Utilization of Myth for DNA tribal migration

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Date Line March 28, 2007

In discussing the origins of peoples, we are discussing matters back in an age when writing was new, had neither vowels nor punctuation. People wrote to document what they knew, believed, or wanted to believe based on some common oral tradition.

In the references, the idea of a literal king of a certain name really doesn’t work. Each nation seems to have had, as they do now, its own name for sites and people. The key element of the stories is the factual references which MUST have existed, or been “known”, by the initial intended audience.

For true or false, Rulers and nations documented their existence in terms of genealogies – connections back to earlier oral, or written, history. The written history might only have been a name reference on a tablet, with no real documented history of who the person was; but it was probably known (because grandpa died in it) that there was a war, or battle in a given period and location. That is the history we are dealing with in terms of DNA and probable origins.

In the case of DNA mutation origins, we are also confronted by cluster patterns – areas where people of one tribe/clan/family settled and successfully reproduced. A genetic cluster can mean many things: it can be a point of successful origin and population growth; it can represent a migratory settlement having nothing to do with point of origin; or it can be isolated population who managed to escape war, famine and plague and subsequently expanded into devastated areas.

When I utilize the history or mythology, I look for places that can be identified, and work on the premise that there was a reason why those places were utilized in that context. The use of Ararat in the flood stories; which is also a central location in the land of the Khaldians (who are also referenced); which is also a cluster region associated with the early emergence of a specific haplogroup; who are also associated with two regions which experience significant flood destruction in a time when admixes became the norm; I tend toward a hypothesis which holds these “coincidence” to have meaning.

To that I add the recognized Phoenician/sea people/Hyksos/Canaanite association which archaeologically also connects back to that common region and the area of the Black Sea. And to that the emergence of the same common haplogroup along routes traveled by those Phoenician and come to the conclusion that the haplogroup belonged to the dominant element – the one most likely to reproduce – within those “Sea People”.

The model is observable in everyday life. There is a working class and ruling class. The degree of mobility between the classes determines the nature of the gene pool within those classes. What is interesting in the biblical context – this class association is actually codified in the marriage laws – Each tribe can marry only within its members, while the Rabbinical upper strata of any one tribe can marry into the Rabbinical Levite tribe. It is the ultimate caste system – and seems to have broken down only with the three diaspora (the third being the destruction of the Temple by the Romans). And when discussing common cultural traits, the Brahmin – the noble cast of India – tend to also be R Haplogroup.

Culturally, they (R1a/R1a1 etc haplogroup) all fall under Indo-European and so provide an archaeological basis for tracking the cultural migration and influence among indigenous peoples who would, by shear force of numbers, absorb the migrant elements to become the seeming originators to the earliest cultural divergences.

This pattern of cultural modification is observable in America, and is becoming observable in modern Europe.

Here, disease, along with the shear force of numbers and brutality of the invaders, lead to the destruction of the indigenous peoples. By the nature of the influx, the territory also became a “melting pot” which blended a multiplicity of cultures into a force actively overwhelming those who seek to retain ancient, or primitive, superstitious beliefs.

Curiously, we are manufacturing our own superstitions, mythologies and legends. There is a necessary need for such things – though why is yet to be determined.

It really doesn’t matter if we are talking Philistines or “Billy the Kid” – or “Wyatt Earp”, or the Alamo, or Paul Bunyan – we invent our legends around either real people or real classes of people who are portrayed as bigger-than-life.

In some cases – like Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King – very real people become legendary figures, or icons of ideals.

In an earlier age and time, when oral tradition dominated, these figures would have attained “Biblical” stature. But there would still be the common element of a factual anchor to their travels and the places, or events, they were associated with.

Regardless of the distortion, there would remain the element of “my grandfather”, “my grandmother” was there; or the reference to a place as still being known by a name, or now being known by this new name. There would be the factual anchor which is necessary to lend credence to the story.

When we trace cultures, and DNA groups, we need to do so with artifacts – physical or biological – we need also take into account the oral and written traditions of each successive group. We need to look for common language or reference points.

As I have pointed out in earlier postings, one such common element is the idea that “a son of ‘G-d’ found a local woman beautiful and they had a child who became important.”

In mundane terms, the boss’ son, a son of the ruling class, or ruler, found a local woman attractive enough to marry; and they had a son (daughter) who became very important within our culture – raising us up above the others.

As I mentioned in terms of the Indian Caste System, we find just such a legend, and genetically distinguishable people in the Chenchu – whose R1a/R1a1 DNA reflects Brahmin connections, and is readily distinguished from surrounding tribes.

Of course, we also find variations in the Greek, and Old testament – and as I have cited, but will provide her by direct citation and quote:

‘Multiple Origins of Ashkenazi Levites: Y Chromosome Evidence for Both Near Eastern and European Ancestries’ (Behar et al) –
‘The haplogroup frequencies found in the six Jewish and four non-Jewish data sets are shown in table 1. The table confirms the presence of R1a1 as the modal haplogroup in the Ashkenazi Levite Jews (52% of chromosomes).”

Behar goes on to say, “This haplogroup is found at similarly high frequencies in the two Slavonic-speaking populations (Sorbians and Belarusians), but at a maximum frequency of only 5.8% among the other five Jewish data sets (mean frequency 3.2%)."

As mentioned in previous postings, the occurrence of the R1a1in the Ashkenazi Levite and Sorbian-Belarusian undeniably argues a genetic connection. This connection is further strengthened by the association between Ashkenazi Levite Yiddish and the form of German spoken by the Sorbian.

Both facts argue they were once a common people – or an admix from the fifty-two (52%) percent Ashkenazi Levite into the Sorbian and Belarusians. That admix hypothesis is strengthened by the know levels of forced conversion, and social isolation common to all three populations.

The close connection between the Sorbian and Ashkenazi was shown by the Nazi desire to exterminate both peoples.
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