TECHNOLOGY WATCH - News from the DNA front:

3.5 million Ashkenazi Jews 'traced to four female ancestors'
By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem (The Independent
Published: 14 January 2006

A total of 3.5 million Ashkenazi Jews are descended from just four "founding mothers" who lived in Europe at least 1,000 years ago, according to a study by Israeli geneticists.

The four women were part of a small group which founded the Ashkenazi community, established in Europe after migration from the Middle East, and was ultimately descended from Jews who migrated to Italy in the first and second centuries AD.

The discovery that the women are the ancestors of some 40 per cent of all eight million Ashkenazi, or European Jews, has been made possible by analysing the michrondrial DNA [mtDNA] component of the human genome. MtDNA is only transmitted through the female line.

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