(Please let me know when the VNN time machine is operational. ;) )

http://www.nynewsday.com/news/health/sns-ap-jewish-descent,0,7319635.story?coll=nyc-healthhome-headlines

Study: Most Ashkenazi Jews From Four Women

By MALCOLM RITTER
AP Science Writer

January 12, 2006, 7:01 PM EST

NEW YORK -- Some 3.5 million of today's Ashkenazi Jews -- about 40 percent of the total Ashkenazi population -- are descended from just four women, a genetic study indicates.

Those women apparently lived somewhere in Europe within the last 2,000 years, but not necessarily in the same place or even the same century, said lead author Dr. Doron Behar of the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, Israel.

He did the work with Karl Skorecki of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and others.

Each woman left a genetic signature that shows up in their descendants today, he and colleagues say in a report published online by the American Journal of Human Genetics. Together, their four signatures appear in about 40 percent of Ashkenazi Jews, while being virtually absent in non-Jews and found only rarely in Jews of non-Ashkenazi origin, the researchers said.

They said the total Ashkenazi population is estimated at around 8 million people. The estimated world Jewish population is about 13 million.

Ashkenazi Jews are a group with mainly central and eastern European ancestry. Ultimately, though, they can be traced back to Jews who migrated from Israel to Italy in the first and second centuries, Behar said. Eventually this group moved to Eastern Europe in the 12th and 13th centuries and expanded greatly, reaching about 10 million just before World War II, he said.

The study involved mitochondrial DNA, called mtDNA, which is passed only through the mother. A woman can pass her mtDNA to grandchildren only by having daughters. So mtDNA is "the perfect tool to trace maternal lineages," Behar said Thursday in a telephone interview.

His study involved analyzing mtDNA from more than 11,000 samples representing 67 populations.

Mike Hammer, who does similar research at the University of Arizona, said he found the work tracing back to just four ancestors "quite plausible... I think they've done a really good job of tackling this question."

But he said it's not clear the women lived in Europe.

"They may have existed in the Near East," Hammer said. "We don't know exactly where the four women were, but their descendants left a legacy in the population today, whereas ... other women's descendants did not."

Behar said the four women he referred to did inherit their genetic signatures from female ancestors who lived in the Near East. But he said he preferred to focus on these later European descendants because they were at the root of the Ashkenazi population explosion.

about 40 percent of the total Ashkenazi population -- are descended from just four women
And they claim racist whites are inbred :p

Ashkenazi Jews are a group with mainly central and eastern European ancestry. Ultimately, though, they can be traced back to Jews who migrated from Israel to Italy in the first and second centuries, Behar said.
What evidence is there for such a migration? Jewish oral tradition, maybe :confused:

Someone said that jews are a hybrid Amerin/Arab race. What the hell is Amerin anyways?

Amerin-dian. They are the most admixed population on Earth today. They are a mongrel asian bunch, whose curly hair came from inclusion of black genes.
Mitochondrial DNA is junk science.

Amerin-dian. They are the most admixed population on Earth today. They are a mongrel asian bunch, whose curly hair came from inclusion of black genes.
Mitochondrial DNA is junk science.

Actually I think the admixture was armenid, or something like that.

excellent story. i just wanted to post this, my compliments on catching it.

Tried to post this yesterday, but ? happened. Here goes again.
http://www.thebirdman.org/index/Temp/Temp-EnlighteningCommentsOnForeskinnerGenetics-Seth.htm

Like the address hints at, interesting observations and comments re: asian ancestory of yids.

Son of a *!, that link won't work.

Genetic Studies Show That Many Claiming Israelite Origins are Asiatic Mongoloids

The latest genetic study on the snakes' genes was published in the American Journal of Human Genetics. A team of geneticists from Israel, the United States, England, et al. carried out a six year study on snake genes which they collected from around the world. Why so much interest in this one race, and not say, Russian Georgians or for that matter Adamics?
Well, the first thorough studies on the races using genetic markers are now 17 years old, having been completed in 1987. The results of these studies did not please the snakes and their many worshippers, because they showed them to be a very racially mixed group- rather than the pure race they'd been selling themselves as. They began immediate plans to carry out new studies; after all, these were our first genetic studies on race, and they might be flawed. Surely they were because they as many as thirty genetic strains in many snakes and an average of 21 in the lot of them around the world. This is why trhey have the racial markings of all three races- plus obvious deformities, such as hooked noses, overly sized ears and heads, vastly out of purportioned bodies, etc.
Those early strudies checked clusters of genes and compared them to others geneticists had collected from around the world. By using clusters geneticists are able to tell how many different races people have in them, and can provide percentages as to each group. If you ever decide to have your genes checked to see if you're pure or what other races you may have in you, make sure you use one that uses clusters; otherwise you can get a flawed result.
For the next set of trials, cluster studies were rejected and new ones that use the Y chromosome to check male ancestry were used. The mitochondria is used to check female ancestry, but geneticists have settled on thirty-six mythical women who were the founders of every human, so these are not used. Since these type of studies were first introduced, we know that the Y chromosome will automatically change about every seven generations, so anything back past thereis impossible to trace. This point was ignored in the next studies. They, however, did show that the snakes have very different ancestral lines from the caucasian race, which the snakes claim to be from. They had black ancestors, and they had Turk ancestors.
The latest studies used the same male-line methods, but tried to compensate for ancestral genetic changes. These studies show that at least one group within the snakes is of Mongoloid descent on the male side. Don't be surprised; the first studies showed that the snakes had more Mongoloid in them than any other race. Most of the short, dark, squatty-legged snakes you see today are not White- not Caucasians, but are mostly Mongoloid.