Arthur Kemp’s Blog

I am currently busy with a new book directed specifically at white Americans. It will start with a brief overview of the racial demographic problem facing the United States of America, but is mainly focused on a solution rather than restating the obvious.

The solution, the book will argue, lies in real political participation.

For too long, pro-white activists in America have been led down the garden path by a bunch of psychopaths, losers, and do-nothing cranks.

I have identified these groups as “cancers” in the so-called “right wing.”

Only once these cancers have been firmly expelled or closed down, will there be any chance of realistic political action.

In fact, I will argue, one of the primary reasons why America sits on the edge of a racial catastrophe is because of the malignant influence of these cancers.

The Nazi-costumed freaks, the mentally ill-Christian Identity adherents and the disgraceful skinheads have all allowed the enemies of white America to smear anybody who opposes the destruction of that country as crackpots.

The irony of this is not lost: those groups are indeed crackpots. But why then is there no “sensible” white American political movement?

Why did the Ron Paul-type politics not emerge twenty years ago, like it should have?

The answer is because the majority of people who understand the issue of racial demographics have been sucked up into the dead-end politics of the cancers listed below.

The chapter headings of the new book are as follows:

1. The Extent of the Problem: Demographics

This will deal with the extent of the Third World immigration invasion into America and how that country has less than twenty years left to avoid total submersion.

2. The Extent of the Problem: The Failure of White Politics in America

This will deal with the reasons why white political activity to date in America has been a failure.

It will discuss how white American politics has been led down the path of inactivity by people who have no grasp of reality and who, when stripped down to the core, are certifiably mentally insane.

3. The Solution Part I: The Need for Real Political Action

This section will discuss how the only way to deal with the huge problem outlined in chapter 1 is for sensible, reasonable, democratic electoral political action, stripped of the cranks and crackpots who currently infest the American “right wing.”

The Cancers Part I: Expunge the Madmen–Christian Identity

This section will deal with what is possibly the most utterly deranged group of vermin ever to infest white politics in America: those who claim that the European people are the “true Jews” and that the “Jews are Satan’s spawn” etc. etc.

Christian Identity (also known as “British Israelism”) adherents are severely mentally deranged people who need to be utterly exterminated from white political activity.

There is no compromise with these rabid madmen: they poison every political organization they enter with their insane theology and there is literally no end to their madness.

It is the reason why any political organization which wishes to succeed, must expel all those dribbling lunatics who spout this drivel, or bar them from entering in the first place.

Let them go and mutter about “Christ killers” somewhere else where all sane people can just laugh at them.

5. The Cancers Part II: Get Rid of the Weirdos–The KKK and the Confederacy Hobbyists

This part will deal with those pathetic weirdos who think that by running around in white sheets, burning crosses, and behaving like white trash they are somehow “contributing.”

In fact, they are childish fantasists who play into the hands of those who would portray all pro-white political activists as nuts.

Once again, anyone who is serious about effecting real, viable, modern nationalist democratic politics, needs to distance themselves from this bunch of sad pathetic losers.

The Confederacy hobbyists are also a millstone that needs to be shaken loose.

First of all, the Confederacy was not a “white racist super state” like the KKK and the hobbyists would like to think. There were American Indian Confederate generals in the southern army, and secondly, the Confederacy actually wanted to keep blacks in slavery.

Quite apart from the moral opprobrium (what type of lunatic wants to keep slaves?) the reality is that the American south has a large black population precisely because of the antebellum slave owning society.

Any ideology which (a) endorses slavery as a “good thing” and (b) resulted in the overrunning of the south by the descendants of black slaves, cannot form any part of a rational debate.

Modern democratic white nationalism demands a rejection of the concept of slavery and all that it entailed.

6. The Cancers Part III: The Necrophiliacs Must Go–The “Nazis” and World War II Hobbyists

This part will deal with those people who are obsessed with World War II, Hitler, and the Nazis.

These people who cannot get out of their childish retro uniforms and grow up, need to be expelled from any modern democratic pro-white political movement.

Those who think they are “contributing to the cause” by huddling in a hotel room with a money-sucking, time-wasting crank like David Irving discussing what Herman Goring said on August 29, 1942, are equally delusional.

If they must persist in that sort of activity, they must understand that they are making no contribution at all to solving the most urgent problem of our time, as outlined in chapter 1.

The Nazi-obsessionists fail to understand that this period happened eighty years ago in Germany. The Nazis are not coming back; they are history.

It has no relevance to us today and there is no time to look at it now in any way other than a historical occurrence which is dead and gone.

Those who fail to understand this, and cannot get over wearing silly uniforms and marching round like lunatics, need to either find another obsession to focus on–or at the very least, get their necrophilia out of white politics.

7. The Cancers Part IV: The Do-Nothing Obsession–William Pierce and the National Alliance

In retrospect–and I did not realise this until much later–the malign influence of the “do-nothing” mentality created by William Pierce and the National Alliance type of organization has possibly been the single most damaging influence in pro-white politics in American history.

In fact, if America does go down before the Third World, one of the major contributing causes will have been this mentality which prohibited participation in the political process.

William Pierce taught all of his followers that participation in the ordinary democratic process was pointless.

Instead, he said that all they had to do was “wait for the system to collapse and then seize power.”

Of course, not Pierce or anyone else could ever say exactly how they were going to “seize power” or when–because they had no idea.

The reason why they had no idea was because it was all fantasy island stuff.

This blind refusal to become involved in the democratic process became the norm, so that the political process became totally dominated by those seeking the destruction of America.

One can only wonder how many potential Ron Pauls were sucked up into this nihilistic mindset and burned out in the negativity of the “do-nothing” camp. I suspect it is far too many.

The National Alliance and its assorted spin-offs have been going for more than thirty years. What do they have to show for it? What political power do they have? Nothing. Zip. Nada.

In fact, America is now considerably worse off.

The time has come to close down the National Alliance and all its spinoffs.

This sort of “politics” has proven itself a failure and America does not have the time for indulging this sort of nonsense any more.

8. The Cancers Part V: A Sick Aberration–The Skinhead Disgrace

The Chinese philosopher general Sun Tzu, in his book The Art of War, pointed out that a general who enters a battlefield which has been set up by his enemy is at an immediate disadvantage.

So it is with the skinhead phenomenon. The media has successfully created the image of the skinhead racist thug, beating up old ladies and full of mindless violence.

And what happens? That is exactly what the “skinheads” do–falling precisely into the stereotype trap that the enemy have set for them.

The entire skinhead culture and appearance is a gift from heaven for those who seek to smear and malign real political activists.

Once again, one has to ask: what has this “skinhead” movement ever achieved? Once again, the answer is nothing.

The skinhead phenomenon needs to be closed down. Those adherents who cannot grow up must be barred from participating in modern democratic nationalism.

9. The Solution Part II: The Only Way Forward

The only way forward for white American politics is for participation in the democratic electoral process by normal, decent looking, moderate political activists.

Those who would swagger around in costumes, cling to long-dead ideologies or adhere to crackpot religious views, are part of the problem, not the solution.

America’s unique situation–and the shortness of time left for its existence as a majority European nation–makes two things inevitable:

1. There is no time to start a third party. Forget the “American National Party” type ideas. By the time any sort of national consciousness is achieved by such an organization, it will be too late.

2. Because of that fact, political activism will have to take place within the two party Republican/Democrat pea-in-the-pod system.

The first step in setting this up must be the creation of a European-American Political Action Committee (EUPAC).

This lobby must first draw up an electable political platform. This must be devoid of all the crankery which has so typified the cancerous groups outlined above: obsessive blaming of Jews, the Illuminati conspiracies, Satan, racial pejoratives, World War II and Civil War re-enactors, and thuggish racism in general.

A modern democratic nationalist platform contains none of this and does not fall into the trap of “blaming” anybody as its main focus.

Indeed, the reason why white Americans have no real political power is not because other groups have “plotted” to steal it. The reason why white Americans have no power is because there has never been anyone to vote for. As simple as that.

A EUPAC must, therefore, focus on developing realistic policies and programs which can actually be implemented AND sold to the voting public.

A EUPAC program might, for example, contain the following principles:

– America was founded as a majority European nation and has a right to remain so;

– Unrestricted Third World immigration presents social, economic, and demographic problems which will destroy the Founding Fathers’ vision;

– Government interference and the abrogation of the Bill of Rights is a fundamental threat to the freedom of its citizens;

– America must return to the foreign policy laid out by George Washington when he warned against foreign wars; and so on. You get the idea, I am sure.

The next thing this lobby must do is select sensible, reasonable, appealing candidates as either Republicans or Democrats (depending on local traditional preferences). These candidates can be “endorsed by EUPAC.”

The loose nature of the political process in America makes this sort of thing possible. (It is almost incomprehensible to political activists in Britain or elsewhere who are used to a much more centralized and controlled party structure.)

I have no doubt that Ron Paul-type clones, spread throughout the United States of America, can effect massive political change almost overnight.

I have long speculated that if sensible candidates ran in each state’s senate elections, a huge breakthrough would occur.

Ron Paul type campaigns–run in senate seats in each state–could easily generate turnouts of hundreds of thousands of votes each.

Even if each senate candidate gets only 25,000 votes (and I am sure many will do better–look at what Ron Paul did) this would be 50,000 in each state.

That figure, multiplied by 49 (I grant Hawaii won’t do this), gives an instant tally of 2,450,000 votes. This can be done without even winning a seat, and probably with a first time out campaign.

It is a fantastic kick-off basis, and with a bit of work and fine tuning, could easily be improved upon within a very short space of time.

More importantly, it would send a shock wave through Washington DC.

It is about time Americans who understand that the way forward is not through more crankery, but through democratic participationist populist politics, step forward.

They must pick up the reins from the failures, oddballs, and cranks who have led them up the garden path for the past forty years.

The alternative, as was once told to me many years ago, is too ghastly to contemplate.

When I first published March of the Titans, there were no genetic studies available from Portugal to back up the claims that the population had been influenced by the Moorish invasion of Iberia and the massive importation of black slaves from sub-Saharan Africa.

However, genetic studies since then have proven the accuracy of the historical record as laid out in March of the Titans.

Below is a report, first published in the Annal of Human Genetics, which confirm the admixture of Moorish and sub-Saharan African genes into Portugal.

The report, prepared by Portuguese scientists, specifically names the slave trade as the source of this genetic input.

Needless to say, I am not happy about the fact that this happened, but at least readers will be able to see that the internet cranks who snipe at me are just liars and that March of the Titans has been proven correct once again.

Diversity of mtDNA lineages in Portugal: not a genetic edge of European variation (Full paper here as a PDF)

Annals of Human Genetics, 2000, vol. 64 (6), pp. 491-506

Pereira L ( Instituto de Patologia e Imunologia Molecular da Universidade do Porto (IPATIMUP), R. Dr. Roberto Frias s/no, 4200 Porto, PORTUGAL); Prata M.J; Amorim A ( Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade do Porto, Pr. tomes Teixeira, 4050 Porto, PORTUGAL)

The analysis of the hypervariable regions I and II of mitochondrial DNA in Portugal showed that this Iberian population presents a higher level of diversity than some neighbouring populations.

The classification of the different sequences into haplogroups revealed the presence of all the most important European haplogroups, including those that expanded through Europe in the Palaeolithic, and those whose expansion has occurred during the Neolithic.

Additionally a rather distinct African influence was detected in this Portuguese survey, as signalled by the distributions of haplogroups U6 and L, present at higher frequencies than those usually reported in Iberian populations.

The geographical distributions of both haplogroups were quite different, with U6 being restricted to North Portugal whereas L was widespread all over the country.

This seems to point to different population movements as the main contributors for the two haplogroup introductions.

We hypothesise that the recent Black African slave trade could have been the mediator of most of the L sequence inputs, while the population movement associated with the Muslim rule of Iberia has predominantly introduced U6 lineages.

In this work we have analysed HVRI and HVRII diversity in Portugal, the westernmost country of the Iberian Peninsula, with the aim of obtaining a better characterisation of European mtDNA variability.

We have considered three main regions in Portugal: North, Central and South. This was done in parallel with a study of Y chromosome biallelic markers that has revealed statistical differences between the south compared to the north and central regions (Pereira et al. 2000).

In the Portuguese sample analysed two haplo groups, U6 and L, that have been reported as occurring sporadically in other European populations, were detected with comparatively high frequency.

Both haplogroups were characterised by high levels of diversity and displayed very irregular mismatch distributions (Figure 2E and F).

Moreover, haplogroup U6 was found to be  restricted to the North region of the country, whereas the L sequences were spread all over the country.

These haplogroups have been reported to be characteristic of African populations, where their frequency is inversely correlated with the North-South axis: the frequency of U6 is high in North Africa and decreases in a southerly direction, being almost absent south of the equator; the L cluster has an opposite distribution (Rando et al. 1998, 1999; Watson et al. 1996; Mateu et al. 1996).

In Portugal, as well as generally in Iberia, many migration waves from both North and sub-Saharan African populations are well documented.

The geographical proximity of North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula certainly afforded many opportunities for mutual population contacts.

Among them, we stress the movement of Berbers and Arabs that took place during the very recent Muslim rule of Iberia (from the 8th century to the end of the 15th, in some regions).

In addition, many sub-Saharan individuals entered the region during the slave trade period, from its very beginning (middle 15th century) until its total ban in the late 19 th century.

As it would be interesting to find out the origin of the L and U6 sequences detected in Portugal, we have tried to compare the motifs of the sequences observed in Portugal with those described in the literature for several populations (Figures 3 and 4).

However most of the matches found for the Portuguese sequences were with sequences widely distributed in Africa, and no clear pattern of geographic clustering was detected.

Admitting that U6 sequences could have been at least partially introduced by Berber people during the Muslim rule of Iberia, it is strange to find them restricted to North Portugal.

As a matter of fact, most historical sources document a deeper influence of Berber (as well as Arab) people in Central and particularly South Iberia (as judged from toponyms and general cultural affinities), compared to North Iberia where the Muslim presence is recorded to have been more ephemeral and consequently to have made less cultural and demographic impact.

The data does not exclude the possibility that U6 introductions could have been additionally reinforced by later sub-Saharan inputs mediated by the African slave trade.

Even if this mixed scenario is plausible, the presence of U6 sequences exclusively in North Portugal is a question that deserves further analysis.

The hypothesis of an earlier introduction in the region does not seem to be favoured, neither by its presence in a restricted geographical area, nor by the high level of heterogeneity that characterises the set of sequences that were found among this haplogroup.

With respect to the L sequences, it is widely accepted that they have a sub-Saharan origin, excepting some L3* lineages that, as analysis of Figure 4 suggests, might indeed have a non-African origin.

The presence of L sequences in North African regions does not allow us to exclude the possibility that population influxes from this region, namely the above referred Berber/Arab movement, have introduced a significant fraction of L sequences into Iberia.

However, it seems more likely that most of the L lineages found nowadays in Portugal have been carried by African slaves, since the country was actively involved in the Transatlantic slave trade.

Nine out of 17 L sequences found in this study showed matches with widespread African sequences, and with regard to the 8 remaining sequences the absence of matches can be due to the present bias in the description of sub-Saharan mtDNA variability.

Broad areas corresponding to Ivory Coast, Angola and Mozambique, which represented very important sources of African slaves, remain uncharacterised.

There were more African slaves in Portugal than in any other European country: in 1550, Lisbon boasted 10000 resident slaves in a population of 100000, and Portugal as a whole probably had over 40000 (Thomas, 1998).

In the mid-sixteenth century the birth of slaves’ children was stimulated in Portugal for internal traffic purposes.

Inter-breeding between autochthonous individuals and African slaves certainly occurred and the predominant mating must have been between slave African females and autochthonous males, due to social pressures and also for legal reasons: offspring of slave females would be slaves, whereas offspring of slave males would not.

Therefore, breeding between slave African males and white females, besides being socially repressed, would not bring any economic profit.

If the pattern of genetic admixture was markedly sex influenced, the signature of this recent

African influence would be expected to be very different in the maternally inherited gene pool and in the paternally inherited one.

In a recent study based on Y chromosome biallelic markers (Pereira et al. 2000) we have reported the absence of typical sub-Saharan haplogroups in the Y chromosome Portuguese pool.

This finding, and the detection of L sequences at 7.1% in the mitochondrial pool, both seem to support the above-mentioned pattern of admixture with African slaves.

Conclusions

This finding, as well as the high level of haplogroup diversity, suggests the influence of specific demographic factors acting in the Portuguese population, and led us to hypothesise that an important modulator of the present Portuguese mtDNA variability could have been the influx of distinct mtDNA lineages at historically quite different times.

Sharing the features of mtDNA diversity generally registered in Europeans (all European haplogroups were detected), Portugal has in addition received significant North and sub-Saharan African influences.

Frequencies of haplogroups specific to these regions were higher than those reported for other European populations: 7% of North African sequences were detected (restricted to North Portugal and representing almost 3%of the total sample), and sub-Saharan African sequences were found to be spread throughout the country, with frequencies between 5% and 9.8%.

Although statistically significant differences were not detected between the three sub-samples considered, the geographic distribution pattern observed for U6 and L sequences strongly suggest that different population movements were responsible for their introduction into the country, although none of them had enough demographic impact to induce regional differentiation.

The introduction of L sequences in Portugal was tentatively imputed mainly to the modern slave trade that occurred between the 15th and 19th centuries.

Both the great number of slaves that entered Portugal and their very diverse African geographic origin are consistent with the data set now reported.

However, we cannot exclude some North-African contribution to present-day Portuguese L lineages.

While the population movement associated with the slave trade may be responsible by some U6 inputs, we suggest that U6 sequences were predominantly introduced into Portugal during the Berber/Arab invasion of the Peninsula.

However, the observation that haplogroup U6 is restricted to North Portugal is puzzling, considering the more pronounced impact of the Muslin rule in south Iberia and the widespread presence of African slaves throughout the country, and deserves further investigation.

After many months of hard slog - part of the reason I have not had much time to blog of late - I am happy to announce that the second volume in the new expanded March of the Titans quadrilogy is now finished.

The first volume, Awakening: The Rise of Western Civilization, was published earlier this year. That volume was an update and expansion of the first 19 chapters of March of the Titans. Volume II contains chapters 20 to 40.

The idea of breaking the book up into four smaller parts was motivated by the staggering shipping costs involved in moving the big one volume book around. Shipping across the Atlantic by airmail, for example, is more than the cost of the book itself.

The smaller sized volumes are also much easier to read, handle and store.

The basic text has remained the same in that nothing has been taken away. The primary changes have been the final expulsion of the last of the typos and grammatical errors.

Volume I also saw chapter 9 made into a prologue. I decided it was probably best to explain the racial reasons behind the rise and fall of civilizations as an introduction rather than leaving it till after the Egypt chapter, as it was in the original version.

Additions to Volume I focused on the classical Greek and Roman sections, and in particular the racial changes which led to the fall of those civilizations.

It also included a substantial appendix section listing DNA tests, classical writings and other material which supports the book’s basic thesis of the rise and fall of civilizations according to their racial homogeneity. The book has 285 pages, 6″x9″ format. It is available in soft cover here, and hard cover here.

Volume II focuses on the creation of the states which make up modern Europe. It has 398 pages, 6″x9″ format.

This period runs from the end of the Roman Empire to modern times.

It also deals with the Viking era and five Great Race Wars: the Crusades, the Bulgar and Avar invasions, Genghis Khan, and the Ottoman holocaust.

Once again, the basic text has remained intact. However, substantial additions have been made to most of the individual nations’ chapters, particularly in areas which I deliberately skimmed over in the original manuscript.

Breaking the book down into smaller volumes reduced the space pressure caused by the one volume. This allowed me to expand on a number of topics which I always wanted to add, but till now, never have. They include:

- A small section on the Spanish-American War of 1898;
- A small section on Cardinal Richelieu of France;
- A small section on Charles De Gaulle and his opposition to Third World immigration into France;
- The Great Fire of London;
- An expansion of the Welsh wars against the English;
- A small section on the 1917 Balfour Declaration and its implications;
- An expansion of the course of the Anglo-Dutch Wars;
- The development of the European Union with its unofficial headquarters in Brussels;
- A discussion of the “Khazar-Jewish” link and a genetic study which shows that only a small number of Ashkenazi Jews have that heritage. The “Jews are Khazars” theory is in essence incorrect;
- A small section dealing with Russian leader Svyatoslav’s destruction of the Khazar Empire;
- A small section dealing with the Lidice massacre in 1942, committed by the Nazis in reprisal for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in Prague;
- An expanded section on the Ottoman Turkish sieges of Vienna in 1529 and 1683. This includes a fuller description of the great battle which saw Europe saved from Islamification by a Polish army under Jan Sobieski;
- A small section on the Skull Tower massacre committed by the Ottoman Turks against Serbian nationalists who attempted to drive the Muslims out of their country in 1809;
- An expanded section on the Armenian Holocaust committed by the Ottoman Turks from 1915-1923;
- An expansion of post-World War II Greek history;
- An expansion of the events and implications of the Germanic Lombardic invasion of Italy and its racial effects upon that country following the fall of the Roman Empire;
- An expanded section on the unification of Italy;
- An expanded section on Italy’s participation in World War I and World War II, including a new section on Mussolini and the Salo Republic (1943-1945);
- A new section on the history of post-World War II Italy;
- An expanded section on the German classical music composers;
- New sections dealing with post-World War II German history, including the Berlin Blockade, the Berlin Wall, the Cold War, the creation of the Federal Republic of West Germany and the German Democratic Republic, and the Red Army Faction-led Communist insurrection in West Germany;
- A new section dealing with the events in Hungary from 1038 to 1100 which saw pagan rebellions against the first Christian kings in that country;
- A new section on post-World War II Austrian history;
- An expanded section on early Russian history including the establishment and eventual destruction of the Khanate of the Golden Horde in the south of that country.

As the reader can well imagine, I am quite excited about the new book. It is available in softcover here and hardcover here.

* I hope to have the remaining volumes ready within the next few months:

* Volume Three: Manifest Destiny-European Expansion across the Globe

Starting with the impact of the Dark Ages, the Renaissance, and the Reformation, this volume deals with the colonization of the world by Europe. Includes the founding of America, and the two Great Race Wars fought there.

* Volume Four: Twilight-The Impending Death of the West

Starting with the western origin of the Industrial Revolution, this volume deals with the fratricidal World Wars I and II, the rise and fall of Communism, and the mass Third World immigration wave which now threatens to engulf and finally wipe out Western Civilization.

Over the years, I and my book, March of the Titans, have been the subject of an intense amount of vitriolic attacks from people objecting to my mention of racial mixing in Southern Europe as being the cause of the decline of the classical civilizations.

In addition, I have also been vilified for daring to mention the very obvious admixture of sub-Saharan genes in Iberia (particularly Portugal) which resulted from the slave trading era.

The very latest genetic studies have conclusively proven the accuracy of March of the Titans.

I take no delight in having it confirmed — I would much rather have it otherwise, but, be assured, that revenge upon these internet vermin who have nothing better to do than slander me on their silly little blogs is sweet.

Herewith follows a selection of the genetic reports which confirm that March of the Titans is 100 percent correct:

Moors and Saracens in Europe: estimating the medieval North African male legacy in southern Europe

European Journal of Human Genetics (2009) 17, 848-852; published 21 January 2009 (Full PDF Copy)

“Abstract

To investigate the male genetic legacy of the Arab rule in southern Europe during medieval times, we focused on specific Northwest African haplogroups and identified evolutionary close STR-defined haplotypes in Iberia, Sicily and the Italian peninsula.

Our results point to a higher recent Northwest African contribution in Iberia and Sicily in agreement with historical data.

Southern Italian regions known to have experienced long-term Arab presence also show an enrichment of Northwest African types. The forensic and genomic implications of these findings are discussed.

Introduction

After the collapse of the Roman Empire in Europe, the Arab dominance across the Mediterranean was one of the most impressive historical events that occurred in this region.

Arabs appeared on the southern shores of the Mediterranean in the early seventh century and quickly conquered North Africa.

They spread their language and religion to the native Northwest (NW) African Berber populations, which represented the bulk of the Muslim army that later conquered southern Europe.

Referred to either as Moors (in Iberia) or Saracens (in South Italy and Sicily), their arrival in Europe dates to 711 AD, rapidly subduing most of Iberia and Sicily (831 AD).

Among European kingdoms their presence was seen as a constant danger, and only by the fifteenth century was the Iberian reconquest completed.

In the thirteenth century Frederick II destroyed Arab rule in Sicily and between 1221 and 1226 he moved all the Arabs of Sicily to the city of Lucera, north of Apulia.

Lucera was later destroyed by Charles II (1301) but an Arab community was recorded in Apulia in 1336.

Guerrilla warfare was still conducted by Arabs in Sicily even after Frederick II’s actions.

So far, Y chromosome studies attempting to estimate the medieval North African (MNA) contribution to southern Europe have focused almost exclusively on the North African haplogroup E3b1b1b-M81, and have only partially taken into consideration the evolutionary relationships among haplotypes.

To generate a more comprehensive view of the genetic legacy of the MNA dominance in Europe, we systematically screened for Y chromosome haplotypes within three NW African specific haplogroups, across multiple southern European populations, and performed additional genotyping to refine the available genetic data.

Our results confirm a general correlation between historical and genetic data: Iberia and Sicily are the regions with the highest MNA male legacy.

Results and discussion

To address the degree of historical NW African contribution, we used a combined SNP-STR approach.

The coalescent times for the three NW African specific haplogroups ranges between 5000 and 24 000 years, spanning a number of historical scenarios each potentially explaining their presence on the Northern Mediterranean shores.

It follows that estimating MNA genetic legacy on the basis of haplogroups’ occurrence only would be misleading.

To avoid this limitation, we have extended our analysis to include STR data whose high mutation rate allows one to focus on more recent events.

We screened more than 2300 South European samples (Figure 1; Table 1) to identify those haplotypes which are evolutionary close to NW African chromosomes.

Total frequencies for these chromosomes range between 0 and 19% across southern Europe, the highest being in Cantabria and comprising a sample from the Pas Valley, previously shown to have an extremely high frequency of the North African haplogroup E1b1b1b.

Our estimates of NW African chromosome frequencies were highest in Iberia and Sicily, in accordance with the long-term Arab rule in these two areas.

The chromosome frequencies in the two samples were not significantly different from each other (Fisher’s exact test P=0.83) but were both significantly different from the peninsular Italy sample (P<0.01).

An inspection of Table 1 reveals a non-random distribution of MNA types in the Italian peninsula, with at least a twofold increase over the Italian average estimate in three geographically close samples across the southern Apennine mountains (East Campania, Northwest Apulia, Lucera).

When pooled together, these three Italian samples displayed a local frequency of 4.7%, significantly different from the North and the rest of South Italy (P<0.01), but not from Iberia and Sicily (P=0.12 and P=0.33, respectively).

Arab presence is historically recorded in these areas following Frederick II’s relocation of Sicilian Arabs.

In Iberia, a non-random distribution might also potentially be present, as suggested by our lower estimates in the northeast (Basque region and Catalans), but more samples across the peninsula will be required to properly address this issue.

Assuming that a large population in regions such as Iberia, Sicily and Italy was present in the past, the ratio between Y chromosomes with a MNA ancestry and other types will have stayed approximately constant across time.

Smaller areas, however, would have been influenced by drift, in the Pas Valley for example.

Consistent with historical data, no population in Central Europe or the Balkans shows the presence of recently introgressed NW African types besides a few chromosomes in Albania and Romania.

The increasing use of highly structured distributions of Y chromosome types to investigate the ethnic/geographic origin of unknown samples gives the identification of regions in Italy enriched with recently introgressed NW African types forensic relevance.

We found that more than 56% of the Italian individuals identified here as having a recent NW African do not have a match in a large Italian Y chromosome dataset comprising almost 1200 individuals.

Of these, 31% instead perfectly overlap with types from NW African populations, potentially providing misleading advice to investigators.

Such results are also of interest in the light of the expanding business of genealogical services offering Y chromosome analysis to identify an individual’s ethnic ancestry.

Our results clearly confirm that conclusions based on single chromosomes should be taken very cautiously.

What are the expected genomic consequences of this historically recent admixture event? Suppose that 40 generations ago there was a 5% male introgression of African DNA into the European gene pool, corresponding to a total contribution of 2.5% of genetic material.

Immediately after the admixture event, a fraction of chromosomes within Europe would have African ancestry.

Recombination since this event will have substantially reduced the size of the fragments of African ancestry within European haplotypes, and with these parameters we would today expect to see an approximately exponential distribution (measuring size using genetic distance) of fragment sizes, with a mean value of roughly 2.6 cM.

Assuming a genome-wide average recombination rate of 1.3 cM/Mb, 2.5% of a typical present day southern European genome would consist on average of 2 Mb regions of African DNA.

We therefore believe that signatures of this event would be correctly identified using modern dense genotype data.

By using northern Italian and Mozabite samples recently genotyped for a large SNP autosomal dataset as the best available proxy of Italian and northern African populations, we estimated that about 41.5% of more than 640 000 genotyped SNPs showed an absolute allele frequency difference of at least 10% between the two groups.

Such frequency differences (and sometimes even smaller) between cases and controls characterized the vast majority of the inferred disease-causing SNPs in a recent genome-wide investigation.

In general then, it is critical to take population structure into account so as to avoid false positives in case-control association studies.

Thus, an understanding of similar historical admixture events is likely to aid researchers conducting such studies.”

The Genetic Legacy of Religious Diversity and Intolerance: Paternal Lineages of Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula

The American Journal of Human Genetics, Volume 83, Issue 6, 725-736, 04 December 2008

“Abstract

Most studies of European genetic diversity have focused on large-scale variation and interpretations based on events in prehistory, but migrations and invasions in historical times could also have had profound effects on the genetic landscape.

The Iberian Peninsula provides a suitable region for examination of the demographic impact of such recent events, because its complex recent history has involved the long-term residence of two very different populations with distinct geographical origins and their own particular cultural and religious characteristics-North African Muslims and Sephardic Jews.

To address this issue, we analyzed Y chromosome haplotypes, which provide the necessary phylogeographic resolution, in 1140 males from the Iberian Peninsula and Balearic Islands.

Admixture analysis based on binary and Y-STR haplotypes indicates a high mean proportion of ancestry from North African (10.6%) and Sephardic Jewish (19.8%) sources.

Despite alternative possible sources for lineages ascribed a Sephardic Jewish origin, these proportions attest to a high level of religious conversion (whether voluntary or enforced), driven by historical episodes of social and religious intolerance, that ultimately led to the integration of descendants.

In agreement with the historical record, analysis of haplotype sharing and diversity within specific haplogroups suggests that the Sephardic Jewish component is the more ancient.

The geographical distribution of North African ancestry in the peninsula does not reflect the initial colonization and subsequent withdrawal and is likely to result from later enforced population movement-more marked in some regions than in others-plus the effects of genetic drift.”

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This genetic study generated quite a few media articles. Here are two:

DNA study shows 20 percent of Iberian population has Jewish ancestry

By Nicholas Wade Published: Thursday, December 4, 2008

“Spain and Portugal have a history of fervent Catholicism, but almost a third of the population now turns out to have a non-Christian genetic heritage. About 20 percent of the current population of the Iberian Peninsula has Sephardic Jewish ancestry, and 11 percent bear Moorish DNA signatures, a team of geneticists reports.

The genetic signatures reflect the forced conversions to Christianity in the 14th and 15th centuries after Christian armies wrested Spain back from Muslim control.

The new finding bears on two very different views of Spanish history: One holds that Spanish civilization is Catholic and all other influences are foreign, the other that Spain has been enriched by drawing from all three of its historical cultures - Catholic, Jewish and Muslim.

The genetic study, based on an analysis of Y chromosomes, was conducted by a team of biologists led by Mark Jobling of the University of Leicester in England and Francesc Calafell of the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona.

The biologists developed a Y chromosome signature for Sephardic men by studying Sephardic Jewish communities in places where Jews migrated after being expelled from Spain in the years from 1492 to 1496.

They also characterized the Y chromosomes of the Arab and Berber army that invaded Spain in 711 A.D. from data on people now living in Morocco and Western Sahara.

After a period of forbearance under the Arab Umayyad dynasty, Spain entered a long period of religious intolerance, with its Muslim Berber dynasties forcing both Christians and Jews to convert to Islam, and the victorious Christians then expelling Jews and Muslims or forcing both to convert.

The genetic study, reported online Thursday in the American Journal of Human Genetics, indicates there was a high level of conversion among Jews.

Jonathan Ray, a professor of Jewish studies at Georgetown University, said that a high proportion of people with Sephardic ancestry was to be expected.

“Jews formed a very large part of the urban population up until the great conversions,” he said.

The genetic analysis is “very compelling,” said Jane Gerber, an expert on Sephardic history at the City University of New York, and weighs against scholars who have argued that there were very few Jewish conversions to Christianity.

Ray raised the question of what the DNA evidence might mean on a personal level. “If four generations on I have no knowledge of my genetic past,” Ray said, “how does that affect my understanding of my own religious association?”

The issue is one that has confronted Calafell, an author of the study. His own Y chromosome is probably of Sephardic ancestry - the test is not definitive for individuals - and his surname is from a town in Catalonia; Jews undergoing conversion often took surnames from place names.

Jews first settled in Spain during the early years of the Roman empire. Sephardic Jews bear that name because the Hebrew word for Spain is Sepharad.”

DNA Reveals Spain’s Hidden History

Published 16 December, 2008, 11:15

“DNA tests have proved there were mass conversions of faith in Spain over six centuries ago, and that the country now has a prevalent Jewish and Muslim mix.

Spain’s turbulent past was made even more perplexing when scientists unveiled remarkable new evidence that suggests there was a mass conversion to Catholicism by Muslims and Jews in the 15th and 16th centuries.

During this time, Spain was under horrendous religious oppression. It is perhaps the country’s bleakest period. Historically, it has generally been agreed that some time after they conquered Spain, the Moors expelled all Muslims and Jews who refused to convert to the Catholic faith.

Although historians have often debated how many Jews converted and how many chose exile, the new evidence controversially challenges the belief that the Moors’ desire to convert Jews and the Muslims caused two separate migrations from Spain.

Jane S. Gerber, an expert in Sephardic history at the City University of New York, believes the study shows that the numbers of religious conversions to Catholicism were “grossly underestimated.”

The study, conducted by the American Journal of Human Genetics, gathered evidence through means of DNA testing and concluded that thousands of Spanish people, in particular Jews, converted to the Catholic faith in order to remain in the country.

Francesc Calafell of the Pompeu Fabra University and Mark Jobling of Leicester University led the genetic study, which was based on an analysis of Y-chromosomes of Sephardic Jews in areas where they migrated to after being expelled from Spain in 1492 - 1496 and the DNA of over 1000 Spanish and Portuguese men.

The geneticists then determined whether the participant’s Y chromosome came from a Jewish or Moorish predecessor or from another source.

Stunningly, evidence revealed that 20 per cent of the Iberian Peninsula’s population has Sephardic Jewish ancestry and that 11 per cent of the Spanish and Portuguese population has DNA matching Moorish descent.

Fransesc Calafell said he did not anticipate the findings. ”The Jewish link was particularly surprising, we had certainly not expected it,” he said.

The compelling evidence sheds new light on previous beliefs that few Jews converted to Christianity in Spain during this period.

The findings came as a surprise not only to historians and academics, but also to the men who participated in the DNA tests, many of who were completely oblivious of their ancestry.”

- O - O - O - O - O  - O -

Portugal has the highest frequency of the female mediated mtDNA haplogroup L of Sub-Saharan origin in Europe. This is the result of the slave trade.

In 2003, a study by Brehm at al. which analysed 525 Portuguese individuals reported mtDNA L haplogroups at 11.8% in the south, 8.1% in the center, 3.3% in the north and also found a significant Sub-Saharan imprint in the Autonomous regions of Portugal, with L haplogroups constituting about 13% of the lineages in Madeira and 3.4 % in the Azores.

In a 2005 study by Pereira et al. that analysed 549 Portuguese individuals, sub-Saharan mtDNA L haplogroups were found at rates of 11.38% in the south, 5.02% in the center and 3.21% in the north.

African Female Heritage in Iberia: A Reassessment of mtDNA Lineage Distribution in Present Times

Human Biology, Volume 77, Number 2, April 2005

“The Iberian peninsula is a peripheral region of Europe in close proximity to Africa.

Its inhabitants have an overall mtDNA genetic landscape typical of European background, although with signs of some African influence, whose features we deemed to disclose by analyzing available mtDNA HVRI distributions and new data.

We analyzed 1,045 sequences.

The most relevant results are the following:

(1) North African sequences (haplogroup U6) present an overall frequency of 2.39%, and sub-Saharan sequences reach 3.83%, values that are, in both cases, much higher than those generally observed in Europe; and

(2) there is a substantial geographic heterogeneity in the distribution of these lineages (haplogroup L being the most frequent in the south, whereas haplogroup U6 is generally more common in the north).

The analysis of the observed diversity within each haplogroup strongly suggests that both were recently introduced (in historical times).

Although for haplogroup U6 the documented event that is demographically compatible is the Islamic period (beginning of the 8th century to the end of the 15th century), for haplogroup L the most probable origin is the modern slave trade (mid 15th century to the end of the 18th century).

However, the observed geographic structuring for one of the haplogroups does not fit the expected distribution provided by simplistic historical considerations.

In fact, although for haplogroup L the north-south increasing frequency is corroborated by historical data, the opposite trend, observed for haplogroup U6, is more difficult to reconcile with the magnitude and time span of the Islamic political and cultural influence, which lasted longer and was more intense in the south.

To clarify this conundrum, we need not only a substantial increase in the amount of mtDNA data (particularly for North Africa) but also new historical data and interpretations.”

HLA genes in Portugal inferred from sequence-based typing: in the crossroad between Europe and Africa

Tissue Antigens, Volume 66, Number 1, July 2005 , pp. 26-36(11)

“Abstract:

The human leukocyte antigen-A (HLA-A), -B and -DRB1 polymorphism was examined in the Portuguese population, discriminating between North, Centre and South inhabitants.

All data were obtained at high-resolution level, using sequence-based typing.

The most frequent allele at each locus was A* 020101 (26%), B* 440301 and B* 510101 (12% each) and DRB1* 070101 (15%).

The predominant three-locus haplotype was A*020101-B*440301-DRB1*070101 (3.1%), highly frequent in North Portugal (5.4%), lower in Centre (2%) and absent in the South.

The present study demonstrates that the Portuguese population has been genetically influenced by Europeans and North Africans, via several historic immigrations.

North Portugal seems to concentrate, probably due to the pressure of Arab expansion, an ancient genetic pool originated from several North Africans and Europeans, influences throughout millenniums.

South Portugal shows a North African genetic influence, probably of recent origin by means of Berbers accompanying Arab expansion.

We found that Centre Portugal is the distribution limit of some alleles and haplotypes that characterize the North or the South of the country.

Despite North, Centre and South Portugal not being significantly different in allele frequencies, this study shows that HLA allele and haplotype frequencies are not homogeneous in the country.

North and South Portugal show more similarity to North Africans in opposition to Centre which appears closer to Europeans.”

North African genes in Iberia studied by Y-chromosome DNA haplotype V

Human Immunology, Volume 62, Issue 9, September 2001, Pages 885-888

American Society for Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics. Published by Elsevier Science,Inc.

“Abstract

Haplotype V at the Y-chromosome specific DNA polymorphism (p49/TaqI) was reported in a study concerning 487 males originating from five different geographic locations in Iberia and North Africa.

The highest frequency of haplotype V (68.9%) was previously observed in Berbers from Morocco, and it was previously established that this haplotype is a characteristic Berberian haplotype in North Africa.

Percentages of haplotype V geographic distribution reveal a gradient of decreasing frequencies with latitude in Iberia: 40.8% in Andalusia, 36.2% in Portugal, 12.1% in Catalonia, and 11.3% in Basques; such a cline of decreasing haplotype V frequencies from the South to the North in Iberia clearly establishes a North African toward Iberian gene flow.”

North African genes in Iberia studied by Y-chromosome DNA haplotype 5

Human Biology, Oct 2001 by Lucotte, Gerard, Gerard, Nathalie, Mercier, Geraldine

“In our own present data concerning southwest European frequencies, haplotype 15 frequencies are heterogeneous among the five populations studied.

The study of variations in the frequency of haplotype 5, the second most frequent (31.6%) haplotype is the main purpose of the present study.

The most elevated value obtained for haplotype 5 in our series was for Berbers (68.9%), and percentages of haplotype distributions show a gradient of decreasing frequency north from Morocco: 40.8% in Andalusia, 36.2% in Portugal, 12.1% in Catalonia, and 11.3% in the Basque region.

Haplotype 5 frequencies are heterogeneous among the five populations tested; there is a significant Haplotype 5, the “Berber haplotype” (Lucotte et al. 2000), therefore allows assessment of the patrilineal North African gene flow into Iberia.

For the corresponding matrilineal gene flow, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analyses have already shown that the Iberian Peninsula is differentiated in terms of levels of genetic diversity and presence of unique lineage groups (forte-Real et al. 1996).

In this last study it might be considered that the North African Berber branch had some input into Iberia (quantified as approximately 10% in Spanish mtDNA lineages, 7% in Portuguese, and none in Basque).

Initial studies on genetic markers corresponding to nuclear gene frequencies in human populations in the Iberian Peninsula (Bertranpetit and CavalliSforza 1991; Calafell and Bertranpetit 1993) have shown that the first principal component (PC) of gene frequencies (the percentage of variation explained by this factor being 27.1%) is that between people originally of Basque and nonBasque descent.

The second PC (14.5% of variation explained, and 41.6% cumulated) points to the genetic divergence between Catalonia and the central and south central parts of Iberia. The third PC (12.3%, and 53.9% cumulated) concerns the Mediterranean as opposed to the Atlantic regions.

The fourth and fifth factors cover a reasonable portion of variance (9.6% and 9.0%, respectively), but they were more difficult to interpret.”

North African Berber and Arab Influences in the Western-Mediterranean Revealed by YChromosome DNA Haplotypes

Human Biology, June 2006

“Summary:

We have analyzed Y-chromosome diversity in the western Mediterranean area, examining p49a,f TaqI haplotype V and subhaplotypes Vb (Berber) and Va (Arab).

A total of 2,196 unrelated DNA samples, belonging to 22 populations from North Africa and the southern Mediterranean coast of occidental Europe, have been typed.

Subhaplotype Vb, predominant in a Berber population of Morocco (63.5%), was also found at high frequencies in southern Portugal (35.9%) and Andalusia (25.4%).

The Arab subhaplotype Va, predominant in Algeria (53.9%) and Tunisia (50.6%), was also found at a relatively high frequency in Sicily (23.1%) and Naples (16.4%); its highest frequency in Iberia was in northern Portugal (22.8%) and Andalusia (15.5%).

In Iberia there is a gradient of decreasing frequencies in latitude for both subhaplotypes Va and Vb, related to eight centuries of Muslim domination (8th to 15th centuries) in southern Iberia.

During the 7th century A.D., Muslim people coming from the Arabian peninsula and the Middle East invaded North Africa. The most important population movement relating both sides of the Mediterranean Sea was the conquest of the Iberian peninsula by North African populations (with recruited Berbers), soon after the first Muslim invasion.

More than eight centuries (8th to 15th centuries) of Muslim domination in the southem part of Iberia imparted an important cultural legacy (Conrad 1998) and probable gene exchanges between North African and Iberian populations.

Haplotype XV was also predominant in the first European study we published (Lucotte and Hazout 1996), with elevated frequencies in French Basques.

The geographic distribution of haplotype XV in Europe reveals a gradient of decreasing frequencies from this Basque focus toward eastern peripheral countries (Lucotte and Loirat 1999) but also toward southwestern countries.

According to the Y Chromosome Consortium (2002) nomenclature, haplotype XV corresponds to the M173 lineage (Dieterlen and Lucotte 2005). Haplotype V {A2,C0,D0,FI,ir) is the most frequent haplotype in North Africa (Lucotte et al. 2000), with a particularly high frequency (55%) in the populations with a relative predominance of Berber origin.

Our previous study on the subject examined the relative frequencies of haplotype V in four Iberian populations compared with a Berber population living In North Africa (Lucotte et al. 2001).

The highest frequency of baplotype V (68.9%) was observed in Berbers from Morocco, and the geographic distribution of haplotype V revealed a gradient of decreasing frequencies with latitude in Iberia (40.8% in Andalusia; 36.2% in Portugal;  12.1% in Catalonia, and 11.3% in the Basque Country) (Lucotte et al. 2001); such a dine of decreasing haplotype V frequencies from the south to the north in Iberia clearly established a gene flow from North Africa toward Iberia.”

Reduced genetic structure of the Iberian peninsula revealed by Y-chromosome analysis: implications for population demography

European Journal of Human Genetics (2004) 12, 855-863.

“Europe has been influenced by both intra- and intercontinental migrations.

Since the Iberian peninsula was a refuge during the Last Glacial Maximum, demographic factors associated with contraction, isolation, subsequent expansion and gene flow episodes have contributed complexity to its population history.

In this work, we analysed 26 Y-chromosome biallelic markers in 568 chromosomes from 11 different Iberian population groups and compared them to published data on the Basques and Catalans to gain insight into the paternal gene pool of these populations and find out to what extent major demographic processes account for their genetic structure.

Our results reveal a reduced, although geographically correlated, Y-chromosomal interpopulation variance (1.2%), which points to a limited heterogeneity in the region.

Coincidentally, spatial analysis of genetic distances points to a focal distribution of Y-chromosome haplogroups in this area.

These results indicate that neither old or recent Levantine expansions nor North African contacts have influenced the current Iberian Y-chromosome diversity so that geographical patterns can be identified.

Outside a European context, some studies have investigated the degree of African gene flow in Iberian populations.

Although classical markers have failed to detect this influence, roughly 10% of Iberian mtDNA and Y-chromosome haplotypes have been found to be of African origin.

Moreover, unlike the rest of Europe, the presence of markers with probable North African origin, the mtDNA U613,30 and the Y-chromosome E3b,26 points to a specific Northwest African influence in Iberia.

Northwest African influences in the south of Iberia are reconciled with the slow reconquest of the Iberian peninsula from the North by the Christians, which lasted seven centuries and ended in Granada in 1492.

In fact, Bosch et al dated the specific Northwest African male influence to Iberia as E700 ybp, which they linked to the historical Islamic occupation.

Favouring this, Lucotte et al27 detected that the characteristic Berber Y-chromosome haplotype p49a,f htV showed a gradient of decreasing frequencies with latitude in Iberia.

As the Moslem influence in the Cantabrian fringe was barely appreciable, how can the Northwest African influence in northern parts of Iberia be explained?

Other studies with the Y-chromosome, and also with other genetic markers, have detected this Northwest African influence in northern Iberia.”