Closest Modern Populations to Ancient Israelites

Iron Age samples from around the time of the Kingdom of Israel suggest that Christians of the Levant (and Samaritans) are the closest living descendants of the ancient Israelites.

On the other hand, Muslims and Jews have, to a large extent, mixed with foreign elements. In the case of Palestinian Muslims, a significant Sub-Saharan African component distinguishes them from the ancient Israelites. As for Ashkenazi Jews, a substantial European admixture sets them apart from the ancient Israelites.

The Israeli government considers Palestinian Christians to be Arab Christians, in other words, not native to the region. However, little do they realize that Palestinian Christians may, in fact, be more indigenous to the region than all Jewish groups combined.

https://i.imgur.com/W91KBqh.png

Aren't Ashkelon samples actually Philistines rather than Israelites?

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Originally Posted by Peterski

Aren't Ashkelon samples actually Philistines rather than Israelites?

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They were a mix of locals and Philistines. The Philistine samples stood out clearly due to their strong Southern European genetic shift.

https://i.imgur.com/q76cMI3.png

Albanians

I was expecting to see some Druze in that list.

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Originally Posted by Kross

Iron Age samples from around the time of the Kingdom of Israel suggest that Christians of the Levant (and Samaritans) are the closest living descendants of the ancient Israelites.

On the other hand, Muslims and Jews have, to a large extent, mixed with foreign elements. In the case of Palestinian Muslims, a significant Sub-Saharan African component distinguishes them from the ancient Israelites. As for Ashkenazi Jews, a substantial European admixture sets them apart from the ancient Israelites.

The Israeli government considers Palestinian Christians to be Arab Christians, in other words, not native to the region. However, little do they realize that Palestinian Christians may, in fact, be more indigenous to the region than all Jewish groups combined.

https://i.imgur.com/W91KBqh.png

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If you mean "significant" of SSA admixture in Palestinian Muslims is 4% then yeah. And no, the average Palestinian Muslim, while indeed more admixed than Christians, still are more native than foreign(58%).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCn6v8X0Ebk&t=23s

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For Palestinians the bulk of their ancestry/admixture comes from two groups: the local pre-7th century population, mostly Christians by that time but also Jews and Samaritans; and the tribal Arabs who settled afterwards (many of whom abandoned nomadism and became sedentary).
My guess is that until the mid-10th century, the local Palestinian genepool would've been mostly Samaritan-like + some Tell_Qarassa, then the SSA starts coming in the late Abbasid period, Berber comes in with the Fatimids, the Iranian/Kurdish with the Ayyubids, and then some sporadic Egyptian and Turkish in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Regarding the AP admixture: if you exclude the tribal Arabs (~20-25%) mostly living along the Euphrates and the badiya of Syria since the 15th-17th century, then Palestinians have more AP admixture than north Levantines.
https://genarchivist.net/showthread....64449#pid64449

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https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F6qrxR5b...pg&name=medium

Christians practiced endogamy similar to the Druze while their Muslim and European Jewish counterparts did not. Fyi, these Christians are Arabs, and being an Arab has nothing to do with race whatsoever.

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Originally Posted by Bulkster

If you mean "significant" of SSA admixture in Palestinian Muslims is 4% then yeah. And no, the average Palestinian Muslim, while indeed more admixed than Christians, still are more native than foreign(58%).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCn6v8X0Ebk&t=23s



https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F6qrxR5b...pg&name=medium

Christians practiced endogamy similar to the Druze while their Muslim and European Jewish counterparts did not. Fyi, these Christians are Arabs, and being an Arab has nothing to do with race whatsoever.

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Where did you get 4%? It's 8% on average, and in some cases it rises to 15%.

Palestinian Muslims are roughly as indigenous as Jewish groups like the Ashkenazi and Mizrahi; however, all these populations are more genetically mixed than the Christians and Samaritans.

Some hypothesize that the Sub-Saharan African component is Egyptian, which would mean Palestinian Muslims have about 30 to 40% Egyptian ancestry.

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Originally Posted by Kross

Where did you get 4%? It's 8% on average, and in some cases it rises to 15%.

Palestinian Muslims are roughly as indigenous as Jewish groups like the Ashkenazi and Mizrahi; however, all these populations are more genetically mixed than the Christians and Samaritans.

Some hypothesize that the Sub-Saharan African component is Egyptian, which would mean Palestinian Muslims have about 30 to 40% Egyptian ancestry.

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It's not 8% but rather around 4 to 5% if we take direct SSA ancestry. I was talking about averages here, not few individuals. Yes, Christians, Druze and Samaritans are more purer because they practiced endogamy. I think you're mistaking autosomal admixture with SSA haplogroups which is around 15%:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1180338/

As for Egyptian ancestry, well, you're not exactly wrong considering that many Egyptian fala7een(peasants) did settle in Palestine in the mid 1800's. The average AE ancestry, which obviously derives from Egyptian peasents who are genetically predom. of AE stock, is around 20 to 30%.
https://i.ibb.co/1JskFbd/Fl2-YJpd-WAAU2bn.jpg

It's common for Palestinian Muslims to show a high Egyptian component on 23andMe and little to no Sub‑Saharan African; that's because the Egyptian component contains Sub‑Saharan African DNA, so some people end up with 30% to 40% Egyptian.

A random result:
https://i.redd.it/kwcfbmbqt98b1.jpg

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Originally Posted by Kross

It's common for Palestinian Muslims to show a high Egyptian component on 23andMe and little to no Sub‑Saharan African; that's because the Egyptian component contains Sub‑Saharan African DNA, so some people end up with 30% to 40% Egyptian.

A random result:
https://i.redd.it/kwcfbmbqt98b1.jpg

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I don't deny that, and the G25 model that I have showed shows exactly that btw. The point is that Palestinian Muslims are indeed admixed while their Christian counterparts did not because the latter practiced endogamy - marrying only within your community or group. The reason is because Christians didn't want to lose their religious identity since Islam only permits mixing with Christian or Jewish women, and that the children from such unions would have to be Muslim.

As for me, I'm from the Northern parts of Acre in Palestine, and I cluster more closer to Lebanese Muslims, Alawites, Druze, Syrians and etc because I'm as native as they are with substantial Central Asian admixture(used nMonte).
https://i.ibb.co/Df8zGJ82/tc5i-B9-Rd-1.png
https://i.ibb.co/7TsKPTt/2025-10-30-...ee083d65e0.png

Myancestrydna results:
https://www.theapricity.com/forum/sh...=1#post8306058