By Jide Uwechia with cited sources
The Benin Haplogroup or Haplogroup 19 Common in Africans, southern Greeks, Sicilians, and Albanians
There are at least four distinct African, (known as Senegal, Congo, Benin, Bantu Hbs Haplogroups) and one Asian chromosomal backgrounds (haplotypes) on which the sickle cell mutation has arisen.
The Benin haplotype (which originates from Nigeria, West Africa) accounts for HbS associated chromosomes in Sicily Northern Greece, Southern Turkey, and South West Saudi Arabia, suggesting that these genes had their origin in West Africa. The Asian haplotype is rarely encountered outside its geographic origin because there have been few large population movements and Indian emigrants have been predominantly from non HbS containing populations. Per:Graham R. Serjeant, MD, FRCP, The Geography Of Sickle Cell Disease:Opportunities For Understanding Its DiversityRSITY: http://www.kfshrc.edu.sa/annals/143/rev9239.html
Nigeria, west Africa appears the most logical origin of the sickle mutation in Greece evidence from beta S globin gene cluster polymorphisms (1991). It has been conclusively demonstrated that HbS in Greece is mostly haplotype #19 (the one that originated in Benin, Nigeria West Africa). See, Boussiou M, Loukopoulos D, Christakis J, Fessas P.; The origin of the sickle mutation in Greece; evidence from beta S globin gene cluster polymorphisms. Unit for Prenatal Diagnosis, Laikon Hospital, Athens, Greece.
Additionally, previous data suggest that the S/Bantu haplotype (from Southern Africa) is heterogeneous at the molecular level. Recent studies also report a similar heterogenity for the Benin Haplogroup. A study demonstrated the presence of the A -499 TA variation in sickle cell anemia chromosomes of Sicilian and North African origin bearing the S/Benin haplotype (from Nigeria). Being absent from North American S/Benin chromosomes, which were studied previously, this variation is indicative for the molecular heterogeneity of the S/Benin haplotype. Am. J. Hematol. 80:79-80, 2005.
A study was done in Albania (which borders Greece) relating to sickle cell anemia, sickle cell beta-thalassemia, and thalassemia major in Albania. The focus of the study was the characterization of sickle cell mutations. As one would expect, it was shown that the HbS mutation in the Albanian sample is the Benin (Nigeria)-originating haplotype #19. See, Boletini E, Svobodova M, Divoky V, Baysal E, Dimovski AJ, Liang R, Adekile AD, Huisman TH.; Sickle cell anemia, sickle cell beta-thalassemia, and thalassemia major in Albania: characterization of mutations. : Hum Genet. 1994 Feb;93(2):182-7.
According to a study done in 1973, before the availability of the advanced data cited above, “the occurrence of the sickle-cell trait in southern Europe …. is believed to reflect gene flow from the Middle East.” See A. P. GELPI, M.D, “Migrant Populations and the Diffusion of the Sickle-Cell Gene” August 1, 1973 vol. 79 no. 2 258-264 http://www.annals.org/content/79/2/258.abstract.
The problem with this 1973 study is that it assumes that the sickle cell genes came with the Arabs. Alas, updated research work has proven beyond doubt that the sickle cell genes proven to exist in southern Europe are exclusively Sickle cell gene Haplotype 19 or the Benin Sickle cell gene from Nigeria.
Y Haplogroup E-M78 and YAP In Black Africans and Greeks
Y Haplogroup E-M78 a derivative of E3B is a signature African gene as confirmed in research studies over the last few years. The high frequency of this haplogroup in Greece suggests the presence of a substantive African population in that region during prehistoric and historical time periods.
A recent paper has detected clades of haplogroups J and E3b that were likely not part of pre-historic migrations into Europe, but rather spread by later historical movements. Greeks .. [then there is] the marker J-M267, which may reflect more recent Middle Eastern admixture.
(Semino et al., Am J Hum Genet, 2004) E3b originates from East Africa while there is a high frequency of J-M267 in the East Coast of Africa as well as the Red sea coast of Arabia.
A recent sampling of the Greek population comprised 36 Peloponnesian samples, 5 of which were J-M172(xM12) and 17 of which were E-M78 (R.K., unpublished data).
In spite of the small Peloponnesian sample size, the high E-M78 frequency (47%) observed here is consistent with that (44%) independently found in the same region (Di Giacomo et al. 2003) for the YAP chromosomes harboring microsatellite haplotypes A. (Novelletto, personal communication) (Cruciani et al. 2004).
The study by by Di Giacomo et al. found the following African haplogroups in Greeks: Haplogroup A which is highly specific to West Africa, R1a, DE, and J2*(xDYS413= 18)J*(xJ2). R1* which probably gave rise to R1a is found in Northern Cameroon. DE is found principally among Nigerians and it is suspected that it originated from Nigeria. J is very prominent in East, and North Africa.
High-resolution Y-chromosome haplotyping and particular microsatellite associations reveal … an East Africa homeland for E-M78.Origin. See Ornella Semino, Chiara Magri, et al “Diffusion, and Differentiation of Y-Chromosome Haplogroups E and J: Inferences on the Neolithization of Europe and Later Migratory Events in the Mediterranean Area” http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=15069642
HLA Genetic Relationship Between Ancient Greeks and Black Africans
HLA genes are reliable markers of past population movement and are still used in laboratories today to establish genetic inter-relationship amongst seemingly diverse peoples.
HLA genes in Macedonians and the sub-Saharan origin of the Greeks (2001) was a study conducted by Dr. Arniaz and other scholars in a top flying Spanish University. This study uses HLA genes to establish the African dimension of the roots of ancient Greece.
According to the Arniaz study, …Greeks are found to have a substantial relatedness to sub-Saharan (Ethiopian) people, which separate them from other Mediterranean groups. Both Greeks and Ethiopians share quasi-specific DRB1 alleles, such as *0305, *0307, *0411, *0413, *0416, *0417, *0420, *1110, *1112, *1304 and *1310. Genetic distances are closer between Greeks and Ethiopian/sub-Saharan groups than to any other Mediterranean group and finally Greeks cluster with Ethiopians/sub-Saharans in both neighbour joining dendrograms and correspondence analyses. The time period when these relationships might have occurred was ancient but uncertain and might be related to the displacement of Egyptian-Ethiopian people living in pharaonic Egypt. See Arnaiz-Villena A, et.al: HLA genes in Macedonians and the sub-Saharan origin of the Greeks. Tissue Antigens. 2001 Feb; 57(2): 118-27
There is a fraudulent claim (by those with idealogical investments in the topic) on the Internet that this study has been “retracted” or “refuted.” The study is perfectly valid. Sub-Saharan-specific and quasi-sub-Saharan-specific alleles were definitely detected in the Greek population at the DRB1 locus, and this is not open to question.
It would be helpful here to discuss the study that was retracted, and the reason why. It is the work titled: “The origin of Palestinians and their genetic relatedness with other Mediterranean populations” (which contained some cross-referenced Greek data in a neighbor-joining dendogram and a correspondence analysis) that was retracted. And it was retracted solely and strictly for political reasons, as this Observer article makes crystal clear:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4307083,00.html
(Keep in mind we are dealing with the study on the relatedness of Jews and Palestinians at the moment, which was retracted, and not the one on the Greek-Black African relatedness, which was not retracted and remains valid. The two must not be confused.)
Appreciations to: http://onedroprule.org/about1071.html
Epilogue:
“Hb S is common in some areas of the Mediterranean basin, including regions of Italy, Greece, Albania and Turkey (Boletini et al., 1994) (Schiliro et al., 1990). Haplotype analysis shows that the Hb S in these areas originated in Africa. The genes probably moved along ancient trading routes between wealthy kingdoms in western Africa and the trade centers in the Mediterranean basin.” (Harvard University, http://sickle.bwh.harvard.edu/scdmanage.html)
“Usually, people with sickle cell disease outside Africa (e.g., blacks in the United States) or India have mixed haplotypes for their sickle cell genes.” (Harvard University, http://sickle.bwh.harvard.edu/scdmanage.html)
“Templeton gives a modern-day analogy: the presence of a gene for sickle cell anemia in Caucasians in Portugal. The gene traces back to a mutation that occurred in Africa and spread through interbreeding between Africans and Europeans. “The Africans didn’t come up, reconquer the Iberian peninsula, kill off all the Europeans, and that’s why there are sickle cell alleles in Portugal today,” he says. The presence of the sickle cell gene in Portugal “means that Portuguese and Africans have met and they’ve interbred, just like humans tend to do.” – “Out of Africa” – Ruth Flanagan, Contributing Editor, Earth Magazine, http://www2.mc.maricopa.edu/anthro/l…ofAfrica5.html
If any of you argue over this then you do not deserve the information you have gained.
I am Greek myself. My uncle is a famous anthropologist(Aris Poulinos) however I disagree with his claims and agree with jahdey.
My uncle believes Greeks are pure…the same as ancient times. Sorry but I do not agree. You just need to look at how diverse our race actually is to see we ARE MIXED.
Blone hair, Brown hair, black hair, Brown eyes, Green eyes, Blue eyes, straight hair, curly hair, dark skin, light skin.
A Greek could have any one of these charecteristics…sound like a pure race? NO.
Greeks DO have an African connection but Northern Europe and the Greek goverment would never let it be known.
Oh please. Greeks have no connection to Africa and they have just as much admixture as many other Europeans, including Northern Europeans have. Sorry but its not Nothern Europeans, as you so falsely claimed, that confirm Greeks have no connection to Africa BUT science and genetic. Modern studies have constructed Greek genetic trees revealing a strong degree of homogeneity between Greeks from different geographical locations. Median networks revealed that most of the Greek haplotypes are clustered of haplotypes shared among Greeks and other European and Near Eastern populations, not black Africans. Modern scholars and scientists have supported the notion that there is a racial connection to the ancient Greeks. Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Paolo Menozzi, and Alberto Piazza, have found evidence of a genetic connection between the ancient and modern Greeks.[79] These are not “Northern Europeans” as you so falsely claimed but Southern Europeans. I’m actually questioning if you are actually Greek. Giati kaveis Ellivas tha theopouse tov eafto tou sav apapi mavpo. Ti aidies Thai mou tha akousoumai pali. Apo omofeofoulous se mavpous kavouvai tov Elliviko lao. Gailio to katastima.
But Dave even Northern Europeans have historical and pre-historical African genetic admixture.
Are you not aware that many Northern Europeans have the E3B gene from Africa?
Are you not aware that Y DNA haplogroup A one of the most ancient signature of African origin has been found in greater concentration in England than in most African countries?
Are you not aware that most Europeans type for male DNA haplogroup R1B and R1A which rose from underived Y-DNA haplogroup R* which arose from western Cameroon and eastern Nigeria in West Africa?
So when you say that Greeks are like the Northern Europeans in genetic typing what then are you trying to say exactly? That you have “evolved” in the last 6,000 years in Europe into something else? Evolutionary time-frames are measured in hundreds of thousands and millions of years. Not decades and centuries.
Sometimes I think you want to be specious in your views.
Pink Europoids are nothing other than de-melaninated Africans!
That is the fact that keeps washing over your head. Just something you need to go home and think about.
Jahdey
But Jahdey every single human can trace their origins from Africa according to the “Out of Africa” theory, that does not mean they are of “African lineages”. That is a fact that keeps washing over your Afrocentric head. The E3b1 alpha the cluster found in most Europeans is a signature of a European cluster, and thats why no geneticist currently claims that E3b1 alpha is an “African” neolithic lineage in Europe. European lineages are derived from “Central Asian†Paleolithic haplogroup R , yet no one calls R lineages in Europe Central Asian. Geneticists recognize that the precursor to European and Near Eastern E3b1 lineages lie in East Africa, yet they do *NOT* over-emphasize it to the point of calling every E3b1 clade and cluster “black Africanâ€, “Africanâ€, East African and or “African Neolithicâ€, because they all have different histories as well as being phylogeographically located and distributed differently. and if you falsely belive Europeans only appeared in the last 6000 years then you don’t know anything about Paleolithic Europe. Homo sapiens arrived in Europe during the Middle Upper Paleolithic, that’s around 22,000 B.C. ‘Just something you ned to go home and think about.’
Paleolithic Europe was African. Brown people with dolichocephalic index which is a signature of African descent.
Pink Europeans are nothing but de-melaninated Africans. Go figure.
Jahdey
Paleolithic Europe are derived from “Central Asian†Paleolithic haplogroup R, not African. Haplogroup R (Y-DNA) is believed to have occurred somewhere in Northwest Asia between 30,000 and 35,000 years ago. R1 is very common throughout Europe and western Eurasia. Its distribution is believed to be associated with the re-settlement of Eurasia following the last glacial maximum. Its main subgroups are R1a (SRY1532) and R1b (M343).
To Jahdey and Dave
Peace to you both.
An excerpt-fragment-bit and peice of History
—“After the Red Race, the Black Race dominated the globe. One must look the the superior species in the Abyssinian and the Nubian, in whom is preserved the type of this race at its hieght. The latter invaded southern Europe in prehistoric times, and were driven back by its inhabitants. Their trace has been completly erased from our popular traditions. During the period of their supremacy, they had religious centers in upper Egypt and India. Their Cylcopean Cities crenelated the mountains of Africa, the Caucasus, and Central Asia.” Eduar Shure “The Great Initiates” (1889)
—O famed Cadmus, mighty black prince, son of Agenor, the king of ancient glorious Sidon in the long-perished land of Phoenicia by the sea;…though your heroic deeds and true idenity have long been forgotten….For you, O Cadmus were of the family of Giants of ancient Phoneica, those heroes of antiquity standing erect near ten feet tall, glistening black, fierce in battle…and no less divine.” Ovid, “Metamoporphsis”
—“It was the opinion of Sir Willams Jones , that a great nation of Blacks formally possessed the dominion of Asia, and held the seat of empire of Sidon.
Godfrey Higgins “Anacalypsis Vol.1”
—“The new age that began after the disappearance of Atlantis was marked by the world wide doninance of Ethiopian representatives of the black race.They were supreme in Africa and Asia…and they even infiltrated Southern Europe. But they were expelled from this latter place by a thousand years of bitter warfare between the races and onslaughts by the invaders from the north. The memory of the great advance of the blacks has been completely lost…for the dragon painted on the insignia of the kings was carried in the van of the black armies—was a final vestige of inter-racial wars preserved.” Georg Eugen, “The Adventure of Mankind”
—“The Kymry, flying in equal pace with ruin, are launching their wooden steeds upon the waters. The North has been poisoned by depredatory rovers of pale disgusting hue and hateful form, of the race of Adam the Ancient” ‘Here it is claimed for the Kymry that they belonged to the dark race, the pre-or , anti-Adamic race….It is a conflict of the dark and light races, such as said to be found in the Cuniform legends of Creation.’
Gerald Massey, “Book of the Begininnings”
Paleolithic-Mesolithic-This is why no one is really interested in history anymore–all these scientific terminologies are simply boring to the youth of today…
And then theres the Theoposist, H.P. Blavatsky’s colossal work “The Secret Doctrine”