Professor Goldstein studies several questions such as the existence of a Y chromosome gene common to descendants of Jewish priests (Cohen), genetic evidence that Jewish woman did not intermarry with non-Jews for a very long time, and genetic diseases common to Jews. For me, however, the most interesting chapter is on his study of Ashkenazi Levites. Goldstein is staunchly Zionist, but seems to be a reputable and honest scientist. He says that he was initially dismissive of Arthur Koestler's thesis that the Khazars are key to the origin of Ashkenazi Jewry. "I am no longer so sure. The Khazar connection seems no more far-fetched than the spectacular continuity of the Cohen line or the apparent presence of Jewish genetic signatures in a South African Bantu people. And then there is that troubling Y chromosome that is so common in the Ashkenazi Levites but seemingly nowhere else to be found. I cannot claim that the evidence proves a Khazari connection. But it does raise the possibility, and I confess that, although I cannot prove it yet, the idea does now seem to me plausible, if not likely." More on this as my studies continue.
Monday, December 6, 2010
Genetic Research on Jews
I recently purchased two books on genetic research on Jews and one on Khazaria. I finished the first book, Jacob's Legacy: A Genetic View of Jewish History by David B. Goldstein. The other two books are Abraham's Children: Race, Identity, and the DNA of the Chosen People by Jon Entine and The Jews of Khazaria by Kevin Alan Brook.
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I finished reading The Jews of Khazaria, however, that appears to precede Goldstein´s research. Brook finds evidence both of Khazari Jews in various European countries as well as other Jews with other origins.
ReplyDeleteThe third edition of Brooks, "The Jews of Khazaria," presents some new genetic evidence which now makes it unlikely that Ashkenazi Jews have significant Khazar ancestry. Below is from a promotional Email I just received about the book.
ReplyDelete* Genetic haplogroups have been determined for four inhabitants of the Khazarian Saltovo-Mayaki civilization.
* Examines new genetic evidence from 2006-2017 related to Turkic, Hungarian, and Jewish populations and concludes, unlike the 1st and 2nd editions, that the Khazars are not among the ancestors of any modern Jewish population.
* The new genetic data also suggest that the Karachay and Balkar peoples of southern Russia are living descendants of the Khazars.
* The new genetic data also show that there exists a genetic commonality between most of the widely dispersed Turkic peoples of Eurasia, as their roots have been pinpointed to the Altai-Mongolia region.
* The main East Eurasian population that appears to have genetically contributed to the Ashkenazic Jewish population are the Chinese, rather than the Khazars. This was not known at the time of the 2nd edition. The nomenclature on the names of the East Eurasian haplogroups among Ashkenazic Jews has been updated.
* The only Eastern European population that appears to have genetically contributed to the Ashkenazic Jewish population are the Poles.
Here is more detail on the recent research:
3. The Genetics of the Peoples of Khazaria
Gennady E. Afanasiev and his co-authors published the Russian article "Khazarskie konfederaty v Basseyne Dona" in Yestestvennonauchnie metodi issledovaniya i paradigma sovremennoy arkheologii: Materiali Vserossiyskoy nauchnoy koferentsii, Moskva, Institut arkheologii Rossiyskoy akademii nauk, 8-11 dekabrya 2015 in 2015 on pages 146-153. They examined the uniparental markers of 4 individuals in the Saltovo-Mayaki culture of Khazaria who lived circa the 800s:
* Sample A80301 belonged to the Y-DNA haplogroup R1a1a1b2a (R-Z94) which is of Persian/West Asian origin and found today among Turkic-speaking Karachay people. A80301's mtDNA haplogroup was I4a which is found today in northwestern and central Europe such as in Sweden, and also found around the Black Sea, in the North Caucasus, and in Armenia, Iran, and Siberia.
* Sample A80302's mtDNA haplogroup was D4m2, which is found today in Siberia among the Dolgan, Yakut, and Even peoples, and was also found among the medieval Hungarians, but is never found among Ashkenazim.
* Sample A80410 belonged to the Y-DNA haplogroup G, commonly found among peoples in West Asia and the Caucasus today.
* Sample A80411 belonged to the Y-DNA haplogroup J2a, which is also commonly found in West Asia and the Caucasus today, and also in Central Asia and in parts of Europe like the Balkans.
Afanasiev has posted his article to https://www.academia.edu/15713987/
Of related interest, Anatole A. Klyosov and Tatiana Faleeva's article "Excavated DNA from Two Khazar Burials" in Advances in Anthropology 7 (2017) on pages 17-21 examines the Y-DNA STRs of two Khazar samples from the lower Don region of southern Russia. Both of them belong to haplogroups within R1a's subclade Z93's Turkic branches, not part of the Ashkenazic Jewish or North Slavic lineages of R1a. The authors write that "R1a-Z93 is very common in present-day Turkic-speaking peoples such as Caucasian Karachaevo-Balkars, also Tatars, Bashkirs, Kirgiz, and other populations who apparently descended from Scythians, and have their common ancestors in the R1a-Z93 subclade dated back to 1500-2500 years ago".
The article by Klyosov and Faleeva is available at http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=73563
So, unless there is additional research, I'll abandon the idea that Ashkenazi Jews are what remain of the Khazari Jews for now.