Origin and race of sumerians

[af]

It is one of the most mysterious question in assyriology - the origin of the sumerians.
And the genetics of sumerians may throw light on this question. There is a thing called haplogroups, some types of DNA. As I know, an example of DNA is all that is needed for the analisys. So we have some remains of sumerians I think... and somewhere there should be issues on this. Anyone knows?

About the race of sumerians, an assyriologist V.V.Emelyanov says that they belong to the mediterranean race of a big сaucasian race, and that they were swarthy people of medium height, with a straight nose, curly hair and much hair on face and body.

[Salmu]

Af, I am an archaeologist, not a physical anthropologist or microbiologist, but my daughter is the latter and she agrees with me on this. DNA is extremely fragile once life is extinguished and deteriorates rapidly over time. Scientists need a complete genetic footprint to judge racial characteristics and origins.
For the late Neolithic and Early Bronze period in Mesopotamia, and elsewhere for that matter, there is unlikely to be any complete 'nuclear' genetic material.
While we have human remains from this time, race is still predominantly judged through skeletal features and linguistic lines of inquiry. Currently, DNA research has the capacity to establish familial relationships, but this applies particularly to Egypt, where the climate is supportive of the preservation of physical remains. Time, of course, may change this.

[Salmu]

And then this article turned up in Agade, which some of you may have seen.

From BMC Evolutionary Biology 2011.....<http://tinyurl.com/3jsd6a8>:
==========================

In search of the genetic footprints of Sumerians: a survey of
Y-chromosome and mtDNA variation in the Marsh Arabs of Iraq.

For millennia, the southern part of the Mesopotamia has been a wetland
region generated by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers before flowing
into the Gulf. This area has been occupied by human communities since
ancient times and the present-day inhabitants, the Marsh Arabs, are
considered the population with the strongest link to ancient
Sumerians.

Popular tradition, however, considers the Marsh Arabs as a foreign
group, of unknown origin, which arrived in the marshlands when the
rearing of water buffalo was introduced to the region.

Results: To shed some light on the paternal and maternal origin of
this population, Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) variation
was surveyed in 143 Marsh Arabs and in a large sample of Iraqi
controls. Analyses of the haplogroups and sub-haplogroups observed in
the Marsh Arabs revealed a prevalent autochthonous Middle Eastern
component for both male and female gene pools, with weak South-West
Asian and African contributions, more evident in mtDNA.

A higher male than female homogeneity is characteristic of the Marsh
Arab gene pool, likely due to a strong male genetic drift determined
by socio-cultural factors (patrilocality, polygamy, unequal male and
female migration rates).

Conclusions: Evidence of genetic stratification ascribable to the
Sumerian development was provided by the Y-chromosome data where the
J1-Page08 branch reveals a local expansion, almost contemporary with
the Sumerian City State period that characterized Southern
Mesopotamia. On the other hand, a more ancient background shared with
to Northern Mesopotamia is revealed by the less represented
Y-chromosome lineage J1-M267*.

Overall our results indicate that the introduction of water buffalo
breeding and rice farming, most likely from the Indian sub-continent,
only marginally affected the gene pool of autochthonous people of the
region. Furthermore, a prevalent Middle Eastern ancestry of the modern
population of the marshes of southern Iraq implies that if the Marsh
Arabs are descendants of the ancient Sumerians, also the Sumerians
were most likely autochthonous and not of Indian or South Asian
ancestry.

Author: Nadia Al-ZaheryMaria PalaVincenza BattagliaViola
GrugniMohammed HamodBaharak Hooshiar KashaniAnna OlivieriAntonio
TorroniAugusta Santachiara-BenerecettiOrnella Semino

For those of you who are not English or Ancient Greek speakers the term "autocthonous" means "self born from the Earth", so "indigenous'. This group (of Mid East scientists) is arguing for a southern Iraq origin for the Sumerian people, against all previous theories which favoured a migrating culture settling in the region. Wait a month and another expert will shoot this down with an opposing scientific argument (and veiled accusations of parochialism).

And this is the problem, and the reason archaeology has stepped back from the race issue with most cultures in antiquity. Theories of racial origin (a) do not take into account the lack of homogeneity in ancient cultures and (b) have in scholarship in the past been driven by racially subjective adjendas.

[af]

Thank you Andrea! Now I see that it's not so simple..

[us4-he2-gal2]

Andrea:




Thanks very much for this link Certainly I am pleased by any attempt to use DNA to establish some sort of data of the ethnicity of the Mesopotamians, something art-historical analysis has proved quite hopeless at. I suppose that this won't necessarily weigh in on the Sumerian problem, the question of where the Sumerians came from (if they came from somewhere else) given that the samples are taken from quite later contexts. I know there were skulls with intact teeth found in the cemetery of Ur, I wonder why they don't test these specimens? I'm not really sure where the skulls or skull fragments would be keep, or even if all of that material was keep by the BM. And museums can be quite restrictive to any procedures involving the damaging or an artifact.

[mesopotamiankaraite]

I tested my DNA with the Genographic project and I'm quite pleased with the results.

I show up 19% Southwest Asian. SW Asian is supposed to be Neolithic Fertile Crescent blood, so I guess this means I am part Sumerian or Akkadian (or both!).

If you find your information on your ethnicity (or an ethnicity similar to your own), you can see how much SW Asian you may have here: genographic.nationalgeographic.com/reference-populations/

A poster above mentioned that the Sumerians were predominately Y-DNA haplogroup J1, Genographic placed me with Y-DNA haplogroup J2, meaning that I have a common paternal ancestor with these people that lived tens of thousands of years ago in paleolithic times.

It's really cool to see how I'm connected to the ancient past, especially to the region that I am most fascinated with.

You can get a kit here: genographic.nationalgeographic.com/

If you have any questions for me about the DNA, feel free to ask!

[us4-he2-gal2]

Interesting! DNA is perhaps one of the only helpful data sources for this sort of discussion, the ethnicity of the ancients. Assyriology and Sumerology have ongoing and repeated problems discussing issues of ethnicity, skin color etc. of the Mesopotamians. Textual sources are notoriously vague about ethnicity with only the occasional "gi6" in Sumerian indicating that someone is "dark" (but in compassion to what or who?), for example. Art and iconography are of little use as well as many surviving figurines or statuary have lost the original paint that may have indicated skin color and are simply the color or the stone or clay used. Its another frustrating topic in ANE studies.


I sort of doubt I have any interesting Mesopotamian DNA personally, being pasty white and of Irish/European heritage. ;]

[enkur]

I'm not sure if my interest in Sumer is due to my 20% SW Asian but who knows? On the other hand, the Egyptians also valued much the lapis lazuli but never used it to color the eyes of their statues and statuettes.

[lilitudemon]

I tested my DNA and 2% West Asian, 98% European from Ancestry.com. The West Asian DNA was in the Causcaus Mountains and the areas Syria, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, and Jordan. Seems my ancestors migrated from that area to Europe. (And from the Iberian peninsula which I know nothing about.) I always thought that Mesopotamians would look similar to the ancient Egyptians.

[mesopotamiankaraite]

Mar 7, 2015 1:27:33 GMT -5 lilitudemon said:

I tested my DNA and 2% West Asian, 98% European from Ancestry.com. The West Asian DNA was in the Causcaus Mountains and the areas Syria, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, and Jordan. Seems my ancestors migrated from that area to Europe. (And from the Iberian peninsula which I know nothing about.) I always thought that Mesopotamians would look similar to the ancient Egyptians.

What ethnicity are you? (If you don't mind answering)

I show up with European and North African on AncestryDNA and both of my grandfathers show up with Caucasus like you do. In fact, my paternal grandfather also shows up with Asia South (the Indian subcontinent). 

AncestryDNA shows modern ethnicity, so it doesn't include my neolithic Southwest Asian ancestry, just where my recent ancestors are from. 

[lilitudemon]

I don't mind. I'm considered Caucasian, with a majority of my DNA being from Great Britain. I'll share the pictures.









I haven't played around with ancestry.com enough to actually find my family members yet though.

[mesopotamiankaraite]

Very interesting. If you want a good laugh, read what they have to say about Abraham in the Middle East description.

[zombiehjort]

So here is a problem with identifying the ethnicity of the sumerians, by their genetics. You need a lot of samples prefereably material scraped from teeth, such material is expensive on the scale of 10000-50000$ pr sample. (Genomes are generally more expensive if samples are from ancient humans, where genetic material is scarce and of low quality (i.e. degraded)). Not only do you need a relatively large group of samples but you also need a large group of samples to compare with. This in practice means that to determine the relation of the sumerians to other ancient human populations it would likely be necessary to do similar studies on akkadians, ancient egyptians, etc. All of this adds up to a large amounts of time and money, not to mention risky sample gatherings, as Iraq and the middle east has not been know for its high levels of safety. Also it is strictly necessary that no modern humans have handled the samples too much, since that leads to contamination with modern DNA.

Also for those of you looking into your ancestry, dont be too surprised that unexpected results show up. if you have european ancestors, they are likely to have been more mobile in the past than we thought, and so more susceptible to genetic mixing, and many of these divergences occured in the recent past (genetically speaking).

[us4-he2-gal2]

An interesting comment from an insider, thanks Zombie - I understand you do Biology. I never really thought about how research would have to pay money to get ancient samples and so on hm.

[zombiehjort]

I am glad to be of service.

In my, semi-professional, opinion it is only a matter of time before someone tackles this problem. There is a huge interest in using modern genetic methods to shed new light on these archeological questions and at the same time genetics (and genomics) have advanced hugely both in terms of prices (falling exponentially) and in methods to make good use of the data provided.

My best guess is that as soon as the situation in the middle-east starts to calm down enough that researches can begin to access ancient sites again we will start seeing these results published. There is also a possibility that it will start soon with major results coming from Israel, Turkey and Iran where there are lots of good sites to excavate with bones that have not been contaminated, and stable governments that are interested in seeing these finds analyzed. This means that we will have to wait a bit for results on the sumerians, but I have already seen research of this type being done on early domesticated crops in an attempt to figure out where they where first domesticated, how long time it took, how they were domesticated. (preliminary results show that ancient people apparently had a very firm grasp of selective breeding and a large degree of mobility to practise it.)

Who knows, maybe someone will invent a method to bypass contaminateion outright.

There has been a study on the spread of maize and how it has been bred in ancient times. This study suggested that ancient people were bringing around their plants for 100's of kilometers in order to breed new strains with desirable properties. This in turn suggests that the people themselves must have also been at least somewhat mobile, and organized enough to be able to know of and acquire plants from far away. If you are interested read this paper: www.nature.com/articles/nplants20143)