I was reading a little about Medea of Colchis, and this inspired me to dream about my ancient ancestresses of the Caucasus mountains. I saw stars of reddish colour clumped in the sky and the ancestresses were reaching out to me from there, for this was where their souls ascended when they left the earthly realms, they were trying to help me understand in my sleep of their wondrousness, and of how important my female matriarchal ancestry is, for they were the divine ones, excelling in the art of healing, descended from the sun, and respected in the ancient world as magical beings. Though all their menfolk were genocided out of existence, a few of the women, my ancestresses survived, and this was for two reasons, firstly because they were respected as channels to the goddess, and latterly when these former roles had been forgotten, because their beauty meant they were greatly prized by rich and powerful men and ended up in their harems. I had researched about the harems but hadn't realised before the link to the goddess, this came to me in my dreams and I felt so high, and it seemed as if wondrous things were happening.
Our mtdna is rare, in itself it is almost extinct, there are few of us left, and of precisely the number sequence I have I haven't heard of even anyone else with the same as yet. We are rare survivors of an ancient Caucasian culture, my mother, daughters and I, we are the remainder of a female lineage, lost in time, we are rare birds....

Karen,

I have posed the theory of the harem to suggest how our N1b 176G ancestors may have left the Caucasus to the Holy Land where they are traced as three per cent of the population. We know that as the women of the Caucasus were very beautiful they were traded in this way.
Now I also see there are historical examples of Georgians from the Caucasus settling in the Sinai peninsula between the fifth and ninth centuries.
This is worth looking into as well.
I have just read about this as I am looking into the Sinai area as a holiday destination with friends in the coming February. Dahab is the place we will rent a house; Mount Sinai will be one of our expeditions from there.
Mount Sinai was a great Christian holy place where Christians were heading for as far back as the third century. Georgians are recorded as moving into the area in the fifth century and a Georgian colony was formed there in the ninth century. It would be great to find out more about this. The Georgians built their own temples in the area, David the Builder was one such who built here as well as back in Georgia and in other lands. The Georgian monks lived on Mount Sinai. These people kept close associations and connections with their mother land back in the Caucasus mountains. There are still Georgian manuscripts to be found in this area. The manuscripts reveal that the second half of the 10th century. was particularly  marked by presence of Georgians on Mount Sinai.. Very beautiful icons were created there by Georgian artists, and paid for by Georgian donors. Both Byzantine and Georgian icon painters worked side by side on Mount Sinai.


St Catherine's Monastery at Mount Sinai, Egypt
Not so long back, in 1975, a fire broke out at the monastery of St Catherine's, the result of which a concealed cellar was found underneath the chapel floor. In this cellar were found over a thousand ancient manuscripts, over a hundred of which were written in a Georgian Caucasus language. It is known that Georgian monks had a connection with the monastery of St Catherine's that went back to the sixth century. The oldest Georgian manuscript, which dates from AD 864, is to be found in St Catherine’s Monastery.

Nichole, your HVR1 pattern is a common one and probably was the basic N1b pattern before additional mutations were "added" or "deleted" in sub-groups of N1b.

Looking at the list of N1b patterns from academic studies (see the list in our Notes section), there are 41 people with patterns like yours.  16 are from the Caucasus region (Georgia, Ossetia, etc.), 12 are from the Middle East (mostly Eqypt and Iran), 7 from the Mediterranean region, and a few from Europe and the US.

I would guess that the highest probability is that your matrilineal heritage comes from the Georgia-Ossetia-Iran area.  The Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans traded widely and may have transported people (including white slaves) with N1b to Egypt, Italy and Crete.

Of course, your family heritage is unique and may not fall into the most "probable" patterns.  Do you or anyone in your family know where the earliest known person in your matrilineal line came from?  That may be helpful to track the path from the N1b "homeland" to the U.S. 

Of the 16 from the Caucasus region, 7 are from Ossetia (north of Georgia) and 4 are from Georgia.

Of the 12 from the Middle East, 5 are from Egypt and 3 are from Iran.

Of the 7 from the Mediterranean basin, 4 are from Italy (mostly Sardina) and 2 from Crete.

I hope all this is helpful as a place to begin.  The HVR2 test is not as widely used yet, but it is useful to find matches with individual people.  The closest matches to your HVR2 sequence includes 3 people from Iran, 3 from the U.S., 1 from Germany, and 1 from Crimea (northwest of the Caucasus).   

Please have a quiet thought today for our distant cousins who are fighting in Georgia and Ossetia:

New shooting reported in Georgia's South Ossetia

By MISHA DZHINDZHIKHASHVILI – 18 hours ago

TBILISI, Georgia (AP) — The capital of the separatist South Ossetia region came under heavy fire early Friday, just hours after Georgia's president declared a cease-fire following days of sporadic fighting.

South Ossetia's leader accused Georgia of treachery, but the Georgian government said its troops were responding to rebel attacks, news reports said.

The new violence after a week of clashes escalated fears that the confrontation could escalate into an all-out war that might engulf much of the Caucasus region and perhaps draw in Russia, which has close ties with the separatists.

"The assault is coming from all directions" around Tskhinvali, the South Ossetia capital, said a brief statement on the separatist government's Web site.

A statement from South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity said his forces were in combat with Georgian troops on the outskirts of the city. "There is a bitter fight going on and significant damage is inflicted on the enemy," he said.

Georgia's government issued a statement saying the fighting started when separatists "began intensive firing on Georgian villages" near Tskhinvali, the Interfax and ITAR-Tass news agencies reported. The statement said the military "was forced to take adequate measures."

In a report from Tskhinvali, Interfax quoted Vladimir Ivanov, an official in a Russian peacekeeping force, as saying the fire included salvos by truck-launched Grad rockets.

Interfax quoted the president of North Ossetia, a Russian area bordering South Ossetia, as saying hundreds of volunteers were heading to join the fight "and we can't stop them." As many as 1,000 volunteers from Abkhazia, another Georgian breakaway region with close ties to Russia, planned to go to South Ossetia, Interfax quoted Abkhazian President Sergei Bagapsh as saying.

Hours before the new fighting, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili had announced a unilateral cease-fire in a television broadcast during which he urged South Ossetian leaders to enter talks on resolving the conflict.

He also proposed that Russia could become a guarantor of wide-ranging autonomy for South Ossetia, if the region remains under Georgian control.

South Ossetia agreed to hold fire until a meeting Friday between its deputy prime minister and Georgia's top envoy for separatist issues, Russian news agencies said, citing the head of the peacekeeping force in the region, Marat Kulakhmetov.

Heavy shelling overnight Wednesday in South Ossetia killed at least one person and wounded 22, officials said Thursday. It was some of the most severe fighting reported since Aug. 1, when six people were reported killed in firing around Tskhinvali.

Most of South Ossetia, which is roughly 1.5 times the size of Luxembourg, has been under the control of a separatist government since a war there ended in 1992. Georgian troops hold several parts of the region.

Since many of the N1b's appear to have been scattered around the Mediterranean Basin from the initial diasporas, it is exciting to hear that the new Mediterranean Union is being organized to help these peoples foster cooperation, to solve pressing problems, and to address economic inequities.  Adversaries from many nations sat at one table for the first time in many years.  This is a hopeful beginning.

An Associated Press article follows:

43 NATIONS CREATING MEDITERRANEAN UNION

By ANGELA CHARLTON, Associated Press Writer Sun Jul 13, 1:56 PM ET

PARIS - French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged the disparate and conflicted countries around the Mediterranean Sea on Sunday to make peace as European rivals did in the 20th century, as he launched an unprecedented Union for the Mediterranean.

But the summit did not mask all the divisions that crisscross the region: Syria's President Bashar Assad left the enormous table before Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert gave his speech to the more than 40 leaders seated around it, Israeli government officials said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

It was the first time the two men had sat at the same table.

"The European and the Mediterranean dreams are inseparable," Sarkozy told leaders from more than 40 nations in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. "We will succeed together; we will fail together."

The union Sarkozy championed as a pillar of his presidency brought together around one table for the first time dignitaries such rival nations as Israel and Syria, Algeria and Morocco, Turkey and Greece.

Coping with age-old enmities involving their peoples and others along the Mediterranean shores will be a central challenge to the new union encompassing some 800 million people.

"We will build peace in the Mediterranean together, like yesterday we built peace in Europe," Sarkozy said. He insisted the new body would not be "north against south, not Europe against the rest ... but united."

Sarkozy went to special efforts to bring Syria into the international fold for the summit: Assad met Lebanese President Michel Suleiman and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, separately, both for the first time. And he met Sarkozy, after years of chill between their countries.

Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak, co-presiding the summit with Sarkozy, said: "We are linked by a common destiny."

He said the union has better chances of success than a previous cooperation process launched in Barcelona in 1995 because the new body focuses on practical projects parallel to efforts toward Mideast peace.

Mubarak called on the new union to tackle reducing the wealth "gap" between north and south, and cited other southern Mediterranean "challenges" as education, food safety, health and social welfare.

"The success of the Union will depend on ... reforms and durable development," Mubarak said.

A draft declaration obtained by The Associated Press shows that summit participants will announce "objectives of achieving peace, stability and security" in the region. The six firm measures it names include a region-wide solar energy project, a cross-Mediterranean student exchange program and a plan to clean up the polluted sea.

The draft declaration says the Union for the Mediterranean is to be operational by the end of this year, and unlike any previous body, it will be jointly run by all its members. It will have a dual presidency, held jointly for rotating terms by one country within the European Union and one country on the Mediterranean shore.

The draft also speaks of democratic principles, human rights and fundamental freedoms — values Western critics have accused such union members as Syria of violating.

Algeria's President Abdelaziz Bouteflika said he hoped the union would make it easier for North Africans to receive visas for Europe.

"Our common Sea should bring us closer together, not separate us," the president said in an interview with official Algerian news agency APS.

He also questioned whether the union would have enough money to get things done and whether "the EU really wants to contribute to bringing southern Mediterranean countries up to speed."

Germany's Merkel said, though, that the project would have about US$20.6 billion that has not yet been spent by the Barcelona Process — the forerunner of the Mediterranean Union.

Merkel, who pushed to expand Sarkozy's idea to include all 27 EU nations, called Sunday's meeting "a very good start" and said it could help the Middle East conflict.

The Union for the Mediterranean is Sarkozy's brainchild and was timed to coincide with the French presidency of the European Union. Paris holds the rotating post until the end of this year.

But Sarkozy's ambitious plan overlapped with EU projects already in progress, and it was melded into EU efforts and expanded to include 27 members of the European Union, not just those on the Mediterranean coast.

Sunday's meeting was seen as more significant for the bodies gathered than for any immediate progress it is expected to achieve.

Israel's Olmert said: "We are closer than ever to a possible (peace) agreement today" with the Palestinians — and said he hoped for direct contacts "soon" with enemy Syria.

Earlier Sunday, France's foreign minister urged the countries to unite to deal with global warming, growing migration and shrinking water and energy resources.

"To do nothing would be a risk. We are fragile. Our world is fragile. Latent tensions and growing disparities are too dangerous for this unstable epoch. We have everything to gain by reinforcing our ties," Bernard Kouchner said.

On Sunday morning, Sarkozy met with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had shown reticence about coming to the summit. The leadership of the mostly Muslim country fears that the Mediterranean grouping is designed to keep Turkey out of the full EU membership that it seeks.

The Mediterranean gathering will be capped Monday with more than dozen leaders attending France's national Bastille Day military parade as special guests.

The new union is to include at least 43 nations, nearly all of which sent a president or prime minister to the summit. Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi objected to the whole idea and refused to come.

This is interesting, though again, like the article on famous cousins not really to do with N1b's. Lebanon is a place where N1bs are found though.
I just found it in the news.
"Crusaders 'left genetic legacy'"
Scientists have detected the faint genetic traces left by medieval crusaders in the Middle East.

A science team says they found a particular DNA signature which recently appeared in Lebanon and they believe is linked to the crusades.
The finding comes from the Genographic Project, a major effort to track human migrations through DNA. Details of the research have been published in the American Journal of Human Genetics. The researchers found that some Christian men in Lebanon carry a DNA signature hailing from Western Europe.
The scientists also found that Lebanese Muslim men were more likely than Christians to carry a particular genetic signature. But this one is linked to expansions from the Arabian Peninsula which brought Islam to the area in the 7th and 8th Centuries.

The legacy of the Muslim expansion has been demonstrated in other studies which looked at the genetics of Middle Eastern and North African populations. But signs of recent European migration to the region is more unusual.

The study focused on the Y, or male, chromosome, a package of genetic material carried only by men that is passed down from father to son more or less unchanged, just like a surname.
But over many generations, the chromosome accumulates small changes, or copying errors, in its DNA sequence.
So Y chromosomes can be classified into different groups (called haplogroups) which, to some extent, reflect a person's geographical ancestry.
The team analysed the Y chromosomes of 926 Lebanese males and found that patterns of male genetic variation in Lebanon fell more along religious lines than along geographical lines.
A genetic signature on the male chromosome called WES1, which is usually only found in European populations, was found among the Lebanese men included in the study.

"It seems to have come in from Europe and is found mostly in the Christian population," said Dr Spencer Wells, director of the Genographic Project.

"Looking at the same data set, we saw a similar enrichment of lineages coming in from the Arabian Peninsula in the Muslim population which we didn't see [as often] in the Christian population. Lebanese Muslim men were found to have high frequencies of a Y chromosome grouping known as J1. This is typical of populations originating from the Arabian Peninsula, who were involved in the Muslim expansion."
The Genographic Project was launched by National Geographic in 2005 to help piece together a picture of how the Earth was colonised.

BOSTON - This could make for one odd family reunion: Barack Obama is a distant cousin of actor Brad Pitt, and Hillary Rodham Clinton is related to Pitt's girlfriend, Angelina Jolie.

Researchers at the New England Historic Genealogical Society found some remarkable family connections for the three presidential candidates — Democratic rivals Obama and Clinton, and Republican John McCain.

Clinton, who is of French-Canadian descent on her mother's side, is also a distant cousin of singers Madonna, Celine Dion and Alanis Morissette. Obama, the son of a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya, can call six U.S. presidents, including George W. Bush, his cousins. McCain is a sixth cousin of first lady Laura Bush.

Genealogist Christopher Child said that while the candidates often focus on pointing out differences between them, their ancestry shows they are more alike than they think.

"It shows that lots of different people can be related, people you wouldn't necessarily expect," Child said.

Obama has a prolific presidential lineage that features Democrats and Republicans. His distant cousins include President George W. Bush and his father, George H.W. Bush, Gerald Ford, Lyndon Johnson, Harry S. Truman and James Madison. Other Obama cousins include Vice President Dick Cheney, British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill and Civil War General Robert E. Lee.

"His kinships are across the political spectrum," Child said.

Child has spent the last three years tracing the candidates' genealogy, along with senior research scholar Gary Boyd Roberts, author of the 1989 book, "Ancestors of American Presidents."

Clinton's distant cousins include beatnik author Jack Kerouac and Camilla Parker-Bowles, wife of Prince Charles of England.

McCain's ancestry was more difficult to trace because records on his relatives were not as complete as records for the families of Obama and Clinton, Child said.

Obama and President Bush are 10th cousins, once removed, linked by Samuel Hinkley of Cape Cod, who died in 1662.

Pitt and Obama are ninth cousins, linked by Edwin Hickman, who died in Virginia in 1769.

Clinton and Jolie are ninth cousins, twice removed, both related to Jean Cusson who died in St. Sulpice, Quebec, in 1718.

The New England Historic Genealogical Society, founded in 1845, is the oldest and largest nonprofit genealogical organization in the country.

I have been curious about the N1b's that appear in Scandinavia and specifically Norway.  How did they get there - and when? 

A map reminded me that the Swedish Vikings traveled from the Baltic Sea to the Black and Caspian Seas by river routes through Russia in the 9th century.  They were more interested in trade than plunder and set up trade with the Byzantines.  A PBS report said the Vikings approached Central Asia and the Silk Road where they traded furs, walrus ivory and slaves.  They especially were attracted to Arab silver. 

N1b's are little found in Central Asia now so they may not have been impacted by any slave trade there.  Never-the-less, the N1b's in Scandinavia suggest that N1b women from the Black Sea and Caucasus regions possibly were brought back by the Vikings.

 

A database of mitochondrial DNA hypervariable regions I and II
sequences of individuals from Slovakia by I. Lehocky, et al. Pg 4 [2008]
N1b SEQUENCE:
145-176CG-223-390 73-152-263-309.1C-315.1C

N1b's have been found in Tunisia.  In a 2004 article about the Tunisian Berbers (including five N1b 176g's), Fadhlaoui-Zid says Berbers may be the descendents of Mesolithic Caspian populations (next to the Caucasus) and/or later Neolithic people who came from the Middle East via Egypt.  He also refers to later invasions of North Africa by the Phoenicians, Romans, Vandals, Byzaantines, Arabs, Ottomans, and others.  The connection with the Capsian populations sounds tentative and more confirmation probably needs to be done.  So many possible connections for N1b's...

In another article (by Arnaiz-Villena 2001), I was surprised to read that the Greeks are genetically closer to Ethiopians than to Macedonians.  Some think the Greeks (Aegean, Attica, Cyprus) were Ethiopian-Egyptian peoples displaced in pharaonic Egypt.  The Macedonians genetically belong to an "older Mediterranean substratum" that includes Armenians, Iranians, Turks (Anatolia), Lebanese, Jews, Cretans, Italians, French and North Africans.  An interesting context for N1b's from the Mediterranean...

In another article (Casas 2006), 12th-13th century mitochondrial DNA samples from Spain include one N1b 176g.  The author says, "Arabs were a minority who arrived mainly during the conquest, while Berbers immigrated throughout during the whole period of Muslim domination in significantly higher numbers.  Berbers, together with the mainly Christian but also Jewish local population adopted the Islamic religion and culture, although at different rates and degrees depending on the areas."  The N1b was from a Muslim burial area - but was the person a convert?

 

Known Caucasus history begins from 6,000 BC in the Chalcolithic times (the Copper Age), although a recently discovered tomb has been dated to 9000 BC.

Historically understood cultures:
The Shulaveri-Shomu Culture 6,000 - 4,000 BC.
The Kara-Araxes Culture (Early Transcaucasian Culture 4,000 - 2,000 BC
Then, in the early Bronze Age, the Maikop Culture 3,500 - 2,000 BC
From then, the Trialeti Culture 2,200 - 1,500 BC, with a Painted Pottery Culture in the southern Caucasus, and in the north the Middle Koban Culture 2,000 - 1,200 BC and the Kayakent- Karochoi Culture.

These must be the most relevant for us when considering the great age of our mtDNA in the area.
The highlands of the Caucasus had the right combination of domesticable animals and sowable grains and legumes to made possible the earliest agriculture. In this sense, the region can justly be considered one of the 'cradles' of civilization.

The Shulaveri and other neolithic/chalcolithic cultures of the Caucasus used local obsidian for making sharp blade tools, raised animals such as cattle and pigs, and grew crops including grapes. Archeological excavation and carbon dating of grape pips from the area have dated back to 7000-5000BC, and this area is belived to have been the birthplace of wine. In Georgia 7,000 year-old wine storage jars have been found, and scientists have tested the wine residues on the inner surfaces. Tree resin had been added to the grape juice so that it could be kept for longer periods after fermentation.
The people made their homes from mudbricks (unfired bricks made from clay).
They had pottery, and female figurines (early representations of Nana?).

The Caucasus was blessed with great mineral wealth with an abundance of copper, iron, gold,and  silver, and their presence in outcroppings of rocks which was easy to extract, led to the early development of metallurgy here, maybe even at an earlier time than the Shulaveri Culture.
By 4,000 the early Transcaucasians were making new bronze tools, weapons, pins, and distinctive handmade pottery with burnished black exteriors and red interior.
In the Caucasus mountains Cattle were being herded.

Tumulus graves have been found from the Maikop Culture in the northern Caucasus. These were elite tombs. In one a person had been buried under a canopy with gold and silver bull figurines on top.

                                                             Golden bull from a Maikop burial mound


The Trialeti Culture is known for its burials in large mounds, with extensive underground caves beneath in which were bronze weapons, tools, and unique golden and silver artefacts. Because the Trialeti settlements are hard to find it is thought they were pastoralists. Their elite had very rich burials under earth and stone mounds, in some of which were four wheel carts. Precious materials in them had Anatolian influences, juts as Trialeti pottery has been found in Anatolian burials.

From 1,500 - 1,000 BC there were many localised Late Bronze Age - Early Iron Age Assemblies, including still the Koban Culture.
In western Georgia, a unique culture known as Colchian developed between 1800 and 700 BC.
A rich mythology developed surrounding Colchis and was preserved in the legends of the Greek people.
Hephaestus, in his workshop where he had harnessed the powers of fire, is thought to have been a god of metallurgy.
The famed story of the golden fleece also shows the connection with metals and metallurgy of the Caucasus. Sheep fleeces stretched over a wooden frame were used to collect the specks of gold from the rivers and then hung up to dry. The fleeces would then be hung in trees to dry before the gold was shaken or combed out. In a sacred grove, so the legend goes, the King of Colchis had hung up a particular golden fleece that had magical properties.
Also the women were reknowned for being strong and independent, and shown to be practitioners of magic and medicine. The royal enchantress, Medea, had extensive knowledge of the local pharmacopoeia, as reflected in the myths.
The Amazons, too, are associated with the Caucasus, thought to have originally come from that area.  'Maza' is a Circassian word signifying the "moon", and suggests they had a connection with the worship of a moon goddess.

The people of the Caucasus were creating enormous quantities of bronze weapons and ornaments, and trading was done by Assyrians, who traded between the Caucasus, Egypt, Anatolia, Central Asia and the Indus Valley, and Greek Colonies that had risen up on the Black Sea shores who were trading back home to their city states. I don't know if any people were enslaved and traded at that time or not.

                                                                        Arrowheads of the Caucasus

The arrowheads of the Caucasus mountains were widely distributed, being used by all the various tribes, of which there were many of varying wealth and power over the Caucasus and north west Iran. Many of these people are known about from the grave goods they left in their cemeteries. The arrowheads were made in caste bronze with triangular heads and raised midribs. These iron weapons and tools were made on a large scale and were of superior quality to those hitherto made of copper and bronze.
During this period, as linguists have demonstrated, much of what had been a linguistic unity of the Caucasians finally broke up into several branches.

I understand that a homeland is identified by having a wide diversity of haplotypes (sequences).  The most diversity in N1b haplotypes are Iran (7), Georgia (6) and Armenia (6).  (Ossetians only have 3.) Curiously, the Iranians and Armenians speak Indo-European languages while Georgians speak a Caucasian language.

Since N1b's also have been found in many places around the Mediterranean, I have been wondering, "What is the connection between the Caucasus (where N1b is so prevalent) and the Mediterranean basin where other N1b's have been found?"  In "History of Phoenicia" (2004), George Rawlinson mentions that the Phoenicians who traded in the Mediterranean also traveled overland to Armenia because the Armenians provided mules and "horse of common and of noble breeds".  (The king of Persia reportedly received 20,000 horses annually from the Armenians.)  The Phoenicians traded in the Black Sea and at Batumi port in Georgia.  They probably traded for copper with the country of Moschi and Tibareni which bordered Armenia.  The Phoenicians also were known for kidnapping men, women and children from the Black Sea and Caucasus regions and selling them in other countries.  Were the Phoenicians the primary vehicle for the N1b diaspora to the Mediterranean?  Or was it the Romans who conquered the Caucasus many centuries later?  A number of N1b people are in Italy, yet the Phoenicians had trading colonies in Sardinia and Genoa... and, Susie, they went to England for tin.

 

                                                 Harem concubines with eunuch guards
                                
This is adapted from a blog I wrote on the general multiply site that Sat suggested I put on here. I did touch on the subject in my previous blog but have researched it more now.
I had written before about our rare matriarchal DNA, of N1b 176G, and how it had been found at 3% in the people of the Levant countries like Lebanon, and in Egypt, and that up to date figures pinpointed an even greater percentage of this mtDNA up in the Caucasus mountains suggesting this as a very likely place of origin for our ancient motherline.
There has been a definite flow into Middle Eastern and Mediterranean lands though, with statistically the DNA in Iran being the next dominant, followed by the Levant and Turkey. Although it may be considered that at one time Georgia was a place of refuge for people of the Levant, and certainly had a small Jewish population there in early times, the haplogroup diversity and variety of mutation there indicate that it is the Caucasus that is the homeland. Rather the Caucasian people particularly came down to the Levant, other eastern and Mediterranean lands.
I have some historical information gleaned here from my very old encyclopedia,which I have complimented with online research, that I think may explain the survival of these mothers, here and in other lands, and this at a time when aggressive and warlike neighbours were tyring to conquer and eradicate the native peoples.


                                                   Satellite image of the Caucasus

The Caucasus mountains lie between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, and in ancient times the golden fleece sought by Jason and the Argonauts was located there. Interestingly, sheep fleeces, stretched over wooden frames, used to be submerged in the rivers there to collect specks of gold from the waters. The fleeces would then be hung in trees to dry before the gold was shaken or combed out.
The princess of the Caucasus then was, according to the legend, Medea, who could work enchantments. Greek mythology did indeed consider women from the Caucasus to have magical powers.
In the Golden Age of Georgia a great princess called Tamar is still fondly remembered as the greatest of the Georgian monarchs.
The Mountain of Ararat to the south was the area reputed to be the resting place of Noah's Ark.
The valleys of the Caucasus are the source of the world's first cultivated grapevines and neolithic wine production, over 7000 years ago. The etymology of the word wine comes from the Georgian word for wine - gvino.
The people are known for living well over a hundred years.
Goddesses of the Caucasus were Nana, who is now sung of in lullabies, and which I sang of too in the Georgian music of my choir days; and interestingly a goddess Susan (my name) who protected mothers.

A conversation a Sat and I had, contemplating our distant grandmother, went like this, and inspired me to look up the possibilities from there on:
Sat: Do you think she was sweet or tough as nails?
Me: I think our ancient mother would have been both tough and sweet, tough because she survived, and sweet because any invading warriors, who might have tried to genocide her people, would have taken her as a beautiful prize captive instead to make a wife of.

Its a light reflective angle to take, but how relevant it all turns out to be.
As I then gleaned from my old encyclopedia, that the Georgians being of the Caucasian or fair race, were so much celebrated for their beauty, that under the Mohammedan rule the white slaves of western Asia and of Egypt were mostly drawn from them.

Georgian and other Caucasian families even urged their daughters to enter harems, hoping that they might by their beauty attract the attention of the rich master enough to become a palace concubine, favoured slave, or even wife of a sultan. Although she may only have entered the harem as an 'odalisque', not much more than a chambermaid to the other women, if she was of extraordinary beauty or had exceptional talents in dancing or singing, she would then get to be trained as a possible concubine. If selected, an odalisque trained as a concubine would serve the sultan amorously, and only after such contact with the master would she change in status, becoming thenceforth a concubine. If she was especially skilled in dance, singing, or the sexual arts, she could become popular, and if a concubine's contact with the sultan resulted in the birth of a son, she would then become one of his wives.
The trading in beauty included amongst the Caucasians, the 'Circassians'. Although generally in olden times all Caucasians were termed Circassians. They were so beautiful that for generations their daughters adorned the harems of the wealthy Turks.
Even if not a part of a noble harem a Circassian slave girl was pretty sure of being bought into a good family, where not only good treatment, but often rank and fortune awaited her.
Even as recently back as the 1800's Circassian women were exhibited in the western world to have their beauty marvelled at, and 'Circassian hair dye' was marketed to create a rich dark lustrous effect.

                                               Odalisque of the harem by Roger Fenton

In his writings Voltaire alludes to the beauty of Circassian women:
"The Circassians are poor, and their daughters are beautiful, and indeed it is in them they chiefly trade. They furnish with those beauties the seraglios of the Turkish Sultan, of the Persian Sophy, and all those who are wealthy enough to purchase and maintain such precious merchandise. These maidens are very honourably and virtuously instructed how to fondle and caress men; are taught dances of a very polite and effeminate kind; and how to heighten by the most voluptuous artifices the pleasures of their disdainful masters for whom they are designed."

Lord Byron wrote of a slave auction:
"For one Circassian, a sweet girl, were given
Warranted virgin. Beauty's brightest colours
Had decked her out in all the hues of heaven
Her sale sent home some disappointed bawlers,
Who bade on till the hundreds reached the eleven,
But when the offer went beyond, they knew
'Twas for the Sultan and at once withdrew."
From Don Juan


                                                                      Circassian Lady

Caucasian was the name adopted by Blumenfeld for one of his main ethnological divisions of mankind, for it so happened that the Georgian skull he had was the finest in his collection. Therefore he took this to represent the finest type of the Indo-European stock.

The Caucasus was conquered many times, being particularly prey to Mongols, Tartars, Persians and Turks.
The cities were devastated by them and many of the inhabitants carried away into captivity.
Though potentially a means to survival it would have been far from glamorous being highly desired as a sexual prize, especially where the white slave trade rather than the harem was concerned.
Though still their beauty may have got a large enough price to secure a place in a wealthy educated home, rather than in more menial ruthless destinations. They were household divas really. Women slaves of other lands would be bought for menial works, wheréas the Caucasians were more like luxuries, noted for their singing, dancing and looking good.


                                                       The Slave Market - painting by Gerome


Slavery in the ancient cultures was known to occur in civilizations as old as Sumer, and was found in every civilization. Sometimes entire populations were enslaved. The Romans took slaves from all over Europe and the Mediterranean, and had so many that the slaves in Rome far outnumbered the citizens.
Slave commerce during the Middle Ages was mainly in the hands of Venetian and Genoese merchants and cartels, who were involved in the slave trade with the Golden Horde.
So many Slavs were enslaved for so many centuries that the very name 'slave' derived from their name, not only in English, but in other European languages. The town of Caffa in the Crimea was known as the capital of the medieval slave trade. The Golden horde, later known as the Crimean Khanate called their encapturing of Slavic peasants for slavery the "harvesting of the steppe". Some researchers estimate that altogether they captured and enslaved more than 3 million people, among whom were the Caucasian peoples.
The slave trade in Islamic Spain and surrounding Islamic lands was monopolised by Iberian Jews (known as Radhanites). These Jewish merchants traded between the Christian and Islamic worlds between 600 and 1000 CE. The trade routes previously established under the Roman Empire continued to function during that period largely through their efforts. Their trade network covered much of Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and parts of India and China. Apart from material commodities they also traded in eunuchs, female slaves and boys.
A recent study suggests that a million or more European Christians were enslaved by Muslims in North Africa between 1530 and 1780 by piracy. Enslavement was then a very real possibility for anyone who traveled in the Mediterranean, or who lived along the shores in places like Italy, France, Spain and Portugal, and even as far north as England and Iceland. Pirates, known as corsairs, from cities along the Barbary Coast in north Africa – cities such as Tunis and Algiers – would raid ships in the Mediterranean and Atlantic, as well as seaside villages to capture men, women and children. The impact of these attacks were devastating – France, England, and Spain each lost thousands of ships, and long stretches of the Spanish and Italian coasts were almost completely abandoned by their inhabitants. At its peak, the destruction and depopulation of some areas probably exceeded what European slavers later inflicted on the African interior.


                                                The Slave Market painted by Rudolphe


Slave women taken to the Arab world were required mainly as concubines or menials. There was no limit on the number of concubines a master could possess, though presumably he would have had to have been wealthy enough to feed and care for them all. It was a climate where even the sovereigns themselves would almost invariably be the children of slave concubines.
The great slave markets of Cairo were closed down at the end of the nineteenth century, though as late as 1908 women slaves were still sold in the Ottoman Empire, the sale of Circassian women taking place openly in Istanbul.

So here we can see a dispersion of the women from the land of Georgia to the areas where certain rich foreigners may have taken them to grace their harems and households, as specifically prized attractive women, to the Mediterranean lands, Lebanon, the Levant, ancient Persia, and Egypt, the first part of a journey to end up in England, no less, where I was eventually born.

I propose that we take a deep look at Georgia, at its history and archeological evidence, at our intuitions, inspirations, and realisations for being a source land for our ancestral mothers.
Sat has provided adequate data so far as to point to Georgia, where the Caucasus mountains are, as a very likely place of origin for our ancient mothers with their rare mtDNA of N1b 176G.
Its interesting to me, that the Levant may not be as crucial a place as is understood so far by the people who have looked at this mtDNA. From the data available now, as Sat has explained it, it looks like the Caucasus may rather be the central region of our ancestral mothers, considering that one has to look for where the haplogroup is most frequent and has the most diversity indicated by mutations. In the surrounding areas, Iran is the next dominant, followed by the Levant and Turkey. Although it may have been considered that Georgia was a place of refuge for people of the Levant at a certain time, it could also be seen that the Georgian people particularly came down to the Levant, other eastern and Mediteranean lands.
The Caucasus sounds particularly attractive to me, having sung the Georgian songs in my choral days and quite blissed out on them, and even having named my latest son, George. As for the other lands our ancestral mothers seem to have gone to, I once had a lovely visit to Egypt and a fantastic months holiday just recently in Sardinia, both lands having such a magic to them.
I have some historical information gleaned here from my very old encyclopedia, that I think may explain the survival of our mothers in a time when aggressive neighbours might have tried to eliminate their tribal peoples. As an interesting conversation Sat and I had, contemplating our distant grandmother, goes like this:
Sat: Do you think she was sweet or tough as nails?
Me: I think our ancient mother would have been both tough and sweet, tough because she survived, and sweet because any invading warriors, who might have tried to genocide her people, would have taken her as a beautiful prize captive instead to make a wife of.
Sat: From your description, being sweet and beautiful helped her to survive too - and allowed us to be here. (A gracious bow of gratitude to her, at this point.)
Its a light reflective angle to take, but how relevant it all may be. As I have then gleaned from my old encyclopedia, that the Georgians being of the Caucasian or fair race, were so much celebrated for their beauty, that under the Mohammedan rule the white slaves of western Asia and of Egypt were mostly drawn from them. This traffic was put an end to by the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainardji in 1774.
This trading in beauty included the Circassians, a particular Georgian tribe, who were proverbially handsome and did for generations have their daughters adorning the harems of the wealthy Turks.
So here we have real examples of the beauty of our mothers leading to their survival in other lands, when otherwise they mght just have been genocided out of existence as most of the men might have been. For the land was conquered many times, particularly during the 14th and next two centuries, when the land was prey to Mongols, Tartars, Persians and Turks. The cities were devastated by them and many of the inhabitants carried away into captivity.
And finally, as a propsal to a different clan mother name from the one of Naomi, which was chosen to reflect the greater numbers of Jewish people found with the larger N classification of mtDNA, but not so specific as ours, I suggest the name Nana, which was an old Mother Goddess name coming up in the old Georgian songs I used to sing. It reflects in our modern use of the word nanny in affectionate reference to a grandmother. It is also very similar to St Nina, special to the Georgians, who may have resonated so well with the people because of the similarity of her name to the sacred one of Nana. St Nina succesfully introduced christianity into Georgia in the 4th century.
So here we can see a dispersion of the women from the land of Georgia to the areas where certain rich foreigners may have taken them to grace their harems and households, as specifically prized attractive women, to the Mediterannean lands, Lebanon, the Levant, ancient Persia, and Egypt.

I enjoy the unraveling of our N1b patterns and heritages.  My mother was adopted in N California and all she knew about her natural parents was that they were French.  Whether they came from Quebec or France is unknown. The complexions of my mother and myself and my children is darker than most “Caucasions” so I assumed we had Mediterranean roots.  In Los Angeles, I met men from Iran and Lebanon who looked like me, so I felt an immediate connection when seeing that the closest matches to my mtDNA are with three people from Iran.  Other close matches have been with people from Crimea, Georgia, Chechnia, Armenia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Turkey, Uzbekistan, and places further west.  I assume my “motherland” is the region northeast of the Fertile Crescent - the region of the Caucasus and Iran.  In 2001 (prior to my DNA being tested), I was flying back from India and was mesmerized when seeing the beauty of the snow capped Caucasus mountain range that extended to the horizon.  Is that “home”?

 

A search for my cultural and spiritual roots brought me to Switzerland to visit my “adoptive” grandmother’s house where she was born.  I felt the pastoral roots and beauty here that my grandmother passed on to me.  My father’s maternal roots are in north Wales and previously from Ireland while his paternal roots extend to Essex, England in the 11^th century when the Normans arrived.  My Y DNA matches people from Norway and Sweden and England - suggesting a Northmen/Viking/Norman connection.

 

My identity has now expanded to include places and people far from where I live.  I realize deeply that we are travelers  - in body and spirit - and I am amazed that we can trace our heritages to Africa.  I look forward to safer travels to the Caucasus and Iran and Africa and anticipate exciting new N1b findings ahead.

 

My N1b sequence is 145A 176G 184.1C 185.1C 223T 390A 519C.  I understand that the 184.1& 185.1 can be ignored because they are in an unstable “hot spot” region with frequent mutations.

I thought Id introduce myself with a write up based on what I originally did on Multiply, with a little extra.
It shows the impact this discovery of my mtDNA had upon me.
Long before I thought to make this test I was struck by the thought one day that I have a mother, who had a mother, who had a mother..... and so on, there never not being a mother, back to the beginnings of life, and there never having been a mother in this transference of life who did not have a daughter.

Where does our matriarchal line come from? Well, out of Africa we can be sure of that. From mother to daughter, in an unbroken line, a DNA coding is passed, like a treasure deep within and it tells us of our ancestresses. I have excitedly recieved my DNA matriarchal results, and am still trying to make sense of them.

I know much of my genealogy, of the Welsh, Shetlander and Irish links, of my connections to royalty from all over Europe, but of the matriarchal line in particular I had not got back too far.
Well, I got back to a Maria of Greenwich, born in 1860. She was only 5ft 2, had jet black hair and white alabaster skin, beautiful features and twinkling eyes. She married a red haired Irish man who was a waterman on the Thames.

With genealogy a lot of trust is required, it involves looking at historical records, and believing that a mother who claimed her husband was the father of a child really was.
With DNA there is a definite link to people of a certain time and place.

To discover my DNA I used a university laboratory in America.
The laboratory sends toothbrushes to scrape the inside of the mouth, which is how they get the samples of DNA.
Men can get both their mtDNA done (for the matriarchal line) and the Y DNA (for the patriarchal line).
Women only have the mtDNA as they don't have the Y chromosome.

The results I recieved quite took me by surprise.
N1b
129A 145A 176G 223T 390A 519C
And, what did I make of all that?

Well, so far I know this is a very rare DNA and it is even so rare in Europe as to be considered by the scientists non-existent!
All this time I've been thinking my mothers mothers mothers were true Brits, but now I discover my mtDNA coding is an ancient DNA type from Egypt and the Levant.
65,000 years ago the N group came out of Africa into these regions. Even now in these eastern mediterranean regions there is only a 3% existence of this coding.
It gives me concern that I am of a grouping that could well become extinct!

There are N1b people who are Ashkenazi Jews, for 10% of these people have the N1b coding, but with the sequencing afterwards there is a difference, with the 176G having mutated into a 176A.
And these were some theories that I originally contemplated.
The original peoples of the Eastern shores were very much anihilated by the Jewish conquering of the Holy Land and by different dynastic and Arab conquerings of Egypt. But somehow some did survive.
Surviving girls who were taken as partners by the Jewish peoples could explain the 10% mutated rate in the matriarchal lineages of the Ashkenazi population.
The prescence of minimal N1b's in Italy and England was considered to be because some may have come over with the Romans. Though Roman rule was a long time ago and you would expect there to have been more descendants by now. So I contemplated that in the Crusader times of the Mediaeval Ages, a returning Crusader could have brought back a Near Eastern, probably Christian, wife with him. Even since then there has been plenty of interaction, and presumably some of it romantic, between travelling Western Europeans and the Eastern Mediterranean.

All this needs to be further researched though and little has so far been done on this rare group.
Its like a mystery for me now. One I would like to follow the scientific unravelling of.
As a rare group we need to encourage the scientists to have a good look and investigation of us from a Non Jewish perspective.

What I know of the ancient people of the Levant is that they were deity worshippers, for there is talk of the goddess worshippers, in the Bible, with their Asherah poles, and we have our knowledge of the pyramids in Egypt and of distant Egyptian dynasties.
Maybe through me and my daughters whisperings of this ancient past will still quietly remain.

The Ashkenazi, it is purported, came out of Italy on their journeying, and there are some very few of our 176G's there still. If it was a one particular woman who mothered the Askenazi with her change to 176A then it would make more sense, I think, that she was a non-Jewish woman who married into the Jewish peoples while in Italy and then migrated with them into the German lands.
So, of Middle Eastern origin, well it seems so, maybe some people from there came to Italy during Roman times, and from there one or two into England.
Maybe there was a return of some to the Levant in the Crusader Kingdom times, and there is why there is so much, in the Christian Lebanese families, for instance, looking like Europeans.

Since contemplating the above I have heard it proposed that the presence of N1b in Italy is of much more relevance than originally understood, and that it may even go back to ice age times. Ancient remains in an Italian cave have revealed an individual there to have the mtDNA of the type N. This I have been told recently, that we don't only have to look to the Middle East to understand this haplotype, but to Italy as well, and that this is because there are two main "hot spots" in gathering this specific mtDNA, one of them being Italy and the other one being Lebanon.
Its all a bit muddled as yet, to contemplate the different perspectives, but its a new subject and more will be apparent in the years to come.

My N1b type is particularly rare, even among the N1B 176G's, because I have an extra number mutation that I haven't found with anyone else as yet, though if you know of someone please let me know, and thats 129A. Whats that about? Can anyone tell me what that might mean?

Its all fascinating, and I hope to learn more, from all the people joining this site for a start.