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Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2007-04 > 1176481009


From: "Dienekes Pontikos" <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] Cohen does not equal CMH,CMH does not equal Cohen -- only in J1 do they coincide
Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2007 09:16:49 -0700
References: <461F9F20.9010003@comcast.net>
In-Reply-To: <461F9F20.9010003@comcast.net>


It is puzzling why 10 years after "Y Chromosomes of Jewish Priests"
appeared in Nature there has been no scientific followup on the
question of Cohen Y chromosomes.

The debate is not likely to end unless an authoritative study with
known samples, known markers, is submitted to peer review and gets
published in the literature. Until then speculation will be rife, and
rightly so. Right now there are simply no data except hidden data
which is no data at all.

It is not as if the relevant markers or population samples are not
available. The DNA samples from Cohanim have been collected for over a
decade now and were used in the original study, and relevant markers
such as M172 or M267 have also been known for many years, many times
the usual cycle of peer review.

It is also not the case that the public or the scientific community
lacks interest in this issue, since a simple look at any public
genetic database will convince anyone that there is great Jewish
interest in their ancestry, and every year there appear to be several
papers on Jewish genetics.

The original research suggested a link with the Jewish priesthood by
noting that 50%+ Cohen Y chromosomes had the YAP-, DYS19B combination.
It is, however, not at all clear what percentage of them has the full
CMH-6, or the CMH-12/J1 combination. Data is simply lacking.

We can only be certain that the J1/CMH-12 combination will be found in
some minority of modern Cohanim, although the exact percentage is
unknown. Indeed, the percentage could be so small that the whole idea
of modern Cohanim having a connection to the first Israelite priest
would need to be rethought. Stating that there is a cluster of
J1/CMH-12 individuals with known religious Cohanim status is not
sufficient:

Only if a majority or sizable minority of Cohen Y chromosomes belong
to this cluster, and only if the coalescence time to the patrilineal
ancestor is roughly consistent with Late Bronze Age is there a case
for a connection of Cohanim with the Israelite priesthood. Otherwise,
we simply have an interesting cluster of Y chromosomes and nothing
more.

Hopefully scientists interested in Jewish origins will present the
evidence fully in the open light in the near future.

On 4/13/07, Bonnie Schrack <> wrote:
> I feel really tired of this debate, which seems to be never-ending, no
> matter how many times it's discussed clearly -- baseless assertions are
> brought up over and over. But it looks as though I had better try
> again, since my name gets dragged into it. :-( It seems to be my
> responsibility, since as administrator of the J project, I have easier
> access than some to a lot of information.
>
> As Ellen pointed out,
>
> >
> >
> >>We've debated on the List before whether the
> >>CMH as it associated with the Cohamin caste are
> >>
> >>Actually within haplogroups J1 and J2. Again,
> >>listers, you can check the archives.
> >>
> >>I believe I have previously asserted that the strong suspicion is that
> >>it is in J1. I think Bonnie also suggested this, as
> >>well as some other researchers of haplogroup J.
> >>
> Thanks, Ellen -- and I haven't just suggested it, I've stated the fact:
> In J1, there is a very large, well-studied and definitely known cluster
> of ancestrally related Cohanim -- in the traditional, religious sense --
> who have both the old 6-marker CMH and FTDNA's newly refined 12-marker
> CMH, with a YCAII value of 22-22. They can be seen in our J Haplogroup
> Project results table with their own category. I should note that there
> are probably others in the project who could be put in this category,
> but I have just started out by placing those there which fit the strict
> definition of the 12-marker CMH.
>
> Please note that I don't consider FTDNA a great authority based on their
> being the largest company in the field; rather, because they work with
> the very scientists who discovered and defined the original CMH, and
> have continued their research, with access to a vast amount of relevant
> data, so they are in the best position to make these definitions, at
> this point. Bennett Greenspan is deeply involved in Jewish genealogy,
> he attends many large conferences and knows the world's leading
> researchers, and he certainly is aware of which families are true
> Cohanim. It would be completely illogical for him to propose a
> 12-marker haplotype that was not found in religious Cohanim. And this
> 12-marker haplotype is found frequently in J1, specifically among Jews,
> and is virtually never found in J2.
>
> >But others pointed out that the question is not yet settled, and both
> >options are possible.
> >
> >
> The question is not settled only in the sense that Sasson and a few
> others insist on claiming that it isn't.
>
> Ellen also wrote:
>
> >>The bottom line is that CMH is not mainly found in J2a1b as you have asserted.
> >>
> >>
> Sasson wrote:
>
> >CMH is mainly found in J1.
> >But outside of J1, it is mainly found in J2a1.
> >
> >
> Why should it be of any interest where else the old 6-marker CMH is
> found, when the people carrying those marker values are NOT COHANIM in
> the religious sense? See my further comments below.
>
> Ellen asked,
>
> >>Please cite the DNA studies that support this contention.
> >>
> >>
> Sasson replied:
>
> >
> >It was mentioned by Bonnie and Al on this List.
> >
> OK, if you're going to try to cite me as the source for various
> misleading assertions, I hope you are ready for me to refute them.
>
> One aspect that bugs me is this lingering sense of some kind of a
> mystical connection between the 6-marker CMH in particular, and being a
> real Cohen, as if merely having these marker values somehow endows a
> person with a priestly status. I keep suspecting that somewhere, people
> are invoking numerology.
>
> The reality is that in J2, there are some true Cohanim, yes; and there
> are people who have the old 6-marker CMH, yes. But THEY ARE NOT THE
> SAME PEOPLE! They are two totally *separate and distinct groups*, who
> belong to different haplogroups. Somehow, you all are going to have to
> break down this mental link between having a few Y DNA markers, and
> having a religious status. There is no inherent connection! I should
> think this would go without saying for any religious person.
>
> And without any religious feeling at all, a person who studies DNA even
> a little bit can see that a 6-marker CMH can be found in different
> contexts, surrounded by other quite different marker values -- pick any
> 6 marker values, and you can find them scattered about in many
> haplogroups and clusters. Simply finding those 6 values in someone says
> nothing about the rest of their haplotype, or what phylogenetic clade
> they may belong to.
>
> I have been researching this in great detail for at least two years, and
> there is no question about it. We have investigated it with families
> who have very good knowledge of their family history. The group in
> J2a1b who have the 6-marker CMH are devoid of any Cohen traditions in
> their families, which Jeff Schweitzer, my co-administrator and a member
> of this large group, who is very knowledgeable about Jewish history and
> genealogy, has searched for systematically among them. I don't believe
> there is any tradition of a Levite status, either. There are no Levites
> mentioned as close matches in their RAO or Haplogroup pages. Even if
> there were Levites among them, this would not fit with your assertions,
>
> > The Jewish Cohanim are said to come from the Tribe of Levi, so the null
> > hypothesis would be that the Tribe of Levi is almost as high in CMH as the
> > Cohanim themselves.
> >
> > The fact that - among the J2 lineages - CMH is mostly found in J2a1b was
> > stated on earlier in one of the discussions on this List.
>
> >The abundance of CMH points towards J2a1b (old J2f) as the Tribe of Levi.
> >
> Since you appear to take the Bible as literal truth, I gather you are
> trying to find two haplogroups that would be in an ancestor-descendant
> relationship, as the tribe of Levi and the Cohanim lineage are said to
> be. However, this won't work if you're trying to do it in J2a1b, where
> neither Cohanim nor Levites have been found! If you ever find any,
> please bring the specific information to the list -- not just, "they
> must exist." And by all means, please send me their surnames or Ysearch
> IDs, if you can actually find any.
>
> The J2 group who *do* have a Cohen religious tradition and are proud of
> it, are *NOT* *in J2a1b*, and *do not have the 6-marker or any other
> CMH*. They belong to a unique, small offshoot of J2a1* which I believe
> to be a predecessor of the J2a1k clade. They may be seen in the
> category in our test results chart labeled, "Pre-J2a1k." I will not go
> into the technical explanation at this moment, but it's very
> interesting. There are a good number of Ashkenazi Jewish members of
> this cluster, who have a well-organized project of their own, and so
> they have not all joined our J haplogroup project. ( Note that one of
> our members listed here is from India, and is Christian. He is a
> descendent of ancient Jewish settlers on the Malabar coast of Kerala.)
>
> In case you are wondering, there are some Jews in J2a1k proper, but the
> families do not know of any Cohen tradition.
>
> Also, there is a large group of Jewish families who I have been known
> for some while, as I've been assisting Herb Huebscher, who has done such
> an excellent job of studying and coordinating their group, and has been
> giving presentations on them at international Jewish genealogy
> meetings. Many of them do have Levite traditions, and they are in the
> later-arising haplogroup, J2a1b1 (J2f1). I don't know of any other such
> group of Levites in the J haplogroup.
>
> J2a1b1 (J2f1) is considered by scholars to be the most recently formed
> branch of the J haplogroup. It has the further M92 SNP in addition to
> the M67 SNP that defines J2a1b. So it cannot be ancestral to the J2a1b
> people who have the CMH -- who are not Cohanim, anyway.
>
> Sasson also wrote:
>
> >
> > >From the fact that they are not all CMH but some are just close to
> > CMH, in
> > conjunction with the assumption that they all are from the same family, we
> > can deduce that they are in J2,
> > because in J1 CMH is much tighter. So 50%-80% are in strict CMH-6, but
> > there
> > are many in close haplotypes.
> >
> > If the Cohanim sampled back in ninties where mostly in J1, they would form
> > much more tight network. We can conclude that if the sampled Cohanim
> > were mostly from haplogroup J2.
>
>
> I'm sorry, but this makes no sense whatsoever. There are a great number
> of Jews -- and non-Jews for that matter -- who have haplotypes that are
> slightly, or a good ways, off the CMH in J1. I can't fathom by what
> logic you could try to claim that a broad network of related haplotypes
> would imply J2 rather than J1. This kind of broad network is exactly
> what we see in J1 around the Cohen cluster.
>
> The scientists who did those studies you cite, themselves, are the ones
> who are saying the Cohen group is in J1, not J2. Hammer and other
> colleagues work for, or are friends of FTDNA. The 12-marker CMH which
> FTDNA is definining, is distinctively a J1 phenomenon.
>
> In conclusion, let me say that rather than seeking to equate haplogroups
> with tribes or peoples, a person who respected the knowledge and
> information accumulated by all the work of anthropology and human
> population genetics, would realize that the Jewish people, like any
> other people or large tribe, were formed by a gathering of families from
> different haplogroups that were present in the region. If they had been
> exclusively members of one haplogroup, in the ancient times when they
> were small in number, it would have been very unhealthy, genetically!
> There is no major ethnic group yet found in the world that has only one
> haplogroup in it. People have long been aware of the dangers of
> inbreeding, and have made efforts to maintain a healthy level of genetic
> diversity, with a few exceptions.
>
> Bonnie
>
>
>
>
>
> -------------------------------
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--

Dienekes' Anthropology Blog
http://dienekes.blogspot.com

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