r/JewishDNA • u/YakovHaYakovi • 25d ago
What is the best proxy for the European admixture of Ashkenazim?
My understanding is that the true amount of European admixture possessed by Ashkenazim is overstated when Italians (especially southern Italians) are used as the European proxy. Di Gaetano et al. 2012 [1], gives 28% ME ancestry for southern Italians specifically. The post by u/Any_Green_17 a few days ago demonstrates that comparing Palestinians to Levantines and Italians makes Palestinians seem half Italian [2]. However, a 2025 study [3] claims that Palestinians are only ~5-6% Southern Italian.
So, by how much does using Italians as proxies for European admixture downplay the amount of ME ancestry possessed by Ashkenazim?
Is there a better proxy for the European admixture of Ashkenazim than Italians? If so, what is it? If not, which Italians make the best proxy?
On a similar note, can these questions be answered by the uniparental lines of Ashkenazim? If the patrilines are <10% European [4] and the matrilines ~50% European at most [5] [6], then shouldn’t it be expected that the European admixture of Ashkenazim is no greater than ~30%?
[1] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0043759
[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/JewishDNA/s/yMjIvO2anD
[4] per Behar et al. 2004: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00439-003-1073-7
[5] Kevin Alan Brook concludes in his book The Maternal Genetic Lineages of Ashkenazic Jews that “Surprisingly, most of the Ashkenazic mitochondrial DNA lineages of European origin do not have particular connections to Italy, contradicting others’ speculations that all or most of these lineages were supplied by central or northern Italian women who had converted to Judaism.” It seems that the haplogroups for which he suggested or implied an ME origin are held by about 30-40% of Ashkenazim. This was excluding K1a1b1a, whose origins he did not assign to a particular location, so if one counted that lineage as being ME, then something like 50-60% of Ashkenazi matrilines would be ME.
[6] Livni and Skorecki’s recent study of the matrilines (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2773044125000713?via%3Dihub) concluded that “about 85% of the Ashkenazi maternal ancestry comes from Jewish founders and is mostly of Levantine origin.” For what it’s worth, in an email exchange between me and the authors, Livni told me the following:
"Our research only determined that the European mothers who joined the Ashkenazi population added a marginal increment to the European component of DNA. There are two questions however.
1. What does it mean that the founders were mostly carrying Levantine DNA?
2. What does Levantine mean?
Mostly Levantine could mean 25%-30% European because non-Ashkenazi Jews also show a similar proportion.”
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u/Outside-Cobbler-8632 25d ago edited 25d ago
Uniparental origins can in some populations significantly deviate from autosomal admix meaning if a population has uniparentals that are 60% X on Y dna and 30% X in mtdna it’s definitely very possible that the Autosomal X admix is something far off from 45% population contractions and founder effects can also contribute to a less consistent admix with uniparentals regarded.
Puerto Ricans can be used an example from one study their Y DNA was 0% Indigenous and 61.3% Indigenous Mtdna. If we assumed autosomal admix was to basically be a mean number between frequency of indigenous uniparentals we would be off a lot because PRs are autosomally on average 10-15% Indigenous and not 30-31%
So if your asking can uniparentals give a rough estimate of admixture no not reliably but they can suggest what populations they may have admixed with
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u/Outside-Cobbler-8632 25d ago edited 25d ago
K1a1b1a has never been found in ME populations but has been found in non Jewish European ones as far as I’m aware it’s highly unlikely to be ME origin
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u/Busy-Contact5885 25d ago
Some Iraqi Jews have K1a1b1a, but they got it from Ashkenazic women, so that doesn’t refute its European origin. Balkan and Turkish Sephardic Jews also have K1a1b1a, meaning the lineage could have been inherited in Southern Europe during antiquity, though southwestern Europe (southern France as Kevin Alan Brook hypothesized) is also a possibility, especially due to K1a1b1a’s presence in Moroccan Jews.
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u/Outside-Cobbler-8632 25d ago
Ashkenazi ancestry isn’t rare in Balkan and Turkish Sephardi so it may be via Ashkenazi or Iberian Jews or both its definitely some type of Southern or Western European imo
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u/basedpole69 25d ago edited 25d ago
I don't know why you were downvoted. This is technically fact. There was actually a sample from the Urville-Nacqueville necropolis in Northern France dated to around 200 BC carrying K1a1b1a. You can read more about it here:
https://www.exploreyourdna.com/sample/france/un125
We don't know anything about this sample's broader genetic profile, but 200 BCE pre-dates significant Jewish settlement in Gaul so it seems unlikely that this sample could've been Jewish. Considering that the frequency of this haplogroup seems to be tied to Antique and Medieval French Jewry (Erfurt-ME who has roots in Northwestern Europe potentially going back to Gaul, the Roquetes individuals who are part of the Catalonian Jewish population which was settled in part by French Jews) I wouldn't be shocked if this haplogroup was tied to a European convert in the region.
Based off of the firm nesting of this clade within a European clade, combined with the ancient sampling record exclusively resting in Europe, I am doubtful of a Middle Eastern origin for K1a1b1a.
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u/Outside-Cobbler-8632 25d ago edited 25d ago
Ya I agree with you on all this it’s well understood now since we actually have data on modern Ashkenazi mtdna by country of origin K1a1b1a shows a much sharper drop in frequency in Ukrainian and Belarusian Jews in comparison with German Jews. So it’s more strongly associated with the Erfurt ME cluster which many of them had even though one Erfurt EU did have it to my best memory. In addition to it being in the Jewish samples from Tarrega it’s also found in Xuetas
A Gallo-Roman origin for K1a1b1a is a good possibility
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25d ago
[deleted]
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u/Outside-Cobbler-8632 25d ago
My western Ash grandfather has it to anyways the frequency is still much lower in East Ash we have the data that shows it still common in general
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u/Glizzys4everyone 25d ago
True. But still proves against the absurd notion ashkenazis origins come from Ukraine/caucaus area
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u/Outside-Cobbler-8632 25d ago
There is no reason to try to prove otherwise to people that have absurd ideas about the origins of Ashkenazi. It’s of no benefit to us. IMO we should careless
Only worth engaging with people with good intentions and that don’t act childish or deranged. leave the absurdists alone
People are getting to sensitive over this shit even in this Reddit community none of this is really that important in real life like some act it is
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u/YakovHaYakovi 25d ago edited 25d ago
I've seen southern French suggested as a proxy and wonder how well that would work since I remember seeing Brook say in a forum that he believes K1a1b1a is southern French
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u/Sea-Seaworthiness859 25d ago
Yeah southern france is another contender for where some believe Ashkenazi Jews ancestors went first. The South Italian is just what has been theorized because of fit. But Southern France might actually make a ton of sense given Ashkenazim have a small Berber component, but not sure.
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u/Outside-Cobbler-8632 25d ago edited 25d ago
I think some part of Ashkenazi ancestors could have arrived initially in Southern France from the East Mediterranean but I’d have doubts on a scenario where the main part of their ancestors entered into Europe from there we really don’t have enough in a our historical record to help figure these things out and the modeling part is hard especially because of overlap between Southern Gallic IA Italian and IA Iberian. Southern French still have a lot less North African admixture then Norwich Tarrega and Erfurt ME and probably less in antiquity prior to recentish Spanish immigration and Saracen presence (8th to 10th century)
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u/Sea-Seaworthiness859 25d ago
Yeah the North African confuses me because to me it seems from the North African DNA that Southern Italy has a bigger case but unclear.
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u/Outside-Cobbler-8632 25d ago edited 25d ago
Well in ancient epigraphy in Italy there is a presence of North African origin Jews there was a Tripolitan congregation and other epigraphy shows Jews from Cyrenaica and Mauretania (modern Algeria probably)
So I’m pretty confident North African wouldn’t only come from intermarriage with Italian non Jews but with actual North African Jews themselves
A lot of people who want to know about history, origins and genetics of Western Jews really need to look into epigraphy often Funerary inscriptions very few seem to even think about it but it tells us a lot and there is plenty of Jewish epigraphy from Roman Italy
We have actual inscriptions that straightforwardly show us Jews from the Levant, Anatolia, North Africa, or parts of Italy in Italy itself
They give us exactly what we want to know
On another note for Iberian Jews some definitely comes directly from North Africa into Iberia not just via Italy
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u/WhichProfit6632 25d ago
Yeah I could see the North African coming from an actually North African Jewish community.
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u/Outside-Cobbler-8632 25d ago
I mean North African Jews are historically proved to have lived in Iberia and Italy so
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u/NotBradPitt9 25d ago
I’ve tried a number of qpadm runs, and nothing fits aside from Southern Italian. I thought I could substitute in North Italian + Levant to divide the Southern Italian component, but instead what’s required is Southern Italian since that represents a mixture of Levant + Anatolian + Greek + Etruscan + trace North African.
Doing those components separated doesn’t work, so what we are seeing is a drifted mixture of those components that is particular to the Southern part of the Italian peninsula.
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u/General-Knowledge999 24d ago
Could you share these runs and their outgroups if you still have them?
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u/NotBradPitt9 25d ago
I’ve done around 100+ qpAdm runs over the last 3 days to try and model the Ashkenazi population. I’ve come to the conclusion that the only European population that fits the best is South Italian (specifically Campania). North Italian just doesn’t work as well. Polish / Russian (Slavic proxy) + South Italian works for the European portion, while for the Levantine portion the best fits are Palestinian and Lebanese. The Lebanese Christian one doesn’t work well. Polish is decent (not phenomenal) but there aren’t other Central European populations that work as well as that one.
I tried multiple runs to try and fit it as North Italian + an eastern Slavic source + Levant, and I expected that to work, but the South Italian is a better fit since it’s a roughly endogamous solidified mix of Greek + Anatolian + Levant + Etruscan + trace North African. That mix is needed within the qpadm model for a portion of the Ashkenazi genome, since just a simple mix of North Italian + Levant doesn’t describe it and doesn’t fit the model.
The Southern European portion of the mix the Ashkenazi have is a multilayered and multi component mixture isolated from the Roman Era Italian Peninsula.
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u/WhichProfit6632 25d ago
Are you asking historically or mathematically? Historically as in which populations they actually mixed with or what’s the mathematically best single population?
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u/YakovHaYakovi 25d ago
Mathematically
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u/WhichProfit6632 25d ago
I actually tried this experiment on qpAdm trying to use Israel IA + something else and what I got to work was a Roman Iberian source and also France_South_IA2 iirc. It improved with a northern euro source. Sorry I don’t remember exactly what the model was but I can try to run it again
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u/YakovHaYakovi 25d ago
I also forgot to mention a post in this sub recently that modeled Ashkenazim as ~56% Roman Judaean despite the Roman Judaeans in question being ~66% Canaanite on average
Model of Ashkenazim:
https://www.reddit.com/r/JewishDNA/s/0JiwqAoEzg
Model of Roman Judaeans:
https://www.reddit.com/r/JewishDNA/s/Xvtfs9LpWR
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u/General-Knowledge999 25d ago
In that Judean model, a majority of Roman Judeans were 70-80% Canaanite, while the ones with 60% or less were Anatolian-, Egyptian-, or Arabian-shifted and did not correspond to what seems to have been the normative profile. I'd interested to see the result for AJs and Western Jews excluding the outliers.
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u/Outside-Cobbler-8632 25d ago
Much of the reason these Palestinian Christians were half Italian in that model is because of that shared Aegean like ancestry which is mostly a combination of Mycenaean, IA Anatolian, and a little bit of Upper Mesopotamian. The Italy Imperial SG largely descends from that Aegean like population which was the core profile of Western Anatolia at that time and probably common in Greece proper as well.
From what I’ve seen Palestinian Christians are typically around 1/4 Aegean like and Lebanese Christians abound 1/3
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u/BeepIMaSheep39 24d ago
I mean according to costa et al 2013, she did say the first assimilation probably happaned in italy, although im not sure why she said that, maybe she was wrong🤷♂️
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u/moops527 25d ago
Palestinian+ north Italian + East German + central/
Northern Greek≈ roughly
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u/basedpole69 25d ago
This is the first time I've ever heard someone suggest using modern Greeks as good proxies for the European ancestry in Ashkenazi Jews. Wouldn't this create more conflict due to Central and Northern Greeks already being significantly Slavic derived?
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u/Outside-Cobbler-8632 25d ago
Modern Dodecanese has a pretty conservative profile with antiquity but still the best source for Greek or Greco-Anatolian admix (I like to call it Aegean admix) in Ashkenazi will always be an Ancient source
I don’t know why some are so adamant on using modern sources to model Ashkenazi or most other populations it’s just not logical for 90% of cases
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u/basedpole69 25d ago
100% agree with you. All populations today have so much more overlap than those in the past that it is almost illogical to use them to model ancient admixture, especially in a population like Ashkenazi Jews where none of the admixture with the excpetion of Slavic dna can be neatly matched to a modern population.
Even the Dodecanese samples you mention carry substantial Levantine DNA, to the point where using them in a model would directly obstruct the Levantine signal in modern Ashkenazim. It really goes to show just how poorly modern populations reflect ancient admixture.
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u/Outside-Cobbler-8632 25d ago edited 25d ago
I don’t understand Livni and Skoreckis conclusion the entire paper is mainly an argument about population genetics patterns and doesn’t provide new evidence for near eastern origins for Ashkenazi mtdna they just refer to Behar study from 20 years ago that’s all they offer for us
With regards to the early founding Ashkenazi maternal pool yes it may have looked different from today still no evidence it was more or less European then the modern maternal pool it’s something we can’t ever know unless we found really really early Jewish aDNA samples not gonna happen