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From: "Annie, The WritingTeacher" <>
Subject: [DNA] Re: GENEALOGY-DNA-D Digest V02 #411
Date: Tue, 01 Oct 2002 20:21:08 -0700


Is anyone researching a possible link between some Bulgarian women and some
Ashkenazi female founders in Eastern Europeespecially Romania, Moldovia,
and Bulgaria? This discussion started among a group of geneticists and
anthropologists discussing why red hair is so common among Ashkenazim (e.g.
Red Buttons)and is more common in Romania and Poland only among the
Ashkenazim, but is rare in E. Europe among other groups, and common in
Azerbaijan, but not in Scandinavia....inspite of Hollywood movies on Eric
the Red, etc. Most Scandinavians who were fair had ash blonde hair, not
bright red. Input from a Polish priest on this at our conversation--it's an
Ashkenazi trait seen on ancient dieties in Greek colonies of Thrace. (So I
wanted to explore this with professionals in genetics).

Is some early founder Ashkenazi mtDNA really ancient Thracian? The
boundaries of Thrace include the territory of present-day Bulgaria as well
as contemporary Romania, Moldovia, Eastern Serbia, Northern Greece and
Northwestern Turkey.

According to the Greek historian Herodotus (5th century BC), the Thracians
were the most numerous people in Europe and came second in the world
Herodotus knew after the peoples of NW India he studied at that time.


People of Thrace traded extensively in wives with the Hittites and Troujans
of Bronze-Age Anatolia and the Levant, as well as trading in food such as
olives and lentils with the Hittites, Trojans, and people of the E.
Mediterranean and Levant.

Trade also consisted of food, Hittite iron, and raw materials and other
goods which fully satisfied the local needs, leaving considerable quantities
for exports in all directions. The Thracian export is particularly easy to
trace in the southeastern and southern directions and seems to follow some
of the mtDNA of Ashenazimwithout considering the Middle Eastern Y
chromosome from the males who may have taken these women as wives as they
migrated north and west after 70 CE when the Romans conquored the Levant.

Some of the Ashkenazi mtDNA may follow the major trade routes from Thrace to
Poland and Ukraine in the North and to Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, and the
Levant in the South. Trade between Thrace and the peoples inhabiting Asia
Minor, the Middle East and the Aegian Sea region was extensive.

The exchange of merchandise was chiefly carried out by sea through the ports
of Thrace, Phoenicia, Egypt, Caria, Crete and Mycenae. This inevitably led
to trading in brides/wives and families. In addition other exchanges of
people, of political and cultural ideas and of technological information,
too exchanged between Thrace (Modern Bulgaria, Romania, Moldovia, S.
Ukraine) and Western Anatolia and the Levant.

Does archaeology show whether there were Jewish communities in classical
times with Jewish men and Thracian women? Thrace was the home of Spartacus.
There was even a province 2,000 years ago called Sparadakus in Thrace.
Hellenic culture was absorbed as was the culture of the Levant and of Troy
in Anatolia as well as the culture of the Hittites nearby and the Amorites
in the Levant. Bulgaria was an ancient melting pot for migrations and exodus
of peoples going from the Levant north into Eastern Europe, especially after
the Trojan wars of the bronze age.

By 1,300 BC the Thracian states became allies of the Trojans in the Trojan
war and extended more trade in women between the Levant, Anatolia, the
Hittites, and the Trojans of Western Anatolia. Southern Thrace was linked to
Troy. Thracians and Trojans had economic, political and, ethnic relations.
History and ancient Greek literature mentions the Thracian king Rhesus who
was killed by Ulysses in his camp before joining the battles near Troy.

This possible link to explore further--between ancient Thrace and the mtDNA
of Ashkenazi women is an interesting cause for further study, since so many
Ashkenazi womens maternal lineages are similar to the female lineages of
Bulgarians today.

This historical link would be something to ponder for further research to
see whether Ashkenazi mtDNA is related in any way to modern Bulgarian women
who claim descent from ancient Thrace rather than Turkic tribal migrations
from Central Asia in the 9th century. Anyone researching this possible link?
The pre-Ashkenazi before they split into Sephardi and Ashkenazi in Thrace
would predate the Sephardi immigration into Bulgaria after 1492 which came
from Spain and Portugal. It would be different from the 15th century
Sephardi migrations to Bulgaria from Spain, whose mtDNA might link closer
with Mizrahi(Jewish women from Kurdistan). What do you think of this
theory? The Ashkenazi Bulgarian women would have long been married to
Levantine men before migrating to Poland. Notably, Thrace had a very high
percentage of redheads. Even the dieties worshipped and mentioned by
Herodotus and other ancient Greeks described Tracian women as having red
hair and gray eyes with fair, freckeled skin.

Interestingly, the Ashkenazi have more redheads in Eastern Europe,
especially Romania and Poland than is found among most other peoples of
Europe, except for the Celts. In Poland, the red hair is considered an
Ashkenazi trait, and in the ancient world, red-blonde hair was found mostly
in Thrace in E. Europe. Outside of E. Europe, red hair is common among the
Gaelic-speaking Celts. Anyone's discussion? Thanks


Anne H.


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