Kamal900
10-14-2014, 05:39 AM
Aim: Although much of Jordan is covered by desert, its north-western region forms part of the Fertile Crescent
region that had given a rich past to Jordanians. This past, scarcely described by historians, is not yet clarified by
sufficient genetic data. Thus in this paper we aim to determine the genetic differentiation of the Jordanian population and to discuss its origin.
Methods: A total of 150 unrelated healthy Jordanians were investigated for ten Alu insertion polymorphisms. Genetic relationships among populations were estimated by a principal component (PC) plot based on the analyses of the R-matrix software.
Results: Statistical analysis showed that the Jordanian population is not significantly different from the United Arab Emirates population or the North Africans. This observation, well represented in PC plot, suggests a common origin of these populations be-longing respectively to ancient Mesopotamia, Arabia, and North Africa.
No significant difference was obtained between North African populations. This genetic homogeneity among North Africans was provided inprevious studies showing that no significant genetic differences were found among them when samples representative of wide areas were considered, regardless of their current linguistic status (Bahriet al., 2008; El Monceret al., 2010). Besides, no significant difference was noted between the Jordanian population, that from UAE (p=0.341) and those from North Africa (p=0.604). This evident genetic closeness, well represented in the third PC plot (Fig. 4), suggests a common genetic background among populations from Arabia such as UAE, those from ancient Mesopotamia such as Jordan, and those from North Africa. In this way, we have tested the contribution of ‘‘Arabian’’ genes in the genetic background of the current Jordanian population, taking as parental populations the samples from UAE and Morocco, and considering information from 8 Alu loci. As expected from the genetic similarity between parental samples, only the Long and Chakraborty estimator gave a statistically consistent result: the genetic contribution of the Arabian sample in Jordan was 36.5% (95% CI: 0.193–0.780).
In conclusion, we note that the ancient people movements from Arabia to ancient Mesopotamia and North Africa pro-posed by many historians and supported by concordant and complementary results of different nuclear and mitochondrial DNA are also compatible with our results suggesting a common genetic background between populations from Arabia, from ancient Mesopotamia, and from North Africa. Besides, our results showed a highest degree of genetic homogeneity between the current Jordanian population and North Africans which is in accordance with an additional Neolithic gene flow from ancient Mesopotamia to North Africa. On the basis of all historic data, our results and other genetic data quoted above,
it seems that ancestors of Jordanians represented a Semitic composition founded from early Semitic peoples such as the Semitic Amorites and Canaanites. This composition was probably influenced by civilizations possessing political sovereignty in Jordan during later periods. But the evident genetic closeness between current Jordanian population and that of the UAE from Arabia suggests that this influence, coming mainly from neighboring populations often having Semitic similar genetic profiles, was very likely insignificant.
http://speedy.sh/BmgK5/article-en-PDF-de-jordan-1.pdf
Whats your opinion on that study?(what does it tell you regarding the origins of the jordanian peoples?)
region that had given a rich past to Jordanians. This past, scarcely described by historians, is not yet clarified by
sufficient genetic data. Thus in this paper we aim to determine the genetic differentiation of the Jordanian population and to discuss its origin.
Methods: A total of 150 unrelated healthy Jordanians were investigated for ten Alu insertion polymorphisms. Genetic relationships among populations were estimated by a principal component (PC) plot based on the analyses of the R-matrix software.
Results: Statistical analysis showed that the Jordanian population is not significantly different from the United Arab Emirates population or the North Africans. This observation, well represented in PC plot, suggests a common origin of these populations be-longing respectively to ancient Mesopotamia, Arabia, and North Africa.
No significant difference was obtained between North African populations. This genetic homogeneity among North Africans was provided inprevious studies showing that no significant genetic differences were found among them when samples representative of wide areas were considered, regardless of their current linguistic status (Bahriet al., 2008; El Monceret al., 2010). Besides, no significant difference was noted between the Jordanian population, that from UAE (p=0.341) and those from North Africa (p=0.604). This evident genetic closeness, well represented in the third PC plot (Fig. 4), suggests a common genetic background among populations from Arabia such as UAE, those from ancient Mesopotamia such as Jordan, and those from North Africa. In this way, we have tested the contribution of ‘‘Arabian’’ genes in the genetic background of the current Jordanian population, taking as parental populations the samples from UAE and Morocco, and considering information from 8 Alu loci. As expected from the genetic similarity between parental samples, only the Long and Chakraborty estimator gave a statistically consistent result: the genetic contribution of the Arabian sample in Jordan was 36.5% (95% CI: 0.193–0.780).
In conclusion, we note that the ancient people movements from Arabia to ancient Mesopotamia and North Africa pro-posed by many historians and supported by concordant and complementary results of different nuclear and mitochondrial DNA are also compatible with our results suggesting a common genetic background between populations from Arabia, from ancient Mesopotamia, and from North Africa. Besides, our results showed a highest degree of genetic homogeneity between the current Jordanian population and North Africans which is in accordance with an additional Neolithic gene flow from ancient Mesopotamia to North Africa. On the basis of all historic data, our results and other genetic data quoted above,
it seems that ancestors of Jordanians represented a Semitic composition founded from early Semitic peoples such as the Semitic Amorites and Canaanites. This composition was probably influenced by civilizations possessing political sovereignty in Jordan during later periods. But the evident genetic closeness between current Jordanian population and that of the UAE from Arabia suggests that this influence, coming mainly from neighboring populations often having Semitic similar genetic profiles, was very likely insignificant.
http://speedy.sh/BmgK5/article-en-PDF-de-jordan-1.pdf
Whats your opinion on that study?(what does it tell you regarding the origins of the jordanian peoples?)