Articles
7 articles on levant, ancient-DNA research written up for readers who want the evidence, not just the headline.
The Levant is the eastern Mediterranean coast and its hinterland, and in ancient DNA it means above all the Bronze Age Canaanite genomes from Megiddo, Hazor and neighbouring sites. That population is the reference against which a great deal of modern Near Eastern and Jewish ancestry is measured, because so many living groups descend from it in part. Descending from it is a measurement, not an identity: the same Levantine layer sits in genomes across several religions, languages and countries.
The articles cover the Canaanites themselves, who they were genetically and why the qpAdm catalog now carries a Canaanite (2000 - 1200 BC) source, and then the communities that model against them: Ashkenazi genomes and their medieval Erfurt anchor, the Iraqi, Iranian, Kurdish and Syrian Jews who sit closest to the Bronze Age Levant, the Mountain, Georgian and Bukharian communities, Sephardic ancestry across Iberia, the Balkans and North Africa, and the Yemenite community between the Levant and Arabia.
What the paid qpAdm analysis includes
What ancient genomes actually say about Jewish ancestry, why a consumer 'Ashkenazi Jewish' percentage answers a different question, and what a formal qpAdm model with a p-value shows for a Jewish genome.
Why Ashkenazi genomes read as their own category on consumer tests, what the medieval Erfurt genomes settled, and how a qpAdm model separates the Levantine and southern European halves of Ashkenazi ancestry.
What ancient DNA says about Sephardic ancestry across Turkey, the Balkans, North Africa and Iberia, why 'Sephardic' covers several different genetic histories, and how a qpAdm model separates the Levantine, Iberian and North African layers.
Why the Jewish communities of Mesopotamia, Persia and Kurdistan sit closest to the Bronze Age Levant, what the Iranian-related layer in their genomes is, and how a qpAdm model resolves a Mizrahi genome.
What ancient DNA says about the Yemenite Jewish community, the Himyarite question, and how a qpAdm model tests a Yemenite genome against the Canaanite and Arabian Peninsula sources.
What genome-wide and ancient DNA say about the Jewish communities of Dagestan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Central Asia, their Persian-Jewish core and local admixture, and how a qpAdm model resolves them.
Who the Canaanites were genetically, who carries their ancestry today, and why the qpAdm source catalog now has a Canaanite (2000 - 1200 BC) population built from the Megiddo and Hazor genomes.