Connection with other Middle Eastern Groups
Genetic distance comparisons have revealed that the Turkic and Turkmen Caspian area cluster with the Kurds, Greeks and Iranis (Ossetians). speaking peoples in the The
Persian speakers are genetically remote from these populations, they are, however, close to the Parsis who migrated from
Iran to
India at the end of the 7th Century A.D.
[4].
Lastly, recent evidence also points to European genetic links as well. Overall the Kurds are a varied population and the genetic inquiries into their background will require larger sampling before being deemed conclusive:
Muslim Kurds.—The Kurds are considered an ancient autochthonous population (Kinnane 1970; Pelletiere 1984) who may even be the descendants of the shepherds who first populated the highlands during the
Neolithic period (Comas et al. 2000). Although
Kurdistan came under the successive dominion of various conquerors, including the
Armenians,
Romans,
Byzantines,
Arabs,
Ottoman Turks, and Iraqis (Kinnane 1970), they may be the only western
Asian group that remained relatively unmixed by the influx of invaders, because of their protected and inhospitable mountainous homeland (Pelletiere 1984). The
Y chromosome variation of Muslim Kurds falls within the spectrum observed in other populations (Turks and Armenians) living in the same region. The three populations are closer to Jews and Arabs than to Europeans. This is in good agreement with data on classical markers (Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1994). However, on the basis of
mtDNA polymorphisms, Kurds were reported to be more closely related to Europeans than to Middle Easterners (Comas, et al. 2000).
[5] [
edit]
Introduction
Kurdsare an Indo-European speaking group that inhabit
the highlands in the border area of Turkey, Syria, Iran
and Iraq. This region lies astride the Zagros Moun-
tains of Iran and the eastern extension of the Taurus
Mountains in Turkey, and extends in the south across
the Mesopotamian plain to include the upper reaches of
the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (Figure 1). Several lan-
guages and/or dialects of Kurdish are recognized, and
are classified as belonging to the northwestern branch
of Iranian languages (Ethnologue, 2000).
The first mention of the Kurds in historical records is
in cuneiform writings from the Sumerians from around
3,000 B.C. (Wixman, 1984), who talked of the “land
∗
Corresponding author: Max Plank Institute for Evolutionary
Anthropology, Department of Evolutionary Genetics, Deutscher
Platz 6, 04103, Leipzig, Germany. E-mail: nasidze@eva.mpg.de
of the Karda”. In the 7th century A.D., the Arabs con-
quered the area and in time converted everyone in it -
including the Kurds - to Islam. In the centuries that fol-
lowed, the Kurds withstood invasions from Central Asia
which brought the Turkic peoples as far west as Asia
Minor (now Turkey), probably because they occupied
an area that was too difficult for outsiders to reach. As
the Ottoman Empire rose to power in the 13th through
to the 15th centuries, it extended its territory to what
is roughly now the border between Iran and Iraq. From
then until World War I, the area inhabited by the Kurds
was under the dominion of the Ottomans and Persians.
There have been several migration events involv-
ing Kurds. An extensive resettlement of Kurds from
Turkey and Iran into the Caucasus began during the
late 19
th
century and continued through World War I
(Wixman, 1984). Since that time Kurds have formed
compact settlements in Georgia and Armenia, and have
C
University College London 2005
Annals of Human Genetics (2005) 69,401–412
401
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I. Nasidze et al.
Figure 1 A map of the geographic location of
Kurdish-speaking groups.
kept their cultural and linguistic identity. At the time
of the 1979 census there were 51,000 Kurds in Arme-
nia and 26,000 in Georgia (USSR Census 1979). Kurds
from Central Asia (Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan) speak
the Kurmanji language (Ethnologue, 2000). They are
also descendants of Kurds from Eastern Anatolia and
Iran.
Kurmanji is a North-West Iranian language spoken in
Southeast Anatolia in Turkey. This language belongs to
the Kurdish linguistic branch, along with the Behdini,
Herki, Kurdi, Shikaki and Surchi languages, all of which
are spoken in Northern Iraq (Ethnologue, 2000). Zaza
(or Dymli) is also a northwest Iranian language spoken in
Southeast Anatolia, northwest of the Kurdish speaking
regions. Although first thought to be a Kurdish dialect,
since the beginning of the 20th century Zazaki has been
accepted as a language of its own (Paul, 1998). Virtually
nothing is known about the origin of Zazaki-speaking
people, as they do not possess a written language and
therefore lack a recorded history. Based on some struc-
tural similarities of the Zazaki language with the Talyshi,
Gilani and Mazandarani languages spoken in northern
Iran, linguists have hypothesized that their origin lies in
the mountainous region of the Southern Caspian Sea
area (MacKenzie, 1962).
Only a few genetic studies have been carried out
on Kurdish groups. Previous genetic studies of classical
markers (Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1994) indicated an overall
genetic similarity of Kurds with other Middle Eastern
populations. Comas et al. (2000) studied mtDNA HV1
sequence variability among Kurmanji-speaking Kurds
living in Georgia (Caucasus), and found close Euro-
pean affinities for Kurdish mtDNA lineages. Richards
et al. (2000) studied mtDNA HV1 sequence variabil-
ity among 53 Kurds from Eastern Turkey and found
that some mtDNA haplotypes found in Kurdish sam-
ples presumably originated in Europe, and were asso-
ciated with back-migrations from Europe to the Near
East. Wells et al. (2001) investigated Y chromosome SNP
haplogroup distributions among Central Asian groups,
including a group of Kurmanji-speaking Kurds living in
Turkmenistan, but no specific conclusions were made
regarding the history of the Kurdish group. Nebel et al.
(2001) studied Y chromosome SNP and short tandem
repeat (STR) loci among different groups from the Mid-
dle East, including a group of 95 Kurds from northern
Iraq, and found close affinities for the Kurdish group to
other Middle Eastern groups. Finally, Quintana-Murci
et al. (2004) studied 20 Kurds from Western Iran and 32
Kurds from Turkmenistan, among other groups from
Iran, Pakistan and Central Asia, but did not come to
any specific conclusions concerning the Kurds.
None of these previous studies were focused specif-
ically on Kurdish groups and their origins or relation-
ships. Rather, these previous studies targeted a larger
geographic scale and/or more general questions con-
cerning the genetic relationships of different popula-
tions. In order to investigate the genetic relationships
between different Kurdish groups, we present here data
on mtDNA and Y chromosomal variation in 139 in-
dividuals from Zazaki and Kurmanji speaking groups
(from Turkey), and from Kurds living in Georgia (Cau-
casus) who are also Kurmanji speakers
