Ramesses III's ancestry

[Noah]

Jan 16, 2013 4:09:40 GMT -5 alaujani said:

I wasnt talking about the egyptians who were ruled. I was talking about the rulers. Egyptians trace their lineage to ham, but there were amalekites who over ran them and ruled them.

Last I checked, the Ancient Egyptians both built the pyramids themselves and ruled throughout most of the Dynastic and Predynastic periods.

You can read up here on some good, factual Egyptian biohistory.

[alaujani]

I'm not talking about the people who built the pyramids. I 'm talking about the people who ruled the people who built the pyramids. High Societies tend to be partial and are made up of various demographic/racial/classes

[Noah]

I understand what you wrote. However, there were no people who ruled the people who built the pyramids.

The Ancient Egyptian rulers and general population were for the most part of Hamitic stock. That is, except during a few, later brief periods when some Assyrian, Nubian, Persian and Greek foreign dynasties interrupted AE rule.

[Noah]

The February 2013 issue of the DNA Tribes Digest has just been published. In it, the authors assert that both Ramesses III's royal line and that of the Amarna mummies show predominant Sub-Saharan affinities; albeit with secondary Middle Eastern ties. They base this on their own analysis of the specimens' autosomal STR profiles, which had originally been collected by Zink et al.. From the issue:

"A previous issue of DNA Tribes® Digest identified African related ancestry for King Tut and other royal mummies from the Amarna Period. In this issue, results indicate that the later pharaoh Ramesses III also inherited alleles that are most frequent in present day populations of Sub-Saharan Africa. This provides additional, independent evidence of Sub-Saharan African ancestry (possibly among several ancestral components) for pharaonic families of ancient Egypt."

These claims are directly at odds with the chiefly South Asian affinities that EHSTRAFD's AFGT module shows for both Ramesses III's and the Amarna royals' alleles. I suggested that such discordant conclusions may have been due to a lack of South Asian and Amerindian reference populations in DNA Tribes' database against which to compare/match the Ancient Egyptian royals' DNA. However, as it turns out, the team does have both South Asian and Amerindian samples in its internal database. This leaves us with two possibilities: either something is wrong with DNA Tribes' STR analysis, or the error perhaps lies instead with EHSTRAFD's AFGT module. There are no other options because out of Ramesses III's 16 alleles at 8 tested loci, 11 alleles that were run through AFGT had their highest matches amongst modern Eurasian populations; particularly Indian/South Asian groups. Only 4 out of the 16 alleles or 25% were most frequent among contemporary Sub-Saharan populations (one allele had unclear affinities).

To therefore find out what is likely the issue, I compared Ramesses III's alleles against those contained in a third, separate global database: the ALlele FREquency Database (ALFRED). Specifically, I sought to test the validity of the following claim by DNA Tribes that certain alleles shared by Ramesses III and his putative son Unknown Man E are chiefly associated with modern Sub-Saharan populations.

"Among present day world populations, Ramesses III’s autosomal STR profile is most frequent in the African Great Lakes region, where it is approximately 335.1 times as frequent as in the world as a whole (see Table 1 and Figure 2). Unknown Man E’s autosomal STR profile is most frequent in the Southern Africa region, where it is approximately 134.6 times as frequent as in the world as whole (see Table 1 and Figure 3). Both autosomal STR profiles are also found in the Levantine region that includes populations of present day Egypt, but are substantially more frequent in regions of Sub-Saharan Africa (see Table 1).

Specifically, both of these ancient individuals inherited the alleles D21S11=35 and CSFIPO=7, which are found throughout Sub-Saharan Africa but are comparatively rare or absent in other regions of the world. These African related alleles are different from the African related alleles identified for the previously studied Amarna period mummies (D18S51=19 and D21S11=34)."

When searched within ALFRED, the CSFIPO=7 allele indeed appears to have its highest rate of occurence amongst Sub-Saharan African populations. This is consistent with both DNA Tribes' and EHSTRAFD's assertions for this particular allele value at this locus.

Locus: CSF1PO (CSF1R)

Allele: 7

1. Afro-Venezuelan - Venezuela (17%)
2. Guinean - Guinea-Bissau (11%)
3. African American - Alabama, United States (8.1%)
4. Hutu - Northeastern Rwanda (8%)
5. Guinean - Guinea-Bissau (7.6%)

Population affinity: Sub-Saharan African

However, contrary to both the DNA Tribes and EHSTRAFD databases, the D21S11=35 allele in ALFRED was not most frequent amongst Sub-Saharan groups. It was instead found to have its highest match among the Kshatriya of Andhra Pradesh in India. The reason why neither of the aforementioned databases picked up on this is because, unlike ALFRED, they do not have any Kshatriya reference sample(s) against which to compare the Ancient Egyptian specimens' DNA.

Locus: D21S11

Allele: 35

1. Kshatriya - Andhra Pradesh, India (7.3%)
2. Guinean - Guinea Bissau (6.5%)
3. Brahmin - Andhra Pradesh, India (5.8%)
4. Xhosa - South Africa (5.0%)
5. African American - Florida, United States (4.8%)

Population affinity: Indian, Sub-Saharan African

This little exercise has been very informative. It suggests that some of the Ancient Egyptian specimens' other, few alleles that were matched with modern Sub-Saharan populations may actually have a higher rate of occurrence among contemporary Eurasian populations, but that this fact isn't being detected due to limited sampling in certain areas. To confirm this thesis, I'll thus have to combine the top five matches per allele from both the EHSTRAFD and ALFRED databases for each mummy i.e. to compare Ramesses III's, Unknown Man E's and the Amarna royals' DNA against all the modern reference populations in both global databases at once, so that no stone is left unturned. This should take some time, but the results shall be authoritative and transparent.

[Noah]

As a taster, I searched ALFRED for the highest populations matches vis-a-vis the D7S820=10 allele. This was one of Tutankhamun's 4 alleles out of a total 16 that EHSTRAFD indicated had Sub-Saharan affinities, with about 44% of Hutu Bantus carrying the allele. Tutankhamun's 11 remaining alleles had Eurasian affinities, especially Indian/South Asian (the FGA=23 allele appeared twice). The ALFRED results were quite surprising: Eastern Europeans (specifically, Croatians and Bosnians) occupied four of the top five match spots, alongside the almost requisite Indian population -- all at higher frequencies than the Hutu Bantus. This discrepancy is, again, largely attributable to ALFRED including samples from populations and places that other databases have not.

Locus: D7S820[/url]

Allele: 10 (1st parent)

1. Croatian - Vrbanj, Hvar, Croatia (52.6%)
2. Croatian - Vela Luka, Korcula, Croatia (50%)
3. Croatian - Omisalj, Krk, Croatia (50%)
4. Drokpa - Northern India (48%)
5. Croatian - Baska, Krk, Croatia (45%)

Population affinity: Eastern European, Indian

[egypt1101]

Noah, thank you so much for engaging yourself with such a time consuming exercise.

Ramses III has no genetic links to PaleoAfrican groups (A or B) and is supposedly of the E1b1a lineage. And based on your research, DNATribes appears to be skewing the results in favor of a Sub Saharan "origin" however, I found DNATribes concluding paragraphs quite telling:


"These results indicate that both Ramesses III and Unknown Man E (possibly his son Pentawer)shared an ancestral component with present day populations of Sub-Saharan Africa. This preliminary analysis based on eight STR markers does not identify the percentages of Sub-Saharan African ancestry for these ancient individuals. This preliminary analysis also does not exclude additional ancestral components (such as Near Eastern or Mediterranean related components) for these ancient pharaonic Egyptians.

In addition, these DNA match results in present day world regions might in part express population changes in Africa after the time of Ramesses III. In particular, DNA matches in present day populations of Southern Africa and the African Great Lakes might to some degree reflect genetic links with ancient populations (formerly living closer to New Kingdom Egypt) that have expanded southwards in the Nilotic and Bantu migrations of the past 3,000 years (see Figure 1)."


We know there was an absense of Bantu B-M60 in *Sudan* during the Neolithic right up to the last few hundred years:

"Haplogroup B-M60 was not observed in the sample analyzed (Neolithic, Meroitic, Post-Meroitic and Christian periods in Sudan)." Hisham Yousif Hassan Mohamed 2009

And Nilotic only appeard recently in Egypt: "and a migration of individuals with Nilotic ancestry into Egypt ~ 750 years ago." Henn et al 2012

Another interesting remark in the DNATribes article:

"Both autosomal STR profiles are also found in the Levantine region that includes populations of present day Egypt, but are substantially more frequent in regions of Sub-Saharan Africa (see Table 1)."

Connecting the dots, it would appear that since there were no Bantus or Nilotics in ancient Egypt this "shared" ancestry between Ramses III (as well as Tut) would have been generated by a Caucasoid/Eurasian ancestor based on at least two factors, one being that (and I know you know this) haplogroup E descends from M168 Eurasian Adam and Ramses III/Pentawere's skulls do not reflect a negroid appearance.

There appears to have been a pocket of Eurasian Adams E1b1a lineage in ancient Egypt while siblings of this clade migrated into Sub Sahara producing the Bantus. Additionally, this marker being present in Levantine populations would also reflect a common ancestor in E1b1a between the Levant and Egypt. The Levant is much closer to Egypt than Sub Sahara.

One question that I have, when they state: "This preliminary analysis also does not exclude additional ancestral components (such as Near Eastern or Mediterranean related components) for these ancient pharaonic Egyptians."

Are they somehow determining this based on the E1b1a? They do state it is present in the Levant. Just because Sub Sahara might have a higher frequency - probably because that is where it "dead ended" with no additional outside admixture, it does not indicate origin.

[Noah]

Not a problem. This is the sort of thing the board is here for.

I think a couple of factors are prompting DNA Tribes to assert a primary Sub-Saharan affiliation for Ramesses III and the other Ancient Egyptian royals in spite of tons of evidence to the contrary. First, as you suggest, the researchers seem to hold a preconcieved idea that if Ramesses III belongs to haplogroup E1b1a, he must have had some sort of privileged paternal relationship with populations ancestral to Bantus and West Africans (since the clade is most common nowadays amongst Niger-Congo groups). It would appear they haven't considered or perhaps overlooked the likelihood that haplogroup E as a whole was still during Ramesses III's lifetime almost exclusively Eurasian-affiliated, like all other haplogroup CT-descended paternal clades. His reign was, after all, on the eve of the great Bantu expansion, and it's this series of migrations that is credited with having spread both the Niger-Congo languages and haplogroup E to much of Sub-Saharan Africa.

The main reason, though, that DNA Tribes is not picking up on the overwhelming Eurasian affinities for the Ancient Egyptian royals' autosomal alleles is that it is lacking reference samples from certain global populations that consistently score high on most alleles. Groups like the aforementioned Kshatriya of India.

[Noah]

I've managed to complete the merging of ALFRED's and EHSTRAFD'S top results for Ramesses III's autosomal STR profile. It's basically as I had suspected. There were fewer top five Sub-Saharan matches overall as other, higher-scoring Eurasian populations were now uncovered. The analysis revealed a couple of new Eurasian population affinities that had hitherto been obscured by a lack of reference samples, including Italian and Polynesian links on certain alleles, in addition to more Croatian associations. Overall, the South Asian affinities were predominant, as before.

What was especially remarkable about this analysis was that it featured one, extremely rare allele: FGA=34.2. Out of the hundreds of reference populations in both databases, only a single Colombian group wound up possessing this allele and at a very low frequency of 0.1%. So not only are Ramesses III's high frequency autosomal markers overwhelmingly associated with modern Eurasian groups, so is his one ultra rare allele. This is consistent with Eurasian affinities for the original haplogroup E bearers, from which Ramesses III appears to have been descended.

RAMESSES III

Locus: D13S317

Allele: 9 (1st parent)

1. Wichi - Salta Province, Argentina (46%)
2. Yuco/Yukpa - Sierra de Perija, Venezuela (46%)
3. Huastecos Amerindian - San Luis Potosi, Mexico (37.64%)
4. Native American - Northern Ontario, Canada (36.4%)
5. Huasteco Amerindian - Huasteca, Mexico (36.4%)

Population affinity: Amerindian

Allele: 12 (2nd parent)

1. Afro-Venezuelan - San Jose de Heras, Venezuela (60.6%)
2. Ovambo Bantus - Namibia (49.7%)
3. African American - Texas, United States (48.3%)
4. Afro-Jordanian - Jordan Valley, Jordan (48.9%)
5. Guinean - Guinea-Bissau (48%)

Population affinity: Sub-Saharan African

Locus: D7S820

**Allele: 6 (1st parent)

1. Madia-Gond - Maharashtra, India (8%)
2. Katkari - Maharashtra, India (6.2%)
3. Reddy/Vanne - Andhra Pradesh, India (3.1%)
4. Asian-derived Brazilian - Sao Paulo, Brazil (1.8%)
5. Rajput/Thakur - Uttar Pradesh, India (1.4%)

Population affinity: Indian, Amerindian

**Allele: 15 (2nd parent)

1. Reddy/Vanne - Andhra Pradesh, India (3.1%)
2. Buddhist/Mongolian - Ladakh, India (2.8%)
3. Vaddi - Andhra Pradesh, India (2.5%)
4. Reddy/Pokanati - Andhra Pradesh, India (1.8%)
5. Akuthota - Andhra Pradesh, India (1.8%)

Population affinity: Indian, Mongolian

Locus: D2S1338

**Allele: 15 (1st parent)

1. Han - Shangdong, China (6.4%)
2. Gabonese - Gabon (1.9%)
3. Lithuanian - North-Eastern Poland (1.4%)
4. Turk - Marmara Reg., Turkey (0.9%)
5. Fang - Bioko, Equatorial Guinea (0.83%)

Population affinity: Chinese, Sub-Saharan African, Lithuanian, Turkish

**Allele: 15 (2nd parent)

1. Namasudra - East Bengal/Bangladesh (0.9%)
2. Turk - Eastern Mediterranean Reg., Turkey (0.9%)
3. Lambadi - Andhra Pradesh, India (0.5%)
4. Han Chaoshan - Chaoshan, China (0.4%)
5. Turk - Aegean Reg., Turkey (0.3%)

Population affinity: South Asian, Turkish, Chinese

Locus: D21S11

Allele: 28 (1st parent)

1. Venda - South Africa (33.2%)
2. Tsong - South Africa (31.3%)
3. Xhosa - South Africa (31.3%)
4. South Sotho - South Africa (30.4%)
5. African American - California, United States (28.5%)

Population affinity: Sub-Saharan African

Allele: 35 (2nd parent)

1. Kshatriya - Andhra Pradesh, India (7.3%)
2. Guinean - Guinea Bissau (6.5%)
3. Brahmin - Andhra Pradesh, India (5.8%)
4. Xhosa - South Africa (5.0%)
5. African American - Florida, United States (4.8%)

Population affinity: Indian, Sub-Saharan African

Locus: D16S539

Allele: 8 (1st parent)

1. Gowda - India (15.2%)
2. Chenchu - Andhra Pradesh, India (14%)
3. Bhumihar - India (13.2%)
4. Jat - Uttar Pradesh, India (12.8%)
5. Lambadi - Andhra Pradesh, India (12.3%)

Population affinity: Indian

Allele: 11 (2nd parent)

1. Inupiat - Alaska, United States (61.5%)
2. Arab - Zriba, Tunisia (45.5%)
3. Madia-Gond - Maharashtra, India (44%)
4. Yemenit - Dubai Emirate, United Arab Emirates (41.1%)
5. Wayúu - Northern Colombia (41%)

Population affinity: Inuit, Tunisian, Indian, Yemeni, Amerindian

Locus: D18S51

**Allele: 8 (1st parent)

1. Reddy - India (2.9%)
2. Katkari - Maharashtra, India (2.8%)
3. Oraon - Andhra Pradesh, India (1.8%)
4. Pawara - Maharashtra, India (0.9%)
5. Italian - Marche, Italy (0.3%)

Population affinity: Indian, Italian

Allele: 12 (2nd parent)

1. Egyptian - Cairo, Egypt (23.6%)
2. Kurmi - Bihar, India (20.4%)
3. Italian - Lazio, Italy (20.3%)
4. Italian - Calabria, Italy (20%)
5. Male - Madeira, Portugal (20%)

Population affinity: Egyptian, Indian, Southern European

Locus: CSF1PO (CSF1R)

Allele: 7 (1st parent)

1. Afro-Venezuelan - Venezuela (17%)
2. Guinean - Guinea-Bissau (11%)
3. Angolan - Cabinda, Angola (8.18%)
4. African American - Alabama, United States (8.1%)
5. Hutu - Northeastern Rwanda (8%)

Population affinity: Sub-Saharan African

Allele: 10 (2nd parent)

1. Arab - Zriba, Tunisia (63.6%)
2. Croatian - Gdinj, Hvar, Croatia (40%)
3. Khandait - India (38.9%)
4. Nukak - Colombia (37.9%)
5. Native American - Northern Ontario, Canada (37.6%)

Population affinity: Tunisian, Croatian, Indian, Inuit, Amerindian

Locus: FGA

Allele: 24 (1st parent)

1. Wayúu - Northern Colombia (34.4%)
2. Samoan - American Samoa and Samoa (33.7%)
3. Baiti - Ladakh, India (29.3%)
4. Western Polynesian - New Zealand (28.6%)
5. Croatian - Zastrazisce, Hvar, Croatia (27.8%)

Population affinity: Amerindian, Polynesian, Indian, Croatian

***Allele: 34.2 (2nd parent)

1. Colombian - Valle del Cauca, Colombia (0.1%)

Population affinity: Amerindian

**double asterisk=rare allele
***triple asterisk=ultra rare allele
green=sample from ALFRED
purple=sample from EHSTRAFD