from ~1504 to 1720ish

Also Aragon needed the jews in Italy for the money, they where involved in the 55year long "Italian wars" from 1496 to 1551

Angevin rule in Sicily was from 1268 to 1282, later with the vesper only the continental part of the old kingdom of Sicily remained to Angevins, while Sicily was ruled by an Aragonese dinasty who was mixed with the Hohenstaufen. The Jewish expulsion is dated to 1492 in Sicily and Sardinia and in 1516 in the kingdom of Naples who were viceroyalties of Spain, together with Milano (Lombardia) and the Presidi (modern area around Grosseto).

[Hauteville]

King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, by the grace of God, King and Queen of Castile, Leon, Aragon, Sicily, Granada, Toledo, Valencia, Galicia, the Balearic Islands, Seville, Sardinia, Cordoba, Corsica, Murcia, Jaen, of the Algarve, Algeciras, Gibraltar, and of the Canary Islands, count and countess of Barcelona and lords of Biscay and Molina, dukes of Athens and Neopatria, counts of Rousillon and Cerdana, marquises of Oristan and of Gociano...

And for all the 1300 Athens, Neopatria, Gerba and Kerkennah were part of the kingdom of Sicily, the same king (Federico III and later Pietro II ecc) also Malta and Gozo of course...

[Joey D]

It came under the house of Angevins ( french rule ) from 1493 to 1503 ...............Isabella of Castille died in 1504 ..........ferdinand of Aragon pursued the princess of navarre and then got sicily back under the house of Aragon.

The French period is the period when the sephatic jews where kicked out of Spain .....................I doubt that ferninand and the aragon cortes pursued this anti-jew law as much as Isabella and the castillian cortes did.

south Italian peninsula never came under the castilian rule until the 18th century ..............the Aragon rule was not that rigid ..... in its second period from ~1504 to 1720ish

Also Aragon needed the jews in Italy for the money, they where involved in the 55year long "Italian wars" from 1496 to 1551

I actually quoted the edict above, that law which expelled the jews from Spain in 1492 also applied to Sicily, and they were expelled at the same time. At the time, the Kingdom of Sicily was split, thus there were two separate Kingdoms of Sicily, one occasionally referred to as the Kingdom of Trinacria, and the other eventually become better known as the Kingdom of Naples.

So it makes sense that the edict applied to Sicily (because the Sicilian crown was united with Aragon when Martin I died without an heir), but not to the Kingdom of Naples (Sicily and Naples had been united briefly during the 15th century, but separated again in 1458).

The point is that you may have been intimating that upon the expulsion of the Jews from Spain they sought refuge in Sicily, but this clearly could not have happened because Sicily was under the exact same expulsion order.

[Sile]

I actually quoted the edict above, that law which expelled the jews from Spain in 1492 also applied to Sicily, and they were expelled at the same time. At the time, the Kingdom of Sicily was split, thus there were two separate Kingdoms of Sicily, one occasionally referred to as the Kingdom of Trinacria, and the other eventually become better known as the Kingdom of Naples.

So it makes sense that the edict applied to Sicily (because the Sicilian crown was united with Aragon when Martin I died without an heir), but not to the Kingdom of Naples (Sicily and Naples had been united briefly during the 15th century, but separated again in 1458).

The point is that you may have been intimating that upon the expulsion of the Jews from Spain they sought refuge in Sicily, but this clearly could not have happened because Sicily was under the exact same expulsion order.

ok

Maybe this below and the links attached within this site can be of help to others

http://www.bestofsicily.com/mag/art354.htm

[Hauteville]

Best of Sicily is a website without knowledge and with a clear agenda. Jews were around 3% after 1492 and they were expelled in 1493, very few were converted but in no way they were refugees from Spain since the same edict was for Sicily and for Spaniard kingdom.
Here we go.

[Pax Augusta]

ok

Maybe this below and the links attached within this site can be of help to others

http://www.bestofsicily.com/mag/art354.htm

Sile, honestly that site has no credibility.

[New Englander]

Ya, .COMs are not reliable, from what Iv learned in College. Whenever I do citations, it needs to be .ORG

[Joey D]

Sile, honestly that site has no credibility.

True, it's more a tourist brochure for American Sicilians.

Nevertheless, it too mentions the expulsion of the Jews in 1492, so I'm not really sure what we are debating - that a proportion converted to remain? Yes, no doubt, it's unclear what proportion, but it definitely did happen.

Anyway, my original question to all was why the Ashkenazi plotted so closely to Sicilians and Maltese.

The existence of a sizeable Jewish population pre-1492 might be part of the answer, but logically, it can't be the whole answer, because the percentage of the population at the time was something like 5% to 8%, and less than half would have remained.

I happen to have a personal interest because I keep popping up as overwhelmingly Ashkenazi, and I have already had DNA matches confirmed on GEDMatch with 10 kits verifiably Ashkenazi.

My Ancestry DNA came back as 1% European Jewish, which was small enough to ignore, until I started doing all these GEDMatch tests.

Anyway, just throwing it out there.

[Maleth]

Does anyone know why Ashkenazi Jews plot so closely to Sicilians and Maltese?

It's true that Sicily had a significant Jewish population up to 1492, but it would only have been about 8% of the population at the most.

We must be talking about something which goes back into pre-history.

Anyone have any theories?

I believe it has nothing to do with having any (original) Ashkenazi Jews settling in the area. I believe that Ashkenazi dna evolved similarly in percentages and types (long settlement in central and Eastern Europe and intermixing with groups arriving directly from the Middle east proper) to that of Sicily without one having to be the other. Any direct 'Jewish' Inputs in both Sicilian and Maltese population would be possible but very minimal and more probable from a Sephardic source. Both mixtures through the millennia produced similar results.

[Joey D]

I believe it has nothing to do with having any (original) Ashkenazi Jews settling in the area. I believe that Ashkenazi dna evolved similarly in percentages and types (long settlement in central and Eastern Europe and intermixing with groups arriving directly from the Middle east proper) to that of Sicily without one having to be the other. Any direct 'Jewish' Inputs in both Sicilian and Maltese population would be possible but very minimal and more probable from a Sephardic source. Both mixtures through the millennia produced similar results.

I get that, and it makes good sense, but does that mean all these various GEDMatch tests struggle to differentiate between Sephardic and Ashkenazi?

Why do my results keep popping overwhelmingly as Ashkenazi?

This Dodecade test:

#	Population (source)	Distance
1	Ashkenazi (Dodecad)	4.18
2	Ashkenazy_Jews (Behar)	4.76
3	Morocco_Jews (Behar)	8.54
4	S_Italian_Sicilian (Dodecad)	10.48
5	C_Italian (Dodecad)	12.04

And then this Harappa test (from another thread):

#	Population (source)	Distance
1	ashkenazy-jew (behar)	5.34
2	ashkenazi (harappa)	6.68
3	sephardic-jew (behar)	9.31
4	morocco-jew (behar)	12.1
5	turk-aydin (hodoglugil)	12.89

why do these results keep popping up for me?
Also, even more generally, we know Sicilians, Maltese and Ashkenazi plot very closely together (Sicilians closer to Ashkenazi than Greeks) - map on that same Harappa thread.

Is it just a matter of saying these GEDMatch tests are inaccurate? That they cannot differentiate between Ashkenazi and Sephardic?

[Hauteville]

True, it's more a tourist brochure for American Sicilians.

Nevertheless, it too mentions the expulsion of the Jews in 1492, so I'm not really sure what we are debating - that a proportion converted to remain? Yes, no doubt, it's unclear what proportion, but it definitely did happen.

Anyway, my original question to all was why the Ashkenazi plotted so closely to Sicilians and Maltese.

The existence of a sizeable Jewish population pre-1492 might be part of the answer, but logically, it can't be the whole answer, because the percentage of the population at the time was something like 5% to 8%, and less than half would have remained.

I happen to have a personal interest because I keep popping up as overwhelmingly Ashkenazi, and I have already had DNA matches confirmed on GEDMatch with 10 kits verifiably Ashkenazi.

My Ancestry DNA came back as 1% European Jewish, which was small enough to ignore, until I started doing all these GEDMatch tests.

Anyway, just throwing it out there.

According to Anna Foa the Jews were around 3% of total Sicilian population, and according to Francesco Renda only from 4000 to max 9000 remained as converted, and many of them were persecuted in the inquisition, so a very small number was integrated to the local population. Ashkenazi do not plot only with Sicilians and Maltese but also with other South Italians and with the Greeks, especially the islanders. Even though judging by many Ashkenazis results they appear more West Asian than the ethnicities i've cited. A question of this similarity (by autosomal but not by IBDs and haplogroups) should be in the fact that Southern Italians, Sicilians, Maltese and Greeks have a certain amount of CHG-like from the early bronze age, while Ashkenazi have absorbed around 60% of European admix (at least the proportion of a recent study said it) in the last 1000 years.

[Hauteville]

I believe it has nothing to do with having any (original) Ashkenazi Jews settling in the area. I believe that Ashkenazi dna evolved similarly in percentages and types (long settlement in central and Eastern Europe and intermixing with groups arriving directly from the Middle east proper) to that of Sicily without one having to be the other. Any direct 'Jewish' Inputs in both Sicilian and Maltese population would be possible but very minimal and more probable from a Sephardic source. Both mixtures through the millennia produced similar results.

Yeah, our Jews were Sephardies (Italkims) and not Ashkenazi, genetically Sephardies and Ashkenazis are different.

[New Englander]

Those GED math results are just approximations. They do not mean your Jewish. They mean that you are Italian, with a DNA profile resembling that of a Jew. Could mean that one of your grandparents is part Calabrian, or Cypriot. Maybe they were Syrian christian migrants. Could have nothing to do with Jews. Maybe the test is bias to show South Italians as "less European", who knows.

[Angela]

Italkim aren't Sephardic. They follow what is called the "Italian rite", not the Sephardic rite, and in rituals they speak a Judeo-Italian language, not the Ladino of the Sephardi. There's even a division between northern Italian Italkim and the Roman Italkim. The legend is that the Italkim have been in Italy since the time of the Romans, perhaps even from the time of the Maccabees.

Italian Jews are made up of the Italkim plus Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews who moved to Italy later, some as early as the 1300s however. (IBD sharing is extremely high between all the Jewish groups.)

The Italkim plot closer to Middle Eastern Jews than do the Ashkenazim or even the Sephardim. Perhaps they are slightly less "mixed" than the Jews who went into Spain and Central Europe?

Take a look at this admixture plot:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Ish7688voT...cture-jews.jpg



This PCA shows it too:

[Seanp]

Ashkenazim are genetically a mixed population of Levant/Anatolian originated genetic profile later mixed with Greco-Romance which shows them plotting with South-Eastern European groups (Greeks, Sicilians, etc.)

Ashkenazim are also highly inbreed due to lack of recent gene flow from other groups so their genetic is drifted from both Europeans and Middle Easterners.

[New Englander]

The real question is how much has the genetic drift effected the plotting position, and overall Genetic results. I think that the Levantine Greek hybrid population moved into Central and Northern Europe, and interbred with BOTH Slavic/Germanic as well as Middle Eastern immigrants. Than they ended up isolating themselves after the population was somewhat diverse.

[Angela]

Where do you people get this stuff? More importantly, how can you so arrogantly proclaim as a certainty things for which there is as yet no proof?

NO ONE KNOWS PRECISELY HOW THE ASHKENAZIM FORMED, and until we get ancient genomes from the Near East during the first millennium BC and the Roman era, and the early post Roman era in Europe as well it's all just speculation.

The only thing which is certain is that Elhaik's ideas are nonsense.

Take advantage of the excellent search engine here and read the numerous threads that have been posted on the subject. That might cure some of this misplaced, arrogant, certainty.