Roman times? Must mean Modern times.

The Seljuks didn't last long and were spread thinly over a wide area. They were followed by the Kurd Saliman. Wonder if we get the word bey from them. Where's the OED?

Sorry I meant Saladin he is the Kurd, and the word bay as in the reddish brown horse

OED says:

[a. F. bai bay-coloured:–L. badius, mentioned by Varro in a list of colours appropriate to horses.]

This sort of thing is not that uncommon. Egypt was conquered by Greeks, Romans, Arabs Greek and then Arabic. Religion to christian and then Muslim. Genes changed very little. On the other hand, when steppe nomads conquered China not only did the genes not change, but the underlying culture of China conquered the conqerors. Gaul was Romanized, but not genetically. Later it was taken by Germans, but they had little effect on French culture. Why does it sometimes work one way and sometimes not. It's hard to tell. Note that Turks converted to the religion of the conquered people.

While I have also read that genetic contributions from conquerors is usually slight, it is hard to miss the blue-eyed Bedouin kids in the Negev and the Sinai. Certainly, not bringing the women along in great numbers (as the Norse did not in the Levant, the Franks did not later on) cuts down on genetic mixing a bit, but not much - locals don't get access to comqueror-class women. The lack of genetic mixing suggests that we males, even when we enjoy great power, don't have as much sexual access as the stories we tell ourselves would lead us to believe.

This is like Warren Buffet meets Strom Thurmond and has Ice Cream over a brief encounter with Globalization.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24908-2002Dec7.html
I don't know where to put it so I'll put it here.

Rumor has it that Sulket Bey converted to Islam because he wanted to marry a girl of his fancy who had a Muslim Dad. So the religious nature of those people is a bit suspect.

What I would really like to know is how much power does the Fed have in intervening in the markets? When did that start? And what exactly is Executive Order 12631--Working Group on Financial Markets?

Can I raise a somewhat controversial issue here? Have geneticists done tests to see if Israel's Ashkenazi jewish population descend from the original hebrews? (I suppose there is little doubt that sephardic jews do descend from the original hebrews). It would be interesting since some ashkenazi jews do physically resemble northern europeans more than mediterranean people.

I'd be interested in reading a critical and informed review of Arthur Koestler's 13th tribe. Recommendations?

Add to the list of stable native populations the English villager apparently descended from a stone age man found some 5 miles away. That would be >10,000 years without leaving your hometown - Angles, Jutes, Vikings, and Normans be damned.

I suppose this is pretty good fodder for social history over Great Men. Or not.

Regarding the question by Andres,
researchers looking at Y chromosome markers find ashkenazic Jews to be predominantly Middle Eastern in paternal descent, with very similar results to sephardic Jews and Kurds, and a high degree of similarity to Palestinians, Syrians and other middle eastern populations as well.

The Y Chromosome Pool of Jews as Part of the Genetic Landscape of the Middle East

Jewish and Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations share a common pool of Y-chromosome biallelic haplotypes

Just another reminder that most of our conflicts, Turk/Armenian, Greek/Turk, Iraqi Arab/Kurd, Israeli/Palestinian are between people who share common ancestry.

Could it be that Khazarians were genetically close to Middle Easterners?

Are we talking about a set of dominant genes? I am mentionning this because given the number of centuries (and thus generations) involved findings of strong Semitic / Middle-Eastern genetical ancestry in modern Ashkenazis would seem to require a level of inter-marrying irrealistically low.

On the other hand, that does not preclude a subset of Ashkenazis from being very close genetically to Middle-Easterns (those with low inter-marriage backgrounds.) Or is it that the probability of sticking to the Jewish cult and/or identity is for some (socio-historical) reasons significantly higher in people with strong Semitic genetic background?

That would be interesting because it would be a very different ethnological pattern from, for example, the African / "black" identity among "people of color". Paradoxical given the common history of segregation. In one case, the white / Christian populations would have welcomed (if not encouraged) assimilation and in the other discouraged it. Why not?

"Just another reminder that most of our conflicts, Turk/Armenian, Greek/Turk, Iraqi Arab/Kurd, Israeli/Palestinian are between people who share common ancestry."

Yes, the above conflicts are mostly fueled by differences in religion, with a dash of nationalistic fervor thrown into the mix.

Truly, religions have brought the human race farther apart; killed more than they have saved.

I used to think we were making progress on that front...

E.Avedisian

Seems kinda simplistic leaves out Pearl Harbor, Germany, 1066. I could go on for about an hour.
Steriotypes are good for pop culture not too useful for world peace.

E.Avedisian

Seems kinda simplistic leaves out Pearl Harbor, Germany, 1066. I could go on for about an hour.
Steriotypes are good for pop culture not too useful for world peace.

Bruce,

Economics and other lofty disciplines of study may explain the political leaders' and their plutocratic backers' motivation for war.

However, the average Joe who has to actually use a weapon to brutally kill a fellow human being, up close and personal, generally is only motivated to do so when he perceives the "enemy" to be racially inferior and/or "evil" ; that is to say different from himself.

The level of savagery in an armed conflict tends to increase in proportion to the perceived difference (eg) the war in the Pacific vs the European theater in WWII.

Perhaps the revelations of such genetic studies can alleviate some of the excuses for bloodshed.

Then again, we do also share a close genetic reasemblance to apes......

Sigh. The concept 'However, the average Joe who has to actually use a weapon to brutally kill a fellow human being, up close and personal, generally is only motivated to do so when he perceives the "enemy" to be racially inferior and/or "evil" ; that is to say different from himself.' seems remarkably widespread. Possibly it arises from "groupthink", people passing ideas back and forth between each other and never checking them against something external?

Anyway, it isn't true. While some positive force like that may be needed once someone has been sensitised into thinking of others as like him, that isn't actually where most of the human race starts from. Mostly, it's just something you do, no big deal, any more than killing an animal is (and no, you don't do that by first thinking "sub" human, but by being indifferent - and you start out indifferent). There's a passage in "Goodbye to all that" where Robert Graves comments on how trite it felt hearing propaganda meant to motivate them to hate Germans, when by that stage of desensitising they were only there to kill them. And there's lots of oral tradition to the same effect from Ireland in the 1920s, such as Lord Arran's gruesome story of the young lady whose turn it was to drive. You no more need to hate someone to hurt him than a smile in a pub of a certain sort means you are safe - it might be enjoyment at the prospect of impending violence. If anything, sensitive people start hating to salve their consciences AFTER they hurt someone (it was a truism in classical times, and is restated in one of Macaulay's esays).

This does show how misguided much US "analysis" of recent terrorism is, looking for why people hate the USA - it's making the faulty assumption that they DO hate. The enemies of the USA merely want to kill Americans as part of what they think is the most convenient means to an end. Looking for people who hate won't find the terrorists.