Origins of Ashkenazi Jewry clearer once more genetic information examined

[“]The Ashkenazi Jewish (AJ) population is important in medical genetics due to its high rate of Mendelian disorders and other unique genetic characteristics…The predominant source of EU ancestry in AJ was found to be Southern European (≈60-80%), with the rest being likely Eastern European.[“]

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I think this preprint is coming close to the answer. Why does a small ethno-religious minority in Europe matter? Well, that’s a matter of historical contingency.

[However, the papers on Ashkenazi Jewish genetics from 2010] suffered from two major problems. First, the putative “parent” populations of Ashkenazi Jews are not that genetically distinct. Second, the hypothesized parental populations were often implausible….

The likely parental populations of Ashkenazi Jews are Roman period peoples of the eastern Mediterranean…That is, Levantines and Iberians & Italians. These two groups are distinct, but they’re not that distinct.

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The major change in the past few years is the usage of more genetic information than common genotypes. This paper[,] for example[,] looks at haplotype information…This preserves more recent genetic variation…

The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. Read full, original post: The Origins of Ashkenazi Jews Near Resolution