From Generation to Generation: The Genetics of Jewish Populations

"Genetics and the Archaeology of Ancient Israel" 10/25/12

Aaron Brody PhD, Bade Museum of Biblical Archaeology, Pacific School of Religion Roy King MD, PhD: Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University

Caveats to DNA studies of Ancient Israel

  Little or no data on ancient DNA (single mtDNA study of Chalcolithic cave in Israel)

  The Southern Levant is a liminal zone—in terms of climate, ecozones and history (confluence of Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Aegean polities)

  Modern DNA studies of Levantine populations suffer from founder effects, population replacement, migration, conversion.

Prehistoric/Historic Models  Braudel’s  Annales  School-­‐La  Longue  Durée  

(temporal  and  spatial)  scales  are  broad.   Geographic  net—Circum-­‐Mediterranean/Black  

Sea;  the  shore  and  100  km  inland.  The  sea  is  readily  traversed  for  easy  commerce  and  

migration.  Island  biogeography  models  apply.   Temporal  net—8000  BCE  to  1000  BCE-­‐Neolithic  

through  Iron  Age  I  

Autosomal Studies 500K Illumina Chips

  Recent large scale studies of 500K SNPs confirm Braudel’s thesis that the Mediterranean constitutes a geographic and genetic domain.

  There are likely bidirectional flows across the Mediterranean both from east to west and west to east.

  Haplogroup studies: Y and mtDNA may afford better temporal and spatial resolution of migration patterns.

Ecological Diversity in the Southern Levant

  (Danin, 1995)—High Species Diversity of Flora   Israel—9.06 species/100 sq km   California—3.66 species/100 sq km   Greece—3.17 species/100 sq km   Italy—1.86 species/100 sq km   Sinai—1.45 species/100 sq km

Ecological Diversity in the Southern Levant

  Three Vegetation Zones—Mediterranean, Desert, Steppe

  Rift Valley—Sudanese/Zambesian vegetation, many springs, oases, refugium during the last Ice Age (LGM) for flora, fauna and humans (Y chromosome DNA connection with Ethiopia/Kenya/Sudan in modern populations)

Levant and the Rift Valley

Climate and Genes in the Southern Levant

  A major co-determinate of human population genetics in the Near East is climate, specifically rainfall distribution patterns

  Non-irrigation farming of wheat and barley require > 250 mm rainfall per year

Middle East Rainfall

Dry Farming or Rainfed (>250 mm annual precipitation) vs Arid Irrigable & Arid Non-irrigable Zones

Archaeology and Genetics: Y Chromosome

  The Human Y Chromosome is a rich haploid system with over 500 Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) discovered

  Each male inherits from his father each SNP and rarely develops through mutations new SNPs

  We can construct therefore trees of relationships among the total set of SNPs

  Haplogroup J is the most frequent haplogroup in Anatolia and the Near East and dates to 32 kbp

  J2a and J1 frequencies are strongly associated with rainfall distribution patterns in the Near East (Chiaroni, King and Underhill, Antiquity, 2008)

J2a-M410 J1-M267

Annual Precipitation (mm) Y chromosome tree

B E D C F J1-M267

I G H K L M N O P R QA

J2

J2a-M410 J2b-M12

J

Cubic Regressions of J2a and J1 Frequencies in Middle East vs. Annual Rainfall

Y chromosome hgs J1 & J2a correlate with rainfall in an inverse manner J2a coincides when arable ≥ 400 mm rain & J1with semi-aridity (≤ 250 mm)

gene history: time & space present

past

Semitic Language Tree

Pig Egypt

Pig Prohibition/Sacredness

  Qur’an 6.145: “I find nothing forbidden for people to eat except for carrion, flowing blood, pig’s meat—it is loathsome.”

  Lev. 11.7: “The pig, for even though it has divided hoofs and is cleft-footed, it does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you”

  Pigs were sacred to Demeter and sacrificed in the autumnal Thesmophoria. Also sacrificed in Hittite rituals.

  Pigs are taboo among Ge’ez speaking Ethiopian Copts but not among Egyptian Copts

Models of Ethnicity

  Ethnicity as a social construct constituting a relationship between two or more groups

  Barth/Eriksen (cultural anthropologists)--two ethnic groups may share virtually all cultural traits yet maintain their distinctiveness

  Douglas (cultural anthropologist)--Boundaries are often perceived as dangerous and disorder promoting and thus need to be regulated (ex. dietary rules): pigs are anomalous and hence threatening

  Marvin Harris (1974): Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches: The Riddles of Culture proposed that because pigs have high water requirement and poor heat tolerance they compete with humans for ecologically scarce resources in the desert/steppe

Rainfall/Pig Correlations in the Negev

Pig Prohibition/Sacredness

  From the Chalcolithic to the Iron Age pigs become increasingly rare in the Southern Levant.

  Coastal Philistine (Iron Age I period) sites are an exception to the above pattern; however, Philistines are thought to have immigrated from the Aegean.

  Conclusion: People carry their pigs or their absence of pigs with them

Origin of Agro-Pastoralism in Near East

  At the beginning of the Holocene (after the last ice age) (10,000 BCE) hunter-forager communities began to form in the Southern Levant, Middles Euphrates, and Southeast Anatolia

  Domestication of wheat, barley, cattle, sheep/goats, pigs over next 2000 years (DNA studies point to SE Anatolia as origin)

  Spread of agro-pastoral package to Southern Levant, Cyprus, Central Anatolia, Crete, Greece, Balkans and Italy

Middle PPNB Sites

PPNC Sites

Neolithic  from  Nea  Nikomedeia  in  Northern  Greece    

 Theocharis,  Demetrios.    Neolithic  Greece.    Athens:    

National  Bank  of  Greece,  1973.  Fig.  18.  

Neolithic  from  Tsangli  in  Thessaly,  Greece    

Theocharis,  Demetrios.    Neolithic  Greece.    Athens:      National  Bank  of  Greece,  1973.  Fig.  31.  

Neolithic ceramics & their distribution  

ANTIQUITY  (2002)  76:707-­‐714  

ANTIQUITY (2002) 76:707-714

Circum-Mediterranean Y chromosome haplotype frequency distributions

Spatial Frequency distribution of Y chromosome hg J2a-M410

82 pops. N=6724

AJHG (2006) 78:202-221

J2a

J1

Crete

Bronze Age Collapse 1200 BCE

  ?Immigration of Philistines to southern coastal Israel

  Movement of “proto-Israelites” to Central Hills from desert-steppe—possibly traced via J1e

  What Y chromosomes could reflect Philistine migration?

Phylogeography of hg E-M78 & its sub-haplogroups

Cruciani  et  al  2007  Mol  Biol  Evol  

G2a-M527 Contour Frequency Plot

Co-migration of V13 & M527 in Greek and Aegean Colonies (Jordan, Syria, Turkey & Lebanon have no M527)

Region %V13 %M527

Lerna/Franchthi 36 1.8

Nea Nikomedeia 14 1.8

Phocaea 19 3.2

Rhodes 18 5

Crete 7 0.6

Provence 4 0.5

Ukraine 8 0.7

Palestinians 4 1.1

Druze 11 1.0

Bulgaria 17 0.1

Bosnia 20 0.0

Stirrup vase with octopus decor, Rhodes, Late Helladic III C1,

ca 1200-1100 BC (Louvre).

Sea Peoples

Co-migration of V13 & M527 in Greek and Aegean Colonies (Jordan, Syria, Turkey & Lebanon have no M527)

Region %V13 %M527

Lerna/Franchthi 36 1.8

Nea Nikomedeia 14 1.8

Phocaea 19 3.2

Rhodes 18 5

Crete 7 0.6

Provence 4 0.5

Ukraine 8 0.7

Palestinians 4 1.1

Druze 11 1.0

Bulgaria 17 0.1

Bosnia 20 0.0

M527, V13, J2a

J1

J1

Conclusions

  500K autosomal markers show affinities of Kos, Sicily, Crete and Cyprus with Near Eastern Populations. Less affinity with mainland Greece, France, or North Italy

  Y chromosome J2a lineages show an origin in the Levant and/or Central/Mediterranean Anatolia. These lineages may track the spread of the Neolithic to the Aegean and Central Mediterranean

  A back migration from the Aegean to the coastal Southern Levant using E-V13 and G-M527. ? Late Bronze Age collapse; Philistines and Tel Dor.

  Future studies should focus on ancient DNA from the Southern Levant