Thousands of years ago, in today's northern part of Israel, a large number of foreign populations rushed from the north and east (that is, today's Turkey and Iran), transforming the local emerging culture with far-reaching influence. The study showed that these immigrants not only brought new cultural practices, but also introduced new genes, such as those that cause the eyes to turn blue, a color previously unheard of in the region.
Archaeologists have uncovered the historic population movement by analyzing DNA from bones in a cave in Israel. The researchers said the cave, located in northern Israel, contained dozens of burial pits and more than 600 skeletons dating back 6,500 years.
DNA testing showed that the skeletons buried in the cave were genetically unique and different from those of people who have lived here for generations. The study also found certain genetic differences in the bones that matched those of the inhabitants of nearby Anatolia and the Zagros Mountains (present-day Turkey and Iran).
Beach Cave
Israel was called Galilee more than 6,000 years ago and is located south of the Levant. The vast Levant region of yesteryear included all the countries of the Eastern Mediterranean. The researchers noted that between 4500 BC and 3800 BC, the late Chalcolithic era, profound cultural changes took place in the southern Levant—closer settlements and more frequent public ceremonies, including conscious preparations for funerals. use ossuary.
Experts previously believed that the cultural change was driven by indigenous peoples in the southern Levant region. However, recent research speculates that the change may be due to large-scale population migration. To test this hypothesis, scientists turned to a burial pit in the Beech Caves in Israel, the site of the Upper Galilee 6,500 years ago.
Solving the mystery of the origin of the ancestors
Peach is a natural cave about 17 meters long and 5 to 8 meters wide, filled with pottery pots and funerary objects—as well as hundreds of skeletons. These evidences indicate that during the Chalcolithic era, the locals used the Beech Caves to store corpses.
However, Dina Salem, a researcher at the Galilee Center for Archaeological Research at the Heikki Nireh College in Israel and co-author of the report, pointed out in the announcement that not all the objects in the Beech Caves are local.
"Some cultural relics have obvious local characteristics, while others reflect cultural exchanges in remote areas." Salem said. Aidouin Hana, a doctoral student in the Department of Organism and Bioevolution at Harvard University and lead author of the report, said the artefacts were more closely related to the styles north of the Near East.
Scientists extracted bone meal samples from 48 skeletons, analyzed their DNA makeup, and reconstructed the chromosomal sequences of 22 people in the cave. The move is a large-scale genetic study of ancient human DNA in the Near East, the report said.
blue eyes and white skin
The scientists found that the 22 people had genetic characteristics similar to those of northern Levantine residents, but not to southern pastoralists. For example, 49 percent of the skeletal samples had the allele that controls blue eyes, suggesting that blue eyes are a common trait among residents of the Upper Galilee. The report also lists the alleles that control white skin, from which it is speculated that white skin is also a common trait.
"Both eyes and skin are determined by complex interactions of multiple sets of alleles. We've found many, but not all," Dr. Hana said.
"The two groups of alleles that we focus on in our report are the two groups that are known to be strongly associated with eye color and skin color, and are often used in ancient DNA studies to predict the appearance of different peoples,"
she said, adding that it is necessary to It should be noted that there are many other alleles that also affect an individual's eye color and skin tone, so "scientists cannot accurately predict an individual's pigmentation."
Columbarium in Beech's Cave
The ossuary in the picture was unearthed in Biqi Cave, a vessel used to hold human bones in the Chalcolithic era.
The scientists also found that genetic diversity within groups rose over time, and genetic differences between groups decreased over time. This paradigm often follows population migration, the researchers say.
a flowing past
Daniel Master, a professor of archaeology at Wheaton College in Illinois, said that DNA taken from the distant past has provided a new perspective on the mobile ancient world and the various people who inhabited it.
Professor Master, who was not involved in the study, pointed out in an email to LifeScience.com, "The extent to which residents of Galilee are connected with residents of the Beersheba Valley, Jordan Valley, and the Golan Heights is always the same. It is a key issue in the era of chalcolithic use."
He said: "The artifacts from the Biqi cave show that there are multiple cultural relationships between the above-mentioned areas. As for whether it is related to genes, this is an issue to be studied in the future."
Salem The study also puts an end to a long-standing debate about what exactly changed the unique cultural trajectory of the people of the Chalcolithic era, the announcement said. "We now know that the answer is migration," she said.
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