This image shows the bones of the Crusaders found in a burial pit in Sidon, Lebanon. Credit: Claude Doumet-Serhal
Posted on 04/22/2019 5:32:51 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Archaeological evidence suggested that 25 individuals whose remains were found in a burial pit near a Crusader castle near Sidon, Lebanon, were warriors who died in battle in the 1200s. Based on that, Tyler-Smith, Haber, and their colleagues conducted genetic analyses of the remains and were able to sequence the DNA of nine Crusaders, revealing that three were Europeans, four were Near Easterners, and two individuals had mixed genetic ancestry...
...when the researchers sequenced the DNA of people living in Lebanon 2,000 years ago during the Roman period, they found that today's Lebanese population is actually more genetically similar to the Roman Lebanese...
"If you look at the genetics of people who lived during the Roman period and the genetics of people who are living there today, you would think that there was just this continuity. You would think that nothing happened between the Roman period and today, and you would miss that for a certain period of time the population of Lebanon included Europeans and people with mixed ancestry," says Haber.
These findings indicate that there may be other major events in human history that don't show up in the DNA of people living today. And if those events aren't as well-documented as the Crusades, we simply might not know about them. "Our findings suggest that it's worthwhile looking at ancient DNA even from periods when it seems like not that much was going on genetically. Our history may be full of these transient pulses of genetic mixing that disappear without a trace," says Tyler-Smith...
Next, the researchers plan to investigate what was happening genetically in the Near East during the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age.
(Excerpt) Read more at eurekalert.org ...
This image shows the bones of the Crusaders found in a burial pit in Sidon, Lebanon. Credit: Claude Doumet-Serhal
Maybe Christian men don’t rape as many women.
Back when Lebanon was in the news a lot because of the civil war, one Christian family which was often mentioned was the Franjieh family. Their name means they claim descent from the “Franks”—the general term for Western Europeans. In other words, they are descended from the Crusaders.
bkmk
That crusader looks happy. Churchill loved a man who smiles when he fights...
“there may be other major events in human history that don’t show up in the DNA of people living today. And if those events aren’t as well-documented as the Crusades, we simply might not know about them”
There might be events in history we don’t know about. Astounding!
— just joking around, it’s an interesting topic.
He’s got the “stiff upper lip” part down.
I'm descended from the same couple on both sides of my family (three times -- that I know of) and despite the passage of a mere 400 years, there's no DNA trace of that relationship. The loss of half of the available possible DNA is actually what makes sexual reproduction more viable than, say, parthenogenesis, in complex multicellular organisms. :^)
It's amazing that *any* ancient accounts have survived, considering the continual repainting of Europe and the Med basin by one invasion after another.
Great article!
Thanks!
Probably the local primate.
Before doing any DNA tests, I watched some YouTube videos about the tests. One featured someone with well-documented American Indian ancestry but none showed up in the DNA testing. (I don't think that's the case with Elizabeth Warren--I think she was just fabricating the supposed ancestry.)
Maybe because he had been given a plenary indulgence for going on Crusade?
After five or so generations the odds of inheriting any DNA from any one individual in that generation is very small.
It’s a geometric progression. Two parents, four grandparents, eight great, sixteen great great, thirty two great great great. One thirty second is slightly over three percent, but of course you don’t inherit equal amounts from each grandparent.
...you have ancestors from whom you have inherited no DNA...yet without them having existed and produced children, you would not exist.
Precisely. Most people have 46 family trees; thus, at the gggg-grand level, of the 64 possible slots, at least 18 of them passed down nothing to each of us.
ggggGrand gggGrand ggGrand gGrand Grand parents YOU
Or he could have been beheaded and had the head thrown onto a pile of other limbs, sides, he had to be quite young to still retain most of his teeth, being British and all.
...but of course you don’t inherit equal amounts from each grandparent.
Precisely. The closest split (assuming no relatively recent consanguinuity) is 12/11 or 11/12 on each side of the tree.
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