Today, I want to present the maternal haplogroups of Kurds. Unfortunately, information regarding the mtDNA of Kurds is very restricted.
23andme data:
1x C4b (Alevi)
1x H5a1 (Sorani)
1x H15a (Sorani, mtDNA fully sequenced here and here)
1x H15b (Sorani)
1x HV (Sorani)
1x HV (Kurmanji from Zakho)
1x J1b (Sorani)
1x J2a1a (Kurd from Turkey)
1x N1b1 (Alevi)
1x U1a1 (Zaza)
1x U1a1 (Sorani)
1x U8b (Feyli)
The N1b1 is intresting. Seem to be shared by Kurds and North Iranians. Is this clade of n considered West Eurasian?
ReplyDeleteJ2a is concentrated around the Mediterranean but it is also found in the Kalash while their neighbors exhibit J1 only.
The lack of U7, W and I is surprising though.
H5a is supposed to be Indo-European. Although I have theories that many Kurdish West Eurasian mtdnas (especially the most Euro ones) are through Assyrian and Armenian females. Which of course came from a few biased individuals and ridiculous considering Kurd have more Indo-European genes(northern component) and R1a than either of those populations.
"H5a is supposed to be Indo-European. Although I have theories that many Kurdish West Eurasian mtdnas (especially the most Euro ones) are through Assyrian and Armenian females."
ReplyDeleteIn general, the chances of geneflow from the local majority (=Kurds) to the local minorities (=Assyrian and Armenian) is higher than the other way around. Assyrians and Armenians have to 10x more endogamous (compared to Kurds) to compensate for this, which I highly doubt.