the Cohrn modal haplotype because it occurs primarily in the Cohanim (the plural of Cohen),

the priestly lineage said to be descended from

~oses'sbrother Aaron. Although the Cohen
model haplotype has a frequency at least 50%
in the Cohanim, it is rare in other Semitic
goups. This finding affords some support for
the Lemba's oral history, and the estimated
time for the most recent common ancestor of
b e Lemba and Cohanim Y chromosomes is
' roughlY 3000-5000 years. The earliest of these
dates would be consistent with the time that
the Assyrian King Shalmaneser V sent the ten
tribes of Israel into exile. Sometimes known as
the "black Jews of south Africa," the Lemba are
technically not Jewish. Judaism is transmitted
through the maternal lineage, and Lemba tradition holds that only men survived the perilous voyage from Sena.

origin of European Gypsies. Arriving in

Eastern Europe about 1000 years ago, the
Roma (Gypsies)were persecuted for centuries.
They were held and bartered as slaves until the
1860s, and they were the only ethnic group
besides Jews to be singled out for exterrnination in the Nazi death camps. Today they number morethan twelve million people located in
many countries around the world. Their origin
has been disputed. The term "Gypsy" reflects a
legend that they originated irs Egypt, but their
language (Romanes) has sdme similarities to
languages of the Indian subcontinent.
Studies of the Y chromosome have clarified
this situation, too. A group of closely related
haplotypes was found among men in all of 14
Romani populations studied and accounted for
44.8% of all the Romani Y chromosomes.
Elsewhere in the world this haplotype is found
in the Indian subcontinent. In this study, mitochondrial DNA haplotypes were also examined. Mitochondrial DNA is also convenient
for tracing population history because it does
not undergo recombination and is transmitted
through the female (Chapter 16). A particular
group of mitochondria1 DNA haplotypes was
foundin 26.5% of the female lineages among
the Romani populations. This haplotype
derives from the Indian subcontinent, too. The
origin of the Y chromosomal and mitochondrial DNA haplotypes, and the relatively high
frequency of a small number of haplotypes
m n g the Roma is consistent with a small
group of founders originating in the Indian
subcontinent. Given the time of their appear-

ance in Eastern Europe, it has been suggested

that their migration was actually a flight from
the armies of Mahmud of Ghazni invading
from what is now Afghanistan.

12

Chromosome
Abnormalities in
Human Pregnancies

Approximately 15 percent of all recognized

pregnancies in human beings terminate in
spontaneous abortion, and in about half of all
spontaneous abortions, the fetus has a major
chromosome abnormality. Table 8.2 summarizes the average rates of chromosome abnor-