the origin of al Andalus

[martin chaide]

The best sample of ancient andalusian genetic are the autosomes of 37 individuals from southeast Spain, three from 200 – 400 CE (purple stars), 11 from 400-800 CE (blue stars) and 23 Muslims (green stars) that lived between 1000-1600 CE, adding up 814 autosomes, a number high enough to present a low statistical variance.

The analyses showed that the old Andalusians had a bigger african admixture than the modern iberian population, being their genetics similar in the antiquity and in the middle ages. This indicates that the moorish presence in Spain precede the Islamic conquest, possibly being of roman or punic origin (in the iron age the Iberian genetics is almost 100% western European)

In fact, if you translate the ancient Andalusians individuals from the figure number two in the article:



to the figure beneath you can see clearly than the sephardic Jews (3), that originates in the same region than the Punics (4), are closer to the old Andalusians (1) than the Moroccan Berbers are (6)



Sephardic Jews are not pure, they are mixed with the population (jew or not) of the countries they settled in when expelled from Spain, mostly territories of the Ottoman empire. It can be seen than the sephardic Jews (3) are in the middle way between the Lebanese, Greeks and and Turks (5) and the ancient Andalusians(1). If the modern Sephardics are in the middle way, the simplest mathematics tell us that the original sepharadim should be very close to the old andalusians.


This is not surprising as both, spanish Muslims and Jews, lived in the same territory in the same epoch, and the most probable is that they shared a common origin: the old Punics or Carthaginians. In fact, in XVI century Spain it was believed that the african moors originated in Phoenicia. Those pagan Phoenicians (or Canaanim, as they called themselves), become Jews, then Muslim and finally many of them become catholic Christians.

this is coherent with the book by Paul Wexler former professor of Linguistics at Tel-Aviv University. He argued that the sepharadin had an important berber and arab substrat and based his hypotesis in linguistic, but not in genetics.


Source: The genomic history of the Iberian Peninsula over the past 8000 years.

 

[Carlos]

Water passed does not move mill

 

[Ygorcs]

The best sample of ancient andalusian genetic are the autosomes of 37 individuals from southeast Spain, three from 200 – 400 CE (purple stars), 11 from 400-800 CE (blue stars) and 23 Muslims (green stars) that lived between 1000-1600 CE, adding up 814 autosomes, a number high enough to present a low statistical variance.

The analyses showed that the old Andalusians had a bigger african admixture than the modern iberian population, being their genetics similar in the antiquity and in the middle ages. This indicates that the moorish presence in Spain precede the Islamic conquest, possibly being of roman or punic origin (in the iron age the Iberian genetics is almost 100% western European)

In fact, if you translate the ancient Andalusians individuals from the figure number two in the article:

View attachment 11760

to the figure beneath you can see clearly than the sephardic Jews (3), that originates in the same region than the Punics (4), are closer to the old Andalusians (1) than the Moroccan Berbers are (6)

View attachment 11759

Sephardic Jews are not pure, they are mixed with the population (jew or not) of the countries they settled in when expelled from Spain, mostly territories of the Ottoman empire. It can be seen than the sephardic Jews (3) are in the middle way between the Lebanese, Greeks and and Turks (5) and the ancient Andalusians(1). If the modern Sephardics are in the middle way, the simplest mathematics tell us that the original sepharadim should be very close to the old andalusians.


This is not surprising as both, spanish Muslims and Jews, lived in the same territory in the same epoch, and the most probable is that they shared a common origin: the old Punics or Carthaginians. In fact, in XVI century Spain it was believed that the african moors originated in Phoenicia. Those pagan Phoenicians (or Canaanim, as they called themselves), become Jews, then Muslim and finally many of them become catholic Christians.

this is coherent with the book by Paul Wexler former professor of Linguistics at Tel-Aviv University. He argued that the sepharadin had an important berber and arab substrat and based his hypotesis in linguistic, but not in genetics.


Source: The genomic history of the Iberian Peninsula over the past 8000 years.

Interesting analysis, most of it sounds plausible enough to be further investigated. I only have one major doubt: is there any historical evidence of a large-scale conversion of Punic people or Roman Africans (considering that the core of Roman Africa was what was Punic territory before) to Judaism to justify the existence of Punic-like Proto-Sephardim in the Maghreb and later in Iberia? Couldn't it be just that Judaeans and Phoenicians were so similar genetically that a mix of ancient Jews with some Europeans and North Africans (and Punic-descended ones, too) would be similar to Punic people already living in North Africa before?

 

[martin chaide]

Interesting analysis, most of it sounds plausible enough to be further investigated. I only have one major doubt: is there any historical evidence of a large-scale conversion of Punic people or Roman Africans (considering that the core of Roman Africa was what was Punic territory before) to Judaism to justify the existence of Punic-like Proto-Sephardim in the Maghreb and later in Iberia? Couldn't it be just that Judaeans and Phoenicians were so similar genetically that a mix of ancient Jews with some Europeans and North Africans (and Punic-descended ones, too) would be similar to Punic people already living in North Africa before?

thank you. of course it could be, but if you forget religion and think just on genetics, that doesn't make a big difference.

As you say it diserves further investigation. The only thing i did was overlap two graphs and look at the result. I have my own theories about christianity but i do not want to contaminate the forum with fringe theories.

 

[Carlos]

Let's see what's in this sample of Al-Andalus

As I see that you like Al-Andalus so much here you have both material to write a book. At the moment you cannot create other kits

 

[martin chaide]

ty very much!

 

[Carlos]

ty very much!

¿De qué provincia española eres?
Where are you from, what Spanish province?

 

[ratchet_fan]

How much SSA ancestry did the Moors have? I have read that it was less than modern berbers but there also people who say the Moors had a lot of SSA men who contributed to food, architecture and culture.

 

[Philjames100]

How much SSA ancestry did the Moors have? I have read that it was less than modern berbers but there also people who say the Moors had a lot of SSA men who contributed to food, architecture and culture.

What food, architecture and culture came to muslim Spain from sub-Saharan Africa?

 

[ratchet_fan]

What food, architecture and culture came to muslim Spain from sub-Saharan Africa?

I don't think any at all. I think Moors were mostly Berbers with smaller amounts of Arabs. So obviously SSA couldn't have contributed to anything because they weren't present. And the food/architecture/culture the Moors brought to Spain was probably derived in large part from Levantines, Byzantines and Persians. However, Wikipedia has been edited to say there were SSA among them.

As a large and diffuse ethnic group, the Moors consisted mostly of Berbers from Morocco and Western Algeria, sub-Saharan Africans from Mauritania, Northern Senegal, and Western Mali, Arab Bedouins, and Arab elite mostly from Yemen and Syria. Most writings on Moors applied darkness of skin as a trait for any and every Muslim invader of Europe.^[58]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moors#Population

Also the typical afrocentrist crap you find on the internet says they contributed to the culture and armies.

https://www.city-data.com/forum/history/1738293-were-moors-black.html

The problem is most people without any understanding of genetics are likely to believe those afrocentrist tales. I actually have a friend who I consider pretty reasonable arguing that people are just trying to deny SSAs their history. Some genetic studies showing Moors as non SSA would be great to argue with him. I think they were probably less SSA before the Arab slave trade.

 

[Philjames100]

Well Moroccan Neolithic samples are more European-like than modern North Africans.

 

[ratchet_fan]

What food, architecture and culture came to muslim Spain from sub-Saharan Africa?

On a related note, I had the best food I ever ate on my trip to Spain. Granted I haven't been to Italy and France yet so that might be subject to change.

There does seem to be a goal with making Europeans and their culture more "exotic". I see people attributing the use of sour cream and sauerkraut in Central/Eastern European cuisine to Mongols when there is no evidence that is true and Romans had something similar to sauerkraut. Sour cream probably indigenous to Central/Eastern Europe and not a hard invention at that.

You see similar things on this website with people proposing Myceneans and Minoans came from Iran or comments on Eurogenes blog saying the Roman Empire brought Levant_N ancestry to Europe when it really didn't;t.

 

[Palermo Trapani]

One of the better papers I have personally read is the one by Olade et al 2019 cited below. 271 ancient Iberians, 171 are post 2,000 BC. I have always been interested in the Muslim conquest from Arabia as it spread across Roman North Africa. Not to go into a tangential thread but Saint Augustine, a great Latin Rite Doctor of the Church was a Bishop in Carthage in late 4th/5th century AD till his Death in 430 AD. And again, the provinces of Numidia, Carthage, Libya were all part of the jurisdiction of the Church of Rome. So I have read pretty much of all of the writings for the Early Church Fathers, both West and East, and in addition to Saint Augustine, there were others from Roman North Africa that were great early theologians. Saint Cyprian of Carthage, Saint Clement of Alexandria (more Eastern) to name others. So what happened in Iberia shows that the Moorish Invaders into Spain were mostly Berber, with Arabs probably ruling the Caliphate. There is no SSA ancestry in the early Muslim conquest (711 AD in Iberia) and you only see it in 2 of the 24 samples in the 10th to 16th century, and even then very little. The Arab-Muslim conquest swept up from Arabia into the Levant and Persia, then across North Africa. It wasn't until the very late 10th century when the Muslim Caliphate in the Magreb began to trade and have contact with Kingdoms in modern Ghana to Sudan, etc, and that is when you see more trade with Kingdoms there and of course purchasing slaves that were SSA's. I have read estimates that the number of Blacks taken as slaves by the Arab-Muslim slave trade to be between 15 and 20 Million, mostly female, for I guess reasons we all know.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/363/6432/1230.full

Still the results by Olade et al 2019 show the North African ancestry pre-10th Century was local Berber ancestry. Of course this refutes the notion of the "Moors" as a Black population that is pushed by the Afro Centrist Black American pseudo Scientist. There is no such thing as a Country called Moor, closest thing is Roman Mauritania (Roman province adjacent to Numidia) and Moor was a collective term used by Christian Europe to describe peoples from the Maghreb all the way into Persia. That is a hell of lot of different ethnic groups right there. The only thing they had in common was religion.

Asad ibn al-Furat led the "Sacracen" invasion into Sicily in 827 was a Mesopotamian born in what is modern Turkey (Haran) and the army he led was largely from that region (Syria, Lebanon, Iraq) etc. Which kind of goes to what I was saying the term "Moor" is a general or collective term referring the Muslim invaders of Iberia in 711 AD and Sicily in 827 AD as well as periodic raids into Rome and Southern Italy as well that included peoples from a large swath of territory stretching from Maghreb in NW Africa all the way to modern Iran. Anyway, here is Figure 2 from the Olade et al 2019 paper referenced above that lays it out with DNA analysis of 171 ancient Iberia samples that cover the Roman period, the period just before the Muslim invasion all the way up through the 16th century.

 

[ratchet_fan]

One of the better papers I have personally read is the one by Olade et al 2019 cited below. 271 ancient Iberians, 171 are post 2,000 BC. I have always been interested in the Muslim conquest from Arabia as it spread across Roman North Africa. Not to go into a tangential thread but Saint Augustine, a great Latin Rite Doctor of the Church was a Bishop in Carthage in late 4th/5th century AD till his Death in 430 AD. And again, the provinces of Numidia, Carthage, Libya were all part of the jurisdiction of the Church of Rome. So I have read pretty much of all of the writings for the Early Church Fathers, both West and East, and in addition to Saint Augustine, there were others from Roman North Africa that were great early theologians. Saint Cyprian of Carthage, Saint Clement of Alexandria (more Eastern) to name others. So what happened in Iberia shows that the Moorish Invaders into Spain were mostly Berber, with Arabs probably ruling the Caliphate. There is no SSA ancestry in the early Muslim conquest (711 AD in Iberia) and you only see it in 2 of the 24 samples in the 10th to 16th century, and even then very little. The Arab-Muslim conquest swept up from Arabia into the Levant and Persia, then across North Africa. It wasn't until the very late 10th century when the Muslim Caliphate in the Magreb began to trade and have contact with Kingdoms in modern Ghana to Sudan, etc, and that is when you see more trade with Kingdoms there and of course purchasing slaves that were SSA's. I have read estimates that the number of Blacks taken as slaves by the Arab-Muslim slave trade to be between 15 and 20 Million, mostly female, for I guess reasons we all know.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/363/6432/1230.full

Still the results by Olade et al 2019 show the North African ancestry pre-10th Century was local Berber ancestry. Of course this refutes the notion of the "Moors" as a Black population that is pushed by the Afro Centrist Black American pseudo Scientist. There is no such thing as a Country called Moor, closest thing is Roman Mauritania (Roman province adjacent to Numidia) and Moor was a collective term used by Christian Europe to describe peoples from the Maghreb all the way into Persia. That is a hell of lot of different ethnic groups right there. The only thing they had in common was religion.

Asad ibn al-Furat led the "Sacracen" invasion into Sicily in 827 was a Mesopotamian born in what is modern Turkey (Haran) and the army he led was largely from that region (Syria, Lebanon, Iraq) etc. Which kind of goes to what I was saying the term "Moor" is a general or collective term referring the Muslim invaders of Iberia in 711 AD and Sicily in 827 AD as well as periodic raids into Rome and Southern Italy as well that included peoples from a large swath of territory stretching from Maghreb in NW Africa all the way to modern Iran. Anyway, here is Figure 2 from the Olade et al 2019 paper referenced above that lays it out with DNA analysis of 171 ancient Iberia samples that cover the Roman period, the period just before the Muslim invasion all the way up through the 16th century.

Thanks. Exactly what I was looking for.

And 15-20 million slaves? That seems high.

Besides their religion they had one other thing in common. It seems this term applied to predominantly West Eurasian people not SSA people.

Also this refutes the claims that North Africa used to be more SSA like (I think we all knew that given the same is true for Egypt).

 

[ratchet_fan]

Well Moroccan Neolithic samples are more European-like than modern North Africans.

Thanks. I'll try to find that paper.

EDIT: Found it.

https://www.pnas.org/content/115/26/6774

Am I reading Panel D correctly? Mota is modeled as mostly Anatolia_N plus the component that peaks in BedouinB/Algeria?

 

[Palermo Trapani]

The slavery I am talking about is basically over the period starting 1,000 AD well into the 15th/16th century, talking about 500-600 year period. Those are numbers that I have seen estimated. I will see if I can find a reputable citation(s) for this and link it.

 

[Palermo Trapani]

ratchet fan: Here is a book review article about a book on Arab-Muslim slave trade, the number here is 11 to 14 million, most of the men were made eunuchs, and in general the ratio was female heavy in terms of slaverly. The book and author is in the article.

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/01/03/04/reviews/010304.04hochsct.html

A pretty well researched article by Desmond Berg, who I know nothing about, but the article is well written.

https://sovereignnations.com/2018/04/30/history-arab-slave-trade-africa/


So maybe 20 million is too high, but 10-15 million seems pretty reliable an estimate.

 

[Philjames100]

The Berber Garamantes were already raiding sub-Saharan Africa for slaves before 0 BC.

 

[Ygorcs]

I don't think any at all. I think Moors were mostly Berbers with smaller amounts of Arabs. So obviously SSA couldn't have contributed to anything because they weren't present. And the food/architecture/culture the Moors brought to Spain was probably derived in large part from Levantines, Byzantines and Persians. However, Wikipedia has been edited to say there were SSA among them.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moors#Population

Also the typical afrocentrist crap you find on the internet says they contributed to the culture and armies.

https://www.city-data.com/forum/history/1738293-were-moors-black.html

The problem is most people without any understanding of genetics are likely to believe those afrocentrist tales. I actually have a friend who I consider pretty reasonable arguing that people are just trying to deny SSAs their history. Some genetic studies showing Moors as non SSA would be great to argue with him. I think they were probably less SSA before the Arab slave trade.

I think you're dismissing the Berber contribution (not Persian, Levantine or "Byzantine" i.e. Graeco-Roman/Eastern Roman) too fast.

As for SSA there were certainly SSA or heavily SSA-mixed people in some periods of the history of Al-Andalus. The highly sectarian and dogmatic Almoravids conquered much of Northwestern Africa and then Al-Andalus from what is now roughly in Mauritania or even Senegal. Hard to believe the military and political elite of that dynasty had virtually no SSA types. Don't forget the dynasties that ruled both Northwest Africa and Iberia often extended southward very much into lands that have much more SSA admixture. They probably left very little genetic impact in Iberia, most of the migrants to Iberia had already arrived in previous centuries and were mostly Berbers and Arabized Berbers, not even "Arabs proper" or Levantines.

 

[Ygorcs]

comments on Eurogenes blog saying the Roman Empire brought Levant_N ancestry to Europe when it really didn't;t.

Are you sure about that? The Roman Imperial and Late Antiquity DNA samples tell another story, and there is substantially more Levantine admixture in modern Sicily and South Italy than in the BA samples from the same regions.

I think people should strive to not favor either more "exotic" origins for their populations, nor favor more "indigenous" and unadmixed origins for their populations. Just let the evidences speak for themselves.