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

BMC Evolutionary Biology

Research Article

Mohammed A Hamod¹  Vincenza Battaglia²  Maria Pala²  Anna Olivieri²  Nadia Al-Zahery²  Viola Grugni²  Antonio Torroni²  Augusta S Santachiara-Benerecetti²  Baharak Hooshiar Kashani²  Ornella Semino³ 

[1] Department of Biotechnology, Faculty of Sciences, Baghdad University, 10001, Baghdad, Iraq;Department of Microbiology, UNESCO-MIRCEN for Marine Biotechnology, College of Fisheries, 575002, Mangalore, India;Dipartimento di Genetica e Microbiologia, Università di Pavia, Via Ferrata 1, 27100, Pavia, Italy;Dipartimento di Genetica e Microbiologia, Università di Pavia, Via Ferrata 1, 27100, Pavia, Italy;Centro Interdipartimentale "Studi di Genere", Università di Pavia, 27100, Pavia, Italy;

关键词: Middle Eastern;    Water Buffalo;    Marsh Area;    Haplogroup Frequency;    Euphrates River;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2148-11-288

 received in 2011-05-27, accepted in 2011-10-04,  发布年份 2011

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundFor 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.ResultsTo 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).ConclusionsEvidence 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 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.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Al-Zahery et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2011. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.