Anyone who has spent any time in Saudi Arabia comments on the peculiar mix of facial features, skin tones and body types among the local population. The people of certain regions have distinctly Asian appearances, while those from other areas are quite African looking. Some appear more traditionally Jewish than Arab in appearance, and many have the porcelain skin most often associated with the Far East. There are Saudi natives with brown eyes and hazel eyes, green eyes and yes, even blue eyes.
It’s all rather fascinating. And even a bit mysterious. Or at least it was until recently. That’s when a series of molecular genetics studies were carried out on a small sampling of the local population.
And what they found was pretty darn interesting!
The study looked at genetic material from 157 Saudi guys, and the results trace the heritage of the Saudi population back to a time when the Arabian Peninsula was in the death grip of glaciers.
According to the study, 14% of the Saudi Arabia Y-chromosome pool is African while another 17% is from the area around Iran. A whopping 69% of the male gene pool is Levantine, meaning Eastern Mediterranean in ancestry.
And those genes have been here awhile – awhile as in 18,500-3,500 thousand years ago awhile!
We’re talking Neolithic.
Other groups of the same ancestry- at least according to the genetics of it all - include Azerbaijanis (24-48%), Iraqis (25.2-29.7%), Lebanese (25-30%), Syrians (14-29%), Kurds (28.4%) and Turks (13.3%).
Surprisingly – or perhaps not so surprisingly, Sephardic Jews (29%) and Ashkenazi Jews (19-23%) also appear to come from the same ancient family tree as a majority of Saudis.
What can genetics tell us about ourselves and others, the relationships we had in the past, and the relationships we will have in the future? Does genetics support the “brotherhood of man” concept or refute it? And finally, what do you think your ancestral tree might look like?
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