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- [00:00]
Tristan Hughes
Ever wondered why the Romans were defeated in the Teutoburg Forest? What secrets lie buried in prehistoric Ireland? Or what made Alexander truly great? With a subscription to History Hit, you can explore our ancient past alongside the world's leading historians and archaeologists. You'll also unlock hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a brand new release every single week covering everything from the
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Podcast Host
ancient world to World War II.
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Tristan Hughes
Just visit historyhit.com subscribe
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Tristan Hughes
Arabia at the dawn of human history, this vast and dramatic landscape became a gateway to the wider world. The story of the first Arabians begins with the earliest Homo sapiens to migrate out of Africa. Today is an especially exciting time thanks to groundbreaking advances in ancient DNA research that are illuminating the complex and fascinating journey of our ancestors. In this episode we'll explore how genetics can help us understand the connections between between those first Homo sapiens who arrived in Arabia and modern day populations. We'll also look at what life might have been like for those early human communities living in Arabia more than 50,000 years ago. This is the Ancients. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host and this is the story of the first Arabians. Our guest today is Dr. Pierre Zaloua, professor of Genetics at at Khalifa University.
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Podcast Host
Pierre, it is such a pleasure to have you on the podcast and to be doing it in person. Welcome.
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Dr. Pierre Zaloua
Thank you. Actually, we've met three years ago.
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Dan Snow
Yes, we did.
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Dr. Pierre Zaloua
Two years ago. Yeah, two years ago. And then. And then I'm happy that we finally made it.
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Podcast Host
We met at an archaeological conference in Saudi Arabia of all places. But it feels fitting for today's topic on the first Arabians, but also the first Homo sapiens in the wider region as well, because you've just written a brand new Book ancestors, all about the history of the Levant or the Levant as well, with DNA and exploring the stories of these earliest people to these
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Tristan Hughes
areas of the world.
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Podcast Host
Is it a really exciting time with new scientific developments and so on?
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Dr. Pierre Zaloua
I think ancient DNA has transformed the way we look at population migrations and who populated which part of the world first. I think ancient DNA was, I would say a, you know, caused a paradigm shift in the way we do population genetics. And no wonder that Paposvante got the Nobel Prize for it. I mean it's really, it's transformed the way we look at human migrations and in a lot of places actually it made huge impact and it made major discoveries that made us change our ideas or our theories about when and how human migrated out of Africa. The challenge, I have to just put it here, is Arabia because of the heat and because of the conditions where the remnants of humans in the desert actually extracting DNA from human remains has been extremely challenging. And to date, I will tell you that there has not been a maybe apart from couple of samples, no DNA beyond 5,000 years have been able. We have not been able to get any DNA out of samples that are more than, you know, a few thousand years old from Arabia, from the entire Arabia. So which is a huge challenge.
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Podcast Host
It's a huge challenge. And is that in contrast to places a bit further north like the Levant, where you have more human bones to date?
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Dr. Pierre Zaloua
Exactly, exactly. So, so in the Levant and in northern Levant, in the Caucasus even, and in Iran, the Zagros Mountains and in Anatolia, we've had ample, ample DNA samples. And that's why the story is so exciting up to the point where we get to Arabia, but we have other tools at our disposal that will that have given us ideas about when Arabia was populated and how Arabia was populated, etc. So, but until we get ancient DNA, and I'm hoping we will, I mean we're trying so hard and actually from that visit that you and I had colleagues there that trying to actually get some good quality DNA out of the samples that they have. But still to date we have not been able to get that.
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Podcast Host
You are a brilliant geneticist. I mean, can you explain us a bit more of the process behind how you would try to extract ancient DNA from these remains?
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Dr. Pierre Zaloua
So ancient DNA. So every single cell of our body or the skeleton supposedly has DNA, but with time cells get very porous and then if there's no collagen to keep the bones together, you lose a lot of the skeleton of the cell itself. And DNA is no longer there. So you need some form of skeleton to fix the DNA to it. So we. We basically use certain parts of the skeleton, namely the, you know, the teeth and the molar. Precisely. Because, you know, if you can actually drill within the molar part, you can actually extract DNA, and you hope that there is DNA inside. So that's one part that we can get DNA from. But most recently, and I say recently, over the last five years or so, we discovered that the petrous bone, which is. Yes. Which is, you know, below the ear, right at the end of the mandible, it's very thick. It's actually one of the thickest, if not the thickest, bone in the body. Because it's thick, it actually can withstand a lot of heat and a lot of climatic changes, et cetera. And we can actually extract DNA from. And that's what most scientists have been successful with, is extracting DNA from petrous bones. And actually, this was a major shift in the way we extract DNA. So basically, you grind that bone, and then when you grind that bone, you basically, you dissolve all the material into an aqueous phase and then liquid phase, and then you get the DNA out and you analyze the DNA.
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Podcast Host
And how can you then use that DNA to track prehistoric migrations of people that in some cases occur tens of thousands of years ago?
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Dr. Pierre Zaloua
Well, I think the beauty of ancient DNA is because you can archeologically date, because you can carbon date and use other methods to actually date that material. So we know exactly using ancient DNA or ancient material is how old the material is. So that's something that we have now. For example, when you discover Neanderthal DNA, which is a very old DNA, so from other methods, you can actually date that skeleton or those remains, and you can actually put a date to it. And then when you extract the DNA, you now know that people who lived 100,000 years ago or 50,000 years ago, this is what their DNA looked like. And you compare it to what the DNA looked like today, and then you can actually look how much did it change in 50,000 years ago? Knowing that, knowing what we know from science is, yes, DNA changes every generation, but it's like a clock. We know exactly the changes that actually can happen through time. And by doing this comparison, we will be able to know if this change is actually a normal timeline change, or if something else happened to these people. Did they disappear? Or the people living today are the direct descendants of these skeletal remains.
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Podcast Host
Pierre, it is such a fascinating scientific field, and I must admit, I'm someone who doesn't have a big scientific background at all. So I'm loving learning more about this. If we go back to Arabia and you've highlighted how it's more tricky learning more about the earliest people populating Arabia because of the temperatures. I mean, if to learn more, therefore, about that, what other methods do you have to use alongside ancient DNA?
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Dr. Pierre Zaloua
Okay, so let's discuss first, why do people move? Okay, so why did, why did our ancestors leave Africa? Okay, well, they need better, you know, better place to live because either heat was too much or the hunting grounds were actually, you know, getting. They, they shrunk, et cetera. So it said. So they go from one environment to another because to, to survive. So people move throughout history. They've been moving throughout history to seek better climate, better places to hunt, better places to live, et cetera. So why would actually people move into Arabia? And that's the question that we had. So I would say throughout the last hundred thousand years, the climate was the main driver for human migration. So you have to look at climate maps and see, how did Arabia look like 50,000 years ago? How did Arabia look like 100,000 years ago? How does Arabia look like today? And so it's extremely important for us to understand how the area looked, how the area behaved, how was the environment in that area before we can actually say, well, human lived or didn't live. So this is a huge element that we need in place first. So looking at climate shifts, looking at, was it wet? Did it actually, did it have enough green pastures for actually people to live, for animals to graze? And then, you know, you need. So when we talk about humans, you need, you know, subsidies for humans as well, right? I mean, you need the animals that they hunt, you need the plants that they eat, et cetera. So. So that's extremely important. So climatology, or the science of environmental changes is extremely important. That's one aspect that we look at. So the second aspect is archeology. You know, is there any archaeological remain that actually can tell us that humans did in fact live in that place? The problem with Arabia is that we see some evidence of human presence 130,000 years ago, maybe to 110,000 years ago. But then because of the climate, because of the shift in climate, then the area was no longer inhabitable. So people actually escaped. And when they escape, either they move long distances, went back to Africa, or they went up north, or they live in refugia. And usually these refugia, from what we know today, have been around the Gulf area. So Close to the water.
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Podcast Host
Okay, so like the Gulf of Aden or the Persian Gulf today.
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Dr. Pierre Zaloua
The Persian Gulf today, exactly. So so basically we, we, we know that people move to these areas and they shrink. I mean, these areas livable, livable areas, they shrink so much because of the climate. And of course we have the, you know, glacial ages, right? I mean, the last glacial that happened 25,000 years ago to 18,000 years ago, this is the last glacial maximum that you talk about was also a major player. And we'll talk about this because during that period Arabia was not a place where you can actually sustain life. So, so these fluctuation that happened. So if we talk about, let's go back to 130 to 110,000 years ago. And then for a long period of time, Arabia was not populated because people cannot live there. And then perhaps, you know, around, I would say 65,000 to 50,000, there has been a cooling area in there, more humid. And we have evidence that some people may have lived there. Okay. But then soon after that came the last glacial maximum and then the entire population disappeared up until, I would say 6,000 years ago, where we call it the African humid period, which actually, you know, anywhere between 14 to 6,000 years. That's when Arabia was mostly populated. I would say around 7,000. Prior to today, we see, I would say the largest number of people moved into Arabia based on the archaeological evidence that we have. So if we're going to talk about when was Arabia populated, I would say my guess would be around that time, 7,000 years ago, started to see strong evidence of populations that actually remained. One thing I have to mention as well is after the ice melted around 18,000 years ago, what happened to the Persian Gulf, what happened to the sea level? It rose significantly. So those people, the ancient people who actually may have lived around there, what happened to them? They're underwater now. So that's why it's very hard to find these archeological remain from 50,000 years ago or 20,000 years ago, if they exist, because they're underwater. So hopefully one day we can actually have underwater archeology and then discover those some have now started to being discovered.
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Podcast Host
I know the evidence is more tentative, but I hope you don't mind if we go before 7000 years ago right now with these earlier, I don't know if I want to say, unsuccessful but more temporary occupations of people in Arabia. So you mentioned that evidence from 130, 120,000 years ago. So do we have these brief moments which seems like there is human occupation in Arabia, earlier on.
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Dr. Pierre Zaloua
These are based purely on certain archeological findings and no humans actually, they have not been able to find human remains. But the archaeology actually is telling that these may have been occupied. And the problem is, again, as I said, we have not been able to find human remains up until 7,000 or 6,000 prior. And we are working, I am with some collaborators that we're working on some of these remains. So far we're not very successful, but we are pushing on that. So it's really hard to pinpoint the evidence right now of these ancient, ancient people who actually lived. I think as we do more archaeological studies, underwater archaeological studies, we will find numerous sites across the Persian Gulf where we can actually see remnants of these ancient populations.
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Podcast Host
And is this also important to highlight? Because I know you also have done a lot of work on the Levant where there's the, the presence of Neanderthals and of early Homo sapiens together. Do we not think that Neanderthals made it into Arabia? Do we think that the Levant is almost the cutoff point?
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Dr. Pierre Zaloua
That's a very difficult question to answer because we don't have any DNA. But the most likely path is the Sinai up to the Levant, where Neanderthal lived for a very long time, moved into Europe. And we know there is strong evidence now that most likely they. The first interaction between, or the first cross between Neanderthal and Homo sapiens interbreeding. This interbreeding happened in the Levant and perhaps happened more than once. So we know for a fact that they existed together at some point in the Levant. Now, how did the Neanderthal got there? Yes, I mean, you can argue that they may have also come through the Bab el Mandab. You have to realize that through Bab el Mandab in Yemen, they could cross it. You don't need to. I mean, the water was so shallow there, so people cross, cross. And the Sinai was very different back then. I mean, it was, you know, you can actually cross it much easier than today. It was not all that desert like today. And again, as we learn more about how people moved this one out of Africa, migration is no longer sustainable, I think. You know, and one thing I have to also mention is we don't talk about migration. Back migration also played a huge role. People moved out of Africa, but a lot of people moved back into Africa. And so a lot of movement happened over the last 50,000 years. During the last glacial maximum, people escaped the Levant, escaped Arabia. And I wouldn't be surprised, actually, we have evidence to show that they actually moved back into East Africa and some other parts of Africa. The Natufians, which we'll talk about, we believe that after the younger Dryas, which is a very cold period that happened around 11,000 years ago, the population of Natufians who lived in the Levant shrunk. And some of them may have actually escaped. Some of them went north, but others actually went south and perhaps crossed back into Africa to escape. Because we see material culture that in Natufian culture that is more impacted by Africa, whether because they interacted with them or whether they have actually moved there and interacted with them in Africa and they brought them back. So really it's a. We have to think about, you know, it's not always one direction of movement. It's actually, you know, it's a corridor back and forth.
- [19:53]
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Dr. Pierre Zaloua
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Dan Snow
Hi there, I'm Dan, host of Dan Snow's History at podcast. I can imagine on these dark winter nights, all you want to do is curl up with a cup of tea and get lost in an amazing story. Well, I can help you with that. Twice a week I tell you the most dramatic and extraordinary stories from history with details I can guarantee you never heard before. Feeling the frostbite of that grisly failed American invasion of Canada in the dead of winter. Imagine every clash and blow at the Battle of Bosworth. Follow Eleanor of Aquitaine, one of the most powerful women in the medieval world as she goes on crusade to the holy land with 300 handmaidens in tow,
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Dr. Pierre Zaloua
she leads her own army.
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Dan Snow
Everyone goes gaga for Eleanor and trace the voyage of the first Vikings as they arrive on Iceland's lonely shores. For the best historical stories to get lost in check out Dan Sn history here.
- [21:48]
Podcast Host
If we can focus quickly also on those, those out of Africa migrations. Pierre, I know you've done a lot of work around this as well. Can you tell us how they relate to those early groups of Homo sapiens going into Arabia? And then, as you mentioned, they ultimately, some of them retreat back into Africa. But can you explain how DNA is making us rethink the nature of those migrations into Arabia at that time?
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Dr. Pierre Zaloua
So the reason the 50,000 years out of African migration has been highly documented, because we have strong archeology and we have also strong DNA to show we can time that migration through DNA mutations that happened. And the fact that, you know, now Homo sapiens, you know, initially we thought, you know, when I first started to study population genetics, the whole idea was like, we are 150,000 years old. Of course, now we pushed that to 400,000 years. We think some Homo sapiens actually are 400,000 years old now and again because of ancient DNA that made us change these theories. But the most striking idea is that the population in Africa shrunk so much during that time that those who actually migrated out of Africa were very few. And we're talking maybe in the thousands, maybe few thousands only. And that's why we're not as genetically diverse as you would expect. If we were evolving without this bottleneck through 400,000 years ago, we would be a lot more diverse than we are today. So this is what DNA is telling us. So DNA tells us these stories that we shrunk and then we expanded again when we left Africa. So, and then from that point on, when you study people today, you compare their DNA and you can actually tell how many generations passed through mutations that we calculate. So we know that, you know, if we say a generation is 25 years, so we expect certain changes based on DNA mutations, right? And then we can calculate and figure out when a mutation appeared. So we start actually understanding when people moved, how they moved, and who moved to certain places and who established those places. And once we start looking at populations living today, we start actually constructing reverse engineering. We actually start to say, oh, this group who lives in the Levant today, we know where they come from because we have ancient DNA from people in situ in specific places. We can compare this ancient DNA to modern DNA and say, is this a likely descendant? And that's how we do it. So we compare ancient DNA to modern DNA to modern, and we do the calculation of time by generation. And we can tell, for example, in the Levant, we know that The Levant, the modern day Levant is made of mostly three or at the most four major genetic components. In other words, who are the ancestral populations of the Levant? We know that the Natufians who lived in the Levant 14,000 years ago were actually the original or the, if we in fact the first inhabitants of the Levant that are continuously, their DNA is continuously present until today. And then these people were mixed from the Neolithic Anatolian talking 12,000 years, 12 to 8,000 years, who came from Anatolia. And then we also know that from the Zarus Mountains, you know, the foothill of Iran's mountain, they also came into the Levant. And that's how the Levant is actually populated. And I'll continue the story. So from that point on, because of climate, we understand how climate was. We understand also that, yes, the Levant at that point was sustainable for having people in. And then we have evidence now that these people migrated south into Arabia. So Arabia is actually heavily populated by ancient Levantine populations. So if you think about Arabia, modern Arabia was not populated from Africa. No, it was populated from the north. This is what ancient DNA is actually making us correct, what we didn't know before. And then that's how we do it.
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Podcast Host
I think the reason I ask also is that because I know, as you mentioned, no remains before 7,000 years ago. So it is much more tricky in Arabia. But I've got on my notes things like the Gate of Tears and how with early successful migrations of humans out of Africa, that it seems likely that they went along the Arabian coast and although it wasn't enduring there, because ultimately they have to leave Arabia when the climate gets much worse, as you mentioned, some 23,000 years ago because of that, I mean, do we therefore have any sense, any idea of how those early communities lived in Arabia and how they got to Arabia? Just anything about their lives?
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Dr. Pierre Zaloua
Yes. So when we talk about Bab el Mandab or Gate of Tears, is most likely Arabia, Ancient Arabia, not the one that we know today, was populated most likely from the Gate of Tears from Bab el Mandel. And as I said, sorry, that is
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Podcast Host
where is that the Gate of Tears?
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Dr. Pierre Zaloua
This is Yemen. It's just. Yeah, it's just the, you know, across so Erythra, Ethiopia and, you know. Thank you. Yes. So basically the most likely scenario is it's ancient Arabia was populated through that route, but also other people tracked even more eastward and that's how they populated East Asia up to Australia. Yeah, but what we know of these ancient people who actually came to Arabia, not very much because the climate Changed so much in Arabia that I would say some of these early cultures who were actually hunter gatherers, of course, they lived in very small communities and they lived close to the water. And then as the last glacial period happened, with the ice melting around 18,000 years ago, these communities actually either escaped or went underwater. That's why we still haven't discovered those people yet. I think, as I said earlier, we will get to know more about this when we do some underwater archeology. And I think we're going to get there soon. So after that, Arabia was dry for a long time up until, as I said, the last. We call it the African humid period, which started to happen around 14,000 years ago, and then it peaked around 8 to 7,000 years ago in Arabia, and then that's when Arabia was populated again.
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Podcast Host
And do we see. And so the people are coming at that time, they're coming from. From many different places, including the Levant.
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Dr. Pierre Zaloua
Do we think. Well, this is what I think, and I could be wrong, but this is what so far the DNA that I've worked with have, have told us is yes, most of modern Arabians that we see today have a huge DNA component from the Levant and that and that region. Of course, you also have the Iranian component as well, present. You have the Natufian present as well. And importantly, you have two other components into modern Arabia. One from East Africa, you see it, you see another one from Egypt. There's a lot of common lineages between Egypt and Arabia. And you see from the east through Dilmun, the Bahrain interaction with the east, you know, with the Indian trade and all of this. So, but these last three are more recent. So Egypt, East Africa and India were much more recent, whereas the Levant input was much older than this into Arabia. So if I want to say, you know, the population of Arabia today, I would say yes, Levantine mostly. Egypt, East Africa and some part of India.
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Podcast Host
Thank you for letting me ask so many questions about the pre 7,000 years ago. I do appreciate it, but I love exploring that kind of the deep ice age story of it all. But does it therefore seem that by 8,000, 7,000 years ago there is quite a population boom in Arabia?
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Dr. Pierre Zaloua
At that time, around 7,000 years ago, we believe there was a population boom and that's what we see today. I mean, these are the people who actually survived over the last 7,000 years. Although, although, if you look at Arabia today and compare it to 7,000 years ago, of course it was a much different place. I mean, it was. You had much greener places in Arabia than what you see today.
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Podcast Host
Yes. What do we know about the environment at that time?
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Dr. Pierre Zaloua
You know, there's still, you know, small communities, as I said. So you don't see very large communities and mostly around places where you have water. Of course, there were a lot of lakes present, so they were more nomadic. And actually they kept the name, we believe the name Arabia, which is also a term that needs to be studied extensively, it's to describe nomadic people who lived in Arabia. So I think that's how these people lived. They moved around these lakes, around places where there is water, and the remnants of those are these oasis that you still have today in Arabia.
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Podcast Host
Because I was actually going to ask. My next question was when do we think that the people who then populate Arabia, of course, massive landmass, I mean, when do they become more sedentary? I mean, do they bring farming with them? But it doesn't seem like it's a straightforward answer that.
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Dr. Pierre Zaloua
Yes, it's not a straightforward answer. Oh, no, absolutely not. I think. I think the nomadic lifestyle of Arabia has dominated most of the last three, four millennia. You know, they moved from one place to another. You know, after 6,000 years, actually, Arabia started to become more arid and more desert up until today. So, yes, people, their movement were a bit difficult. They moved with difficulty because of sustainable land, actually shrunk. And I think they lived nomadic life for the last few millennia, and some of them still do today. These caravans that we talk about, that we all learned about, they were only recent.
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Podcast Host
You also mentioned in passing earlier, and I know it, and its involvement in the story, the story of the Natufians. Now, can you explain who they are and how they relate to the story of Arabia by time a few thousand years ago?
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Dr. Pierre Zaloua
So the Natufians, the name of Natufians comes from the valley of Natuf, Wadi Natuf, which is in Jordan. This is where actually the late period Natufian were. So the Natufians are the earliest cultures that we know of in the levant, anywhere between 12 and 14,000 years ago. And they lived, we can start seeing. I mean, they lived in many caves, of course, and maybe some early, early community life of the Natufians. The difficulty that we have with the Natufians today is we don't have too many samples to look for. I mean, most of what we know comes from half a dozen samples that have actually been sampled successfully. But. And most data comes from David Reich, who is a very famous ancient DNA specialist as well. So these are the people who lived in the Levant. They Occupied parts of Syria, modern day Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. And then after the younger Dryas happened, you know, 11,000 years where you have this major climate shift, they split. We believe that they split. Some went south, further south, and perhaps they reached Africa, and some went further north, but they shrunk in size because of the climate. They shrunk so much. And then after, when the climate changed again, then they spread again. And while they were spreading, at the same time, people were coming down from the Caucasus, from the Anatolian plains and from the Zagros. So as people expanded, because the climate got better after the last glacial maximum and they started mixing, so we see evidence of mixing between the Natufians and the Neolithic Anatolians and the people coming from Iran, from the Zagros Mountains. And that's what constituted the Levant today, that we know today. And then part of the southern Natufians that actually escaped, we believe that actually led to most of the inhabitants of Arabia. So we think that, yes. So, but they also mixed from the northern Levantine as well. So, and this is still, still up in the air. It's not 100% solid, but this is what the early evidence is showing us.
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Podcast Host
And so following 7,000 years ago, do you, as a geneticist and your team, do you have more information available for learning more, as you mentioned there, with like the Natufian link, for instance, about the makeup of these early populations in Arabia? I guess it's still the Stone Age at that time, or deep in prehistory, but less than 7,000 years ago.
- [36:29]
Dr. Pierre Zaloua
Yes. So again, Arabia prior to 7,000 years ago, very, very limited evidence, archaeological or other, that exists in Arabia. The Levant, of course, we had a lot more, I think the Levant, we see continuous populations over the last 7,000 years and perhaps more, of course, the Levant, because of the climate and because of the topography of the Levant and Anatolia, a lot more refuge were there and people actually could escape and stay in these refuge when the weather was, was bad, unlike, unlike Arabia, where you could not find serious refuge to go. And as I said, you know, because after 7,000 or 6,000 years ago, the land became more arid and more deserty. Like.
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Podcast Host
No, but do we have like some after that time, do we have more examples from the prehistoric Arabian population? So 6,000, 5,000, 4,000 years ago, so we can learn much more about them.
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Dr. Pierre Zaloua
Yes. So, well, I would say let's talk maybe 5,000, 5,000 and 4,000 years ago. And this is where we start seeing the evidence right now. Arabia has not been studied extensively archeologically. It's now been, you know, I would say over the last maybe five to seven years where a lot of activities have been going on and Alola as a site but it's much later than this Alola, we're talking the Nabataean and this is much recent so we know more about this. And frankly what I know about this is much more recent than the 7,000. So I couldn't tell much about, you know, prior to these people who actually lived in Arabia. We still don't know.
- [38:33]
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- [38:53]
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- [39:03]
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- [39:48]
Podcast Host
So, Pierre, of course we're covering a huge geographic region with Arabia, you know, several modern countries today. I mean, how do we think the whole region was ultimately populated? What do we know about that?
- [40:00]
Dr. Pierre Zaloua
Yes, I think one of the most important thing to note here is we believe a lot of things happened in that region. Really the first communities that existed were, you know, in the Euphrates in Mesopotamia. Right. And I mean, we're not too far.
- [40:17]
Podcast Host
The fertile crescent.
- [40:18]
Dr. Pierre Zaloua
Yes, the fertile crescence. Exactly. So, so the first communities, the first cities, you know, the first real populations, as we call them, populations actually that started there. So this region has been continuously populated over the last 7,000 years, which makes it a fascinating region. So when you approach and you want to study this region, you have to look at this massive shifts of populations and cultures and you say, you know, how am I going to decipher, you know, all of this by looking at modern DNA today And it's really, it's a puzzle. It's a huge puzzle. So if we think about it, so if we go back 7,000 years ago or a bit earlier during the Neolithic time and the agricultural expansion, let's put it this way. So let's talk, let's talk eight to 9,000 years, when actually people started to leave their hunter gatherer styles into small communities and agricultural and expansions and, and start farming. So this happened in the Fertile Crescent, this happened in Mesopotamia. And who were the cultures that actually lived there back then? So there were very few of them. And as I said earlier, these actually were the people who lived in the Zagros Mountains at the foot of the Zagros, these people who lived in Anatolia and the Natufians. So this is how it all started. So these are the people who actually were the ancestors of the Sumerians. Sumer, the first city in the world, right, as we call it, you know, 3100 years ago, 100 BC. So these are the original cultures that actually led to the people who live today. I mean, all of us. So you have Sumer that started around 3100. And then after Sumer, then came the Akkadians. And the Akkadians came somewhere from Northern Euphrates, perhaps more from, you know, West Asia, perhaps the Levant. They were Semitic people, the Akkadians were Semitic people. And they came and they took over and they destroyed. Well, they dominated the Sumer. And then after that, you know, you had so many different cultures that actually fought. You had the Babylonians, right? You had the Assyrians. And so all of these people actually that moved in that region make our work extremely difficult to understand. But at the end of the day, when you do the analysis, you see that all of these actually came from these three distinct original culture, which I think fascinating if I continue through that. So if we go from what happened to the Babylonians, then you have the Assyrians and then Neo Assyrians that they actually came and they took over. Neo Assyrians actually took over the entire region up until North Egypt. So they had a major presence. So when all these cultures actually dominate you still, you say, you know, what am I doing now, 5,000 years later, what am I doing? How can I actually decipher all of this? So it's not an easy task. So when I did my work on, and I say identity and the Levant, identity and DNA in the Levant, it's just I'm trying to figure out, you know, who are these people? And when did they, when did they arrive and where did they come from? So it's really fascinating when you start putting archaeology, history and genetic together to understand our ancestry. And that's what's fascinating about all of this. So you have to think and you have to put in perspective that it's not always a linear approach. It's very, you know, complex, interactive approach. And you have to come, you know, come to the idea that it's not going to be an easy answer, it's not going to be a simple linear answer.
- [44:42]
Podcast Host
It's a very complex topic. And you've highlighted the wider region there, of course, And I'm guessing it also filters into Arabian populations as well.
- [44:50]
Dr. Pierre Zaloua
That's right. I mean, you know, part of. If we look at Mesopotamia, right. And if you look at Iran, I mean, if you go south, right, I mean, that's where you are. You have Yemen and you have Arabia, right. I mean, this interaction, it's a continuum. We don't know if actually people moved from Arabia into Iran or from Iran into Arabia. And I think we're seeing both. We're seeing this interaction ancient until today. And when we talk ancient, we're talking 7,000 years.
- [45:23]
Podcast Host
I'm presuming, then you've also looked at DNA from people who live in Arabia today. Do you notice significant differences in the genetic. Is it the ancestry, I guess, of people, let's say, from Yemen compared to Oman and so on? Is that also an interesting component to look at?
- [45:42]
Dr. Pierre Zaloua
Yes. So when you do DNA analysis on modern people who live in Arabia or in any region, there's something you have to really understand is that culture actually makes an impact on how our DNA is. In other words, so what you choose to do in your life, where you migrate, where you move, who you marry, makes your DNA different. So if you migrate into an area where nobody lived before as a small group and you grow, your DNA is going to look very different than the initial group because actually, you're actually breeding within a very small group. So culture actually in that sense changes the way the DNA is going to look like. And this is something that we don't often think about. So when you tell me that, you know, if you take the genes or the genomes or the genetic makeup of people who lived in Yemen versus people who lived in Jeddah, for example, Saudi Arabia, yes, you're going to find differences because there is a geographical barrier. You know, these people have been living together for a long time. But if you take it a step further or if you take it a step deeper than this, note the Changes are not very different. So, yes, you could see some changes that are modern, changes that are new, changes that you can actually describe, but the stock remains the same, and that's
- [47:27]
Podcast Host
descended from those prehistoric migrations to Arabia thousands of years ago.
- [47:30]
Dr. Pierre Zaloua
You can see them.
- [47:31]
Podcast Host
That's an amazing line then right down to the present day. Lots of this science sometimes goes over my head, but you've explained lots of it brilliantly in understanding the kind of story of this early populating of this such an important, crucial region of Southwest Asia. Is there anything else you'd like to highlight that we really should talk about with these earliest populations in Arabia? And I guess if you want the wider region that we should think about when looking at ancient DNA and other fields today?
- [47:59]
Dr. Pierre Zaloua
Well, I think it's important to understand that people moved a lot. And it's also important to understand that there's not going to be a single story about human populations. I think there's going to be many, many stories. And these stories, I would say, will change because science will change. What we understand today is based on what we've learned. But then maybe 10 years from now, new evidence comes, and then it will change the way we understood things. We keep on changing many things. As I said earlier, you know, we thought Homo sapiens were only 150,000 years old. Now we think they are 400,000 years ago. So initially, when I was studying genetics, my professor told us that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens never mixed because they based all of this on mitochondrial DNA. Now we know that they mixed at least four times. We know now there is Denisovans as well in the east, and we know that there's a mix between Denisovan, Neanderthal and Homo sapiens as well. So what I'm trying to say is we're learning. I don't think anything, you know, we should not simplify the story. I think simplifying the story, you know, yes, we would like to say we came, we descended from X population at that particular time, but it's not always as simple. I think the complexity of it makes it more interesting, especially for people like me. And as I give examples, there are multiple, multiple populations or cultures that lived in a very small region, which is the Fertile Crescents, all the way down to the Levant. But then if we go back 10, 12,000 years ago, we know that the source of these populations were only three cultures. So these are fascinating stories. I'll give you an example. The Levant today was populated. Yes. You have all of these invaders that we talk about like the Romans, the Persians came and then the Romans and
- [50:17]
Podcast Host
then Aksum, a bit of Aksum as well. Ethiopia in Neeman.
- [50:22]
Dr. Pierre Zaloua
Yeah, I mean, I mean, I'm talking about the Levant.
- [50:24]
Podcast Host
Oh, sorry, the Vant.
- [50:25]
Dr. Pierre Zaloua
So in the Levant you have the Romans and then, you know, and then the Persians, of course. So you have all of these mix that happen in the Levant. Okay. And then you would expect to see a lot of these DNA remains of Romans and Persians and the Crusades later. But you don't. You see only very small fraction that actually is actually changing only. Which is fascinating. Which is fascinating. These tell stories that actually make us say, you know, yes, people come, you know, especially in the past, you know, these waves of people moving through wars, you know, Alexander with his army, and they didn't leave any DNA or very, very little DNA to, to mention.
- [51:15]
Podcast Host
But it's so interesting going back to those three groups that you highlighted earlier that they stem from. So I guess that's also in the case with the famous Arabian kingdoms like the Nabateans or the Sabaeans in Yemen. They also have their links to those three from earlier.
- [51:30]
Dr. Pierre Zaloua
That's right, that's right, that's right.
- [51:32]
Podcast Host
My last question must also be Semitic languages. Can ancient DNA and your studies help us learn about the spread of Semitic languages into the Arabian Peninsula?
- [51:43]
Dr. Pierre Zaloua
Well, I write about Semitic languages in my book and something that fascinates me, and I learned so much about languages. I'm not a linguist, of course, but languages move very differently than DNA. The two are not tied together at all. It'll be a mistake to think that we can associate language, language, movement with DNA. I'll give you an example. Persia, when Persia dominated the entire region, including the Levant. You know what the lingua franca was? Aramaic. Yes. So it was not Persian at all. Languages move very differently than people, and I think it's a very difficult thing to actually conflate the two together. It's just going to be very difficult.
- [52:29]
Podcast Host
Pierre, this has been such a deep dive into ancient genetics and these links to the Arabian Peninsula and the wider Levant, the Fertile Crescent. Talk to us a little bit about your new book, Ancestors.
- [52:41]
Dr. Pierre Zaloua
Yes, Ancestors. It's a book about the Levant mostly. And it's a book that tells the story about who the ancestors of the Levant were. And it's not only about ancestry or ancestors of the Levant. It tells a story about cultures, the cultures that lived in the Levant and how these cultures manifested themselves, how we can look at DNA to just understand how these cultures moved. But most importantly, the message in this book is to basically state that DNA is only a thread about these cultures. So it tells you how these cultures moved, but it doesn't tell you anything about these cultures. These cultures. We talk about languages, we talk about lifestyles, we talk about habits, rituals and all of this. And I think that's what this book talks about. It talks about that we should not limit a culture to a DNA test, should not limit identities to a DNA test. I always say that roots is not a word to be used for humans, maybe certain plants, but origin is something that you carry with you as a human being and then your identity is something that you modulate and you evolve. So DNA does not or should not have the impact that initially we thought it would have on identities and cultures. So that's what I talk about in the book, Pierre.
- [54:21]
Podcast Host
It's a great book. As you cover all of that area and the long history and prehistory of those areas and so the makeup of the, of the populations, it just goes me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today.
- [54:33]
Dr. Pierre Zaloua
Thank you.
- [54:38]
Tristan Hughes
Well, there you go. There was Dr. Pierre Zalua talking all things the first Arabians. I hope you enjoyed the episode. Thank you for listening. Please follow the ancients on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. That really helps us and you'll be doing us a big favor if you if you'd also be kind enough to leave us a rating where we'd really appreciate that. Now don't forget, you can also sign up to History. Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries with the new release every week. Sign up@historyhit.com subscribe. That's all from me. I'll see you in the next episode.
- [55:18]
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- [55:38]
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- [55:47]
Nature's Bounty Advertiser
Qualifying credit required at Nature's Bounty the belief is simple. You already have a brilliant body. Supplements just help support your journey. For over 50 years, nature's bounty has offered vitamins and supplements to help you eat, sleep, thrive.
- [55:58]
Dr. Pierre Zaloua
Repeat.
- [55:59]
Nature's Bounty Advertiser
From magnesium glycinate for heart and muscle support to hair growth capsules for fuller thicker hair and probiotics with 20 billion live cultures for digestion. Nature's Bounty it's in your nature to thrive. Learn more@naturesbounty.com these statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.