A new article published in Nature Communications by Marta Costa suggests that the Ashkenazi Jewish community has "substantial" European
roots and is not just of Middle Eastern origin.
The discussion of Costa's conclusions is at
times heated due to the controversial nature of the subject. But with all this
talk about the genetic analysis of the European roots of the Ashkenazi Jewish
community we find ourselves asking again: Who were the ancient Israelites?
Before geneticists began to analyze modern and ancient populations
archaeologists and anthropologists were researching these question. The
findings of archaeologists for the last century have indicated the Israelites
were a Mediterranean people living on the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea.
In fact, the Israelites were distinctly similar to ancient North Africans.
The culture that immediately preceded the
Israelites in the region of ancient Israel is known as the Canaanite
civilization. It reached its peak during the Middle Bronze Age (circa 2000 BCE
– 1550 BCE) in the Southern Levant. At this time a socio-political network of
city-states ruled over the region resulting in a flourishing civilization that
disseminated its cultural artifacts throughout the Fertile Crescent, reaching
south to Egypt (Tel el-Dab’a/Avaris), north into Syria, and into Mesopotamia.
Analysis of excavated human skeletal remains associated with the Canaanite
civilization from Middle Bronze Age sites yielded an interesting result. They
found that there was a distinctive skull morphology that indicated a migration
of foreign populations who had settled in this region “carrying a morphology
more common in the northern parts of the Levant.” These new arrivals were
distinctly West Asian.
In contrast, excavated human remains found in
Israel during the Iron Age – the time of the Israelite settlement and the
biblical Kingdoms of Judah and Israel - exhibit features commonly associated
with Mediterranean populations, “i.e. long and narrow skulls of the
Mediterranean type common both in Israel and Egypt.” Earlier
analysis of the skull morphology of 1,500 skeletons found at the city of
Lachish, a royal city of the Kingdom of Judah second only to Jerusalem herself,
indicated the same, that the inhabitants of the ancient Kingdom of Judah were
most similar to ancient Egyptians. Based on this data the biblical ancestors of
the Jewish people today were a southern Mediterranean people very similar to
Egyptians. The Israelites were distinctly North African.
Future research into this question is needed. As
ancient skeletal remains are tested for DNA in the coming years our
understanding of who the ancient Israelites were in terms of ethnic make-up and
composition will become clearer. For now, there still remains some mystery.
Sources:
- Arensburg. 1997. Hazor V: An Account of the Fifth Season of Excavation, 1968. Amnon Ben-Tor, Ruhama Bonfil (editors). Jerusalem.
- Costa, et al. "A substantial prehistoric European ancestry amongst Ashkenazi maternal lineages." Nature Communications, vol.4 no. 2543, 11 July 2013.
- Tufnel. 1953. Lachish III: The Iron Age. London.
- Ussishkin. 2004. Renewed Archaeological Excavations at Lachish (1973-1994). Tel Aviv.
