>> From the Library of Congress in Washington DC. [ Silence ] >> Friends, I think maybe we should start so we don't actually get accused of being in Armenian time much longer. I welcome all of you to the 18th Annual Vardanants Day Armenian lecture which is sponsored by the African and Middle Eastern division of the Library of Congress. The 18th, which as I said last year with the 17th, it's very hard to imagine that what we started in 1994 is still going on and still presenting extremely rich and, in some cases, provocative programming. Before I start, I'd like to introduce the chief of the African Middle Easter Division Dr. Mary Jane Deeb who will say a few words for us [ Applause ] >> Dr. Mary Jane Deeb: Thank you very much Lee and welcome all of you to the African and Middle Eastern Division of the Library of Congress. I'm delighted to see you all and I also want to recognize Roberta Shaffer, the Associate Librarian of Congress for Library Services who has taken the time off from her very busy schedule to be with us today and welcome you to the Library. As its name denotes, the African Middle Eastern Division, which is hosting the event today, is made up of three sections, the African, the Middle Eastern, and the Hebraic sections. We are responsible for materials from 78 different countries in the Middle East, Central Asia, the Caucasus, as well as from the entire continent of Africa. Armenia is part of the Middle East section whose head is Christopher Murphy, Dr. Christopher Murphy, who's here, in the back. We're all, it's a very active division. It's active in acquiring, developing collections, briefing visitors who come from all over the world, and organizing programs symposium and workshops. We also organize exhibits. And, in 2012, for example, we had a wonderful exhibit which, I know, many of you have seen organized by Levon Avdoyan and entitled To Know Wisdom and Instruction. It focused on the Armenian book. The exhibit was a great success. And, more than a quarter million people visited the exhibit. It was accompanied, the exhibit was accompanied by a very important catalog of the Library's Armenian collections, really a book I should say that was researched and written entirely by Levon. It is available for sale in the Library's bookstore. This year, it was translated to Armenian. And, since I'm doing some division self promotion here, I would like to point out that we have, we just opened a new exhibit in the Persian book A Thousand Years of the Persian Book that was organized by the gentleman who's been taking pictures here, the Persian Specialist Bita Daryabari. And, I would invite you all, after this event, to drop by the Persian Book exhibit and see it as well. The African Release Division also invites scholars and experts from outside the library who has researched and done work on our regional responsibility to share with us their insights and their findings so that, all of us attending and participating in the programs, leave enriched with new information and a better understanding of the cultures and societies whose publications we collect. Today's program is a case in point. We are holding the 18th Annual Vardanants Day program. The Annual Lecture Series has become one of the most highly anticipated scholarly and library events dedicated to Armenian studies not only in the DC area, but, throughout the American Armenian communities. This year has combined state of the art scholarship with discussions about the library's growing Armenian collections. Our guest's lecturists today about whom you'll hear more in a moment are Peter Hrechtakian from Brussels in Belgium and Hovann Simonian from Geneva Switzerland. They are the co-directors of the Armenian DNA project and will speak on the latest results of the genome project facing the origins of the Armenian people. And now, Dr. Levon Avdoyan will take over and continue the program. Thank you. [ Applause ] >> Dr. Levon Avdoyan: Thank you Mary Jane. [ Applause ] I have got to add that this would not be, such programs would not be possible without the active support of people such as Mary Jane Deeb. And, I want to point out a few people before I continue. Dr. Deeb, Mary Jane, Chris Murphy who is a section head of the Near East study section who is always ready to support any of our programs. I think I saw Paul Crego, Dr. Paul Crego who is our. Did I see Paul? Who is our Armenian language cataloger and acquisitions specialist with whom I work to really grow the collection. And, I would also, in the audience, like to point out one of our constant supporters, the Fifth Ambassador to Armenia from the United States, Ambassador John Evans in the audience. [ Applause ] And, Father [inaudible] who's joining us, I think, for the first time in the Vardanants Lecture from Saint Mary's church. I thank you all for taking your time, every one of you. And I want to talk a little, just a little, about the fact that we have been very fortunate to enjoy the active support of the administration on the highest levels. And, exhibits such as To Know Wisdom and Instruction could not have happened without the full support of the Administration of the Library of Congress. I would like to now, however, introduce to you a very special person who has been, I think, she's become an adopted Armenian because she takes an active part in all the Vardanants lectures. And, that's Roberta Shaffer the Associate Librarian of Congress for Library Services. Roberta. [ Applause ] >> Roberta Shaffer: Well, it's absolutely a pleasure to be here and to add my thank you to all the people that Dr. Deeb and Lee have just thanked. But, I think that it's my role to point out another group or another entity that also makes things happen at the Library of Congress. And, that is private funders who look for a way to assist us to acquire phenomenal collections and add to the incredible coral reef of this institution by giving us their support, financial support as well as collections. And so, actually, the beginning the genesis of the truly spectacular Armenian collection at the Library of Congress started in 1948 as the dream and then the making the reality of that dream by Arthur Dadian whose purpose was to gather and contribute Armenian language research materials to the Library of Congress. And, he passed away, of course, since that time. But, I think, he's looking down on us today and he is extraordinarily proud of everything that has happened. And, he would be, and he's listening right now and he's looking forward to this lecture. And, who knows? He might even watch the video tape to hear it again after the fact. Because, after a very long and active life, he's probably got a lot of time to do fun things in Heaven that he didn't have a chance to do on earth. But, we're also very grateful his widow, Margery, who, in 1992, continued his generosity by giving us a wonderful monetary donation. And, this was for the health, maintenance, and continued growth of the collection. And so, as a result of this, we were also then able to hire Lee to have a specialist for the collection, Armenian and Georgian materials. And, at that time, they numbered only about 7,000. Well, you can imagine, after hearing about the exhibition that we had two years ago and all, that the collection is now many, many fold larger And, also that, it is used by scholars across the library, not only scholars who are interested in Armenian culture and language and history, but also to compare Armenian culture and language and history to the myriad other cultures and language and history, languages that are here in the Library of Congress. Depending on who you ask, the minimum number of other languages would be 430. But then, the top number that I hear bandied around is 457. And, I understand that the distinction is between some people viewing some languages as dialects and others as freestanding languages. So, we'll let the linguists duke that out. And, we may even hear a little about that today from our expert. But, in any event, we have an enormous collection. And, we are happy that it can be used by the public, by scholars and accessed not only by those who come to the library but from around the world. Just, to show you that Mary Jane was not bragging unnecessarily about how proud we are of the exhibition, I happened to pull off my shelf my own personal inscribed copy in Armenian. And, I think, when Lee gave me this copy, which came out this year in Armenian, I think he realized that I would only be able to look at the pictures. But, I still love it and love seeing that the Library of Congress has produced a phenomenal catalog in both English and in Armenian for all that that means for keeping a language alive and well. So, thank you so much for letting me address you today. And, I'm so looking forward to the lecture. Thank you Lee. [ Applause ] >> Lee: Now it's usually my custom, at this point, to give an extended report on what has happened with the Armenian collection since last we met. But, that was really only a few months ago when Professor Charles de Lamberterie of the Sorbonne gave his excellent lecture on the Armenian language and the European Linguistic group. So I shall forgo that step. We have a particularly rich program this afternoon. And, I assure you, it will fill up our time before lunch. Now, people who know me realize that I'm a traditionalist when it comes to historical studies. Academic fads do not intrigue me nor do newfangled theories. In the past, when I turned my attentions to the origins of the Armenian people, I used text and relied on linguistic, archeological, epigraphic, and other types of tried and true research methodologies and the publications of their proponents. Since I first heard of the National Geographic's metric program, I have been intrigued about the use of DNA to trace deep ancestry. And, I was, consequently, particularly delighted to learn, a few short years ago, that there was an Armenian DNA project. Who knew? Which I was very eager to join. And yes, I have had both sides tested. But, I will not bore you with the results. Frankly, I'm a bit perturbed that I'm neither of royal or noble lineages. [ Laughter ] So far. Now, what delights me about DNA studies is that it takes us back before racial, before ethnic, before linguistic, and before religious differences and introduces us, in reality, to that overused phrase, the family of man. That project itself was started as a tool for genealogical research by Mr. Mark Arslan who is with us today. Mark, would you stand up please because we owe you a debt? [ Applause ] And our guest speakers joined the initiative a while later. And, the three remain as administrators of the project which is a web based initiative housed at the Family Tree DNA which is the company used to do the testing on which their data is based. And now, on to the program. Peter Hrechtakian was born in Aleppo Syria to parents from South Eastern Turkey. He grew up in Lebanon before immigrating to the US in 1975. He earned a bachelor degree in economics and philosophy from Cornell University and a masters in business administration from Harvard Business School. He is the chief executive officer of an international trading and distribution company. But, his passion, clearly, lies elsewhere. He has been the coauthor of various academic articles on DNA of the Armenians and DNA of Napoleon. And, he has lectured widely on the topic of DNA in both specific and general terms. At a personal note, I have admired the way he runs he Facebook page associated with the Armenian DNA project strictly and fairly. And, it is now with its over 1,020 members a repository for reports and reliable data on the subject. I am also in awe of his knowledge in DNA studies in general. And, I think, you will see that when he addresses DNA and the origin of peoples the Armenians. Now, born in Beirut to Armenian parents, Simonian is an expert in Armenian history, historical geography, and culture. He holds a masters degree in international relations from the University of Southern California and another master's degree in Central Asian studies in the School of Oriental and African Studies, SOAS, at the University of London. He is the coauthor of Troubled Waters, Geopolitics of the Caspian region and the editor of the Hamshen, History, Society, and Identity in the High Lands of North East Turkey. Conversation about Armenian history with Hovann is quite simply a delight. And, today, he shows us how this new tool can be applied successfully to historical problems. He will speak today on DNA as pebbles on the genealogical path from the house of Hotchen [assumed spelling] to Eastern Europe. I am going to invite Mr. Hrechtakian to come up and start our lectures and Mr. Simonian will soon follow. So, at this point, it gives me great pleasure to introduce to your Mr. Peter Hrechtakian. [ Applause ] >> Peter Hrechtakian: The mike is on? Okay. Thank you very much for this lovely introduction. And, I'm really honored to be invited here to speak in front of you at the Library of Congress. Thank you very much to Mary Jane and to Roberta and to Levon for having me here. I hope to share with you some of the excitement of being involved with this relatively new field which opens a different way of looking into the deep history of people in general and of Armenians specific in this case. We'll start by, for those of you who are not familiar with who the Armenians are and where they live, with the history and the geography of Armenians. This map shows you the various areas in which Armenians lived. The yellow is the current Republic of Armenia. In dotted black, you see the region which is considered historical, the area in which historical Armenians lived over the years. You have on the side, the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia which existed for about 300 years after the fall of Anni [assumed spelling]. And, in light brown is the farthest reach of Armenian empire at the time of Tigrane the Great. But, it didn't last very long. It was in 70 BC. This gives you an idea of the geographical are we're talking about here. Geography is important. But, so is typography because, as you'll see, one of the reasons why Armenians are interesting to study is that they didn't really mix too much with other people once they became Armenian. And, I think, personally, that, a lot of it has to do with the geography. Most of the Armenians lived in highland regions. The Armenian plateau bounded by the Caucasus Mountains to the north, the Pontic Mountains south of the Black Sea, the Toros Mountains and the Zagros Mountains. So, it's a relatively hostile geography. A lot of people went through it. But, few people seem to have stayed there. So, I think, the geography has important impact on Armenian DNA. When we talk about the cultures which were present in the broad area including the Armenian Plateau, and some of these cultures reached parts of the, to the north and to the steps of Russia over the Caucasus Mountains, you have a list here of all the different cultures going back to 6,000 BC. And, these cultures have been evidence by the way people lived, the pottery that they used, the tools that they used. And, before these times, you had a lot of Neolithic sites in Turkey. You can see the names at the bottom where they're uncovering very interesting early settlements, early human settlements. And, we hope, one day, that we'll be able to tie all these cultures and Neolithic sites to the people who are currently living. Armenians, before they became Armenians, about 2,500 or 2,600 years ago, so we're talking 500 to 1000 BC approximately was when the Armenians started coming out as a different people, lived in an area which was inhabited by other ancient people, the Haitians, the [inaudible], [inaudible], Assyrians, Hittites, [inaudible], Uratians, these are approximate dates. Don't hold me for them, they might be off by a few hundred years. But, this is, these are all the people who left a record in history. Before that there wasn't enough written text about who the people who were living there were. Some of them had languages which we were able to decipher. So, how do the Armenians tie to some of these people? I'll try to address that question. Armenia has been, the territory in which Armenians have lived, has been conquered many, many times by people who went through it, who stayed, who had administered the area for a while, the Cimmerians, the Scythians, Persians, the Greeks, Byzantines, Arabs, and later the Turks [inaudible]. In one question, we can ask ourselves, did any of these people leave a mark on the Armenians or did they just conquer the area without really mixing with the local population. And, at the bottom, you have a list of all of the other people who lived in and around the area. And here, also, interesting questions about what was the interactions between Armenians and these people. So, moving forward to some of the big questions we try to answer when we, when we're involved in Armenian DNA. In the context of the topic today, which is the origin of people because there's a genealogical component which I'll address soon, is what's the genetic profile of an Armenian? Can you define an Armenian genetically? Are we locals? Did we live here? Do we have deep roots in the region? Or, are we a tribe which came from elsewhere and settled in these regions? And, if yes, when did that happen? And, as mentioned earlier, did we find, in the Armenian DNA, a trace of all the people who invaded us or went through the region over the years? And getting more to more interesting issues for the people living now, how close are we to our near neighbors? I'll address that question. And, finally, there is a key element in DNA studies which has only emerged in the last year or two is the study of ancient DNA, ancient human remains to be able to see if the ancient skeletons, the DNA of these ancient skeletons ties to people living right now. Because, you can come up with all the theories that you want about where people came from and how they migrated. When you're studying living people, you're only extrapolating. When you're able to go back into ancient DNA, here, you can really reach deep into the past. And, the techniques to do that have really been perfected and are getting perfected. So, we're able to extract minute amounts of DNA from very ancient and deeply and badly preserved specimens. And, we'll get to that. So, the Armenian DNA project. Levon talked about the genesis of the project which had been started by Mark Arslan before Hovann and I took over. The field of DNA studies and, particularly Armenian DNA studies, population genetics, it's something that started in the late 1990s. And, in 2001, the first paper on Armenian DNA came out. And one of the coauthors was Levon Yepiskoposyan. Levon is the head of the human genetics group at the Institute of Molecular Biology at the National Committee of Sciences in Armenia. And, he remains, to this day, the preeminent population geneticist and the expert in the field. He publishes continually on Armenian DNA and collaborates with other people who are in this field. What's the difference between him and the people like Hovann and Mark and I who started the project? He's a scientist who works in a university. And, his approach to Armenian DNA is that of a population geneticist. So, he goes to an area and asks to take the authorization from the local Armenian community to sample the DNA of the local Armenians. And, he takes 500 samples. So, little swabs. And, he analyzes them and he compares Armenian to other populations. Recently, he and all the other scientists like him had gone into the ancient DNA field, as I mentioned, which is relatively new. But, before that, they were using living people. So, it's really broad studies. If you were one of the people who donated your DNA for one of these studies, you'd never get any feedback because you'd become a number in a study and you don't know exactly which group you belong to. The Armenian DNA project so it's a top down approach. Our project is bottom up, which means, every person who wants to be tested orders a kit. It's an extremely simple thing to do. It's a little, two little swabs, they swab your cheeks and in a minute it's done. And, in one minute, you can unravel an enormous amount, once the results come up, an enormous amount of information about your past. And, that's really exciting. It's like archeology in the blood. Try to imagine an archeologist working in the field, in the dusty hot field on all fours with his, painstakingly removing dust from artifacts to try and analyze them. Here, it's archeology in the blood done very, very quickly and accessible through the internet for the family from the companies through which you ordered it. So, that's really fascinating. Archeology in the blood, that's real exciting. I wanted to be an archeologist. But, I don't have the time to. And, this is my way of doing it. [ Laughter ] So, there's two ways in which we can approach it when we study it like this on an individual basis, as I mentioned, again, it's information you control whenever you get tested. I'm particularly interested in deep ancestry, going back hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of years into the past beyond history, beyond archeology. We can do that with DNA. It also has an interesting genealogical component. That's how it got started. And, for Armenians, it's useful for a variety of reasons because, Armenians, most Armenians who come from Turkey from, from [inaudible] in the [inaudible] time do not have any genealogical records. They cannot go ask oral history about their grandparents and great grandparents. So, there's no, we cannot go, like Europeans and Americans hundreds of years into the past by going to the archive and looking up birth and death records. This is one way of connecting to relatives. Second thing is that Armenians didn't, Armenian last names are not fixed, they change, regularly from one generation to the next depending on what the trade of the person was or what city he came from. So, you can't say it's your Graustarkian that you've been a Graustarkian all the time. So. And, a lot of the Armenian names were Turkified also, so. And the third thing is for genocide survivors, people who really are descendants of genocide survivors and have no clue as to where they came from. They can find relatives by taking this test. That's the genealogical component which I will not be talking about. As Hovann mentioned, we started the project, Mark started the project in 2005. It was limited to Armenians in the from the Kahe area and then he broadened it a little bit. Hovann and I got involved, involved in 2007 personally. And, in 2009 we decided to go public with the project and try to make it grow as much as possible by talking about it. And now, we've reached the thousand member level. Now, you might be asking yourself okay, who are they testing? What kinds of Armenians? We reach out for Armenians all over the areas in which Armenians lived historically. So, we really have a very broad representation. It's not Armenians from Aintab which is my maternal town or from Urfa. But, it's the Armenians from everywhere. So, a lot of these dots are, we're always looking at the place from which the most distant ancestor came from. And, a lot of them are from current day Turkey. Some still live in Istanbul and other places and they're seen. But, many of these trace their ancestry to these places. We also have a lot of Armenians from Armenia, from [inaudible] from areas that are now [inaudible] from Georgia, from Eastern Europe people who know they're Armenian ancestry but have lost the knowledge of exactly where they were from. And, of course, I have a whole group of Armenians from Iran. And the southernmost place also is Kessab, the only Armenian village which remained of the Ottoman villages in Ottoman times, which we recently in the news when it was attacked and a number of people were killed in churches, desecrated. Genetics, we're talking about DNA. So, what are we talking about exactly? How do you use the genetic data? We, all humans have 24 pairs of chromosomes. I'm going to make it very short and simple so you can understand what we're talking about. 22 of them are autosome. They're chromosomes which mix, once you get bits and pieces from both of your parents. And, there' are two chromosomes which are the sex chromosomes, the X and the Y. Men have an X and a Y, women have two Y's. And, I'll explain later why it's important. When you compare people's DNA, one thing you can look at is autosome DNA which is the super DNA that you inherit from all of your ancestors. And, here's an example where you have the grandparents and different colors. Their children are a mix of the grandparents and the children are a mix of all the parents. And, you can add more layers and you'll have more colors until you have a rainbow of colors. And, after about seven or eight generations, you can start missing out on bits of DNA from specific great, great, great, great, great grandparents. But, this is interesting to study when you study a full blooded Armenian to compare him to other populations. But, to go back into the deep, deep history, we're interested in markers which don't get mixed from one generation to the next. And, one of them is the Y chromosome. Men get it from their fathers who get it from their father who get it from their father. There is no input on the mother's side. So, this image shows you exactly that, when you get tested for your Y DNA, you're testing one little bit of your ancestry. But, it's one unbroken bit from father to son or son to father or grandfather on the paternal side. And, it goes back to the dawn of time, really, you can go back a long, long time. And, what's interesting about this also is the results, when you get tested, are valid for your brothers, for your father, for your paternal uncle, for your cousins, paternal cousins. So, one test is good for everybody. In the maternal side, you have, in each cell, something called the mitochondria which is an organism that has been living in symbiosis so with human cells for a long, long time. They're energy transfers within cells. And, mitochondria also have their own DNA and are passed on from the mother to her children, men, boys and girls. And, only the daughters pass them on to their children. So, you can use that same marker to go and dig deep into the maternal line. And, of course, it's just one little thread on each side. But, it gives you an idea of where people come from. So, just to recap the biology end of it, this shows you a little bit going back for generations, how the DNA mixes say for two things, the mitochondria DNA which is the maternal one. We won't be talking about it again because I'm limited in time in t his presentation. And the paternal DNA which is here shown in blue. The rest is a soup of the DNA of all the ancestors. The only mention I'll make of autosomo DNA, this is one of the questions I asked before. You take a 100 percent Armenian and you compare him to a number of different 100 percent Armenians and then you compare him Turks and Azeris, and Syrians, and Georgians, you can make comparisons. And, when you plot this autosomo DNA of living people, using something called PCA principle component analysis here, you can get graphs like this which show who Armenians cluster with. And, when you do this, one of the surprising results, of course, is that Armenians start, cluster very closely with Turks, especially Turks from Eastern Turkey. And, that's not really surprising because, once you dig a little bit deeper in Turkish DNA, you see that only a small percent of Turkish DNA actually comes from Central Asia. A lot, a little bit more of their DNA comes from Eastern Europe from the Slavic countries. But, many Turks, especially in Eastern Turkey, are descendants of [inaudible] people including Armenians at one point and time. So, it's not a surprise if we have, if we're close to them genetically. Israeli Jews is Raheem, the, the Jews who are neither [inaudible] who lived in Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, Iran, are also very similar to us genetically. And, Assyrians also who speak a Semitic language while we speak and indo-European language, but, genetically, they're quite similar to us. And we know, from historical text that, when the Assyrian empire reached far to the north, the simulate a lot of [inaudible] into the Assyrian empire. Are the Assyrians living now their descendant? How knows? But, they're genetically close to us. Ancient DNA, I mentioned the importance of this field. There's a lot of people working in this area all over the world including an Armenian called Clio Der Sarkissian who works out of a lab in Denmark. It's very useful to study ancient DNA, if you can extract it without contamination because it gives you a real window into the past. Otherwise, all you can do is extrapolate from current results what, where people lived. But, you can only verify this if you can dig people from specific sites and analyze their DNA. When they do that for Europe, for example, they find that the Europeans who lived in Germany or in Spain 3,000 or 4,000 years ago don't correspond to the people living now. It means that migrations of people, very often, just, the people who came superseded the people who were there or absorbed them or displaced them. But, it's a very technical and very difficult thing to do. But, this is where things are happening now and coming up with fascinating results. I could do a whole talk on this subject. But, won't discuss it further. But, a lot of the things that, supposing, are true about Armenians, we'll be able to verify in the coming years once we start doing ancient DNA analysis. What happens when you study the Y DNA, the Y chromosome DNA of Armenians? You can basically, or all human beings, you can basically put them in specific groups. And, this is a chart which has been recreated, haplogroups, haplogroups are people who belong to a specific group based on shared mutations because they have a common ancestor. So, in this specific map, you see the different haplogroups in the world. And, you can see that there's a starting point, Africa, for all of humanity. And, you can see how people spread out from Africa. And, you can see, also when they spread out, because you can use this, not only to determine which group you belong to, but, when the group came into existence and when it started moving. And, this is a, for example, a chart of the haplogroups of non-Africans. It'll be more meaningful afterwards. The branching points are always, can be tied to one specific individual who developed a mutation, who had a lot of sons. And, these sons managed to survive and have more sons. And, when you take all the people living now and test them, you can create the tree that you see by going backwards. And, on the left hand side, you can see the years. At the top, it's 80,000 years then 70, 60, 50, 40. The dotted line corresponds to 12,000 years ago which is when you had a mini ice age in the region which effected populations everywhere. So, you can see that a lot of the groups that are in existence now in Western Asia, in the world, came into existence many tens of thousands of years ago. And, when you take a test, you can go back that far. I am J1 for example. And, J1 goes back 25,000 years. That's when the man who developed the mutation that all of the J1s in the world belong to. That was 25,000 years ago and J was 30,000. This is really deep, deep, deep ancestry. And then, the interesting thing, once you take that and you put people into different groups, then you have a map of the world and you see which groups they belong to. And, Africans remain, to a large extent, part of their own groups. Then, you have one wave of migration out of Africa which went to South East Asia and to Australia and New Zealand and on to Asia and the Americas. And then, you had a group of people who went, a little bit later, let's say 70,000 80,000 years ago in the Middle East. And, they lived there for a while. And, from there they spread out. And, when they spread out, it was very often one small group of people who spread out. So, when you look at this map of the world, the only place in the world where you have a rainbow of colors of different groups is the, is Western Asia and Central Asian. The rest of the world is very mono haplogroup. And, I'll you the next, in the next slide what Europe looks like. And here, in Europe, you basically have one groups shown in red which is R1D, very predominant in Western Europe and people who's descendants, whose ancestors come from there. You have two groups which are typical of Northern Europe and Southern Europe. You have the Russians and the Slavs who have the group which is called R1B. It's only when you start getting into the Mediterranean that it mixes a little bit more. And, just to illustrate how this works because, it's somebody who develops a mutation he has many sons, the sons pass that to their son. And, once they start moving, that haplogroup starts moving. I'm going to talk a little bit about the European R1B haplogroup which happens to be, also, the most important haplogroup in Armenians also. When you test Armenian males, 35 to 40 percent of them belong this group, which, strangely enough, is the predominant one by far in Western Europe. So, on the face of it, when you look at R1B and you look at the distribution of R1B that they came up with initially, when you see a map like this, you say, it's clear. It's something that started in Western Europe and then the people migrated toward the east. And then you had a small cluster of these Europeans R1B's. Are they famed Celts that were immortalized in the dying bull sculpture in Greek times? Who knows? So, but, is this the reality or not? You start digging a little bit deeper. And, this is R1B worldwide. And here you see something strange. You see pockets of R1B's in Asia, in Central Asia. You have a very deep pocket in African in [inaudible]. And, you start wondering how could these people have moved around and when did they move around? And, by actually studying the mutations of the people who belonged to these groups, you start building a tree of R1B. And, when you do that, you can extrapolate and find out when this group came into existence. And, it came into existence 24,000 years ago in the Altai region in Russia because we've been able to extract ancient DNA, which is R1B, from this period. And then, it stayed for a long, long time in Central Asia in and around the Armenian region to the north, to the east a little bit, the Caspian Sea, between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea. And it only started moving, as you can see here, 3,000 years ago or a little bit more into Europe. So, all of these European R1B's are recent arrivals. And now, they represent up to 80 or 90 percent of the Celtic populations, the Irish, the Welsh, the [inaudible]. But, whenever we do ancient DNA studies in Europe that go beyond 4,000 to 5,000 years, we never find any R1B's. So, when you do the tree of R1B, you see here, for example, that the oldest versions in the map are centered around Iran and the Caspian Sea, south of the Caspian Sea, both side. All of the Armenians tested, so far, who are R1B belong to ancient parts of the tree. And all of the Europeans who belong to these two big groups including [inaudible] who was a very famous Armenian linguist living in Belgium, a country where we reside, belonged to some of the more younger branches. And, this shows you where some of these younger European branches are located. You have a typically Celtic Atlantic group. You have an Italo-Celtic group. You have a Basque group. And then, you have a Germanic group also. So, all of these, this is just to show you how you can take DNA studies and the haplogroup studies and the mutations and you tie them to specific people who lived at a specific time and you can really bate exactly when these branches came into existence. And people in Western Europe, for example, really know now, from Irish or Celtic Germanic tribe they came from. That's how accurate DNA testing is. So, we get back to the Armenians after this digression. But, I wanted to use this to really illustrate. And, I should finish that point by saying there's a major, major study going on about R1B which should come out in the next year or so. I'm not involved in it. But, it's going to explain exactly where these people came from and what path they used to get into Europe. And, they'll try to tie it to historical and mythological text. When you test Armenians, this is one big surprise a little bit. We are told that we're all the descendants Hayk, the mythical founder of the Armenian nation who finished on Mount Ararat, etcetera, like an Arab tribe where he was the patriarch. But, clearly, we're not. Because, when you look, when you test Armenians, this is the sample of 550 male Armenians tested, you get a rainbow of different groups. You remember that, most of these groups came into existence 15,000, 20,000, 30,000 years ago, long, long before we became Armenians. So, it's clear, to me, that Armenians are a group of people who were of very different origins who were, probably, living in the same place and who coalesce to become Armenians and took on the Armenian language at one point in time and have maintained their Armenian since. Remember the chart I showed you before here with the different, the inverted tree? Here I put circles around the big Armenian groups. In black is the biggest group for the Armenians, R1B. You have 30 percent of Armenians who belong to that. In red, it's the next three biggest groups. In blue you have three and in green is small groups that represent one and four percent. You see that most of these came into existence 15,000, 20,000, 25,000, 30,000 years ago. So, we're clearly not all the descendants of the same found of the Armenian nation. And, furthermore, I'm going to go through these very quickly, once you look at, when I'm J1, there are many flavors of J1, Levon is R1A, there are many flavors of R1A. And, sometimes you'll find that certain people are only one flavor. In Armenians, you'll find, very often many flavors. Each of these lines here represent a different flavor of a specific group. I'll go through those lines very quickly just to show you that not only do we belong to ancient groups, but they had already branched out a long time ago. And, we belong to many of those branches. When you compare, I'll talk about Armenians and Georgians later. Now, a question you can ask yourself, once you know which groups Armenians belong to and when you can date when these groups came into existence, are they autochthonous or not? I can't expect you to read the small print here. But, when you did into this and you separate what is autochthonous and what is not, you realize that 80 percent or 85 percent of the branches to which Armenians belong came into existence in the area in which we live. So, for me, it's relatively clear evidence that we are mainly and autochthonous population that few people, few Armenians came from elsewhere. But, only ancient DNA will prove that, here, it's just conjecture by comparing to other populations of the world. And, because of the, of our location and because of a lot of the European, Central Asian, and let's say Southeast Asian groups radiated from this area, the study of Armenian DNA is very interesting to people who study DNA of other people. Because, to them, we are like an image of what the DNA groups were before they started spreading out. So, our project and Armenian DNA, in general, is very, very interesting to people who study the subject. So here, I think I can answer some of the questions I had asked before as mentioned. Can we define and Armenian genetically? Definitely not because we have very varied ancestry. We are, clearly, people who have had deep, deep, deep roots in the region which makes the tragedy of our scattering even more tragic, sadly. We managed to stay there for a long, long time and now we've been scattered a little bit all over the world. But, strangely enough, despite the fact that we are very varied origins, ever since we became Armenians linguistically, culturally, religiously, we've managed to remain relatively stable because this proportion of haplogroups hasn't really changed. And, we have not mixed with other populations. That's one of the questions I had asked before. When you look at Armenians living now to see if there is evidence of Arab invasions, Turkish invasions, Mongol invasions, you rarely find any trace of this in Armenian DNA which is not what I was expecting. But, it's how it turned out to be. Some maps to show you. I showed you before the distribution of R1B, which is the most important groups for Armenians. This is the second most important group. Armenians belong to it. But, so do most of the people in the Middle East and in Southern Europe in Turkey and Greece, Italy. This is a group which is clearly associated by the people who invented agriculture who laid out the first cities, who invented the first alphabet and then spread out with their inventions in Europe. In Europe now they're finding out that the people who invented agriculture and all these things who came over from the Middle, basically, did not transmit a knowledge which was taken by locals. They came with their knowledge and they replaced the people who were living there. You can really see that when you do ancient DNA. My own group, J1, is more tied to pastoralists and is found in the highest concentrations in the Dagestan regions. Some researchers believe that it came, originally, from the Armenian highlands. It happens to be one of the most, the most important group in the Arab population and also a large chunk of the Jewish population also. But, here, as with the other groups, you can see the different branching out. Where it started, how it spread. This is how we use these tools to see how people move over the years. G is the same thing. It's a very, very majority group now in Georgia and Ossetia. But, when you study the origin of G, you see it started in the Armenian highlands. And the Georgian version of G is a new one and it's much more concentrated than what you find in the Armenian population. So, here again, it's proof to a certain extent that some of those important European West Asian groups saw their beginnings in the region which we come from, the broad region, of course, which include some areas where Armenians have never lived but are nearby. Now, a lot of you are probably wondering what DNA has to say about linguistics. The answer is nothing, sadly because you can't deduce from the genes and genetics what somebody spoke. And, you know how easily it is for somebody to lose a language and acquire a new one in a span of a very, very few generations. There are many theories as to the origin of in the European languages. Armenians speak in the European language. Some people say it started a long, long time ago in the Armenian highlands. Some people claim that it started in the steps of Russia further to the north and that it came to Armenia by way of the Vulcan's. DNA doesn't really help us in all this. But, it can help prove or disprove certain theories. I mean, if we're very similar to people who speak different languages, people who live in the Caucasus and speak North Caucasian languages, people who speak Semitic languages, Assyrians, it's made, it's probably an indication that the Armenians, who were, who belonged to such a rainbow of different haplogroups, spoke a myriad of languages. That's, that I can certify that Armenians spoke many, many, many different languages before they adopted Armenian. How did they come to adopt Armenian? When did, when did it start? When did it become the language rather than the other languages they spoke? Where did it come from? These are questions that linguists will have to answer. And, we'll see if DNA can help them a little bit or not. R1A's another interesting group. A smart minor group in Armenians which is divided, when you look at it, into Indo Iranian speakers and Slavic speakers. And, initially, I felt that many Armenians would belong to this if it was true that we came from the Vulcan's initially. But, it's a very minor percentage of Armenians who belong to this group. And, we, initially, didn't know which, the few Armenians that are in 1A, which part belonged to. But, thanks to genetic studies and mutations, we were able to divide the Armenians. Two thirds of the Armenians, of 1A's are clearly of Indo Iranian background. They were probably, perhaps, descendants of Iranians who lived in our region or it was older than that. And, one third of them come from a Pre-Slavic branch including Levon whom you can see here. And, you can see that, you can see that, this shows you how, when you study mutations, you can really narrow it down to a specific people in a specific place. And, you can really date all of these things. So, Levin's branch came into existence 3,500 years ago. You have a lot of Slavs and Balts who belong to that. But, he belongs to one of the branches, the older branches. Same thing for this group, I will pass very quickly. I'll mention very quickly, these two groups which are found in the I1 flavor in the Nordic countries and in the I2 flavor in the Slavic countries. There's a small group of Armenians who belong to this. And, Hovann has researched them for the purpose of his talk because there's a specific group of Armenians who belong to this interesting group. And, you can see them in red. And, they have a very strange distribution and we need to determine where these people came from. I mentioned, earlier, that we were very close to the neighboring populations when you look at our overall DNA. But, when you pluck the Y DNA of men, for example, this shows you Armenians in red and Assyrians in blue. And, when you plot who is A who is J who is J2 R1B, you get, almost, the same distribution which is mind blowing and shows you that, initially, we were the same people who ended up belonging to different religious groups and speaking different languages. You can do that with Armenians and Kurdish Jews. These are Jews who never lived in the Near East who always stayed in Northern Iraq and these areas. And here, again, it's the same colors for both. It's not, exactly the same. But, you see the Kurdish Jews and Armenians also have the same deep roots. So, before Armenians became Armenian and before Jews were Jews, they clearly came from the same part of the world. That's why it's not a surprise that they belong to the same groups. Two more slides to talk about. Where, what's the next focus of our research? First, now we're able, through very detailed autosomo analysis, to really break down exactly, to go into fine, fine scale analysis. So, we can really break down Armenian populations into sub-populations. And we're studying Armenians who come from specific areas of Armenia to be able to deduce some inferences about migrations and population movements. Here's an example. And, you can see, sometimes, in groups that are Armenians, Turks, Georgians, Kurds who belong to this. So, you can use this to really fine tune and find out where people came from. This is the focus of the research that's going on right now in Armenia, testing Armenians from very specific countries and ancient DNA of course, very, very important tool. You'll hear more about it. My next lecture in two or three years will be about what paleogentics and ancient DNA reveal. And, I will now let Hovann speak about his subject about how we use all of these tools to solve a historical riddle. Here you go. [ Applause ] [ Silence ] >> Hovann Simonian: It is a pleasure to be here today and to see to meet friends I haven't seen in years. So, and this impressing surroundings. But, I have a problem with books and some of you might have the same that the text become smaller and smaller with time. There is some sabotage. And, I cannot read it anymore, until I realized I needed new glasses for reading. [ Laughter ] Forty years old, once you pass that. So, Peter has mentioned to you the use of genealogical the use of DNA for historic genealogical purposes. And, indeed, the development of DNA testing since ever, since it has been available ever since [inaudible] recorded the human genome, it has been a formidable tool for historians to resolve historical genealogical mysteries which, until now, was shrouded in darkness. You have heard some cases such as when DNA was used to discover whether Anastasia, one of the daughters of the Tsar of Russia had escaped assassination of her family at the hand of the Bolshevik because there was an woman claiming to be Anastasia. And, that woman was a fraud because they, after DNA testing they realized that all four daughters were buried together. Whether Dauphin, the son of Louis XVI had died in prison in 1795 or had managed to survive, there were 40 peoples claiming to be the Dauphin in the 19th century. Saying that's, they had, they were him and they had escaped the jail. And, obviously, all 40 could not be the son of Louis XVI. At least 39 were fraud or mentally disturbed people. Peter has been helping French geneticist [inaudible] to test descendants of Napoleon's family. And, some of the results have made it into the French media and the headlines of French media, TV, etcetera. But, [inaudible] by historian it sends beyond this popular [inaudible] it is necessity all the more necessary in the case of the Armenians because [inaudible] of our history have resulted in the [inaudible] of archiving material and other historical sources. DNA testing can be used to advance the study of Armenia's princely family that have played such a fundamental [inaudible] role in the history of Armenian people in ancient medieval times. And, in some regions such as [inaudible] even into the modern era. Where I first become, I'm going to speak a little bit about, to give you a summary about Armenia's abilities so that to help you. We became familiar with them after the birth, with the name of the princely families after the invention of the Armenia inhabiting the fifth century in [inaudible] historical literature which they belong. The princely leads during the, under the [inaudible] dynasty counted some 50 names with, oh sorry, [inaudible], 50 names and even 70 names according to the count number, the throne list, the document listing the order of presidents at the Royal Court of Princely Families. And that number went down in subsequent centuries mostly in the Arab period, in the period of Arab domination [inaudible] estimates the number of princely families, dynasties to 42 in the immediate [inaudible] period, Turkey around 500 AD and only 20 by 800 AD. Of this 20 only three families, the [inaudible] played a prominent role during the 9 to 11th century as their role to kinship while the others played, at best, a [inaudible] role while the others sent into utter insignificance. The number of princely families plummeted further in the mid 11th century in the weight of the disappearance of the main Armenian kingdoms [inaudible] invasion. The downfall of the kingdoms of greater Armenia along with the [inaudible] invasion led not only to the disappearance of most remaining princely families but also led to the collapse of the social structure around which their existence had been organized. There would be Armenian princely dynasties in [inaudible] both in greater Armenia and Cilicia. Yet, they operated within a different social structure, particularly in Cilicia where a [inaudible] by Western Europe came to replace the traditional diagnostic based structure of the Armenian elite. Armenian lords in Cilicia did not descend from the age old princely families of greater Armenia. In contrast of the latter, they did not consider the [inaudible] simply a [inaudible] but rather, their position to the office granted them by the [inaudible]. In fact, a list of Caecilian Lords [inaudible] at the end of the 12th century, does not provide the family names of these Lords but gives only their first names and the [inaudible] with which they were [inaudible]. And, in fact, we do not have any names of noble families in Cilicia aside from that of the rolling families the [inaudible]. Daily social structure in the [inaudible] of greater Armenia that have not circum to [inaudible] features of the old older. Moreover, the brothers [inaudible] who were placed in charge of northern eastern Armenia after it had been liberated by Georgian armies with the help of Armenian contingents attempt to recreate the former social structure. [Inaudible]. Yet most of the princely families of Northern Armenia [inaudible] including the [inaudible] carried names unknown in the previous era an indication of a new world. The only surviving dynasties of the old were the signs of the Lair branch of the [inaudible] known as [inaudible]. The branch of [inaudible] in the village of [inaudible], this is the village where Hovann Simonian was born all so in the Lair region. And the [inaudible] who held the function of [inaudible]. Yet these remnants of old dynasties were only shadows of their former selves in terms of power and then possessions even if their prestige remained unaltered as shown by how the new more powerful families sought matrimonial alliances with them. The last Armenian kingdom, that of Cilicia came to an end in 1375 living as remnants of few towns such as [inaudible] led by Armenian princes, princes here must be taken as some because they were just more village leaders etcetera, usually four families per town. And, that follows the pattern of the Cilician kingdom where there were four ministers around the king. So, probably it's an invitation of that system. Where, in greater Armenia, Mongol invasions, particularly one of [inaudible] proved particularly destructive to the princely families of the [inaudible] period most of whom disappeared at that time from history or become insignificant. The last phase of Armenian ability opens then, that of the [inaudible]. The title of [inaudible] was first given in the 15th century by [inaudible]. And see this is one of the two [inaudible] configurations, tribal configurations rolling over Armenia. To the Armenian lords of [inaudible], came to replace former Armenian titles such as [inaudible]. The institution of [inaudible] the early 17th century. Armenian abilities survived also in the neighboring kingdom of Georgia where many Armenians took refuge. Up to one third of the Georgian princely families were of Armenian extraction. And here, among the ones I counted, I only put the ones who had remained Armenian, they remained Armenian as being a member of the Armenian Church. I did not include the Georgianized families which you could add as many if not more. Both [inaudible] and Armenian nobles from Georgia were integrated into Russian ability after Georgia and Eastern Armenia were [inaudible] to the Russian empire. The [inaudible] took great pride in their pedigrees. In [inaudible] to the Russian Tsar, the introduced themselves as descendants of Armenian or [inaudible] kings. The [inaudible] tend to be [inaudible]. Likewise, Armenian noble families from Georgia, they claim to descend from the medieval dynasties of old. [Inaudible] to be a branch of the [inaudible] family. The unique [inaudible] noble family laid the same claim. The [inaudible] and changed their name accordingly when they received the princely title. They became [inaudible]. So, the [inaudible] in Georgia. Such claims were not limited to the Armenian families of the Russian empire. In the Ottoman Empire [inaudible] claim descent from [inaudible], an Armenian leader active in Cilicia and the [inaudible] region at the turn of the 12th century. The [inaudible] claim to be [inaudible]. Wealthy families such as the [inaudible] Istanbul also claim [inaudible] descent while [inaudible] ancestry. Enhancing ones pedigree was not something new. The [inaudible] of Cilicia claim to be related to the [inaudible]. [Inaudible] ancestry. The [inaudible] put forward multiple claims. [Inaudible] at one point [inaudible] at another, even [inaudible] claiming to be descendants of King of Persia [inaudible]. [Inaudible]. [Inaudible] claimed to be [inaudible] while [inaudible] claimed to [inaudible] ancestry. The [inaudible] claimed to have the descendants from the emperors of China. Their names were [inaudible], son of heaven like the title of the Chinese emperors. The claim also shared by [inaudible] led historians to the views from this identical claim that the [inaudible] were probably of [inaudible] ancestry. [Inaudible] Jewish origin as were the [inaudible]. The latter were not said to have descendants from [inaudible] of [inaudible]. [Inaudible] to be descendants of the two sons of [inaudible] both of Syria who fled to Armenian after assassinating their father. That is in the Bible, it was taken from the Bible. The house of [inaudible] was said to be high kings, descendant of [inaudible] the [inaudible] ancestor of the Armenians. The history of Armenia [inaudible] is full of such analogy. Many probably fanciful and others perhaps based on some elements of truth. Claims of a prestigious pedigree obviously served to boost the status of family. They also served to increase legitimacy in both general and particular context. This discussion is not our topic for today. Historians have attempted to [inaudible] to sort out truth from fiction. In doing so, they have often added new [inaudible] hypothesis on the origin of almost every princely or noble family. Historians should not be blamed. As noted earlier, a lack of sources in the Armenian [inaudible] has rendered their test ideas forcing them to use tools such as [inaudible] to find out which family [inaudible] belongs or whether one family's a branch of another one. As an example, someone named [inaudible] would be considered [inaudible] or [inaudible], etcetera. This matter, obviously has limits. Individuals were often named after their maternal families, thus the first name [inaudible] used by [inaudible] originally but which entered through marriage into the [inaudible] family. Difficult as it may be the [inaudible] origins of Armenians [inaudible] families and their link with earlier dynasties is an important one beyond the interest of the history of every family [inaudible] which has always been of interest to historians. In this context, one can see how the use of DNA testing could be of [inaudible] help in the attempt to elucidate some of the mysteries of Armenian history and genealogy. The case study presented today has been chosen because its findings have consequences extending even beyond Armenia. In 822 AD the last residing prince of Albania, this is the Albania of the Caucasus [inaudible] from the house of [inaudible]. You can see the map here. In the orange, more orange to the right Northeast Albania, this is the original Albania to which was [inaudible] part of greater Armenia 387. It is the part east of [inaudible]. And, over that area came to rule in the 6th century the [inaudible] house. So, the last member major representative of the [inaudible] and his son were killed by a kinsman bringing to an end that dynasty. The widow of [inaudible] taking with her the daughter named [inaudible] ran all night to the fortress of [inaudible] where she gave [inaudible] in marriage to [inaudible]. From the union of [inaudible], this is showing the two Albania's, the original Albania in the green and the lighter green to the south the area taken from Armenia which is considered sort of a new Albania including [inaudible] were issued the prince and later royal house of [inaudible]. And it is the area the kingdom northeast of Lake [inaudible] 11th century the principality of Hatchen which have survived, which survive to our day. The princes of Hatchen adopted the family name of [inaudible] or were often referred to as such after the most [inaudible] member of the dynasty [inaudible] who reigned from 1214 to 1261 and who took the titles of King of [inaudible] etcetera and to whom we owe the [inaudible] here. Can you see it now? The beautiful [inaudible]. The [inaudible] dynasty maintained political power until the second half of the 18th century and monopolized the position of [inaudible] of Albania, so [inaudible] who was transitioned from uncle to nephew until the [inaudible] of Albania was abolished by Russian authorities in 1815. The last [inaudible] was given the title of Metropolitan so was his nephew and successor [inaudible]. The house of [inaudible] present a case of remarkable longevity. From its beginning in the early 9 century its survival throughout the tormented period of Celtic invasion, it [inaudible] of one of the major dynasties of [inaudible] Armenia and then as one of the five [inaudible]. There is disagreement among historians about the family to which [inaudible] of the house of Hatchen belonged. [Inaudible] in this case as [inaudible] was the first name unheard of till then. Three rival hypothesis on the family origins of [inaudible] have been offered by historians [inaudible]. [Inaudible] are the kings of Albania. It's the first dynasty rolling over Albania. After then the [inaudible]. Medieval sources provide us with the name of [inaudible]. [Inaudible] is called son of [inaudible] who had ceased the continent of [inaudible] by force in the history of Albania by [inaudible]. Wherefore Arab historian [inaudible] meaning [inaudible]. So, we have to hypothesis either he's the son of [inaudible] or he's the son of [inaudible]. But, it doesn't stop the problem do not stop there. To one group of historians, [inaudible] would be the same as [inaudible]. So, Armenian princes adopted [inaudible] during the period of Arab domination. So, [inaudible] made famous for his capture of the rebel [inaudible] in 837. [Inaudible]. Yet, on the basis of the name of his father Sinbad, he's believed to be [inaudible] descendant from the sons of Sinbad who [inaudible] to [inaudible]. [Inaudible] is to the north of that map, to the very north, on the north side of the [inaudible] River. It is still called [inaudible]. Migrated to [inaudible] in the 8th century after blinding the eyes of their uncle [inaudible]. [Inaudible] is [Inaudible] prince of Armenia in the 8th century while Sinbad is his first or second cousin [inaudible]. [Inaudible] have brilliantly demonstrated how the sons of Sinbad [inaudible] of the prince of Armenia went over their head to their father's cousin [inaudible] and took part in blinding him. There is also disagreement about the area which [inaudible] ruled whether it was north of south of the [Inaudible] River. Should the father of [inaudible] be [inaudible], then the candidate [inaudible] prince of [inaudible]. This is the area surrounding Lake [inaudible] in dark green. There are multiple references on [inaudible] and his descendants [inaudible] IE descendants of Hied which would ultimately reinforce this hypothesis. Yet [inaudible] could just as easily be used to describe members of the [inaudible] dynasty whose legendary founder Iran was said to be the son of [inaudible] the ancestor of the Sunni dynasty. In summary the following hypothesis are offered. [Inaudible] is the son of [inaudible]. The supporters of this hypothesis disagree about the area which [inaudible] ruled. [Inaudible] ruled only over the [inaudible] while the family reigned over the original Albania [inaudible] was not descendant from him and could have been [inaudible]. [Inaudible] is the son of [inaudible] this is the second hypothesis. [Inaudible] is the son of [inaudible]. The supporters of this hypothesis tend to believe [inaudible] ruled over both banks of the [Inaudible] River. [Inaudible] inherited the south bank while another son [inaudible] inherited the area on the north bank of the river. Third hypothesis, [inaudible] is the son of [inaudible] prince of [inaudible] and [inaudible] is a Sunni. He's related to [inaudible], perhaps. [Inaudible] first thought he was [inaudible] and then he said no he's [inaudible]. [Inaudible] is the son of [inaudible] who is a Sunni that's Houston's latest opinion, Robert Houston's [inaudible]. So, to attempt to sort out this quagmire, I tested four members of the [inaudible] family. The four individuals do not know one another, an indication that they are distant. And, they also do not match on the autosomo test. So, autosomo test is a test on the 22 chromosomes or the 23 chromosomes. So, they're at least five or six generations distant from one another. This is to reduce what is called the in DNA the non-paternal event. The non-paternal event is adoption is transmission of family name through daughters or illegitimate birth or a wife cheating on her husband. So, you try to, though it never happens, you try to take as many people as possible from one family and distant branches to eliminate or reduce as much as possible that trace. So, there results found is that member of the [inaudible] family belong to the I2C, what is now the I2C group. When we started, it was I2. It shows you how dynamic DNA studies are. And new branches have been discovered [inaudible]. It is certainly not one of the largest groups among Armenians. It's five percent you would say even less than that. And, in [inaudible] it is even less than that. Because, in [inaudible], the predominant group is R1, B1, A2. So, clearly, the [inaudible] is outside their, they are not natives to [inaudible]. And, there is nobody among the old [inaudible] families that belongs to the same haplogroup as them. The only other family is that of the [inaudible] who are a family from [inaudible]. [Inaudible] is just south of the border in Northern Iran. So, so much about [inaudible] historians 19th century even before always argued that all the [inaudible] are descendants from one dynasty. They disagreed which dynasty it was [inaudible]. But, they thought all five families come from the same root and that's clearly not the case. So, who are the people closest to [inaudible]? [Inaudible] who are not, this is showing you how they matched, all the individuals I tested matched one another. We have a few Armenians from [inaudible] in [inaudible] there was a founder effect meaning that they had a common ancestor who lived a few hundred years ago. One of these families have preserved in narrative the memory of having migrated to [inaudible] from Ani the medieval capital of the [inaudible] dynasty. We also have one Georgian who belongs to the [inaudible] princely family. [ Silence ] He is the one marked, in Turkey, if you go west straight west from [inaudible] in Turkey south of [inaudible] that's where [inaudible] historical [inaudible] is. And the original name of the family was [inaudible] that's the Armenian type province [inaudible]. It was traditional [inaudible] of the [inaudible] families. And, [inaudible] to be [inaudible]. So, the uniqueness of the [inaudible] among all [inaudible] to see the proximity with Armenian families originated from Ani and was [inaudible] leaves little doubt about their [inaudible] ancestry. So, ultimately, [inaudible] was right and [inaudible] was right, [inaudible] were right. [Inaudible] are descendants of the sons of Sinbad the, I had refereed to earlier who fled to [inaudible] to Albania after having blinded their uncle [inaudible]. Now, the [inaudible] district of north [inaudible] here is the home of the [inaudible]. [Inaudible] claims to have descended from an Armenian prince who took refuge in medieval times among the [inaudible] the ancestors of the [inaudible] after being [inaudible] from his inheritance and lordship by his uncle. The story sound familiar? It should be. Two [inaudible] one of whom is a [inaudible]. Incidentally the person with [inaudible] is the first cousin of the president of north [inaudible]. Are among the people [inaudible]. So, the story of the prince dispossessed by his uncle is very close to that of the sons of Sinbad and too close not to [inaudible] we're facing the same story. There is little doubt that the member of the [inaudible] family who are one of the [inaudible] elite families are themselves descendants too from the sons of Sinbad, one must have crossed from Albania into [inaudible]. The area in blue, surrounded in blue, number 4 is where the [inaudible] lived. And [inaudible] derived, [inaudible] I'm almost finished. And, [inaudible] may be derived from the Armenian [inaudible] which is the crown and [inaudible] the King, an illusion to the reference of their royal background. So now, beyond the [inaudible] and that's why I chose these case studies. All of these Armenians to the Georgians and [inaudible], the people closer to them, closest to them are the relative [inaudible] and they all indicate various countries of Eastern Europe of place of origin. And, all of these people are of [inaudible] Jewish ancestry. In all likelihood, the connection between them and I2C from the Caucasus must have taken place through the [inaudible]. It would be difficult to conceive of other possibilities. The relationship between the [inaudible] in the middle ages are well known, not to mention the [inaudible] invasions of [inaudible]. So, to conclude, [inaudible] a few people we have tested, if you test a little bit of saliva this is what we have been able to determine. We have been able to find out [inaudible] dynasty. The Georgians have been working on the [inaudible] dynasty. But, in the case of the Georgians it's the central female line because [inaudible] married an [inaudible] prince [inaudible]. And, from then on, it is the line of [inaudible]. So, they did some DNA testing and they belong to the line of [inaudible] belongs to the Q1 or something like this line. It's something which tells the Georgians that their royal families are of Armenian origin, the origin of the [inaudible] and then from [inaudible]. It's really something very difficult for them to swallow. We have been able to find the origins of the house of Hatchen, the house of [inaudible]. So, determined that they are in fact [inaudible] and not of [inaudible]. The origins that we have been able to confirm, the origins [inaudible] princes. At some point, I thought, maybe, they may be [inaudible] because [inaudible] belonged to the [inaudible] before it past to the [inaudible]. But, obviously [inaudible] are not. We confirmed that the tradition of the [inaudible] was not fiction but it was, they indeed have something Armenian and [inaudible] on top of that. And also, the links between [inaudible]. I mean, [inaudible] was included as part of the [inaudible] kingdom. And, we have been able to establish that, at least, some [inaudible] Jews are indeed of [inaudible] origin. Because there's this discussion of [inaudible] Jews [inaudible] or are they from, Jews which came from the Middle East? I cannot answer the question for all of them. But, at least, [inaudible] we can see that some of them, at least, are of [inaudible] ancestry because I cannot see how it could have been otherwise. So, it's quite ironic findings because there is this [inaudible] which says that the [inaudible] were of Jewish origin. And, it turns out that it is not so but it's the other way around that some Jews now are [inaudible] origin. [ Laughter ] And also, you know, it was [inaudible] prevented the Armenian [inaudible] from receiving the princely title when Armenia [inaudible] integrated in the Russian empire. He said that Georgian princes would not accept, it would be an insult to Georgian princes if the Armenian [inaudible] received the princely title. As a result, the [inaudible] were integrated as [inaudible] nobility, nobility was [inaudible] in the Russian, believed of the Russian empire, they did not receive the princely title. So, [inaudible] had nor rolled that he himself was related to the people. He was saying that they were not worthy of becoming princes. He was preventing his own kin of receiving the princely title. So, he didn't realize that. And, DNA studies obviously has some limits. For example, I'm not able to determine if indeed there was a link between [inaudible] of Hatchen and [inaudible]. What I suspect is that they were certainly related. They were from the same family. Whether they were father and son, I doubt very much. But, all of them have been descendant from the three brothers, the three sons of Sinbad who, in the mid 8th century left Armenia, went to [inaudible] in Albania and settled there. And, this family which, it is the branch which survived the most, even though they were dispossessed, they lost Armenia, but somehow, [inaudible] beneficial to them since they have survived to this day. Thank you. Sorry for taking so much time. My apologies. [ Applause ] >> Frankly, I could go on and listen longer. But, after a break, I have my regrets. My regret is that I am obviously too old to say that I will see the results of all of this research. But, I think, you join me in admitting that this is fantastic, that this is cutting edge, and that the Armenian background is serving a very good purpose in the study of DNA ancestry. Now, we are not going to have a Q and A time. We had already determined that because I invite all of you tomorrow from 10 to 11:30 to a workshop that both Peter and Hovann are running in the Madison Building, the west dining room of the Madison Building which will be a conversation between the three of us and the audience. So, if this interest you, please do join us. After I say my goodbye to you, please join us for lunch which is waiting for you. Allow our guest speakers, please, to have a couple of minutes to enjoy a little food. And, have at them because we would like these receptions to be a mingling between our guests and you. And, I finish off by saying I will see you next April 2015 for the 19th Vardanants Day lecture. Thank you both. [ Applause ] >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at loc.gov. [ Silence ]
We came from the same people
https://i.sli.mg/RPVKmu.png
Is the ability to watch a sloooow 90 minute lecture in our DNA though?
Not in mine, sorry.