Announcing the completion of the Ashkenazic Cultural Genography #1 showing how one modern Ashkenazi male matches up to a large database of ancient DNA samples, one archaeological era at a time. The resulting set of 14 graphic slides depict cultural affiliations stretching from the Mesolithic until the Renaissance.

Note that many of the cultural affinities shown in these slides will be present in any modern Ashkenazic individual (male or female). Each modern individual will also present unique variations on the basic pattern which cannot be standardized or predicted.

The findings are presented here for your viewing and educational pleasure:  https://1drv.ms/b/s!AuwT-4qnkJLBjgv-y61wNJCNQQH2?e=jnph42

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Adam Cherson
Administrator- FTDNA
Khrszn HaCohen Project
Lost Tribes of Israel Project

This is absolutely fascinating!
It shows that the ancestry of the subject (you, Adam?) at the time of the foundation of the Jewish people was broadly half Canaanite/Israelite and half from the classical Graeco-Roman world. This coalesces around the time of the expulsion of the Jews from Israel by the Romans into entirely Roman/Latin ancestry. The only explanation that fits this is that at the beginning of the Diaspora period, Judaism could be either patrilineal or matrilineal, and was not fixed as matrilineal only until around 1000CE. And pretty much all the subject's ancestors ended up in or around Rome itself in the wake of the expulsion. But I'm no expert - corrections welcome!

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Ric Cooper
Midhurst, UK
BORENSTEIN, MORDECHELEVITCH,GODZINSKIJ & ZIMNOWICZ from Warsaw and Grodno
MILLET, ENGELBERG, BLUMENKEHL, SUSSWEIN, WACKS & PITERZIL from Tarnow, Dabrowa Tarnowska and Lezajsk
LEZTER, SALENDER, RINENBERG, EISEN & KRAETTER from Rzeszow and Kolbuszowa
YAROSHEVSKY, SHAPOCHNIKOW & GRANITUR from Odessa and Zlatopol/Novomirgorod
LEWINSTEIN from Berdichev
ADLER, FINKELSTEIN, PARYLLE, WEINTRAUB & ZILZ from Tarnopol and Trembowla

A majority of the Jewish people in the Roman Empire lived in what became
the Eastern Roman Empire, and were Grecophonic, not Latin speakers.  The
Western Empire became depopulated over the years, and when the capitol
was shifted to Constantinople there were only a few thousand people
living in Rome.  If all the Empire Jews were Ashkenazi, it means that
Ashkenazi extended as far as the towns on the Black Sea, where remains
of public buildings have been found serving as synagogues.

Jules Levin

Yes it is, and this is only the first such study. There could be much more 'new' history to be learned from this type of work. For example I just looked at a brand new paper reporting several ancient Helladic, Cylcladic, and Minoan (bronze age) samples (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2021.03.039), and after running some tests found significant matching between one (I only ran one sample) of the modern Ashkenazi samples and the Helladic ones from Logkos Elati dating from the Mid-Late Bronze Age (which is the period you are referring to in your observation). What these results are showing is that the entire Eastern Mediterranean during the Mid-Late Bronze age was genetically mixed, and that the people who were building these various cultures shared substantial amounts of common ancestry from earlier periods.

-- Adam Cherson

Ric,

Can you please give me a reference that Judaism did not become exclusively matrilineal until the year one thousand CE?

Daniel Nussbaum II, M.D., FAAP
Retired Developmental Pediatrician
Rochester, New York

Daniel, I may well be wrong! I was thinking in terms of the founders of Ashkenazi Jewry, who date around that time or a little later https://www.timesofisrael.com/ashkenazi-jews-descend-from-350-people-study-finds/
On reflection, it may have been more like 100CE, shortly after the sack of Jerusalem by the Romans,
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Ric Cooper
Midhurst, UK

A follow-up on the matrilineal discussion for those with an interest in the scientific literature on the subject: there are two classic studies on the mtDNA groupings of Ashekanizic and non-Ashkenazic Jews: 1): 'The Matrilineal Ancestry of Ashkenazi Jewry: Portrait of a Recent Founder Event' (2005): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1380291/   and 2) 'Counting the Founders: The Matrilineal Genetic Ancestry of the Jewish Diaspora' (2008): https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0002062       

The second of these papers concludes as follows:

"The phylogenetic approach taken in the current study of most non-Ashkenazi Jewish communities, coupled with a previous study on Ashkenazi Jews, reveals the mechanisms involved in the formation of the various extant patterns of mtDNA haplotype variation of the Jewish Diasporas, and taken together provides a nearly comprehensive picture of the maternal genetic landscape of the entire Jewish population. Some of the communities reveal strong founder effects, while in others an abundance of maternal lineages is evident. Mechanisms, such as recruitment of maternal lineages from host populations, including their occasional historic long-distance transfer to new settlements, have been likely operative. Taken together, these studies show that while the founding event for each community may have had an important role in shaping their current genetic structure, other factors related to migration and survival of founding lineages, are responsible for the assembled list of remnant lineages, stressing once again the importance of an interdisciplinary approach in the reconstruction of demographic histories of extant populations." p13 [Emphasis added]

Another more recent paper takes a contrary view, suggesting a European origin for the predominant Ashkenazim matrilneal lines: 'A Substantial Prehistoric European Ancestry Amongst Ashkenazi Maternal Lineages' (2014): DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms3543 stating: "Overall, we estimate that most (>80%) Ashkenazi mtDNAs were assimilated within Europe. Few derive from a Near Eastern source, and despite the recent revival of the ‘Khazar hypothesis’, virtually none are likely to have ancestry in the North Caucasus. Therefore, whereas on the male side there may have been a significant Near Eastern (and possibly east European/ Caucasian) component in Ashkenazi ancestry, the maternal lineages mainly trace back to prehistoric Western Europe. These results emphasize the importance of recruitment of local women and conversion in the formation of Ashkenazi communities, and represent a significant step in the detailed reconstruction of Ashkenazi genealogical history." p.2. [Emphasis added]

The earlier paper from 2005 had concluded that these Ashkenazic maternal lineages were Near Eastern in origin. How should we in the lay, general public interpret this apparent conflict as to the origins of these maternal lineages?

I believe there is a substantial risk in using modern samples to imply pre-historic origins. In my view it is not possible to look at modern populations and infer their geographic origins from 10-20 thousand years ago: to do so convincingly requires in my view DNA samples from 10-20 thousand years ago. Furthermore, our contemporary bias is to draw a solid line between the Near East and Europe, whereas in Mesolothc times, this entire region seems to have been more of a cline, both genetically and culturally. For these reasons I choose to hold my conclusions in abeyance regarding the ancient origins of the Ashkenazic matrilineages, until such time as more ancient DNA can shed light on the subject. As to the other finding, that there has been a significant amount of 'recruitment' of local women in the formation of the Ashkenazic population, there is no disagreement between the papers, and I believe the modern dna evidence can and does support this finding.


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Adam Cherson

Referring to a previous side-discussion in this thread, I saw a scholarly book today which I believe discusses the history of Jewish intermarriage in some detail: Shaye J. D. Cohen,: The beginnings of Jewishness: boundaries, varieties, uncertainties. Berkeley 1999, https://www.amazon.com/Beginnings-Jewishness-Boundaries-Uncertainties-Hellenistic/dp/0520226933
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Adam Cherson