DISCUSSION
You have just obtained your results from a commercial ancestry result test such as 23andMe and it shows that you are 94% W Asian with 1% E Asian. Does this mean that you only have a tiny1% geneflow from some E Asian population?
You think to yourself this does not seem right especially if you happen to be one of those W Asians with E Asian physical facial characteristics. You do some online research and you come upon some blog or forum where you read that phenotype does not equal genotype. You are skeptical about this statement because you think well if phenotype does not equal genotype then why don’t Chinese people have random facial morphologies identical to Africans or NW Europeans.
You correctly conclude that the statement phenotype does not equal genotype is wrong, and that there must be some correlation between the two which causes people with “Chinese” genotypes to have “Chinese” phenotypes and not “NW European” phenotypes.
You next ponder if there is a correlation between phenotype and genotype, then why your results from 23andMe don’t show higher than 1% E Asian, considering your E Asian facial morphology.
The answer is the 1% E Asian result from 23andMe is not your total E Asian admixture. The 1% reflects E Asian admixture to the exclusion of the W Asian references used by 23andMe.
In reality those W Asian references themselves also have older E Asian admixture that has become incorporated into their genomes. The way we determine the amount of older E Asian admixture that is incorporated into the 23andMe W Asian reference genomes, is to use ancient W Asian references, such as Neolithic Near Eastern or European farmers, who predate any Iron Age or Medieval E Asian geneflow into W Asia.
If we are trying to determine total E Asian admixture in a British tester, we may choose to use Neolithic British farmers as a baseline using an ADMIXTURE based test, or a formal statistic test.
There is another reason why the E Asian admixture in a 23andMe test is underestimated. 23andMe splices your genome into 100 bp windows. The algorithm will declare a segment E Asian only if the majority of the 100 bp window contains an E Asian haplotype. In other words if you have a 40 bp E Asian haplotype which is associated with older admixture, it is disregarded in a 23andMe test.
Thus, in a 23andMe test, older E Asian admixture which is incorporated into the W Asian references is disregarded, as well as other older E Asian admixture which correlates with haplotypes less than 50 bp long.
Here we attempt to quantify the TOTAL amount of minor admixture, such as E Asian in W Asian subjects such as Kurds, by using various adjacent populations, both modern and ancient as W Eurasian baselines.
We begin with 23andMe results are for 2 Kurmanji Kurd subjects, each with 4 Kurdish grandparents from the northern Iraq Kurdistan region. They are referenced as Kurd-K1 and Kurd-K3. The majority of Kurd-SE’s ancestry is from the Kurds of Iranian Balochistan and Kurds of Iraq, as well as from Iranian Baloch tribes.
If you were to believe the 23andMe results, you would walk away thinking that Kurds K1 & K3 have 1% and 0.8% E Asian admixture, respectively, while Kurd-SE only has 6.8% E Asian admixture.
This of course is not the case. So where is the remainder of the E Asian admixture hidden you would ask. Well, some of it was removed by 23andMe’s “smoothing” algorithm when E Asian haplotypes smaller than 50 bp in length, which are usually associated with older admixture were tossed out.
The remainder of the E Asian admixture is incorporated into those Persian, Turkish, and Caucasian individual genetic substructure who comprise the “West Asian” references at 23andMe.
So how do we tease out this East Asian admixture which is incorporated into the Persian, Turkish, and Caucasian references. Well, we simply don’t use them as references for the West Asian component. Instead, we use references who themselves are less East Asian admixed. For example, Neolithic Near-Eastern farmers who predate all the more recent pulses of East Asian admixture into the Near East , or in a calculator based on present day references, we can use Bedouin, who themselves are less East Asian admixed than Caucasian, Persian, and Turkish references.
Here is what we get when we design a K5 ADMIXTURE based calculator (supervised mode) with the following component references from public datasets:
- South-West Asian: Negev desert Bedouin (N=19)
- West European: Basque ( N=22)
- South Asian: Paniya tribals from India (N=18)
- East Asian: Mongolians (N=22)
- Siberian: Nganasan (N=13)
Figure 7 and table 1 show the results for population averages.
The following plots show variation for individual results for the K-5 run:
Whereas the K-5 ADMIXTURE run indicates about 9% Mongolian admixture, and about 9% South Asian admixture for Kurds-K1 and K3, their 23andMe results only show about 1% of this ancestry.
Similarly for Kurd-SE, the K-5 run shows about 21% in Mongolian admixture, and 17% South Asian admixture, 23andMe shows 6.8% East Asian and about 40% South Asian. It should be noted that the K-5 run used Paniya as South Asian references, whereas NW South Asians and Afghans are included in 23andMe’s South Asian references.
To be continued.
Users with ethnic backgrounds from Iran (all parts, Iraq, Turkey, Afghanistan or the Caucasus are welcome to post screenshots of their 23andMe results for comparison, to see how similar they are to the Kurdish subject results posted above, since there don’t appear to be many such results posted online.
To post an image users can paste either the “direct link” or “BBCode” of their image in the comments section.
Please ensure that the image you post is yours and not someone else’s.
Thank you.
As an Ezdi Kurd from Georgia my 23andme results are a little bit different from Kurdish samples here. My results are more ‘pure’.
[img]https://s15.postimg.cc/j2oh8vzh7/23and_Me.jpg[/img]
[img]https://s15.postimg.cc/3tyjv6qe3/23and_Me2.jpg[/img]
Interesting, thanks for sharing. I was aware of Kurds in Gerogia, but you are the 1st Kurd from Georgia I’ve met. It seems that your genome lines up very well with 23’s Turkish references. That’s probably the reason you don’t show E Asian with them.
If 23 has Turks as references for W Asian, then E Asian in Turks will also be underestimated. I guess we’ll have an idea if Turks post their results.
I believe you are wrong. As you can see according to my 23andMe admix I’m 99.2% West Asian and more precisely region Turkey. Turkey is here actually Northern Kurdistan. 75% of my ancestors are from Wan-Kars region and other part (paternal) is from Shengal/Ezdixan.
I’m sure you will never be able to find any ‘Turk’ from Turkey with 23andMe admix auDNA as ‘pure’ as mine. Turks from Turkey will show all kind of exotic admixture outside Turkey. Turks are very mixed people.
Like I said I’m Ezdi Kurd. And it is a well-known fact among ALL Kurds that the Ezdi Kurds are the ‘purest’ Kurds. We didn’t mix with Muslims or Christians around us, like some of our Kurdish brothers did. We don’t accept people from outside from any religion into our community. You are Ezdi Kurd, only when your BOTH parents are Ezdi Kurds. And it happens that the Ezdi Kurds among all other Kurds have one of the highest percentages of auDNA that is just native to Zagros/Northern Mesopotamia.
Since Ezdi Kurds are the closest people to our Kurdish ancestors (early or proto-Kurds / Medes) we can certainly be sure that our ancestors were also just native to Northern Mesopotamia/Zagros.
All other people in Kurdistan are just immigrants and not native. Closest relatives to the Kurds after the Persians are people from the Caucasus.
It looks like you misunderstood what I said. If your results show 99.2% W Asian, it means that your genome is very similar to 23’s W Asian references, whatever references they use for W Asian (Persians, Turks, Caucasians, etc).
This does not mean that you don’t have E Asian levels similar to some of the Kurds in this study. This also does not mean that your E Asian levels are as low as the Trabzon Turks in this study. If I had to guess, I would say that your E Asian levels are somewhere between Georgians and the Iraqi Kurd subjects in this study (fig 9). Of course there is no way to know exactly what you level is because you were not part of this study, but the 99.2% W Asian from 23andMe should not be interpreted that your E Asian levels are low.
Although I have not seen any results from Turks from Western Turkey, it would not surprise me if their E Asian levels are artificially depressed with 23andMe. This could easily happen if they used samples from Central/Western Turkey as some W Asian references.
I do understand what you do mean. You mean that E Asian ancestry is already within that West Asian component shown by 23andMe. You might be right. But ‘E.Asian’ in me can be very different from ‘E.Asian’ in Turks. It can be from a total different source. E. Asian in me could be brought by the Parthians, Sogdians, Bactrians etc., while E.Asian in Turks can be from their Turkic ancestors where they got their Turkic language from.
Many Kurds have somehow in far history some Turkmen Grandma or something, but not me. All my ancestors were Ezdi Kurds. Absolutely nothing to do with the Turks (Turkmen) or Arabs (Assyrians).
So, you use only a small sample for the Kurds. We don’t know who those people are and how much Kurds they are at the first place. Maybe they do believe or say that they are 100% Kurds, but are they?
My 99.2% West Asian in 23andMe is actually classified under ‘Turkey’. Since I have got 75% of my roots from Northern Kurdistan and Northern Kurdistan is still (not for long) part of Turkey it says ‘Turkey’ which actually means ‘Northern Kurdistan’.
You will never be able to find any ‘Turk’ who will be classified for 99.2% under Turkey. I’m sure this is not possible. His/her 23andMe ancestry composition will be more diverse, since Turks are much mixed than me. ‘Turk’ is a synonym for ‘mixed’
How can I post my 23andMe results?
Oh, I can’t post images ([img] links), but only links to those images.
I’m Ezdi Kurd and here are my 23andMe resutls:
99.2% West Asian (Nothern Kurdistan)
https://postimg.cc/image/70t3eqq8n/
https://postimg.cc/image/glcq1p05z/
Ezdi Kurd.
Results: 99.2% Northern Kurdistan.
postimg.cc/image/70t3eqq8n/
postimg.cc/image/glcq1p05z/
What you can do is upload the image (jpg) to imgur.com (create account with them if you don’t have one). Then you can paste the “direct link” or “BBCode” url of your image here.
I think that Persians have much more East Asian ancestry than Kurds, since Persians are much more mixed with Turkic people than Kurds in recent times. Last Shah of Iran was Azeri (Turkic), Khomeni is Azeri (Turkic), etc..
last try, 0% East Asian:
[img]https://imgur.com/yqHM1mY[/img]
[img]https://imgur.com/a/ME1M6xJ[/img]
I definitely would not say “much more”. In fact what I’m seeing is that they have similar levels for the most part, some have more, some have less in fact. I believe I saw a couple online with 0 E Asian with 23andMe. It depends how they line up with 23andMe’s Middle-Eastern and W Asian references, but from formal analysis I’ve done they are similar, but with Azeris I noticed a little higher, although there were also a couple of Azeris with slightly lower than Kurds, but on average I would say that they have a little higher E Asian. Keep in mind the Kurd samples I have are mostly from Iraq though.
One thing that I do consistently see that strikes me as a little odd is that Trabzon Turks have one of the lowest E Asian admixture in the region (see graphs above). Perhaps this explains lower E Asian in Kurds from eastern Turkey?
Turks from Trabzon are ethnic Islamised Georgians. They are Muslim Georgians, so called Laz people. Most Laz people are Muslims, but they are ethnic Caucasians/Georgians.
Aah ok, that would explain some of it (more insulated from Turkic admixture), but the above graphs show they have on average slightly lower E Asian than even Georgians, almost similar to Armenian levels. I do need to verify some of this with formal stats though.
I’m sure that the 23andMe ancestry composition of Laz people or Trabzon Turks in your terms will be more mixed than mine. I score 99.2 % only 1 region and the rest is just noise. I’m sure no Turk from Turkey on this planet will score 99.2 % for only 1 region. Their 23andMe ancestry composition is much more diverse and not as pure as mine. Why? Because all my ancestors were Ezdi Kurds 1 type of people, while Turks have so much ncestors that they don’t even know who they are. Turks are a product of many people.
I don’t doubt what you are saying, but 23andMe’s test is not necessarily a test of pureness. It’s simply a test of how similar you are to their W Asian references whomever they happen to be (Persians, Turks, Caucasians, etc)
23andMe is only a good illustration of your near past, let say last 250-300 years But not for your very ancient/distant history.
But let say, if my Ezdi ancestors mixed with non-Ezdi people I would never exist, at least not as Ezdi Kurds, but maybe as Muslim Kurd. But still I’m Ezdi Kur. because all my ancestors from my near past and ancient history were like me, Ezdi Kurds
If somebody is interested in Kurdish DNA, the Ezdi DNA and DNA of Kurds deep in isolated villages in Zagros Mountains are the best specimens to study Kurdish DNA, since those people are the least mixed among the Kurds. And exactly those people have the highest percentages of native Zagros DNA. So, that means that our ancestors Medes, proto-Kurds etc. were just native to Kurdistan.
My previous thread “Impact of the Iron Age Saka and Scythians on the demography of Kurds” clearly shows genetic continuity from Chalcolithic to the present in the Kurdistan region, and indicates that Iran-Chl forms the bulk of ancestry for present day Kurds.
No matter how you want to slice the pie, whether trying to model Kurds formally as Iran-Chl + Saka, or Iran-Chl + Sintashta-MLBA + Turkic, Iran-Chl forms about 60% to 75% of the ancestry of Kurds depending on the Kurmanji or Feyli Kurdish sample studied. Unfortunately, I did not study Yezidi Kurds, but I can’t imagine them being much different. Perhaps a little more Iran-Chl, but you have to keep in mind that 4000 years is a very long time, and I expect even Yezidis will be Central Asian shifted compared to Iran-Chl.
By the same token, Sintashta-MLBA, Saka, BMAC, and Turkics are also Kurd ancestors, and their exact contribution will be different depending on the Kurdish tribe studied. That is why present day Kurds are Central Asian shifted compared to their Iran-Chl ancestors.
Thus, to be fair, Sintashta-MLBA, Sakas, and Turkics also deserve the title “Ancestors of Kurds” and their contribution or role in Kurd ethnogenesis should not be minimized.
I’m sure that the modern people closest to the ancient Iran-Chl folks are the Kurds. Kurds still live on the same land as Iran-Chl folks. Kurds still got the culture of those people.
The direct main ancestors of the Kurds are the Medes. Medes were Aryan people. Kurds got everything from the Medes. The language, the culture, the homeland, the religion (Mitraistic). That’s why Medes are the most important ancestors of the Kurds. All other people I do consider as minor gene flow. Those who could change Kurdish identity, like language or culture are not really relevant in Kurdish ethno genesis.
Kurds are a little bit shifted toward SouthCentral Asia mostly because of the Parthians, who actually Medes mixed with Saka.
With regards to Kurds having the highest Iran-Chl, that is not what formal stats show. I just updated the previous article with new qpAdm analysis to see whether there is evidence for the interaction between the early Indo-Europeans of the Eurasian Steppe and the agriculturalist of the BMAC (Damgaard 2018 Linguistic Supp) in the genetic substructure of various West Asian populations. Low and behold Kurds were the only ones from the West Asian populations which showed evidence of this interaction. This likely also explains the differential ASI shift of Kurds compared to the other W Asian pops studied.
As you can see from the results other W Asian pops who are less Central Asian admixed than Kurds, such as Iranian and Iraqi Jews have greater Iran-Chl than Kurds. Granted I did not study Yezidi Kurds. Kurds are not as homogenous as you may think. We see this in the variation between say Feyli Kurds and say some Turkish Kurds. Thus nothing like Onge, Kalash, or even Baloch with regards to homozygosity.
This hetrozygosity by definition implies varied genetic inputs for Kurds depending on the region they are from.
According to this academic paper of less that 1 year ago Ezdi Kurds (purest Kurmnaji and closest people to proto-Kurds/Medes) are the most native people of the Northern Mesopotamia.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0187408
Aha, as you can see Eastern Scythians had a lot ‘Mongoloid’ auDNA.
So this is our evidence that most of EastAsian auDNA in Kurdistan was brought by Saka (Scythians).
Also, so called ‘Cimmerians’ were full of the NorthEast Asian auDNA.
http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/advances/4/10/eaat4457.full.pdf