Relatively short average heights for people buried at Ashkelon — about 5 feet, 1 inch for men and 4 feet, 10 inches for women — also fit a scenario of biological stress, Fox said. Short stature and minimal height differences between men and women occur with population-wide stresses such as malnutrition, she said. ... The Philistines were a famously combative crowd. Archaeologist Eric Meyers of Duke University, who was not a member of the Ashkelon team, wondered if at least some of those buried at Ashkelon had been killed in battles or fights. But no head injuries or other skeletal signs of violent encounters appeared among the dead at Ashkelon, Fox said. Neither did any skeletons contain evidence of tumors or cancers. If DNA can be extracted from the Ashkelon skeletons, scientists may get a glimpse of where the Philistines originally came from. Evolutionary geneticist Johannes Krause of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany, is currently directing efforts to retrieve genetic sequences from the Ashkelon bones.Source: Ancient cemetery provides peek into Philistines’ lives, health, ScienceNews, November 22, 2016 See also... Evidence of European ancestry in the Philistines
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Five foot Philistines
Vilified in biblical texts and even ridiculed by Iggy Pop, the Iron Age pagan seafarers known as the Philistines were basically the East Mediterranean version of the Vikings, except apparently much smaller:
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That certainly puts a damper on the Anakim and Nephilim.
Perhaps Goliath wasn't so big after all.
Będzie to zaskoczenie kiedy okaże się że Żydzi mają Filistynów we krwi..
David must have been Warwick Davis.
Any predictions about their Y-DNA and MtDNA?
"David must have been Warwick Davis."
The story paints David inferior enough, even if Goliath was no 3 meter giant.
David is suposed to be a teenager and a herder. Armed with a stick and a sling. Goliath is suposed to be the best fighter of the Philistian army, wearing armour and wielding weapons of iron (against the bronze weapons of the Israelites).
Even making him smaller, makes him still apear invincible against a herder boy.
The Sea Peoples episode was part of the larger Bronze Age Collapse, a regional series of destructive uprisings against what amounted to temple-oriented slave states. It would be no surprise to find skeletons showing signs of malnutrition or periodic starvation. It would be a surprise to find it in skeletons from the successor states such as the Philistine cities.
I wonder if there is a connection between the Philistines, aka Peleset in Egyptian sources, and the Phelessaioi the Greek geographer Eudoxus located in middle Adriatic Italy. There is also a similarity between the names Ashkelon and Asculum (now Ascoli Piceno).
In any case, good that Krause is taking care of them.
@ Simon_W
"I wonder if there is a connection between the Philistines, aka Peleset in Egyptian sources, and the Phelessaioi the Greek geographer Eudoxus located in middle Adriatic Italy. There is also a similarity between the names Ashkelon and Asculum (now Ascoli Piceno).
In any case, good that Krause is taking care of them."
Don't say that also the Philishtim, beyond Sherden, Twrsha and Shekelesh, were from Italy, and that a scripture from Creta is explaining with Italic languages... or you risk to be banned... from Anthrogenica.
Alberto, Rob e.a.: I have posted some more material on LeylaTepe backwards and Maykop forward linkages under the Iran-IE post. I think it is a fairly interesting discussion, which should continue there instead of cluttering up newer posts.
As I am anyway going OT here, let me dump a few interesting articles that came in over the last weeks:
1. We have had dogs, cattle, sheep etc., now finally a bit of cat aDNA:
http://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/10/09/080028
2. "Druze biogeographic affinity, migration patterns, time of emergence and genetic similarity to Near Eastern populations are highly suggestive of Armenian-Turkish ancestries for the proto-Druze."
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep35837
3. Selective sweep on human amylase genes postdates the split with Neanderthals: "It is likely that this selective sweep that fixed multiple copies of AMY1 gene in modern human lineages was associated with a dietary shift and an elaboration of the processing sequences for starch-rich tubers, incorporating, for example, grinding, leaching and cooking."
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep37198
4. A time transect of exomes from a Native American population before and after European contact: "We model the population collapse after European contact, inferring a 57% reduction in effective population size. We also identify signatures of positive selection on immune-related genes in the ancient but not the modern group, with the strongest signal deriving from the human leucocyte antigen (HLA) gene HLA-DQA1. The modern individuals show a marked frequency decrease in the same alleles, likely due to the environmental change associated with European colonization, whereby negative selection may have acted on the same gene after contact. The evident shift in selection pressures correlates to the regional European-borne epidemics of the 1800s."
http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13175
Lots of fresh Amerindian aDNA, off the coast of British Columbia, ranging in age from ∼6,260 to 1,036 cal BP. Those bits of Han-like and European ancestry ADMIXTURE shows for some of the "ancients", which acc. to Treemix are unlikely to have originated from Paleo-Eskimos (Sappaq), might deserve follow up (largest Treemix error for "ancients" against Finns). Unfortunately, Kennewick wasn't included in the analysis.
Accumulating evidence suggests that Philistines were closely related to Iron Age Cypriots, at least culturally.
For example check below
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/archaeology/1.738150
That was my impression for a while, hence my musings here about the early Jews in the Levant being similar to Cretans.
http://eurogenes.blogspot.com.au/2015/05/the-time-and-place-of-european-gene.html
@ Gioiello
I would rather consider the opposite, i.e. that the Phelessaioi in Italy were from the Levant. Archaeologically you do find evidence of cultural influence from the Syrian, Cypriot and Phoenician/Oriental area in early Iron Age middle Adriatic Italy. This would also be in line with the fact that the MDLP K23b Near Eastern component in mainland Italy is strongest in the Italian_Abruzzo sample, not in the South_Italian sample. (I know that Abruzzo is technically and culturally south Italian, but it doesn't look south Italian on the map.)
@ Simon_W
And where would be traces of Middle Easterner languages in Italy? All what we know belongs to Italic languages or anyway Illyric-like as the Apulia languages, but it isn't said that they came from Balkans, not having in Italy, for instance, any trace of the R-L23 "Balkan cluster", but we have instead proofs of samples upstream the "Balkan cluster" I spoke a lot about.
Abruzzo is a very conservative zone, with also Q-M25 old more that 13000 years, and, if the father of the adopted Brian Wallace was from Abruzzo as I think, also J1* old more than 15000 years is there, so I said that I expect that the oldest J1* will be found in the aDNA from Italy, older that Satsurblia.
MIddel East had clearly a migration of Villabrunas and also the mt H32 found there and in Iran is very likely from Italy.
Let's wait the aDNA.. have you understood why the BB is delayed? Because the authors are trying to deny with the autosome what I think is clear with the uniparental data.
@Gioiello: "And where would be traces of Middle Easterner languages in Italy?
Tyrolean (N+S) toponymic research has done a pretty good job in dissecting toponymic layers. The oldest, Pre-IE layer includes a/o the root -anders, present a/o in "Schlanders" and "Villanders", but also Salandra (Basilicata), and the Maiandros in Phrygia. Another Pre-IE root is -iks", e.g. in Adige (<* Atiks).
Knowing what to look for, you are probably better able to answer the "Where" than I am...
Another well documented connection is of course Tyre, Taurus Mts., Tirana, Tyrrhenian Sea, Tauern Mts. (Alps), Taurini (Torino), etc.
@ Gioiello
Since no other source apart from Eudoxus mentioned the Phelessaioi (they were hardly identical with the Picentes, as the names are too different), it can be surmised that they were assimilated quickly. On the other hand, it's not self-evident that they originally spoke a Semitic language, if they were part of the Sea Peoples and had connections to Cyprus. Eteocypriot is not evidently a Semitic language. Maybe even the enigmatic North Picene inscriptions might be related with these eastern influences. At least I know that the necropolis of Novilara-Servici showed contacts with the eastern Mediterranean.
@ FranKN
Of course to base a theory upon toponyms is difficult and dangerous. Many spoke of "Mediterranean" substrates. Your toponyms seem to me heterogenous. About Salandra this is written on Dizionario di toponomastica, UTET: "L'origine del nome è incerta e, secondo Alessio 1962a, 86, richiede una base preromana idronimica *salandra con la quale può essere connessa la voce dialettale (a Venosa) cialàndra 'luogo dove si buttano le immondizie'. Battisti 1959 riconduce il toponimo alla base *sala 'canale'". Thus only many asterisks.
@ Simon_W
I know a tentative of a Dutch linguist to understand the "Stele di Novilara" as and old form of Celtic (and that could be intersting from what I am saying from so long that Celts from Italy migrated to Iberia and after Northward along the Atlantic). But all that demonstrates one only thing, that, as also Mallory&Adams said, Italy has the most varied presence of old languages.
@ Gioiello
There are various attempts of interpreting these texts, not all convincing. Someone else claimed that it was an old form of Greek. There is no consensus. Some even claimed the long text was a forgery. Yet, the Near Eastern influence in archaeological objects is undeniable. However, this doesn't prove anything beyond trade contacts, but still, it's something.
@ Simon_W
I agree with you of course.
Regarding the relationship between the sea peoples, Cyprus and Italy.
First of all, we have iconographic evidence of the sea peoples being connected to Cyprus.
Then we have Cypriotic culture influencing Sicily and even more Sardinia, these two island of course could hold some connections to the Shekelesh and Sherden.
One thing that has convinced me of a involvement of Sardinians and maybe Sicilians in the sea peoples' odyssey is the presence of Nuragic (Bronze age Sardinia) pottery at pyla Kokkikremos, one jar was imported directly from Sardinia and the other was locally made, so this pretty much settles it, Nuragic Sardinians were present in Cyprus, an island clearly connected to the sea peoples, during the XIIIth century/early XIIth century bc, so around the time the sea peoples were invading Egypt and destroying Ugarit.
But the connection between Sardinia, Sicily and Cyprus (and therefore the sea peoples), doesn't end there.
The largest number of oxhide copper ingot, a type of ingot popularized by Cypriots and mostly produced in Cyprus and Ugarit, has been found in Sardinia, there are more oxhide ingots in Sardinia than in Crete or Cyprus itself, there are a few in Sicily (much less than in the other three big island), one in Corsica, and none in Peninsular italy. Again, a big connection between islanders and especially Cypriots and Sardinians, archaeologist Fulvia lo Schiavo has recently argued that this might be evidence for Sardinians sailing to Cyprus themeselves to get oxhide ingots, considering there are almost no ingots in the res of South Italy and there are very few in Sicily (40 ingots/ingot miniatures in Sardinia vs 2 or 3 in Sicily).
There is also extensive evidence of Sardinians following an island route from Sardinia to Cyprus, Nuragic pottery has not only found in Cyprus as I've said before, but also in Sicily in two different sites and at Lipari, and a huge quantity of Nuragic pottery has also been found at the port of Kommos in Crete.
There are interesting iconographic evidence linking Corsican menhir statues to the sea peoples depicted at Medinet Habu, and later for some reason Sardinians were the first Europeans to erect human sized statues two centuries before the Greeks started doing it, and no one else in the Mediterranean basin did it except Egyptians, this could be explained by the fact that the Sherden served as royal guards and mercenaries in Egypt and were given great amount of lands and are emntioned in Egyptian texts numerous times from the XIVth to the IXth century bc.
There are also Sardinian statuettes wearing Assyrian heavy armor from the IXth century bc, that has also been suggested as evidence of Sardinians being mercenary in the Levant by archaeologist A.Stiglitz.
There is also evidence for an early adoption of iron working techniques by Sardinians, who probably learned it from Cypriots and in fact adopted similar tools for metallurgy.
There are also some other hints (for instance the hundreds of bronze statuettes from Sardinia, among which 157 bronze ships being depicted, clearly hinting at ancient Sardinians being a "sea people", Sardinians adopting Cypriot like imitation of bronze tripods, vessels and so on).
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