Middle Eastern Genetics through Yemeni Whole Genomes

[Angela]

They do compare the modern samples to ancient samples, which is important.

See:

Marc Haber et al
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2019/08/29/749341.full.pdf


"Abstract

We report high-coverage whole-genome sequencing data from 46 Yemeni individuals as well asgenome-wide genotyping data from 169 Yemenis from diverse locations. We use this datasetto definethe genetic diversity in Yemen and how it relates to people elsewhere in the Near East. Yemen is avast region with substantial cultural and geographic diversity, but we found little genetic structurecorrelating with geography among the Yemenis – probably reflecting continuous movement of peoplebetween the regions. African ancestry from admixture in the past 800 years is widespread in Yemenand is the main contributor to the country’s limited genetic structure, with some individuals inHudayda and Hadramout having up to 20% of their genetic ancestry from Africa. In contrast,individuals from Maarib appear to have been genetically isolated from the African gene flow and thushave genomes likely to reflect Yemen’s ancestry before the admixture. This ancestry was comparableto the ancestry present during the Bronze Age in the distant Northern regions of the Near East. Afterthe Bronze Age, the South and North of the Near East therefore followed different genetic trajectories:in the North the Levantines admixed with a Eurasian population carrying steppe ancestry whoseimpact never reached as far south as the Yemen, where people instead admixed with Africansleadingto the genetic structure observed in the Near East today."


So, they have found it too.

"1) The Africancline, which appears to be a major contributor to genetic diversity in Yemen and 2) The Eurasian cline,towards which the Northern Near Easterners appear shifted compared with the Yemenis. TheNorthern Near Easterners are themselves structured on the African cline with Palestinians, Jordanians,Syrians, and Lebanese Muslims having more African ancestry than Assyrians, Jews, Druze andLebanese Christians (Figure 4) confirming our previous observation."

"We found two significant admixtureevents in the Lebanese Muslims; the first occurred around 600BCE-500CE (Z=3.5) and the secondoccurred around 1580CE-1750CE (Z=3.4), confirming our previous results on the date of admixture inNorth of the Near East.19 In contrast, we detect one significant admixture event in Yemen occurring1190CE-1290CE (Z=14.6) and thus these results suggest that the shifts of the North and South of theNear East along the African cline could arise from independent events."

"(Figure 8) confirm the observation from the PCA showing that most Yemenis have some Africanancestry which is maximized in Hudayda and Hadramout, with the later having in addition some EastAsian ancestry, while the Maarib individuals appear to be the least admixed of the populations testedin Yemen. The African and Asian ancestry in Yemen can also be observed in the present Y-chromosomeand mtDNA lineages (Figure 9 and Table 3) which are enriched with Y-haplogroups A, E, and R1a andmtDNA haplgroups L and M, respectively."

"We confirm the f4-statisticsresults by modelling the modern and ancient Near Easterners using qpGraph from the ADMIXTOOLSpackage and show that our data support a model where the North and South of the Near East splitfrom a population related to the Bronze Age population which inhabited the North of the Near East,but with the South regions having an excess of Epipaleolithic hunter-gatherer ancestry (Figure 11).After the split, the Northern regions of the Near East received gene flow from a Eurasian population4;19 which neverreached the South, where people instead admixed with Africansresulting in the geneticstructure we observe in the Near East today (Figure 11)."

Figure 9 shows a maximum likelihood true of y lineages from modern Yemen.

Figure 11

[/IMG]

 

[kingjohn]

thanks angela for sharing

the locations of the samples
https://i.imgur.com/v927AAQ.png

page 18 in the pdf link show the 46 Yemenite samples which were sequence
https://i.imgur.com/4MM9zFI.png
i notice a nice number of of e-cts1096 that is e-m84 branch of the e-m34 not the e-L791 branch of napoleon and the gotland dude
regards
adam


P.s
e-m84 use to have an arabian cluster besides its southern european cluster and levant antolia cluster if i remember from my days in e3b haplozone site

 

[Angela]

So, if it wasn't the Philistines, what group was responsible for the northern shift?

In that early period you can pick between Persians, Greeks and Romans, but I don't know what happened in the Levant in 1590-1750 other than the fact that this was the time of the Ottoman Empire.

Could it have had something to do with this?

"The Upper Nile Valley and Abyssinia were also significant sources of slaves in the Ottoman Empire. Captives from this region were taken north to Ottoman Egypt and also to ports on the Red Sea for export to Arabia and the Persian Gulf. In 1838, it was estimated that 10,000 to 12,000 slaves were arriving in Egypt annually using this route^[42]. A significant number of these slaves were young women, and European travelers in the region recorded seeing large numbers of Abyssinian slaves in the Arab world at the time. The Swiss traveler Johann Louis Burckhardt estimated that 5,000 Abyssinian slaves passed through the port of Suakin alone every year,^[43] headed for Arabia, and added that most of them were young women who ended up being prostituted by their owners. The English traveler Charles M. Doughty later (in the 1880s) also recorded Abyssinian slaves in Arabia, and stated that they were brought to Arabia every year during the Hajj pilgrimage.^[44] In some cases, female Abyssinian slaves were preferred to male ones, with some Abyssinian slave cargoes recording female-to-male slave ratios of two to one.^[45]"

However, the Ottomans took as many Slavic and Caucasus slaves as slaves from Africa, so I don't know. Unless the former were bought in Turkey, and didn't filter down to the Levant?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_Ottoman_Empire#Abyssinian_slaves

 

[bicicleur 2]

interesting to see in the PCA :

Anatolian Neo has already some considerable Eurasian admixture - more than present day Lebanese, Syrian, Palestine and Iraqi Jew
as opposed to CHG, Iran Neo, Natufian and Levant Neo

 

[Angela]

interesting to see in the PCA :

Anatolian Neo has already some considerable Eurasian admixture - more than present day Lebanese, Syrian, Palestine and Iraqi Jew
as opposed to CHG, Iran Neo, Natufian and Levant Neo

Also interesting how much Muslim Lebanese, Syrians and Palestinians deviate even from Bronze Age Sidon.

If we go by the dating in the paper, are we talking about the increased presence of slavery from East Africa among the Muslim population, or the actual movement of tribal groups from Arabia into the Levant at this time, a move which affected the Christian Lebanese much less?

There was documented movement from the south into the Levant starting in the 200s during the Roman Era (Ghannasids, for example), if I remember correctly, and it increased after the Muslim invasions, but a very large movement occurred in the 1700s as well. I don't think it's coincidence. We also have to keep in mind that these dating algorithms tend to collapse all gene flow into the last occurrence.

"At the beginning of the 18th century, there was an importantmigration of tribal groups from today’s Saudi Arabia towardstoday’s Syria and Iraq. Reasons for this migration were either thefear of some kind of plague or the rise of the warring Wahhabimovement[8].This migratory stream was composed of twogreat tribal confederations: Shammar and Aneza. Most of theShammar tribe crossed the Euphrates to the northwest of Syriaand Iraq, but a minority remains in the Arabian Peninsula[9].The Aneza community was established in the “Badiya” of Syria.This confederation includes tribes such as the Hassana, Ruwalla,Ageidat, Fedaan and Sbaa [10].Many of these tribes retainimportant ties with the Arabian Peninsula, including the Saudiroyal family who are descended from the Hassana tribe and hasblood ties with other tribes such as the Ruwalla."
https://juniperpublishers.com/gjaa/pdf/GJAA.MS.ID.555656.pdf

It may, of course, be both migration and East African slavery. Either way, Lebanese Christians and Druze were much less affected. It would be interesting to see if the same is true for Palestinian Christians.

 

[bicicleur 2]

when the Jews were deported by the Assyrians, the Nabateans moved into the space left empty in present-day Israel

the Nabateans were the first to cross the Arabian desert from south to north with camels for trade