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This mini-project is brought to you by Humanist and Humata.
Aim
To investigate the autosomal affinities of four principal Near-Eastern groups (Anatolian Turks, Armenians, Assyrians and Iranians) with West Eurasians using 23andMe's Compare Genomes feature.
Method
- Five 23andMe customers belonging exclusively to each Near-Eastern group were chosen for analysis.
- Each participant was compared against 215 users belonging to 31 West Eurasian groups, delineated by either geography or nationality.
- Nations were represented by four users where available, whilst regions with limited populations were made up by at least two.
- All of the 215 users belonged to a single ethnicity or had ancestry from the same exclusive region.
- The average values of each Near-Eastern participant were calculated and were, in turn, combined into a meta-average that represented their ethnic group.
- Tabulated results, together with a detailed map showing sample locations and sizes, are shown below.
Analysis
- Armenians were the best-matching Near-Eastern ethnic group with Europe overall. This may be a result of continued Roman influence on ancient Armenia, as it was the easternmost outpost of Christianity against a Zoroastrian Persia.
- Turkey's affinity with Europe was second-greatest, which may also correlate with historical Roman and Greek influence. However, Asia Minor was undoubtedly a staging ground for numerous population expansions into Europe over thousands of years, with R1b-M269 potentially being a diagnostic marker for the most successful and recent one.
- Affinities to the Caucasus are determined by geography, except between Assyrians and Armenians, who appear to share an extra-geographical genetic relationship. This is arguably due to continuous mixing between the two populations, presumably since Christianity's advent in the Near-East.
- Relationships with South and West Europe determined by geography, implying the genetic relationship between the studied Near-Easterners and these Europeans is a result of demic diffusion.
- Of particular interest is the connection between the Balkans and Iran. Theories connecting Croatia with ancient Iranians have appeared on the Internet in recent years. These theories are weak and based on scant linguistic connections between Old Croatian and several Iranian dialects. This investigation concludes that Croatians and other people of the Balkans do not share any remarkable relationship with Iranians and are genetically closer to Armenians, Anatolian Turks and Assyrians in that order.
- Iranians were generally the lowest scoring group with Europe and the Near-East, which indicates their recent genetic history is divergent and separate from Assyrians, Armenians and Anatolian Turks.
- Iranians share an extra-geographical genetic relationship with Pakistanis, Pakistani Jatts and Indians, who are the only other speakers of Indo-Iranian languages analysed. This genetic connection accompanies their shared Indo-Iranian heritage.
Disclaimer
Several users on this forum were included in the analysis (Birko19, BENK and Gwen and Iranium). If you would like your specific results for comparison with your ethnicity's average, please contact me.
Attachment #1: 31 West Eurasian sample regions shown, with specific nationalities and sample sizes included on left
Attachment #2: Average affinity results for Iran, Armenia, Assyria and Turkey based on participant scores[Correction]: 10 Assyrians and not 5 made up the "Assyria" comparison group in the table
Are Iranians closer - in Compare Genes terms - to Anatolians (Assyrians, Armenians) or to Pakistanis/Indians?
EDIT: I can see in the table that they are closer to South Asians.
EDIT2: I got it all wrong - it is already night here - of course Iranians are closest to Assyrians, Armenians, Anatolian Turks, South Caucasians, Greeks, Italians, North Caucasians, Romanians, people from the Balkans, Central-East Europeans, Spaniards, West-Europeans, Russians, Brittons, people from the Baltic Republics, Swedes, Levantinians, Polish, Irish and Portuguese in this order more or less.
Are Iranians closer - in Compare Genes terms - to Anatolians (Assyrians, Armenians) or to Pakistanis/Indians?
Iranians are closer to Assyrians, Armenians and South Caucasians than to Pakistanis and Indians.
Indeed, the genetic situation concerning Iranians is analogous with their Iranian and Indo-Aryan speaking brethren to the east. They are the descendants of historical Indo-Iranians and the aboriginal natives who already developed high societies (Elamites, Kassites etc. in Iran and the Indus civilisation in the Subcontinent).
The degree of both, of course, varies on an individual's family history. Some of the Iranians score much higher than the average with certain reference populations.
One interesting observation is that Iranians are genetically closer to South Indians than Arabians, despite the former being three times further away. Land obstacles (Zagros mountains) are the most obvious explanation, but there might be more obscure reasons under the surface.
Elamo-Dravidian has been proposed as a language family and some percieve Haplogroup J2 to be a diagnostic marker for this hypothetical family's spread. The Dravidian languages are now mostly spoken south of the Deccan plateau in India, but small pockets (such as Brahui in Pakistan and Iran) might be the remnant of a linguistic continuum that was broken by Indo-Iranian speakers from the north.
This, together with the Indo-Iranian connection, might be why Iranians match better with the Subcontinent in its' entirety. They might share some pre-Indo-Iranian ancestry as well.
EDIT: I just noticed that the average Iranian shares better with the Swedes than with Punjabi Jatts or North Indians!
The Swedish results are most puzzling. I have not found a historically attested explanation for it just yet. All four of the Swedish users used have no known non-Swedish ancestry.
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Anatolian Urhemait supporters are mostly butthurt Meds.
For the lulz:
Originally Posted by drgs
Poland is a misunderstanding. It is a country which lies on the frontier between western and slavic world, and which combines elements of both.
In fact, they are not even the Europeans in strict sense, meaning European as in bearing the responsibility and understanding of European interests. Poland has always been an subordinate country, on one side sucking German dick, on the other side -- Russian one, some kind of "novice" europeans, who are full of inferiority complexes, hysteria and obsessity neuroses. This is also true for all Baltic countries
Possibly a dumb question; but why don't these numbers work both ways?
For two reasons;
- The twenty participants from Turkey, Assyria, Armenia and Iran are of a single ethnicity. The references for each of those regions (except Armenia) are much larger. You will note that Iran's reference is made of 13 users.
- Certain countries have more intra-ethnic diversity than others. You might be surprised to learn that the 5 Assyrians actually match better with Iran than the 5 Iranians do.
---------- Post added 2010-08-25 at 23:15 ----------
Originally Posted by EliasAlucard
Was I part of this analysis?
By the way, excellent conclusions Humata.
As your Armenian ancestry is considerable I couldn't include you in the Assyrian group.
However, I'm calculating your data now and will include the Assyrian and Armenian averages too; now you'll finally know just how Armenian vs. Assyrian you are. Expect the PM in the next 10 minutes.
Near-Eastern DNA: Analysis
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Originally Posted by Wojewoda
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