Jewish people, where they are from?

Hey, I went to that site you talked about and it seems like the map currently present there is a little different. While it seems like the highest gene flow is still from Greeks, south Russians now seem to have more IBD sharing with AJs than east Ukrainians for example. Why did the maps change?

Here's the link for the map I currently found on the map: https://verenich.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/taminuschuvashibd.png

Hi John,

The map you speak of is different because the author is trying to uncover the IBD links of Kazan Tatars.
The only thing worthy of notice here IMHO is the higher degree of IBD sharing with Veps & Estonians. Otherwise it's pretty much in line with what I'd expect.

So the former map is still spot on.
 
Once again, you amaze me with your knowledge, and I thought I knew a thing or 2! :)
I see... I suspected that AJs, both German/French AJs on one hand, and Hungarian/Polish/Russian AJs are pretty much the same people. But I don't think SJs went through a bottleneck, did they?
I guess it makes sense that the gene flow went both ways, probably due to trade and such during the bronze age, and during the Hellenistic period also due to trade, but also because many Jews migrated to the Greek isles, specifically Hellenistic Jews (the first Jews recorded in Europe during the early part of the 3rd century B.C.E all had Greek names and were recorded in Greek territories), but also because, as you've said before, some Greek women may have married Jewish men, it would have been easier back then because Judaism passed from the dad back then, and women didn't and don't have to have a Bris to convert. I suppose that the fact that AJs plot between Cypriots and Greeks isn't due to gene flow from Italians, but gene flow from and to Greeks, as your map clearly shows.
But I still am not entirely sure how there's a gene flow from Sardinians and Basques, could it be from a common pre Islamic east Mediterranean ancestry?
In conclusion, due to the lack of WHG among AJs, yet with AJs still plotting in the gap between Europe and the near east, we can expect to have a gene flow from a European population with very little to no WHG ancestry, modern mainland Greeks only have around 6% WHG ancestry, imagine how much they had before the Slavic/Germanic migrations, very little, and the fact that there seems to be gene flow from them, suggests that the European admixture that pulled AJs from Cypriots to Sicilians and Maltese, may indeed be pre Slavic Greeks, and perhaps as you've said, even before the Hellenistic period, during the Bronze age, considering the fact that the Philistines probably came from the Aegean. This really answers a lot of questions, considering the fact that Sicilians came under Hellenistic influence, and modern Maltese descend from Sicilian settlers. Also let's not forget that it's not like there's no mention of Hellenistic influence on Jews during the Hellenistic period, quite the contrary! :)

P.S I'm pretty sure you've answered that, and I know it'll be hair splitting, but AJs, while technically having 0% like Sicilians and Maltese, might have some via the EEF ancestry, also let's not forget that while AJs have 0, they don't have negative, as Cypriots do.

P.P.S Yeah, I suppose that the Cossack rape didn't have an overwhelming influence on AJs, which would basically make them a half Slavic half east Mediterranean people, if that would happen, AJs would plot between Cypriots and Ukrainians, and would have very visible WHG ancestry, indeed, if AJs were a half German half east Mediterranean people they would have visible WHG ancestry. I reckon that there was indeed more gene flow from AJs to the larger Christian Slavic population than the other way around, many Jews converted to eastern Orthodoxy in order to leave the pale of settlement and receive better rights, some did it to advance in the military, or some were kidnapped and thus assimilated into the larger society, but there were some cases, I know of a couple of Russian Jews that look like Cossacks, and who are aware of some Cossack ancestry.

P.P.P.S Don't forget that there were Greek colonies in Anatolia, as well as many Hellenistic cities, this could have genetically influenced the Anatolians as well.


You are right in asserting that SJs didn't experience a bottleneck. In fact, this is so true that SJs often have higher IBD sharing with Ashkenazim than with their SJ counterpart (per Campbell et al. 2012).
The higher degree of IBD sharing with Basques & Sardinians is merely due to the fact that the Near East once was more Sardinian-like (if you remove the WHG and other Mesolithic alleles from the EEF component you end up with pretty much the same kind of "Basal Eurasian" ancestry one gets once East African alleles are removed from the "Southwest Asian/Afroasiatic/Red Sea" component). This kind of Basal Eurasian/Early Mediterranean ancestry was still common when the pre-exilic Judeans were around.
Considering the fact that Sardinians are the closest contemporary population to Ötzi the Iceman, Stuttgart and Neolithic European farmers in general (clearly an intrusive population from the Near East), this is probably the only parsimonious explanation.

The fact that Ashkenazim, Sicilians & Maltese can be modeled as 0% WHG is more than enough to discard any theory implying non-negligible amounts of "European" ancestry (it wouldn't even work with mainland Greeks since their WHG scores are above noise level). As you said, prior to the Slavic migration and settlement of Greece their WHG scores must've been even lower so this is where we'd have to focus in order to explain the gap between Jews & Cypriots.
Either way, we're in for a round of hair-splitting, since we'll probably be dealing with similar East Mediterranean population and this process probably wasn't abrupt either (rather, it was linear and continuous).

I'd like to see more data about Malta though.

I will also point out that AJs plot closer to Cretans than to East Sicilians & Southern Italians.

And yes, I'd be surprised if there really was a noticeable amount of gene-flow from Slavs/Ukrainians to Jews given the huge paucity of WHG.
 
I have another question, as you can see I'm E-M35.1, however I don't know to which branch I belong to, I'm planning to test with FTDNA to see if they can branch me to a more specific branch, I reckon that I either belong to M34 or E-V13, do you agree? And if not, can you correct me?

P.S Oh! And another question if that's alright, as you can see, I belong to K1a9, now I heard of studies that suggest a west Asian source on one hand, and other studies that suggest a Mediterranean European one on the other, which origin is more accepted by experts?

If I were you I'd test for M34, V22 & Z830 since these are the most common E-M35.1 subclades in Ashkenazi Jews (my paternal grandmother's father probably was E-M34 for instance).

I'm pretty sure K1a9 is of Near Eastern origin and was born in the Fertile Crescent, along with other K variants. Fernandez et al. 2014's re-analysis of (Syrian) PPNB samples' MtDNA sequences showed that Ashkenazim along with Cypriots have the lowest FTS distance values with PPNB samples.
One of the K samples possibly belongs to K1a9, which represents ~21% of Ashkenazi K lineages.
So I'm ready to bet your MtDNA haplogroup also happens to be of Near Eastern origin.
 
Hi John,

The map you speak of is different because the author is trying to uncover the IBD links of Kazan Tatars.
The only thing worthy of notice here IMHO is the higher degree of IBD sharing with Veps & Estonians. Otherwise it's pretty much in line with what I'd expect.

So the former map is still spot on.

Oh, okay, thanks.
 
You mean by the fact that the Aegean islanders/Cretans seem to have gene flow from mainland Greeks on one hand and Cypriot like Levantines on the other (like Ashkenazi Jews) while Sicilians/Maltese seem to have a gene flow from mainland Greeks or mainland Italians on one hand and Berber north African like influence on the other?

Possibly, yes. I think that Cretans and Aegean islanders are a much better fit than East Sicilians, and the model caracterised their genetic history might be more or less similar to that of Western (Ashkenazi & Sephardic) Jews.
Maltese do seem to have more North African admixture, and I suspect that a sizeable amount of this might be due to Punic and Libyan settlement of the island.

West Sicilians cline strongly towards Tuscans (hence Mainland Greeks, since they overlap) albeit having higher North African admixture... Which is why Ashkenazim are closer to East Sicilians & Cretans.
 
I suppose that includes plain H as well? Because plain H originated in western Asia but today most Europeans belong to it or one of its subclades.

That might include plain H as well, though I'm focusing on the Ashkenazi founding lineages for the most (which Costa et al. 2013 claimed were of "prehistoric european origin", which is rather dubious and based on very wobbly not to say contradictory arguments IMO).
Either way, both H and J lineages boomed during the Neolithic, so there's little doubt these lineages came from West Asia and/or the Eastern Mediterranean.
 
You are right in asserting that SJs didn't experience a bottleneck. In fact, this is so true that SJs often have higher IBD sharing with Ashkenazim than with their SJ counterpart (per Campbell et al. 2012).
The higher degree of IBD sharing with Basques & Sardinians is merely due to the fact that the Near East once was more Sardinian-like (if you remove the WHG and other Mesolithic alleles from the EEF component you end up with pretty much the same kind of "Basal Eurasian" ancestry one gets once East African alleles are removed from the "Southwest Asian/Afroasiatic/Red Sea" component). This kind of Basal Eurasian/Early Mediterranean ancestry was still common when the pre-exilic Judeans were around.
Considering the fact that Sardinians are the closest contemporary population to Ötzi the Iceman, Stuttgart and Neolithic European farmers in general (clearly an intrusive population from the Near East), this is probably the only parsimonious explanation.

The fact that Ashkenazim, Sicilians & Maltese can be modeled as 0% WHG is more than enough to discard any theory implying non-negligible amounts of "European" ancestry (it wouldn't even work with mainland Greeks since their WHG scores are above noise level). As you said, prior to the Slavic migration and settlement of Greece their WHG scores must've been even lower so this is where we'd have to focus in order to explain the gap between Jews & Cypriots.
Either way, we're in for a round of hair-splitting, since we'll probably be dealing with similar East Mediterranean population and this process probably wasn't abrupt either (rather, it was linear and continuous).

I'd like to see more data about Malta though.

I will also point out that AJs plot closer to Cretans than to East Sicilians & Southern Italians.

And yes, I'd be surprised if there really was a noticeable amount of gene-flow from Slavs/Ukrainians to Jews given the huge paucity of WHG.


I see... Thanks.
Yeah I suppose the European admixture that did occur, was not over the top, and almost lacking of WHG ancestry. I reckon that if we'll go 2,000 years ago, we'd see mainland Greeks much closer to Cypriots, pre exile ancestors of western Jews probably already having w/e gene flow they got from Greece thus also being close to Greeks. I suppose that the Slavic migrations really pulled the mainland Greeks north into Europe, leaving the east Mediterraneans effected by mainland Greeks (Western Jews, Cretans and Aegean islanders) and this large gap between where Greeks now stood and where Cypriots stood. Modern mainland Greeks get around 6% WHG ancestry, so it was probably even lower before the Slavic migrations. The original Maltese population was exterminated with the Arab/Berber invasion, and was then replaced by Sicilian Muslims who introduced Siculo-Arabic which was developed into modern day Maltese, and eventually with the Norman conquest were gradually converted to Catholicism (both the Sicilians and their Maltese offshoot). The Sicilians that settled in Malta were probably already influenced by mainland Greeks/Italians, Phoenicians and Arabs/Berbers. However, I don't know how much we can think of the Slavic migrations completely changing mainland Greek genetic makeup, according to Anthropol Anz. 2014 the craniofacial morphology in modern and ancient Greeks indicates elements of ethnic group continuation within the unavoidable multicultural mixtures. Link: http://dienekes.blogspot.co.il/2014/08/craniofacial-morphology-of-greeks.html
I suppose AJs are closer to Cretans than Sicilians because Cretans were also influenced on one hand by pre Slavic mainland Greeks and Cypriot like Levantines on the other hand?
 
If I were you I'd test for M34, V22 & Z830 since these are the most common E-M35.1 subclades in Ashkenazi Jews (my paternal grandmother's father probably was E-M34 for instance).

I'm pretty sure K1a9 is of Near Eastern origin and was born in the Fertile Crescent, along with other K variants. Fernandez et al. 2014's re-analysis of (Syrian) PPNB samples' MtDNA sequences showed that Ashkenazim along with Cypriots have the lowest FTS distance values with PPNB samples.
One of the K samples possibly belongs to K1a9, which represents ~21% of Ashkenazi K lineages.
So I'm ready to bet your MtDNA haplogroup also happens to be of Near Eastern origin.

Alright, thanks! Should I test with FTDNA using the 37 marker test? :)

Yeah, I suppose it is more likely of K1a9 being of west Asian/fertile crescent origin, all studies besides Costa suggest that, even studies that came after Costa. Although it should be noted that K1a9 is a subclade of U8b'K which did in fact originate in north eastern Italy and probably got to west Asia as a result of a back migration, but that obviously doesn't mean K1a9 is of a European source, otherwise we wouldn't be able to say paternal subclade E-V-13 was a European subclade because one of it's ancestors, was without a doubt not of a European source.
 
Possibly, yes. I think that Cretans and Aegean islanders are a much better fit than East Sicilians, and the model caracterised their genetic history might be more or less similar to that of Western (Ashkenazi & Sephardic) Jews.
Maltese do seem to have more North African admixture, and I suspect that a sizeable amount of this might be due to Punic and Libyan settlement of the island.

West Sicilians cline strongly towards Tuscans (hence Mainland Greeks, since they overlap) albeit having higher North African admixture... Which is why Ashkenazim are closer to East Sicilians & Cretans.

I see... Thanks.
 
That might include plain H as well, though I'm focusing on the Ashkenazi founding lineages for the most (which Costa et al. 2013 claimed were of "prehistoric european origin", which is rather dubious and based on very wobbly not to say contradictory arguments IMO).
Either way, both H and J lineages boomed during the Neolithic, so there's little doubt these lineages came from West Asia and/or the Eastern Mediterranean.


Thanks again. :)

P.S But I suppose that there was more European influence in AJs than there was in Cypriots, the former while having 0 don't have negative like the latter. Of course, it's plausible that the pre exile AJs were pretty much identical to Cypriots, with what pulling them being that European admixture that brought them from negative to 0.

P.P.S I'm quite surprised that to this day scientists/archaeologists failed to sample pre exile Jewish DNA, do you know perhaps why?
 
Alright, thanks! Should I test with FTDNA using the 37 marker test? :)

Well, more markers is always better.
But if you're really interested in the subclade per se I say you should go for the 37 marker test, and then test the individual SNPs I spoke of above (Z830 is a good bet, since I suspect you tested with 23&Me and V22 along with M34 are already tested for, I strongly suspect you're Z830 positive... This is Einstein's subclade btw).

So I'd go for the 37 marker test, test Z830 and if you're negative I'd recommend testing more STR markers and joining the E-M35.1 FTDNA projects so you can be assigned to a specific subclade based on your STR markers which would enable you to test the relevant SNP.

Hell, thank god I'm J1... Much easier lol.
Good luck!
 
Thanks again. :)

P.S But I suppose that there was more European influence in AJs than there was in Cypriots, the former while having 0 don't have negative like the latter. Of course, it's plausible that the pre exile AJs were pretty much identical to Cypriots, with what pulling them being that European admixture that brought them from negative to 0.

P.P.S I'm quite surprised that to this day scientists/archaeologists failed to sample pre exile Jewish DNA, do you know perhaps why?

You're welcome!

Indeed, Cypriots do have negative WHG values as far as I know. And they can only be fitted as EEF + ANE.
Which is why I suspect they're a relic population and probably the closest living thing to pre-islamic Levantines (add that to the fact that Palestinian Christians, Western & Mizrahi Jews cline towards them and you have a very strong case in favour of this model).

On the other hand, Ashkenazim can be modeled as 0% WHG and this is very telling IMO, they simply cannot be fitted with other European populations.
So while it's obvious that there's a non-trivial amount of non-Jewish admixture pulling them towards Mainland Greeks, this seems to have come from a population which was equally low on WHG.

I know there are a few Judean samples being tested in Poland, we already have Judean MtDNA from the Makhpela cave (turned out to be W if I'm not mistaken) so I'd be surprised if no one was working on it right now.
 
Well, more markers is always better.
But if you're really interested in the subclade per se I say you should go for the 37 marker test, and then test the individual SNPs I spoke of above (Z830 is a good bet, since I suspect you tested with 23&Me and V22 along with M34 are already tested for, I strongly suspect you're Z830 positive... This is Einstein's subclade btw).

So I'd go for the 37 marker test, test Z830 and if you're negative I'd recommend testing more STR markers and joining the E-M35.1 FTDNA projects so you can be assigned to a specific subclade based on your STR markers which would enable you to test the relevant SNP.

Hell, thank god I'm J1... Much easier lol.
Good luck!

Thanks! If I turn out to have Einstein's subclade that would be interesting, first time I had an IQ test I turned out 140, and 128 the last time, and that's with ADHD and perhaps Aspergers. LOL, much easier I suppose. :p
P.S it's not just that AJs and Turkish/Greek SJs share a very high level of IBD and plot close to each other, and let's not forget the pre split and pre exile common ancestry, perhaps also having the same European gene flow (but I digress), besides all that, it's believed that after the Spanish expulsion, many Sephardis fled to Poland and other east European countries, where they completely assimilated into the Ashkenazi community, completely marrying into the AJ community, going so far as to abandon Ladino in favour of Yiddish (that's why it may be very difficult to track such ancestry), but that would explain my family's tradition of having Sephardi ancestry, and why my maternal family looks more Mediterranean like next to my paternal family (although, as far as I know, both are fully western Jewish, thus probably not having much genetic differences).
 
You're welcome!

Indeed, Cypriots do have negative WHG values as far as I know. And they can only be fitted as EEF + ANE.
Which is why I suspect they're a relic population and probably the closest living thing to pre-islamic Levantines (add that to the fact that Palestinian Christians, Western & Mizrahi Jews cline towards them and you have a very strong case in favour of this model).

On the other hand, Ashkenazim can be modeled as 0% WHG and this is very telling IMO, they simply cannot be fitted with other European populations.
So while it's obvious that there's a non-trivial amount of non-Jewish admixture pulling them towards Mainland Greeks, this seems to have come from a population which was equally low on WHG.

I know there are a few Judean samples being tested in Poland, we already have Judean MtDNA from the Makhpela cave (turned out to be W if I'm not mistaken) so I'd be surprised if no one was working on it right now.

Interesting! Oh! Thank god! That's a relief! I thought it wasn't being looked at, but on the contrary, advances are being made, hopefully in a couple of years we'll have a more clear picture of pre exile western Jews.
Indeed, that European population needed to have almost or equally low WHG ancestry, and I reckon mainland Greeks (and/or perhaps Albanians) are the best option, considering the fact that even today, they only have about 6% WHG ancestry, the lowest of any other mainland Europeans, add the fact of the high influence of Hellenism on Jews and the record of Jews in Greece as early as the early 3rd century B.C.E, the relative friendly relations at first, and the settlement of Jews in Hellenistic cities in west Asia and Egypt (such as Alexandria) as early as the Macedonian conquest, oh and the fact that all the earliest Jews recorded in Europe had Greek names, and they seem like the best option, again, hopefully we'll know more in the coming years. :)


P.S Wait... What's Mtdna W?
 
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P.S Wait... What's Mtdna W?

Woops, it wasn't in the cave of Makhpela (silly me) but in the tomb of the shroud in Akeldama (Jerusalem).
Most samples belonged to MtDNA haplogroups W (5 samples) and H (around four samples). Some of the (presumably) H samples might've been V or J1 instead.
This is all to be found in Matheson et al. 2009.
 
Woops, it wasn't in the cave of Makhpela (silly me) but in the tomb of the shroud in Akeldama (Jerusalem).
Most samples belonged to MtDNA haplogroups W (5 samples) and H (around four samples). Some of the (presumably) H samples might've been V or J1 instead.
This is all to be found in Matheson et al. 2009.
Oh I see, it's alright, people make mistakes. But wouldn't we expect also to find subclades of K? I reckon K1a9 for example arose in the near east before coming to Europe, otherwise it wouldn't be near eastern.

P.S What would haplogroup W stand for today?

Edit: Nevermind, silly me, just Googled W:

Possible time of origin23,900 ybp[1]
Possible place of originWestern Asia
AncestorN2
DescendantsW1, 194
Defining mutations195 204 207 1243 3505 5460 8251 8994 11947 15884C 16292[2]



So we're looking at another west Asian haplogroup which shouldn't be surprising to see pre exile Jews carrying?
 
Oh I see, it's alright, people make mistakes. But wouldn't we expect also to find subclades of K? I reckon K1a9 for example arose in the near east before coming to Europe, otherwise it wouldn't be near eastern.

P.S What would haplogroup W stand for today?

Edit: Nevermind, silly me, just Googled W:

Possible time of origin23,900 ybp[1]
Possible place of originWestern Asia
AncestorN2
DescendantsW1, 194
Defining mutations195 204 207 1243 3505 5460 8251 8994 11947 15884C 16292[2]



So we're looking at another west Asian haplogroup which shouldn't be surprising to see pre exile Jews carrying?

We shouldn't expect to find only modern Ashkenazi lineages, in fact because of the bottleneck Ashkenazim have only retained a part of the Judean gene-pool and aren't fully representative of its diversity.
In fact, this is also in line with one of the conclusions in Fernandez et al. 2014: "Moreover, in the light of the evidence presented here of a loss of lineages in the Near East since Neolithic times, the absence of Ashkenazi mtDNA founder clades in the Near East should not be taken as a definitive argument for its absence in the past."

So while I do think we'll end up finding Ashkenazi mtDNA founder clades (including K1a9) in Judean remains, we must also expect to find other lineages which have disappeared since then and didn't make it into the Ashkenazi gene pool either.
 
We shouldn't expect to find only modern Ashkenazi lineages, in fact because of the bottleneck Ashkenazim have only retained a part of the Judean gene-pool and aren't fully representative of its diversity.
In fact, this is also in line with one of the conclusions in Fernandez et al. 2014: "Moreover, in the light of the evidence presented here of a loss of lineages in the Near East since Neolithic times, the absence of Ashkenazi mtDNA founder clades in the Near East should not be taken as a definitive argument for its absence in the past."

So while I do think we'll end up finding Ashkenazi mtDNA founder clades (including K1a9) in Judean remains, we must also expect to find other lineages which have disappeared since then and didn't make it into the Ashkenazi gene pool either.


Interesting, I suppose that makes sense.
 
@Semitic Duwa Do you know if there was some gene flow from Spaniards to Sephardis (I know that it's almost certain there was gene flow the other way around) and therefore Ashkenazis (because many Sephardis fled to eastern Europe and assimilated into the AJ community)?
 
@Semitic Duwa Do you know if there was some gene flow from Spaniards to Sephardis (I know that it's almost certain there was gene flow the other way around) and therefore Ashkenazis (because many Sephardis fled to eastern Europe and assimilated into the AJ community)?

Possible, yet again you'd expect more WHG if there was a substantial amount of gene flow.
Statistically-speaking, all Ashkenazim have Sephardic ancestry.
 

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