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Haplogroups E1b1b1c1 (M34) and E1b1b1c1a (M84)

among Jews. Could Abraham be E1b1b1c1 or
E1b1b1c1a?

Article · August 2010

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The Russian Journal of Genetic Genealogy: Vol 1, №2, 2010
ISSN: 1920-2989 http://ru.rjgg.org © All rights reserved
Haplogroups E1b1b1c1 (M34)
and E1b1b1c1a (M84)
among Jews.
Could Abraham be E1b1b1c1
or E1b1b1c1a?
Abstract
The present paper clarifies the TMRCA of the Jews of haplogroup E1b1b1c1, the origin of Jews of haplogroup
E1b1b1c1a (M84) and answers the question: «Could Abraham be E1b1b1c1 (M34) or E1b1b1c1a (M84)?».
Retrospect
The problem of the origin of the Jewish carri-
ers of E1b1b1 subclades has been paid sufficient
attention [1, 2, 3, 4], including our previous pa-
pers [5, 6]. Nevertheless, development of DNA
genealogy is not standing still, the number of
people being tested for Y-DNA are increasing and
the amount of new information is constantly
growing, which requires a certain correction of
previous conclusions.
In brief, a summary of papers [5, 6] reduces
to the fact that different subclades of haplogroup
E1b1b1 (M35) have been presented in the Middle
East from ancient times. From these subclades,
the maximum time of the most recent common
ancestor (TMRCA) among Jews has E1b1b1c1
(M34) subclade: 3375±430 years ago. It comes
at a time of settling Jews in Canaan. E1b1b1a1,
E1b1b1a2 and E1b1b1a3 subclades were included
into the Jewish community in later times. It was
suggested that in Pre-Jewish times Canaanite
carriers of E1b1b1c1 could be among such histor-
ically evidenced people as Amorites, Hittites, Phi-
listines and Horites, and one of their representa-
_____________________________________________________________
Received: July 28 2010; accepted: July 30 2010; published: August 7 2010
Correspondence: absheron@gmail.com
72
RJGG
A.A. Aliev,
D.L. Tartakovsky
tives was converted to Judaism and became the
ancestor of the Jewish line of E1b1b1c1.
The specific structure of Jewish sample of
haplogroup E1b1b1c1 (the vast majority of the
haplotypes belong to one cluster) makes the
TMRCA very sensitive to including of any new
haplotype not belonging to that cluster. In a pre-
vious paper [5], due to the lack of 37-marker
haplotypes, 25-marker haplotypes (the calcula-
tion of which does not give enough accuracy)
were used. To improve the accuracy of the calcu-
lation, for the present paper only the 37-marker
haplotypes, which number significantly increased
(N=55), were used. Due to the «instability» of
the TMRCA of the Jewish E1b1b1c1, the authors
emphasize the importance of the confidence in-
terval calculated with 95% probability.
Also, the origin of Jews of haplogroup
E1b1b1c1a (M84), which has the largest number
of clusters, has not been adequately studied so
far. In addition, the simultaneous presence of
E1b1b1c1 (M34) subclades among Jews and
Arabs contributed to the assumption of belonging
«Y-chromosomal Abraham» (a conditional com-
mon ancestor of the Arabs and Jews) to one of
these subclades. The question of the lifetime of
common ancestors of Jews and Arabs of haplo-
The Russian Journal of Genetic Genealogy: Vol 1, №2, 2010
ISSN: 1920-2989 http://ru.rjgg.org © All rights reserved
groups E1b1b1c1 and E1b1b1c1a has not been
studied yet.
The aim of this paper is to clarify the TMRCA
of the Jews of haplogroup E1b1b1c1, the origin of
Jews of haplogroup E1b1b1c1a (M84) and answer
the question: «Could Abraham be E1b1b1c1
(M34) or E1b1b1c1a (M84)?».
The most recent common ancestors
of Jews of E1b1b1c1, E1b1b1c1a
For our research we will use Jewish E1b1b1c1
haplotypes from Haplozone E-M35databases.
These are the haplotypes belonging to the
E1b1b1c1-D1 cluster [7], and one haplotype from
the category E1b1b1c1-Miscellaneous [8]. The
calculation according to the algorithm [9] shows
that the most recent common ancestor of the
sample (N=55, 37 markers, the expected modal
haplotype in FTDNA order:
15-25-13-10-18-19-11-12-12-13-12-30-16-9-9-
11-12-24-14-20-31-15-15-17-17 – 10-10-19-19-
15-13-16-18-33-34-13-10), lived 5650±2820
years ago with the probability of 95%.
To determine the TMRCA of Jews of haplo-
group E1b1b1c1a (M84) we used haplotypes of
the Jewish clusters E1b1b1c1a*-A [10],
E1b1b1c1a*-B [11], E1b1b1c1a*-C [12] from
Haplozone E-M35 database. Our calculation
shows that the TMRCA of the sample (N=54, 37
markers, the expected modal haplotype in FTDNA
order:
13-24-13-10-17-17-11-12-12-13-11-31-19-9-9-
11-11-26-14-20-33-15-15-16-17 – 10-10-19-22-
16-13-18-18-31-34-13-10) is 4100±1740 years,
with 95% probability.
As one can see, both ages exceed the time of
the Jewish invasion in Canaan. It means that at
the time of the invasion and conversion of local
population belonging to haplogroups E1b1b1c1
and E1b1b1c1a into Judaism, they were two
groups of distant relatives. Rather, each of them
were inhabitants of one town conquered the
Jews.
73
RJGG
Could Abraham be E1b1b1c1 (M34)?
To answer this question let us briefly outline
the current situation. According to the Bible and
the Muslim tradition, Abraham is the distant an-
cestor of Cohens and Seyyids, and more — Jews
and Arabs. According to historians, (that general-
ly confirm the time mentioned in the Old Testa-
ment), in particular, [13, 14, 15], Abraham lived
about 4000 years ago.
Currently there is no clear opinion about Ab-
raham’s haplogroup — the known characteristics
fit just two haplogroups: J1 and J2. Y-DNA tests
of Jews and Arabs are largely related to haplo-
groups J1 and J2 and revealed that Jews and
Arabs have two common ancestors who lived
about 4000 years ago: 4200±500 years for hap-
logroup J1 and 4375±530 years for haplogroup
J2 [16], in other words, roughly in the period of
Abraham, and therefore, in the time of the divi-
sion of Arabian and Jewish genealogical lines.
Which of the two ancestors is true Abraham?
J1 or J2? The situation is complicated by the fact
that among the Cohens and Seyyids both J1, and
J2 are presented. According to the study [17],
TMRCA of J1 Seyyids is 1300±260 years ago,
which, within the confidence interval, corres-
ponds to the lifetime of Imam Ali.
However, if one looks at the haplotypes data-
bases, one can see that the role of «Abraham’s
haplogroup» is also eligible for haplogroups
E1b1b1c1 and E1b1b1c1a: the carriers of these
haplogroups are among both Arabs and Jews, in-
cluding as a Seyyids [18] and Cohens [19]. How-
ever, judging the draft, the number of
E1b1b1c1carriers compared to the one of J1 and
J2 is much smaller (1% E1b1b1c1 compared to
37% J1e, 19,6% J2a4h, 12,2% J without down-
stream subclades, 14,8% R1b1c1 and 15% of 13
other subclades among Cohens and 3% among
Seyyids). It makes an exact calculation of ance-
stral ages complicated, but, nevertheless, the
origin of Cohens is already has been widely stu-
died and reported in the literature [20, 21] and is
beyond the scope of the current paper, which
studies the origin of haplogroups E1b1b1c1 and
E1b1b1c1a among Jews. At the same time, the
problem of origin E1b1b1c1 Cohens has not been
studied yet and is interesting for genealogists.
The Russian Journal of Genetic Genealogy: Vol 1, №2, 2010
ISSN: 1920-2989 http://ru.rjgg.org © All rights reserved
The presence of more than one such haplotype
may indicate to their non-random nature. For-
mally, it gives reason to consider version about
E1b1b1c1 or E1b1b1c1a, studied in this paper, as
the haplogroup of Abraham.
At the time of writing the paper (July 2010) in
Sharifs DNA Project and Cohen DNA Project there
were 3 haplotypes of E1b1b1c1a Seyyids and 2
haplotypes of E1b1b1c1 Cohens, as well as do-
zens of Arabian and Jewish E1b1b1c1a and
E1b1b1c1 haplotypes [22]. Haplotypes of
E1b1b1c1 Seyyids and E1b1b1c1a Cohens are
not available yet (but it is not ruled out that
E1b1b1c1 Cohens are non-deep clade tested
E1b1b1c1a).
The TMRCAs of Arabian and Jewish E1b1b1c1
and E1b1b1c1a (the expected modal haplotype in
FTDNA order:
14-25-13-10-17-18-11-12-12-13-11-31 for
E1b1b1c1 and 13-24-13-10 - 16-17-11-12-12-
13-11-31-17-9-9-11-11-26-14-20-32-14-15-16-
17-10-10-19-22 - 15-13-17-19-31-35-13-10 for
E1b1b1c1a) are 8080±3890 and 4080±1440
years ago.
Consequently, the Jewish and Arabian lines of
E1b1b1c1 divided one from the other several
thousand years before biblical Abraham. On the
other hand, the common ancestor of the Jewish
and Arabian E1b1b1c1a lived in the same histori-
cal era as the biblical Abraham. The result de-
monstrates the close affinity of Jewish and Ara-
bian E1b1b1c1a.
The TMRCA of E1b1b1c1a Seyyids (the ex-
pected modal haplotype in FTDNA order:
13-24-13-10-17-17-11-12-12-13-11-30-9-9-11-
11-26-14-20-32 -14-15-16-17-11-9-9-22-16-13-
18-20-32-34-14-10-10-8-15-15-7-10-10-8-10 -
10-0-21-23-19-11-12-13-17-7-11-26-20-13-13-
12-15-10-12-10-11) is 4080±1560 years ago,
that more than thousands years over the era of
Ali and excludes their Seyyid origin.
The TMRCA of E1b1b1c1 Cohens (the ex-
pected modal haplotype in FTDNA order:
74
RJGG
13-24-13-10-17-18-11-12-12-13-11-30-19-9-9-
11-11-27-15-20 -32-15-16-16-17-10-10-19-22-
17-13-18-18-32-33-13-10-10-8-15-15-7-10-10-
8 -10-10-0-21-24-18-11-12-13-17-7-11-25-21-
15-13-12-14-10-12-10-11) is 440±410 years
ago.
Obviously, for such a small sample it is pre-
maturely to draw final conclusions, but, according
to the present data, their TMRCA does not con-
firm their origin from the Biblical Aaron, and the
TMRCA of the Arabian and Jewish E1b1b1c1
much older than Abraham’s lifetime.
Conclusions
1) Subclades E1b1b1c1 and E1b1b1c1a were
included in Jewish community during the con-
quest of Canaan. With 95% probability the
TMRCA of Jewish E1b1b1c1 and E1b1b1c1a are
5650±2820 and 4100±1740 years.
2) Subclades E1b1b1c1 and E1b1b1c1a both
found among Jews and Arabs, including a small
number of Cohens and Seyyids. The calculated
TMRCAs show that the most recent E1b1b1c1 an-
cestor of Arabs and Jews lived 8080±3890 years
ago and the most recent E1b1b1c1a ancestor of
Arabs and Jews lived 4080±1440 years ago. The
most recent common ancestor of E1b1b1c1a
Seyyids lived 4080±1560 years ago, the most
recent common ancestor of E1b1b1c1 Cohens
lived 440±410 years ago.
3) TMRCA calculations show that, according to
formal characteristics, subclade E1b1b1c1 can
not claim to be the Abraham’s haplogroup.
4) The most recent common ancestor of the
Jewish and Arabian E1b1b1c1a lived in the same
historical era as the biblical Abraham, but a con-
tradiction in the calculated TMRCA of Cohens and
Seyyids to historical data exclude haplogroup
E1b1b1c1a from the contenders for the role of
«Abraham’s haplogroup». Despite this, the re-
sults indicate close relationship of Jewish and
Arabian E1b1b1c1a lines.
The Russian Journal of Genetic Genealogy: Vol 1, №2, 2010
ISSN: 1920-2989 http://ru.rjgg.org © All rights reserved
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