New DNA Analysis Reveals Blue Eyes Were Brought To Ancient Israel 6,500 Years Ago By Two Groups Of Immigrants
New DNA Analysis Reveals Blue Eyes Were Brought To Ancient Israel 6,500 Years Ago By Two Groups Of Immigrants.
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After studying over 600 skeletons that were found in an Israeli cave, scientists have concluded that immigrants from Turkey and Iran carried blue eyes with them to Israel 6,500 years ago.
New DNA analysis has revealed that Israel was completely transformed 6,500 years ago when two different groups of immigrants moved to the region and carried with them the special mutation that is able to produce blue eyes in individuals.
As report, immigrants that left what is now Turkey and Iran arrived in ancient Israel thousands of years ago and introduced people with blue eyes to the region, which is something that had never been seen before here.
This new discovery was recently made after scientists closely scrutinized the DNA of skeletons that were found in Peqi’in Cave in Israel, and as there were over 600 bodies found here that date back to 6,500 years ago, scientists had plenty of information to analyze for their new study.
DNA analysis has shown that many of the skeletons that were found in the Israeli cave were completely different from those who had lived in this region before them, with the DNA of these individuals showing that they would have emigrated from the Zagros Mountains and Anatolia, which are now in Iran and Turkey.
During this period of time Israel would have been known as Galilee, and while previous research has suggested that large changes to the culture of these people came from within their own society, this new study shows that the changes actually came after these blue-eyed immigrants who moved to Israel and brought their own genes, rituals and beliefs with them.
Peqi’in Cave, which would have been part of an area known as Upper Galilee during this period of history 6,500 year ago, was found to contain not only 600 skeletons, but also a multitude of beautiful funeral offerings and delicately inscribed jars. This indicated to scientists that this burial site was most likely intended for the Chalcolithic people who were native to the region.
But according to the new study’s co-author Dina Shalem, it was quickly discovered that not everything found inside the Israeli cave originated locally.
To learn more about the mysterious origins of the others who were laid to rest here, scientists used bone powder that had been extracted from 48 skeletons and were able to determine the genomes of 22 of these Israeli residents. When the results came back, scientists learned that the genes of these people were completely different from local farmers who had previously lived in this area.
Perhaps one of the most striking examples of this was when scientists learned that 49 percent of the remains that were analyzed in the Israeli cave were from people who would have carried the gene responsible for blue eyes. What this showed is that at this point in time, many of the people who were living in Upper Galilee would have been walking around with blue eyes.
And, as another allele was also discovered that produces fair skin, this new study shows that 6,500 years ago there would have been a large influx of people in Israel with blue eyes and light skin as a result of these two waves of immigrants.
Harvard University’s Eadaoin Harney explained that the new study shows quite clearly that out of the DNA that was studied, the alleles responsible for blue eyes and light skin were present in a large part of the ancient Israeli population.
The new study which shows that immigrants were responsible for bringing blue eyes to Israel has been published in .

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