Posted on 05/10/2008 2:13:58 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
The Druze people of Israel are a genetic sanctuary of ancient lineages of DNA, researchers reported on Wednesday... The researchers looked at mitochondrial DNA, a type of genetic material that is passed down virtually unchanged from mother to daughter. It can provide a kind of snapshot of the ancestry of a person... The mitochondrial DNA backed up the legendary origin of this close-knit religious group, believed to number 1 million or fewer. For instance, Skorecki's team discovered an unusually high frequency of a haplogroup, or a distinct collection of genetic markers, called haplogroup X. Haplogroup X is rare but is found around the world among diverse groups... Marriage outside the group is discouraged, first cousins often marry, and it is impossible to convert to the religion, an offshoot of Islam... "The populations with the smallest genetic distances to the Druze were: Turks, Armenians, Iranians and Egyptians," ... "You can look at 150 kinds of mitochondrial DNA within one group with a similar environment, and be able to see the specific contribution of these variations," Skorecki said in a statement... "Since they are comprised of so many distinct lineages, genetic disease may vary from clan to clan and village to village," said Skorecki, who found genetic evidence that modern-day Jewish priests, called Kohanim, are descendants of a single common male ancestor. This would be consistent with legend that the Kohanim are the descendants of the Biblical high priest Aaron.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
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Wouldn’t they likely be decendants of Levi?
Aaron was a descendant of Levi. The High Priests had to be one of his descendants. The other priests were the rest of the tribe.
IOW, the Druze are inbred. What a shock.
"ScienceDaily (Jan. 17, 2006) — Some 3.5 million or 40 percent of Ashkenazi Jews are descended from just four “founding mothers” who lived in Europe 1,000 years ago. The mothers were part of a small group who founded the Ashkenazi Jewish community, which was established in Europe as a result of migration from the Near East."
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Often we read about the discovery of 'Europen DNA' in the US. Usually it is this mtDNA Haplogroup 'X" found in some American Indians.
25% of the Ojibwe tribe in the Northeastern US have mtDNA 'X'...no-one is sure how it got 'here.'
“Aaron was a descendant of Levi.”
for the forum...
Even though I follow a “verify before trusting” approach to Wikipedia,
there’s a nice geneology chart here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levite
MitochondrialDNA (mtDNA) haplogroup testing led to the surprising hypothesis that some of the first Americans came from Europe thousands of years ago.
Nice family photo...
PaMom
Their take on it is that when you die you "come back" as somebody else within the Druze community. They engage in a practice otherwise known only in India to any degree where upon attaining sufficient maturity the member is put into trances for examination to see who they used to be.
Their religion is syncretic. That is, it is built up out of combinations of other relgions. It is an error to describe it as a variety of Islam. Rather, Islam has contributed "parts" to the Druze belief system, as has Christianity, Mythrism, Judaism, traditional Indo-European beliefs, Zorastrianism, and so forth, all the way back into the Ice Age ~
Haplogroup X pretty well identifies the original core group ~
Blam, with X Factor folks in hand, given their historic practices, we may well have a chunk of the descendants of the original Sumerians with a probable connection to India, and maybe even Sundaland.
? Dan’s territory was in the north, if memory serves.
:’)
Bit of weird... the first time I scrolled through “My Comments”, your message had the usual DNA lookin’ stuff, but the second time:
http://www.mikescandywrappers.com/photos/drews0503.jpg
these are the jokes, people...
Why must a comedic genius be questioned?
No, mitochondrial DNA is passed from mother to son, too. The author confused this with inheritance of the X chromosome.
Sperm carries mitochondrial DNA, but in humans it either never gets into the egg, or is diluted by the much greater quantity of maternal mtDNA, or it is destroyed.
Do you know if they have identified a certain Haplogroup that identifies with the Ashkenazi Jews?
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