If you don’t know already, I’m of Iranian decent. I was born in Tehran, but because of persistent socio-political instability in that region of the world, my family and I immigrated out of the country about 20 years ago. But just cause I live somewhere else doesn’t mean I’m not interested in my background. I’ve always been curious and inquisitive about my heritage. I’ve come to understand my mother’s and father’s lineage come from very different cultural backgrounds.
My mother’s family have been established Tehranians for quite sometime and because of the nature of big city life, their heritage has been mixed and lost. But if you look at members of my mother’s family, they are fair skinned and have blond hair with green or blue eyes. Often, they get mistaken for Europeans, which leads me to think they have a different heritage from my father’s side of the family. I’ve sequenced a short bit of my mtDNA and can only figure out that my maternal lineage has the haplotype H4 signature, which is very frequent in middle eastern populations, and not enough of a resolving feature to really make make any strong conclusions about where that half of me comes from.
What we know of my father’s family differs greatly. My dad’s parents hauled out of Lorestan and into Tehran. Lorestan is a western Iranian province smack dab in the Zagros Mountains. It is sometimes home to the Bakhtiari, a nomadic pastoralist group that you may have been introduced in your cultural anthropology learnings. The Bakhtiari regularly speak Luri, a language that’s classified as Indo-Iranian. Indo-Iranian languages are distinct from languages spoken by Semitic peoples, such as Arabic and Hebrew, if you want more information about this distinction check out Ethnologue.com.
Suffice to say, I got really interested to stumble upon an early online release paper from the Annals of Human Genetics, which investigates the, “Close Genetic Relationship Between Semitic-speaking and Indo-European-speaking Groups in Iran,” because it has tangents to at least half of my known heritage. Academics from the Max Planck Powerhouse of Evolutionary Anthropology and Tehran University collaborated on figuring out who the Bakhtiari are related to.
In order to carry out the study 99 people were sampled from a different province, Khuzestan, with almost 50 to 50 ratio of people from both ethnicities. The authors honed in on comparing the mtDNA HV1 sequences, eleven Y chromosome bi-allelic markers, and 9 Y-STR loci. STRs are a class of polymorphisms that, like microsatellites, consist of a repeated pattern of two or more nucleotides. The repeats are directly adjacent to each other and can range in length from 2 to 10 base pairs. They usually exist in the non-coding introns of genes.
Anyways, all these different loci show that the Iranian-Arabs share close relatedness of to the Bakhtiari as well as with neighboring geographic groups, irrespective of the language spoken. Haplogroups J2 and G are especially intriguing because they are found in really high frequencies in Bakhtiari and Iranian-Arab populations. Like I mentioned above, the Bakhtiari are a distinctly different cultural group that speak a Indo-Iranian language which does not belong to the Afro-Asiatic linguistic family that classify Semitic speaking Iranian-Arabs. Many cultural barriers have been formed to keep the Bakhtiari way of life unique, and one of them is language. So it doesn’t make sense that these two linguistically separate groups share two haplogroup signatures in such a disproportionally high frequency.
A comparison of Iranian-Arabs to other Semitic speaking groups showed that Semitic-speaking North African groups are way more distant genetically from Semitic-speaking groups from the Near East and Iran. The above illustration documents this. Haplogroup L is almost nonexistent east of Iraq, despite the fact there are Semitic speaking populations in foothills of the Zagros mountains in Iran.
Now, I said that was surprising because often language is a big barrier, as recently expressed by Razib with the Slavs as an example. In Iran however, a different situation exists. There is a lack of significant differentiation between west Asian Semitic-speaking and Indo-European-speaking groups indicates that language has not been a substantial barrier to gene flow in this part of the world. But this leads me to wonder about the origins of Iranian-Arabs, if they are genetically less similar to other Semitic speakers, doesn’t that imply they were ‘cultural converts’?
P.S., If you do read the paper, take note of the disclaimer the authors put about inscribing identity.
11 Comments
January 23, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Hi Kambiz,
I’m curious about the disclaimer about inscribing identity that you refer to. Where in the paper is this?
January 23, 2008 at 10:46 pm
Yann, here’s what’s written in the acknowledgments on page 10 of the paper,
September 9, 2008 at 9:55 pm
My mother is Iranian. (And my father is Canadian, of Northern European descent.)
On my mother’s side — on my Iranian side — we have a similar characteristic. Almost all the kids are born with blonde hair and blue eyes.
But generally the blonde hair and blue eyes change color as we get older… somewhere between the ages of 5 and 20. (It various from person to person in the family.)
When the eyes change color, they change to either brown, green, or hazel. (I’ve actually had all 4 colors throughout my life… and they’re hazel now.)
And when the hair changes color, it changes either to black or brown.
Those people who are born with that characteristic generally have fairer skin.
I’ve actually wondered if whatever allele(s) are responsible for our blue eyes or blonde hair also has an influence on skin tone. (Excuse me if the answer to that question is apparent… I’m by no means an expert in genetics.)
This characteristic seems like it can skip generations too. For example, as far as we know, my Mom didn’t have blonde hair or blue eyes when she was young, but I did.
September 11, 2008 at 8:44 pm
There are 6% haplogroup L in southern part of Iran.
September 15, 2008 at 10:33 pm
@efsha, you said…
I’m assuming you’re saying that in response to the map.
I believe the 6% haplogroup L in the south figure is for Y-DNA.
The map is, however, for mtDNA.
(That’s a different Haplogroup L.)
September 27, 2008 at 6:10 am
Hi Kambiz,
I m just wondering to witch gruop of bakhtiari your father belonged.
October 3, 2008 at 10:34 am
Hi Kambiz,
As you know bakhtiari people consist of several so called “tayefe”.
I’m just wondring which tayefe:s the samples were taken from.
October 11, 2008 at 11:50 am
hi ,
this map is very instructive , i’m an Algerian and i very often have to fight against this arab identity that is imposed to my people and to other north-west africans while all evidence shows that we are not arabs , even in looks we don’t look like middle easterners , even if the color is gloabally similar to that of syrians or lebanese , but the features are quite different , the color is simply linked to the level of sunshine in an area , it doesn’t determine if two populations are linked or not , language is really the most determining factor in creating false kinships between different populations , i hope this map and similar ones are widely shown throughout north africa , in the hope that our people will eventually wake up
December 24, 2008 at 6:03 pm
I’m confused. Who are Iranian Arabs? Are there parts of Iran with arab populations? And what are the semitic languages of Iran?
July 1, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Kambiz,
Where do Iranian Jews fit in, anthropologically speaking? Do we have more in common genetically with Arabs and / or other Middle-Eastern Jewish populations, or do we share common ancestry with Indo- European speaking Iranians? Has anybody researched the mDNA or Iranian Jews?
Thanks!
July 18, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Laila,
I think it’s important for people to take into account that ancient Babylon and Persia’s frontiers were changed several times, meaning and englobed disting populations, which in some cases became mixed. The hebrews/jews are an example of that. The hebrew nation in it’s beggining was probably a mixture of tribes coming from what is now Georgia, Armenia, Southern Turkey, Eastern Syria, Iraq and Western Iran. These tribes which used to worship babylonian deities, eventually began emigrating towards Israel (at the time called Canaan), where they became mixed with the local population, which was already a mixture of different tribes, namely the amelekites, the amorites, the hitites, the hurians and the philistines, some of which are likely to have european roots.
Later on, as the Torah suggests, many of these hebrews moved on to Egypt. It’s likely that they remained there untill the end of Akhenaton’s rule, and were largely influenced by Egyptian culture. In fact, it is possible that montheism among the hebrews was something inherited from this Pharaoh and that was possibly the motive why they became persecuted after Akhenaton’s death, since the local priest wished to impose their politheistic religion again. However it’s also very possible that monotheism among the hebrews derives from indo-aryan influence, namely from Zoroastrianism. What seems clear to me is that the hebrew religion was largely influenced by other middle eastern religions. The 10 Commandments, for instance, seem to be based on the egyptian Book of Death, while many of the myths in the Bereshith (Genesis) are very likely inspired by babylonian epic – Gilgamesh, which is nothing to be surprised about, given that the hebrews were originally a babylonian people. In fact, i would say that all ancient middle eastern and south european religions seem to be connected in a way or another, some more than others.
The hebrews then moved on back to Canaan , bringing along with them other tribes (perhaps already converted) from Egypt and other parts of North Africa and conquered it, legitimizing it’s military operations through their religion. They later named it Israel and this point it’s possible that they were divided into 12 main tribes. Among these, Judah was one of the most powerfull ones.
Israel, due to the rivalry among its 12 main tribes, would later on become divided in two, and the Northern region was soon invaded by assyrians, which led to the dispersal of some of it’s population throughout the Middle East and possibly North Africa and Southern Europe.
This was then followed by the babylonian, persian, and greek invasions which led to more of the same. Of course with all these invasions, hebrews became even more exposed to other cultures.
Then, in 61 BC, came the romans, and along with them, their culture and technology. Their presence and military control was not accepted by most hebrews/jews (even though this represent new commercial opportunities for many) and it was at this time that rebel sects such as the pharisees became popular.
Considering Immanuel Yeshua (also known as Jesus Christ) existed, this was probably the one to which he belonged. The pharisees who were inspired by the teachings of Hillel and the belief in a Messiah that would set Israel free, gather all the tribes and bring universal peace were seen as threat not only to the romans but another jewish sect – the saducees, who refused the talmudic tradition and complied with the romans and therefore were regarded by many as traitors. Immanuel Yeshua was very likely one their most radical opponents, and as result of that some people began considering him to be a Messiah and created myths about him in order to make his cause more atractive. The logic response to this threat was his death (by crucifiction or not). More myths about him and religious rituals would later arise, most of which them seem to be based on the indo-aryan religion- Mithraism (very popular among the romans and a rival to Judaism), probably due to the intent of some of his followers to make his religion more acceptable among the gentiles. To sum it up, Christianism ended up developing itself basically as mixture of Talmudic Judaism with Mithraism.
However, Immanuel Yeshua, would not be the only one ot be considered the Messiah. As tensions between jews and romans began to increase, a man known as Bar Kokhba arised as the hope of freedom, but to no avail, as he would eventually lose the war against the romans, which ended in a dramatic way, culminating with the suicide of thousands in Masada.
Among all these conflicts it’s not surprising at all that many emigrated towards other parts of the world, Persia being one of them. However a subtancial part of it’s population remained in Israel and would later convert to Islam, causing their descedants to lose track of its hebrew origins, just like many portuguese, spanish and south americans still do these days.
Now, as an atheist portuguese who descends from sephardi jews there’s nothing more depressive than seeing people of the same blood fighting each other, due to religious segregation, ignorance and violence. Would they be aware of their common ancestry, the falsehood and dangers that religion exarcebates and the importance of humanistic and scientific/rational values and perhaps all people of hebrew origins would be living today in peace as one prosperous nation with one of the most diversified culture (sephardi, mizrahi and ashkenazi). Of course the same should apply to all humans in larger scale.