Maternal and paternal lineages of Assyrian population
[Thesis]
Michel Shamoon-Pour
Merriwether, D. Andrew
State University of New York at Binghamton
2016
165
Committee members: Garruto, Ralph M.; Little, Michael A.; Tammariello, Steven P.
Place of publication: United States, Ann Arbor; ISBN=978-1-369-18421-1
Ph.D.
Anthropology
State University of New York at Binghamton
2016
Near East is home to religious minorities whose identities and traditions link them to pre-Islamic, and sometime, pre-Christianity populations. The cultural isolation of these communities is often accompanied by a tradition of endogamy and therefore, these populations are believed to have experienced less admixture compared with other Near Eastern populations. Therefore, studying these minority groups may provide unique insights into the population genetics of the region. This study contributes to our understanding of the population genetics of Near East by exploring mitochondrial and Y-chromosome variation in Assyrian immigrants in the United States. Assyrians are Neo-Aramaic speaking Christians of the Upper Mesopotamia who, prior to the Ottoman Genocide, lived in a territory today divided between northern Iraq, southern Turkey, and northwestern Iran. Much of the curiosity about the origin of Assyrians is due to the antiquity of their language, their religion, and the proximity of their territory to the heartland of ancient Assyria. Focusing on the Assyrian population, this project investigates the role of religion and sociocultural pressures on the genetic substructuring of Near Eastern populations. Taking a genetic approach, this project also contributes to the debate on the origins and early migrations of the Semitic speaking populations. Finally, the genetic data also is used to examine the hypotheses on the origins of Assyrians maternal and paternal lineages.
Genetics; Near Eastern Studies
Social sciences;Biological sciences;Assyrians;Molecular anthropology;Population genetics;Y chromosome;mtDNA