This paper got its
start back in February of this year while I was researching R1b-DF100 for my
posting, The Third Brother. Among the data, primarily Western European
haplotypes, was a single Armenian record.
The R1b-L11>DF100 group that I was working with had as one of their
theories that L11 was a fairly recent, 3,000 to 4,000 years, arrival from the
Near East and that the Armenian record was part of that evidence. I looked at the Armenian record, ran a
phylogenetic test on it, the L11 group and some similar Near East records. The Armenian record fell squarely within a
Baltic cluster on the tree with a rough TMRCA of about 1,200 years. This Armenian was clearly more European than
Armenian, at least on the paternal line.
My comment back to the L11 group was that their Armenian was probably
the descendant of a Crusader based on the timing and directionality.
In September, I ran
across Pierre Zalloua’s paper - Y-ChromosomalDiversity in Lebanon Is Structured by Recent Historical Events (2008). He and the other authors had put together a
good correlation between Crusader DNA and haplogroup R1b in Lebanon. The paper also correlated haplogroup J and
the Muslim expansion. The paper received
quite a bit of feedback about haplogroup J and little or no mention about
haplogroup R1b. Considering the extent
of the Crusader’s presence in the Near East from 1096 to 1343, if they left DNA
behind it would have been spread farther than Lebanon.
The real question
is not – if they left DNA behind. There
is significant literature that details the atrocities; raping and pillaging was
standard operating procedure for the Crusaders.
There are also numerous accounts of assimilation. During the Crusader’s 247-year occupation and
roughly eight generations, they married local women and raised families. The real question is did Crusader DNA survive
to modern time.
 |
| Crusader DNA Distribution |
If Crusader DNA survived,
it would be spread from Istanbul to Jerusalem and beyond. The graphic above shows the potential for DNA
distribution during the Crusader occupation (red) and the distribution over the
past 918 years (gray). My research
focused on the following Near East countries - Armenia, Georgia, Iran, Iraq,
Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey.
Here is something I
found bizarre. Zalloua and team
published their paper in 2008. Every
researcher looking at Near East R1b should be taking a lesson and validating
that their data is not of Crusader origin.
Obviously, Crusader DNA wasn’t restricted to Lebanon. In 2010, Balaresque, et al and again in 2011,
Myres, et al, published papers using Near East R1b data (Turkish). Forty-two percent of the Turkish R1b haplotypes
from Balaresque and Myres was identical to Zalloua’s Lebanese R1b data. This didn’t seem to raise any flags as
Balaresque and Myres used the Turkish data to suggest a Near East origin and
Neolithic expansion for R1b. These folks
must not talk to each other. Two of
Zalloua’s team members went on to work with Balaresque and Myres on their
papers. The first thing I would have
said was – “Considering what Zalloua found, we need to validate the origins of
the Turkish data further back than one or two generations”.
When presenting an
analysis it is always good to show comparison data. I collected R1b data and haplogroup G and J
data from multiple Family Tree DNA projects.
I have a higher comfort factor that G and J are associated with the
Neolithic expansion, so they were used as a basis for comparison. For each 37-marker Near East record obtained,
I used the haplotype to query a larger set of related records from ySearch (I
call this haplotype aggregation). A Near
East set and a Western European set of data was developed for each haplogroup. I then compared each individual Near East
haplotype against the entire Near East set and the entire Western Europe
set. You would expect that the Near East
haplotypes would be more closely related to their peers in the Near East set.
The haplogroup J
data tells the best story. The results
cluster down J1-M267 and J2-M172 lines.
The neutral line (diagonal triangles) represents zero affinity towards
the Near East or Western Europe. Points
falling to the right of neutral show an affinity toward the Near East and to
the left of neutral, an affinity towards Western Europe.
J1 haplotypes (diamonds), which are rare in Europe, are
closely related to their peers in the Near East. The J1 data only shows an affinity toward the
Near East. The trend line for J1
indicates a fairly stationary population pattern with no suggestion of
migration to Western Europe. A trend
line that doesn’t cross the neutral represents a strong peer affinity and
little or no migration between the Near East and Western Europe. J2 data (squares) shows a tipping point at
which the more distantly related records lean toward the Near East and the
closely related records lean toward Western Europe. That transition shows a TMRCA of about 3,900
± 800 years. The tipping point indicates
a point in time where the Near East J2 haplotypes became more common in Western
Europe, illustrating a migration.
Haplogroup G shows
very similar results as J2. Haplogroups J2 and G have been associated with the
Neolithic spread of agriculture from the Near East to Western Europe. Both J2 and G present a consistent
distribution from distant relationship (high variance) to closer relationship
(low variance). The trend lines for J2
and G represent migration events from the Near East to Western Europe. The trend line for J1 represents no migration
event. These results are consistent with
other published information.
Haplogroup R1b does
not exhibit either a migration or a non-migration pattern. The haplotypes cluster in a fairly homogenous
group. There is a slight lean toward
Western Europe and essentially no continuum from high variance to low variance. The more distantly related haplotypes don’t
exist in the Near East. The Near East
individuals are just as related to the Western European individuals as they are
to their own peers. The approximate
TMRCA for the R1b Near East – Western European group is 1,800 ± 500 years.
Through atrocities
and assimilation, Western European DNA from Crusaders was permanently
introduced into the Near East less than 1,000 years ago. Western European and Near East R1b haplotypes
are highly and recently related. The
data indicates that within the last 2,000 years there was a migration from one
geography to the other. There is no
documented migration in the past 2,000 years that would account for Western
European R1b populations coming from the Near East and replacing indigenous
European populations. The introduction
of Western European DNA into the Near East by Crusaders accounts for the west
to east genetic flow.
The sampling
practices of research studies are questionable.
The origin of participants is typically only validated for one or two
previous generations. This is equivalent
to not knowing the origin for study participants. Sampling needs to be undertaken with a genetic
genealogy approach and 37 markers or greater.
The population genetics approach of less than 17 markers, poor origin
validation and haplogroup generalization needs to change.
Previous papers
(Balaresque & Myres) that have used Near East R1b data as the basis of
their research are suspect. In light of
the introduction of Crusader DNA into the Near East within the past 1,000
years, any theory on a Neolithic origin for haplogroup R1b will have to be
re-evaluated.
Reference:
Maglio, MR (2014) Y-Chromosomal Haplogroup R1b Diversity in
Near East is Structured by Recent Historical Events (Link)
© Michael R. Maglio
