Arthur Kemp’s Blog

I wrote March of the Titans before the science of DNA and genetic testing had even properly emerged, but, I am happy to say, the results of DNA tests have confirmed the accuracy of the historical record as I wrote it way back then.

One of the more interesting examples of this came in 2007 with a study done in Tuscany, Italy.

Now the people of Tuscany had long claimed that they were the descendants of the Etruscan people, the pre-Indo-European civilization which, once absorbed by the invading Indo-European Latini tribe, laid the basis of the Roman civilization (as detailed in the early chapters of March of the Titans).

However, the historical record was at odds with the Tuscan peoples’ claim to be the descendants of the Etruscans. The historical record showed very clearly that the Etruscans and the Latini people were assimilated out of existence by the Roman Empire.

In the south, they were absorbed into the genetically and culturally dissimilar mixed races of northern Africa (aggravated by the integration of the huge slave population in Rome) and in the north, they were absorbed into the genetically similar but culturally dissimilar European populations.

It was, therefore, impossible for the Etruscans to have survived.

Nonetheless, the rumor persisted that the people of modern Tuscany were somehow the descendants of the Etruscans.

Against that backdrop, I wrote in March of the Titans that the most likely scenario was that the Etruscans were a pre-Indo-European people (I even included them in my chapter dealing with the pre-Indo-European civilizations) who were absorbed into the Indo-European Latini tribe.

Together, this great joining of Mediterranean (Old European) people and Indo-Europeans laid the basis for the classical Roman civilization, I continued.

These two peoples were then assimilated out of existence, as described above.

March of the Titans then detailed the Germanic Lombard invasion of Northern Italy in 568 which largely displaced the mixed-race remnants of the collapsed Roman Empire.

Tuscany, lying to the north of Rome, was one of the regions heavily influenced by the Lombards, who, March of the Titans said, were originally Indo-European.

Now, if March of the Titans was right, DNA tests should reveal the following:

1. Etruscan DNA should be Old European in nature;

2. Modern Tuscan DNA would have no link to the Old European people; and

3. Modern Tuscan DNA would have its ultimate origin in the Indo-European heartland of the region around the Black Sea.

So, what has DNA testing from Tuscany revealed?

Glad to say, precisely, exactly, 100 percent, what March of the Titans said.

DNA testing on Etruscan bones recovered from graves showed that they were completely unrelated to modern Tuscan people.

DNA testing on the modern Tuscan people showed that their genetic origin was in Anatolia, which is located in modern Turkey, bounded by the Black Sea to the north and the Caucasus to the northeast — smack bang where it should be.

Isn’t that cool? I always knew what the historical record said, but it is much, much better to have it confirmed by unanswerable genetic evidence.

Here are the original studies:

1. No Link between Etruscans and Tuscans:

“For the first time, Stanford researchers have used novel statistical computer modeling to simulate demographic processes affecting the population of Tuscany over a 2,500-year time span.

“Rigorous tests used by the researchers have ruled out a genetic link between ancient Etruscans, the early inhabitants of central Italy, and the region’s modern day residents.

“The findings suggest that something either suddenly wiped out the Etruscans or the group represented a social elite that had little in common with the people who became the true ancestors of Tuscans, said Joanna Mountain, assistant professor of anthropological sciences.

“The findings are documented in ‘Serial Coalescent Simulations Suggest a Weak Genealogical Relationship Between Etruscans and Modern Tuscans,’ published May 15 in the online version of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Two years ago, Italian geneticists extracted maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA from the bones of 27 people called Etruscans found in six different necropolises (burial sites) in Tuscany.

“The female lineage was investigated because, unlike the male Y chromosome, many copies of mitochondrialDNA are found in each cell and thus are easier to extract, Mountain explained.

“The data represent one of the best collections of ancient human DNA in existence.

“‘If you get DNA out of one bone, you can try to say something about the past,’ Mountain said. ‘But they managed to get DNA out of quite a few bones.’

“The DNA of 49 people living in the region today was also sampled.

“Although data from the two groups revealed several differences, Mountain said, the researchers could not interpret if these were meaningful or significant.

“‘What we did was address the question: Do the present-day people look like they could be descendents of the Etruscan population?’

“The answer surprised Mountain. ‘We did the simulation study and there was nothing we could do-we couldn’t tweak it enough to get the modern people to look like they descended from the people in the Etruscan burial [sites],’ she said. ‘We couldn’t make it fit with the simple inheritance direct lineage model.’

“The Stanford researchers used recently developed software called ‘Serial SimCoal’ to simulate genetic data based on different population scenarios, such as small (25,000 females) or large (300,000 females) populations of constant size, an expanding population, and scenarios involving migration and selection.

“Despite the range of scenarios created, the scientists could not find a match between the observed archaeological data and the simulations.”

- Ancient Etruscans are unlikely the ancestors of modern Tuscans, study finds (Stanford Report, May 17, 2006).

2: Modern Tuscans Show Link to Black Sea:

“Professor Alberto Piazza, from the University of Turin, Italy . . . and his colleagues set out to study genetic samples from three present-day Italian populations living in Murlo, Volterra, and Casentino in Tuscany, central Italy.

“The scientists compared DNA samples taken from healthy males living in Tuscany, Northern Italy, the Southern Balkans, the island of Lemnos in Greece, and the Italian islands of Sicily and Sardinia.

“The Tuscan samples were taken from individuals who had lived in the area for at least three generations, and were selected on the basis of their surnames, which were required to have a geographical distribution not extending beyond the linguistic area of sampling.

“The samples were compared with data from modern Turkish, South Italian, European and Middle-Eastern populations.

“‘We found that the DNA samples from individuals from Murlo and Volterra were more closely related those from near Eastern people than those of the other Italian samples’, says Professor Piazza.

“In Murlo particularly, one genetic variant is shared only by people from Turkey, and, of the samples we obtained, the Tuscan ones also show the closest affinity with those from Lemnos.’”

- Ancient Etruscans were immigrants from Anatolia, or what is now Turkey (European Society of Human Genetics, 16 Jun 2007)

* Note: This second report made by Processor Piazza went on to say “We think that our research provides convincing proof that Herodotus was right,” says Professor Piazza, “and that the Etruscans did indeed arrive from ancient Lydia. However, to be 100% certain we intend to sample other villages in Tuscany, and also to test whether there is a genetic continuity between the ancient Etruscans and modern-day Tuscans.”

The test between the ancient Etruscans and modern-day Tuscans had in fact been done the year before (as the first report above showed) and the conclusion was that there was no link.

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.”

- – -

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.”