Anomalous blue-eyed people came to Israel 6,500 years ago from Iran, DNA shows
Study of bones from massive Galilee necropolis helps fill 3,000-year gap in knowledge of ancient Levant settlers
By AMANDA BORSCHEL-DAN
20 August 2018,
Blue-eyed, fair-skinned settlers inhabited the Levant some 6,500 years ago, according to an international interdisciplinary team of scientists. An article released Monday in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Communications solves the mystery of how Chalcolithic culture got to the Galilee: via population migration.
When they mapped the genomes of bones from 22 of the 600 individual skeletons discovered in a massive necropolis near Peki’in in the north of the country, the scientists found a genetic mix quite unlike that of previous and successive settlers of the region.
The findings address the decades-long arguments over the origins of this distinctive Late Chalcolithic culture, the artifacts of which “have few stylistic links to the earlier or later material cultures of the region,” write the authors…
n the article, “Ancient DNA from Chalcolithic Israel reveals the role of population mixture in cultural transformation,” the scientists concluded that the homogeneous community found in the cave could source ~57% of its ancestry from groups related to those of the local Levant Neolithic, ~26% from groups related to those of the Anatolian Neolithic, and ~17% from groups related to those of the Iran Chalcolithic…
“The genetic analysis provided an answer to the central question we set out to address,” said Harvard’s Reich. “It showed that the Peki’in people had substantial ancestry from northerners – similar to those living in Iran and Turkey – that was not present in earlier Levantine farmers.”
…As a result, the researchers were able to do a whole genome analysis of 22 of the skeletons.
“This study of 22 individuals is one of the largest ancient DNA studies carried out from a single archaeological site, and by far the largest ever reported in the Near East,” said Tel Aviv University researcher May.
The scientists uncovered some recessive genetic traits not usually expected in human remains from the Levant.
“Certain characteristics, such as genetic mutations contributing to blue eye color, were not seen in the DNA test results of earlier Levantine human remains,” said May.
The blue-eyed, fair-skinned community didn’t continue, but at least now researchers have an idea why. “These findings suggest that the rise and fall of the Chalcolithic culture are probably due to demographic changes in the region,” said May.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/anomalous-blue-eyed-people-came-to-israel-6500-years-ago-from-iran-dna-shows/