A new paper by Costa et al. analysed in detail the deep mitochondrial subclades of the Jewish population and compared them with European and Near Eastern sequences. Their conclusion is that over 80% of Jewish maternal lineages may be of European origin, and only 8.3% of clear Near Eastern origin. This would be extremely surprising considering that Jewishness has traditionally been passed on through the mothers rather than the fathers.
Flawed methodology
I tend to disagree with the way they attribute the origin of subclades because they only look at the places where subclades are found today and not at their potential migration patterns. For example, on their phylogenetic tree of haplogroup K they claim that K1b and K1b1 are of European origin but that K1b1c is Near Eastern. How could that have happened ? That's nonsense since haplogroup K was never found in Europe before the Neolithic and is undeniably of Near Eastern origin, a fact that they visibly are not ready to recognise since they place K and K1 in the category "undetermined origin".
They grant K2 an outright European origin simply because they estimate it to be 18,700 years old in Europe as opposed to 17,600 years old in the Near East. That is preposterous for two reasons: 1) age estimates for mtDNA are very unreliable, 2) comparison of age estimate by region should take into account historical population sizes. That's with this kind of method that other "professional" population geneticists estimated that R1a must have originated in India because it had a greater diversity there, before phylogeny proved that that wasn't the case.
It doesn't make much more sense that they should see haplogroup N1b, HV, H, J and M1 as European in origin. M1 is the oddest or all as it is pretty much limited to North Africa and is hardly ever found in Europe. If some subclades of these lineages are found predominantly in Europe it may be due to a founder effect in the Neolithic population. If some subclades are shared by the European and Jewish populations, it may also simply be because Neolithic farmers originated in the Levant, homeland of the Jews.
K as the main Ashkenazi maternal lineage
What picked my interest is that half of Ashkenazi Jews of Western and Central European origin, and one third of Eastern European origin belonged to haplogroup K, compared to an average of only about 5% in Europe and 6.5% in Germany. How could this have happened ? Genetic drift ? Natural selection ? This is how I remembered that haplogroup K, and especially K1, had been associated with higher brain pH, better brain connectivity and higher IQ. Several studies have determined that Jewish people had the highest average IQ of any ethnic group, and there is no need to demonstrate that the number of famous Jewish scientists, economists, academics, Nobel laureates, etc. is disproportionately high compared to their share of the world population (even if we only look at developed countries). There are surely other genetic factors than merely mitochondrial DNA, but if mtDNA does play a role in intelligence could this haplogroup have been positively selected within the Jewish population over the centuries to cope with the more intellectual occupations that the Jews have tended to specialise in ?
Flawed methodology
I tend to disagree with the way they attribute the origin of subclades because they only look at the places where subclades are found today and not at their potential migration patterns. For example, on their phylogenetic tree of haplogroup K they claim that K1b and K1b1 are of European origin but that K1b1c is Near Eastern. How could that have happened ? That's nonsense since haplogroup K was never found in Europe before the Neolithic and is undeniably of Near Eastern origin, a fact that they visibly are not ready to recognise since they place K and K1 in the category "undetermined origin".
They grant K2 an outright European origin simply because they estimate it to be 18,700 years old in Europe as opposed to 17,600 years old in the Near East. That is preposterous for two reasons: 1) age estimates for mtDNA are very unreliable, 2) comparison of age estimate by region should take into account historical population sizes. That's with this kind of method that other "professional" population geneticists estimated that R1a must have originated in India because it had a greater diversity there, before phylogeny proved that that wasn't the case.
It doesn't make much more sense that they should see haplogroup N1b, HV, H, J and M1 as European in origin. M1 is the oddest or all as it is pretty much limited to North Africa and is hardly ever found in Europe. If some subclades of these lineages are found predominantly in Europe it may be due to a founder effect in the Neolithic population. If some subclades are shared by the European and Jewish populations, it may also simply be because Neolithic farmers originated in the Levant, homeland of the Jews.
K as the main Ashkenazi maternal lineage
What picked my interest is that half of Ashkenazi Jews of Western and Central European origin, and one third of Eastern European origin belonged to haplogroup K, compared to an average of only about 5% in Europe and 6.5% in Germany. How could this have happened ? Genetic drift ? Natural selection ? This is how I remembered that haplogroup K, and especially K1, had been associated with higher brain pH, better brain connectivity and higher IQ. Several studies have determined that Jewish people had the highest average IQ of any ethnic group, and there is no need to demonstrate that the number of famous Jewish scientists, economists, academics, Nobel laureates, etc. is disproportionately high compared to their share of the world population (even if we only look at developed countries). There are surely other genetic factors than merely mitochondrial DNA, but if mtDNA does play a role in intelligence could this haplogroup have been positively selected within the Jewish population over the centuries to cope with the more intellectual occupations that the Jews have tended to specialise in ?