Phoenician Dna?

[MMaddi]

What Dr. Spencer Wells said

I found a thread on the Genealogy-DNA e-mail list which discusses Jefferson's membership in the K2 yDNA subclade and his possible deep ancestry in the Mideast. Here is the link to a posting by David Faux (president of Ethnoancestry) in this thread - http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read...-06/1119997289

I don't see where Wells explicitly says that Jefferson had Phoenician ancestry, but Dr. Faux's posting is criticizing Wells for making such an assertion.

This is just getting more mysterious!

Mike

[josh w.]

I still am not clear on the basis of the K2 conclusion. According to Botrys the National Geographic project (Drs. Zallua and Wells) has only found J2 so far. If I understand correctly, the quote from Wells is about J2 rather than K2. Was there another study of the dna of ancient Phoenicians. Research on modern Lebanese is not exactly the same thing.

[Botrys]

I found a thread on the Genealogy-DNA e-mail list which discusses Jefferson's membership in the K2 yDNA subclade and his possible deep ancestry in the Mideast. Here is the link to a posting by David Faux (president of Ethnoancestry) in this thread - http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read...-06/1119997289

I don't see where Wells explicitly says that Jefferson had Phoenician ancestry, but Dr. Faux's posting is criticizing Wells for making such an assertion.

This is just getting more mysterious!

Mike

Interesting. thanks.

Phoenicians did build settlements in england so it is not far fetch that Jeferson might end up having phoencian heritage. Like you said, things are getting very interesting. People might one day be very surprised on how deep and broad the Phoenician expansion was. There're evidences that they discovered every continent there is, and built settlement on them.

[Botrys]

I still am not clear on the basis of the K2 conclusion. According to Bytros the National Geographic project (Drs. Zallua and Wells) has only found J2 so far. Was there another study of the dna of ancient Phoenicians. Research on modern Lebanese is not exactly the same thing.

Small correction; This is the initial published information. Since then they conducted more DNA testing but thye have not released any this new info yet.
It seems like Dr. Spencer (by reading the thread Mike posted) has presented new data. Why the heck they do not publish a full paper, and then we can have a decent discussion. It might be money related (TV program, and dvd sales), which I can understand.

[Kristin]

Wells said specifically that Jefferson's Ydna is of canannite origin. Syrian or Lebanese. This DNA originated in central or southwest Asia. Some of the DNA went north and is found amongst Scandinavians but most of this DNA is found in mediterranean groups. It reaches high frequencies in the middle east and Egypt. In Europe it is found mainly in Spain, Italy and a notable line in North Wales but it certainly is not the only group associated with the Phoenicians. I am curious as to the frequency in Malta. It could be that K2 is only found in places and groups associated with the Phoenicians and the percentage of K2, J1, J2 and so on mirror the Lebanese coast with amazing accuracy. It does not answer which group is more numerous. I would like them to publish a paper as well.

[josh w.]

Botrys, sorry about the typo regarding your name, I caught it a minute too late. Speaking of time, I might be wrong, but my impression is that the National Geographic posting came out before Dr. Zallua's presentation in Beruit . Yes, all this is quite frustrating.

[cacio]

Some more data about the levant Y from Capelli 2005:

Muslim lebanese (39 people) 18% E3b, 30% JxJ2, 25% J2, 12% (F*xIJK, that is, G), 5 K*(xP)
Christian lebanese (43 p) 16% E3b, 4 I, 9 JxJ2, 34 J2, 18 F*, 4 K*, 7 P*(xR1)
Malta (90p) 9 E3b, 8 JxJ2, 21 J2, 12 I, 6 F*, 4 K*, 32 R1b
Sicily (200p) roughly averaging: E3b 23%, 6 JxJ2, 21 J2, 6 I, 10 F*, 4K* , 22 R1b

Malta doesn't strike me as particularly different or more "Phoenician" than Sicily. The Lebanese sample is unfortunately small. The paper interprets the very different ratios of J1/J2 btw muslim and christian Lebanese as the impact of the Arab conquest. If this is correct, then Christian lebanese ought to display frequencies closer to the pre-Arab conquest.

As an (Italian) member of haplogroup L I was intrigued to see some L's in Lebanon (not in this paper, but on ysearch and in other studies). For instance, the Druze are 33% L. May this group have also been dispersed (though in tiny fractions) by the Phoenicians?

Regarding K2, its range is relatively wide: 8% in both Egypt and Oman, 7% Iraq, 3% Turkey, some in Ethiopia (but apparently very little in India). So mostly it is really the middle east.

cacio

[josh w.]

Like Mike I don't know where the K2 connection between Jefferson and the Phoenicians came from. Since Wells apparently made the point in 2005, was it based on Zallua's findings?. These results would be somewhat surprising given other research on the Levant and Israel (ancient Canaan) showing different haplogroups to be more common, why has it gone unpublicized for so long.

[MMaddi]

Some more data about the levant Y from Capelli 2005:

Muslim lebanese (39 people) 18% E3b, 30% JxJ2, 25% J2, 12% (F*xIJK, that is, G), 5 K*(xP)
Christian lebanese (43 p) 16% E3b, 4 I, 9 JxJ2, 34 J2, 18 F*, 4 K*, 7 P*(xR1)
Malta (90p) 9 E3b, 8 JxJ2, 21 J2, 12 I, 6 F*, 4 K*, 32 R1b
Sicily (200p) roughly averaging: E3b 23%, 6 JxJ2, 21 J2, 6 I, 10 F*, 4K* , 22 R1b

cacio

Thanks for that information. I find the Sicily Project figures relatively close to what Capelli found, except for E3b. With 47 yDNA results for our project members, here are the percentages:

J2 - 29.8% (number=14)
R1b - 25.5% (12)
G's - 12.8% (6 - surpisingly high!)
E3b - 10.6% (5)
I's - 10.6% (5)
R1a - 6.4% (3)
J1 - 4.3% (2)

Mike

[Stevo]

Interesting. thanks.

Phoenicians did build settlements in england so it is not far fetch that Jeferson might end up having phoencian heritage. Like you said, things are getting very interesting. People might one day be very surprised on how deep and broad the Phoenician expansion was. There're evidences that they discovered every continent there is, and built settlement on them.

It is fairly well known that the Phoenicians sailed to Britain in ancient times to obtain, among other things, tin, which is an essential component in the making of bronze. There were tin mines in Cornwall in southwestern Britain. It wouldn't surprise me if some of them did not remain there, perhaps to manage their interests in the tin mines.

In my not uncontroversial opinion, I believe there was a Mediterranean population of possibly E3bs, Js, and possibly that Sardinian variety of I1bs spread up into Iberia and Britain in ancient times. I believe they were the carriers of a Minoan or Egyptian-like monument-building culture and were responsible for the Western European megaliths.

In the same way that the Achaeans (Mycenaeans) came into Greece and the Aegean from the North and destroyed and partially copied and assimilated Minoan culture, the Indo-European Celts entered the British Isles and Iberia and destroyed the culture of the megalith builders.

Notice how prevalent mtDNA haplogroup H is in North Africa, as well as Western Europe? That does not exactly correspond to the distribution of the major European y-haplogroups.

[josh w.]

It turns out that Wells did not rely on Zallua's findings (since they were not available) and used rather indirect reasoning. He found significant rates of K2 in Cadiz. Since the area was once under the control of Carthage, he reasoned...

[cacio]

Mmaddi:

just to make sure, the percentages I quoted about sicily are kind of random. Capelli has 3 separate samples from sicily, for 3 different parts of the island. Some frequencies are different across the various parts, so i simply took a number inbetween. I'm also not sure the 3 parts are equally inhabited, may be one has many more inhabitants than the others. Anyway, may be you can look at the table yourself, which could also be useful if the members know which part of sicily they come from.

cacio

[Kristin]

Wells

Wells did not figure he was Phoenician based on Cadiz. Others have put that theory forward. A frequency of 10.7% is found in Cadiz of K2 but that is not the information Wells based his statement on.

K2 is found amongst coastal Lebanese. It is also found in Syria and Egypt.

[josh w.]

Kristen, sorry, my information was based on a secondary source and I cannot confirm the attribution to Wells. My comment was not in reference to Jefferson but in regard to the origin of K2 in Phoenician colonies. However Zallua and Wells have conducted research in Cadiz but have not reported their findings. The fact that K2 occurs in the Near East and Spain in itself does not justify Well's 2005 conclusions. The spread of Islam would also explain the same pattern. The book is still open until K2 is revealed in ancient Phoenician dna as well as in Phoenician colonies.

[Kristin]

Cadiz

The Cadiz theory came about because some people were just as confused as us as to how the DNA got to Wales. Some put forth the theory that Jefferson had ancestry from Spain because K2 is found at a higher frequency there. It is a good guess but there are other possibilities that are just as likely. As a matter of fact as stated above some genealogists have found evidence that it could be Scandinavian DNA. I think Wells must have seen some sort of evidence in Jefferson's sequence that indicated it was from the middle east and more specifically it was Phoenician. J2 may be the main haplogroup that the ancient Phoenician colonies consisted of but both Wells and Zalloua say that in the case of Malta over 50% of the haplogroups could have come from the Phoenicians. There is more than one haplogroup they consider Phoenician and they all are a close match to Lebanese haplogroups.

Somehow they can tell the difference between the spread of Islam being the source and Phoenician colonies being the source for middle eastern DNA being found in Europe. I would like to know how they can tell the difference. Are there particular sequences found in Sardinia and Malta that indicate a Phoenician origin? What haplogroups did they belong to? Is the unusually high rate in Cadiz of K2 because of Phoenicians? J2*J2f is found at a frequency of 14.3%? Were these sequences also considered Phoenician? Perhaps we will find out more soon.

http://hpgl.stanford.edu/publication...4_v12_p855.pdf