Jews of Haplogroup R2

Haplogroup R2 is rather rare outside India, where it accounts for about 90% of all men on Earth having R2. In India it has been observed in about 10% of male population, in Pakistan – about 7-8%.  In Tadzhikistan, neighboring India, haplogroup R2 is met in about 6% of the population. Some singular percentage of population having R2 can be met in the area of Caucasus, among Azerbaidzhanians, Armenians, Georgians, Chechens. It is conjectured that in these areas haplogroup R2 was introduced by the Gypsies, who carry haplogroup R2 with frequency of more than 50% of their population. The next main haplogroup in the Gypsies is H, as it was described in the preceding paper in this issue with an example of Bulgarian Gypsies. It is surmised that haplogroup R2 was originated some 25 thousand years ago.

The Gypsies have brought haplogroup R2 to Europe in medieval times, some 500-700 years ago, apparently first to Bulgaria, Germany and Austria (under the Gypsies names of Sinti and Roma), and then spread over Europe. This haplogroup was recently found among the Jews, and immediately it was suggested by the scholars that it came from the Khazars. No justifications and no time estimates were given.   

Recently (Sengupta et al, 2006) a large set of Indian and Pakistani haplotypes was published, including more than 900 haplotypes. 81 of them belonged to haplogroup R2. Since as many as 21 of identical six-marker haplotypes (the base haplotypes) from those 81 are observed, as follows 

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it is rather obvious that these haplotypes cannot be too old. Indeed, ln (81/21)/0.0096 = 141 generations (163 with correction for back mutations) to a common ancestor. All 81 haplotypes contain 108 mutations from the above base haplotype, which gives 108/81/0.0096 = 139 generations (161 with correction for back mutations). It is a practically absolute fit, indicating that it was a single ancestor who originated the lineage of R2 haplogroup in India 4,000 years BP.

However, it seems that the actual time of origination of R2 haplogroup was much earlier. The R2 section of YSearch data base contains 34 haplotypes of individuals. Half of them are ethnic Indians, plus some Scotts, French, Italians, Armenians. Twelve individuals have names of their predecessors as Abraham, Isaac, Lebe, Mordecai, etc., and some of them presented supplementary information indicating that they are Ashkenazi Jews.  The most frequent 6-marker haplotype among those 39 individuals is

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which is exactly the same as that the base haplotype of haplogroup R2 in India- Pakistan, shown above. However, if to remove the Jewish haplotypes (which, as it is shown below, are derived from a recent ancestor), the remaining 22 haplotypes contain 35 mutations, that translates into 198 generations from a common ancestor. In 22 of the 12-marker haplotypes there were 101 mutations, which give 236 generations from a common ancestor. In 7 of the 37-marker haplotypes amount of mutations in the 12-, 25- and 37-marker panels corresponded to 282, 259 and 207 generations to a common ancestor. These four figures being averaged give 246±32 generations, that is about 6,200±800 years to a common ancestor of the non-Jewish individuals of R2 haplogroup in YSearch database. This might be a good indication that haplogroup R2 had originated not in India, since the Indian R2 haplogroups were derived from a significantly “younger” ancestor who lived about 4,000 years BP (see above), that is some 2,000 years later that an older bearer of the R2 haplogroup. In any case, this question needs more detailed studies.

And when a common ancestor of the Jews of haplogroup R2 had lived?

The most frequent 12-marker haplotype among those 34 individuals, Jewish and not, is 

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which is exactly the same as that for the Jewish individuals of haplogroup R2 in YSearch database.  

Let us now consider the Jewish haplotypes in more detail.  

6-marker haplotypes  

11 of the 12 Jewish R2 haplotypes are identical to each other (Fig. 50), and their
6-marker base (ancestral) haplotype is

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that is the same as the most popular among known bearers of R2 haplogroup in India and elsewhere in the world.

Figure 50. The 6-marker haplotype tree for 12 Jewish haplotypes of haplogroup R2. A “commercial” set (YSearch database)

Formally, 11 base haplotypes out of 12 give ln(12/11)/0.0096 = 9 generations, and one mutation in all twelve 6-marker haplotypes gives 1/12/0.0096 = 9 generations to a common ancestor, and the identity of these figures point out at a single ancestor for all 12 individuals in  the set of their 6-marker haplotypes. However, as it has happened before, this tentative conclusion should be examined with more extended haplotypes. It is too often when 6-marker haplotypes, particularly in small haplotype sets, do not reveal mutations which occur in more extended panels of the haplotype.   

12-marker haplotypes 

Indeed, a move to the 12-marker tree (Fig. 51) immediately shows that there are two groups of the Jewish haplotypes, with an “older” and a “younger” haplotypes, descending from the same ancestor. Half of all 12 haplotypes still represent the base (ancestral) haplotype

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Since their other mutations will be revealed by moving to more extended haplotypes, an estimate of a time span to the common ancestor based on the 12- marker haplotypes will be only tentative.

Figure 51. The 12-marker haplotype tree for 12 Jewish haplotypes of haplogroup R2. A “commercial” set (YSearch database)

This 12-marker base haplotype is exactly the same as the most frequent 12- marker haplotype in YSearch database,  only one-third of which represent the Jewish haplotypes.

6 base haplotypes from the total 12 Jewish haplotypes would point to 29 generations to a common ancestor, since ln(12/6)/0.024 = 29. The other 6 haplotypes contain 15 mutations with respect to the above base haplotype. This would lead to 15/12/0.024 = 52 generations to a common ancestor. This mismatch (29 and 52) indicates that there were more than just one common ancestor for the Jews in R2 haplogroup. In fact, Fig. 51 makes it rather obvious.

As it turned out, many more mutations have occurred in the 13-37 marker panel of the distant branch, which distinctly separates the two branches. However, even the 12-marker tree shows the principal separation of the two groups of haplotypes.

37-marker haplotypes 

The 37-marker haplotype tree is shown in Fig. 52. It reveals a striking feature of R2 Jewish haplotypes. Though there are only 7 haplotypes on the tree, they clearly show that Jewish R2 haplotypes splits indeed into two quite distant groups. Statistics is insufficient to perform detailed analysis, however, there are still enough data available to make some principal conclusions. One group of haplotypes, which are located on the right-hand side of the tree (Fig. 52) and much closer to the trunk of the tree (that is, to the present times), has the same 12- marker base haplotype as shown immediately above and in the Table, and corresponds to the group of the base haplotypes around the 12-marker tree (Fig. 51). This 4-haplotype branch has only 9 mutations with respect to the base 37- marker haplotype, and refers to a common ancestor who lived only 26 generations BP, 650±50 years ago, in the 14th  century.

Figure 52. The 37-marker haplotype tree for 7 Jewish haplotypes of haplogroup R2. A “commercial” set (YSearch database)

Another group of Jewish R2 haplotypes, represented with three distant haplotypes on the left-hand side in Fig. 52, shows a base 12-marker haplotype (the 37-marker haplotype is shown in the Table):

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It turned out that these three haplotypes (the left-hand side in Fig. 52) have only two mutations in their 37-marker haplotypes, that is among 111 alleles. This formally places their common ancestor only 7 generations BP, that is about two hundred years ago. All three are relatives within seven generations.

Overall, there are 21 mutations between these two base (ancestral) haplotypes in the 37-marker format. This means that these two haplotypes are separated by thousands of years of separate mutations, and, more specifically, this separation is approximately equivalent to 305 generations between the two, that is about 7,600 years. This places their common ancestors about 4,200 years BP, and fits pretty well with the common ancestor of Indian R2 haplogroup of 4,000 years BP, see above. It is very likely that the both lineages, “young” and the ancient one, are derived from the Gypsies in Europe. The “young” is traced down to the invasion time or a bottleneck time to the Jewish community, and the “older” is traced down to the ancient common ancestor in India. At any rate, both Jewish ancestral haplotypes, shown above in their 12-marker format and in the Table 2 in a 37-marker format are derived from two quite unrelated individuals, whose haplotypes had evolved from the very initial survivors in haplogroup R2, but traced down in millennia apparently to India, through the Gypsies.

Some historical conjectures

Here is a plausible story of the Jewish haplotypes of R2 haplogroup. Its ancestral haplotype  

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shown here in the 12-marker format, is about 4,200 years old, that corresponds to the age of this haplotype in India (see above). This haplotype had arrived to Europe apparently with the Gypsies, in the Medieval times, some 800 years BP, and got into the Jewish community. About 30-40% of the present day Jews, bearers of R2 haplogroup, are direct descendant of those Gypsies, or the Indians, on that matter. Approximately 650 years ago, apparently during the Black Plague times, in the 14th century, a bearer of this haplogroup, albeit in the mutated form had survived and fled to the Eastern Europe. This was a bottleneck for this particular haplotype. Close to half of present day Jews are descendants of that individual.

This story is a mirror one of the Jewish Q haplotypes story (see the preceding section). Apparently, the 14th  century, the Black Plague times, created a number of bottleneck situations for the Jews of a number of haplotypes, and not for the Jews only.   
 
The second Jewish R2 haplotype

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in the 12-marker format, got to the Jewish community quite recently, merely two hundred years ago. It is very different from the first one. Its three bearers lived in the 19th century in Hungary, Romania and Lithuania. Their current descendants probably do not know that they are rather close relatives. Two of them differ by only 3 mutations in their 66-marker haplotypes.


From
Origin of the Jews via DNA Genealogy
Anatole A. Klyosov