Mathew Leeming
A small proportion of Afghan children have a distinctively European appearance,
sometimes blonde or red-haired, quite different from the dark Asian looks of
most Afghans. Western explorers have always wondered whether they might be
descended from the Greek soldiers in Alexander’s army whom we know settled in
Asia. The Afghans themselves are proud of this tradition: Marco Polo records
that in the thirteenth century the Kings of Badakshan (the remote eastern part
of Afghanistan that abuts China) claimed descent from the Greek conqueror .
These
people may be the descendants of Alexander’s settlers who have moved higher up
the mountains over the past 2,300 years. The inhabitants at Boroghil, where the
samples were taken in 2002, have named one of the huge mountains that tower over
their village Qala Iskanderiya – the Fort of Alexander. So the knowledge of
Alexander’s conquests live on in these people’s collective memory. Elsewhere in
Afghanistan the murderous Mongol invaders probably killed all the inhabitants,
but people up in high mountain villages escaped.
A
second, and parallel, explanation is that these people share a common ancestry
with the Greeks. Intriguingly, when Alexander conquered the inhabitants of what
is now Nuristan he greeted them as fellow worshippers of Dionysus. Certain
tribal groupings in Afghanistan may well be descended from Indo-Europeans, a
prehistoric people who spread their languages across Asia and Europe.
The
2003 Spectator Alexander in Afghanistan Expedition and University
College, London will use the latest genetic technology to test these two
hypotheses. A clear and scientific result will be obtained to these two
questions that have preoccupied scholars and explorers for hundreds of years.
The
2002 Expedition was financed by donations from readers of The Spectator,
who, for £100 became Patrons and sponsored one day’s journey. This prospectus
sets out the history and science of this old problem for those people who have
expressed an interest in becoming a Patron in 2003.
Historical
background: Alexander in Afghanistan
Alexander the Great succeeded where the Soviet Union failed. He conquered and
held Afghanistan. Along
his route, he founded cities, always called Alexandria, in which he settled
troops too old or too injured to continue on the campaign. He founded between
eight and twelve in Afghanistan . These cities formed the backbone of one of
the least known civilisations in the ancient world: the Greek kingdom of
Bactria that flourished between 300 and 148 BC.
After
Alexander’s death his eastern conquests were taken over by his general
Seleucus, who became Seleucus Nikator I and who gave his name to the Seleucid
dynasty in Persia. In about 250 BC, the province of Bactria became independent
and ran its own affairs under a king until it fell to nomad invaders from
Central Asia.
Until
1961 Bactria was known only from a handful of references in the ancient writers
and some exceptionally high quality coins, including the world’s first
cupro-nickel currency. Then the city of Ai Khanoum was discovered and excavated
by a French team between 1965 and 1978. This city was a large one, containing a
massive palace, and gives an idea of the wealth and power of the Bactrian
kingdom.
I
have visited this site in 2001 and 2002. In 2001 it formed the front line
between the Taliban and Northern Alliance forces. Standing on the banks of the
Oxus, the river that forms the boundary with the former Soviet Union, on a
dusty central Asian plain, the full scale of Alexander’s achievement in
bringing his victorious army to the very edge of the known world is
awe-striking. And still he did not stop until his spirit finally outran the
courage of his troops who forced him to turn back at the Beas. He was thirty
years old.
Although
the site has been shelled and badly looted, there are still Corinthian column
heads, the remains of an ancient palace, a gymnasium and a tiered Greek
theatre. Excavations revealed an inscription by Cleiarchus, a philosopher whom
we know to have been (like Alexander) a pupil of Aristotle, and a temple dedicated
by a Greek with a Thessalian name, who was obviously from Alexander’s army.
The
settlers here lived a thoroughly Greek life; they exercised at a gymnasium with
a pebble mosaic floor; bought olive oil and wine in terracotta amphorae
certified by an agoranomos; and worshipped at a hero shrine displaying
the Maxims copied from Delphi. The names of some of the six generations of
Greeks who lived here were also uncovered by the French archaeologists: some
clearly Macedonian – Lysanias, Molossos and Triballos – and others more
specifically Greek – Theophrastos, Hippias, Hermaios and Callisthenes.
We
know of three other Alexandrias in Afghanistan. In the Panjshir he founded
another Alexandria on the site of modern day Bagram, a site the Americans now
use as an airbase. This was called Alexandria-ad-Caucasum, because Alexander’s
surveyors believed they were in the Caucasus. Herat and Kandahar, in western
and southwestern Afghanistan, were also the sites of foundations. Alexander’s
fort at Herat has always been said to lie underneath the Timurid castle in the
centre of the town.
Then,
in 2002, an astonishing discovery was made at Balkh, in the north of the
country. Balkh was the capital of the Bactrian kingdom, and Alexander’s
headquarters. Archaeologists have been searching for Greek and Hellenistic
remains there since the 1920s. Then, last year, a local farmer unearthed a
building with classical columns. These ruins have been seen by only two French
archaeologists and I have seen one of their jealously-guarded photographs. It
seems that the first building that can definitely be linked to Alexander’s life
has now been uncovered and it is likely that the finds will be spectacular.
For
a relatively modest sum of money, this area could be examined by Ground
Penetrating Radar and a clear picture of what is there obtained. The same
technology could be used to locate Alexander’s foundation at Herat and at Ai
Khanoum.
So
how likely is it that descendants of these Greek and Macedonian settlers
survive? That depends how many settlers there were. Diodorus says that there
were at least 23,000 when Alexander died in Babylon and they attempted to go
back to Greece before being stopped by Alexander’s successors . This is an
extremely large number of settlers and the statistician at UCL who worked on
the genetic samples collected on last year’s Expedition says ‘The probability
of such a population becoming extinct between 300 BC and 2001 AD is vanishingly
small – I calculate it at .00000057.’
Nuristan
Having founded his chain of Alexandrias, and before turning his attention to
India, Alexander conquered the area known today as Nuristan. The information
given in the ancient sources about this is extraordinarily interesting. They
record that the inhabitants made wine, there was ivy such as the Greeks used to
wreathe their brows , myrtle, box trees and laurels. The native name seemed to
be Nysa and Alexander decided that he had stumbled on a sanctuary of Dionysus
founded by the god on his wanderings. Alexander sacrificed to Dionysus and some
of his officers, wearing ivy garlands, became possessed by the god. ‘What a
scene it must have been, like some painting of Poussin!’
Later
Western explorers, too, have been fascinated by these people and their European
appearance. Alexander Gardner, an eccentric Scotsman who spent most of the
years 1817 to 1830 wandering all over the western Himalayas, was very taken
with their women. He wrote that ‘they have hair varying from the deepest auburn
to the brightest golden tints, lithe figures, fine white teeth and the
loveliest peach blossom on their cheeks.’ He also pointed out certain other
characteristics he thought were European, such as sitting on chairs rather than
squatting. Nuristanis in Afghanistan today are immediately obvious by their red
hair and blue eyes, features that make them, to an Englishman, look Celtic.
Classically-trained
British administrators saw them as the descendants of Alexander’s troops .
Anthropologists speculate today about the origin of their three legged tables
called tripos, their silver drinking cups and their dances, which do
indeed seem to show Greek influence. This may be true, but there is another,
more intriguing possibility, first suggested by the world’s greatest living
explorer Sir Wilfred Thesiger : the Nuristanis are descended from the same
people as the Greeks.
The
‘Indo-European problem’ is the name given by scholars to the extraordinary fact
that most of the languages spoken throughout Asia and Europe are closely
related. Sanskrit, like Latin, seems to be the ancestor of many of them. This
map shows the distribution of the main modern and ancient Indo-European
languages:
This
is really very surprising. There is nothing that we know in recorded history
that would explain this state of affairs. The explanation that most historical
linguists favour is that these areas were conquered before recorded history by
a group (or groups) of invaders speaking a language we refer to today as ‘Proto
Indo-European.’ The various waves of conquest gave rise to the various language
groups we see today. An Oxford University expedition and study in 2001
identified genetic markers that seem to correlate with the distribution of
these languages in western Asia.
The
Nuristanis speak five different, but related, Indo-European languages and are
therefore likely to be descendants of a very early Indo-European migration. The
recognised academic authority on the languages of Nuristan is Richard Strand of
the University of Chicago. He dates the arrival of people bringing an
Indo-European language to Nuristan sets their arrival at about 2,000 BC . We
are fortunate that Dr Strand will be accompanying the Expedition to Nuristan.
The
Greek language is also Indo-European. The first intrusive Greeks are almost certainly
to be identified with invaders shown in the archaeological record between 2200
and 1450 BC , and would thus be very closely related to the migration that
peopled Nuristan.
Recent
genetic data on the movement of ancient peoples suggests that the Indo-European
people originated between the Black and Caspian seas . The Celts are also
descended from another wave of Indo-European migrations. So the story of
Alexander welcoming them as fellow-worshippers of Dionysus may well express a
historical truth.
Nuristan
today is one of the most remote and inaccessible regions anywhere in the world.
It is a wooded mountain fastness separated from the rest of Afghanistan by
paths as high as 17,000 feet. The twentieth century has not affected it and
travel is still only possible by foot or horse.
Evidence
from this area is of crucial importance in solving scientifically the
Indo-European question. Because of their inaccessible location, the Nuristanis
almost certainly preserve the original genetic signal of the Indo-Europeans. If
we have this piece of the jigsaw, many other pieces will fall into place. The
Expedition will have played a key role in solving a question which has
fascinated linguists and archaeologists since the eighteenth century.
The
Expedition’s hypothesis
A scientific experiment requires a hypothesis to test. The hypothesis that we
will be testing is this:
Can
we identify any modern population groups, either near ancient Alexandrias or in
isolated mountain areas, that have a) genetic characteristics dissimilar to
other Afghan population groups and b) whether any discovered dissimilar
population groups have genetic characteristics similar to known ancient or
modern European types?
In
Nuristan , we will be testing the following hypothesis:
Are
the Y-chromosomes of Nuristanis different from the ‘average Afghan’ and can
these differences be related to known European types or genetic markers
correlated with Indo-European languages in west Asia identified in 2001?
Methods
The human genome is made up of 23 pairs of chromosomes. On 22 of these, a
person’s genes can recombine, so that they contain both maternal and
paternal genes.
A
man’s twenty-third pair of chromosome, however, are different. It contains the
Y chromosome which, for the vast majority of its length does not recombine and
is passed on essentially unchanged from father to son.
The
Y chromosome is often used in population studies because (in anthropologist’s
jargon) patrilocality is more common than matrilocality. In other
words, women tend to move to their husband’s village, rather than the reverse.
A
chart of many of the various genetic markers on the Y chromosome that can be
tested is shown opposite.
Over
time, at a rate of about .2% every generation, random mutations creep in caused
by errors in copying the DNA as it is passed on between generations. This
mutation rate gives the Y chromosome two characteristics of interest to modern
geneticists: first, it means that populations isolated from one another will
slowly evolve different Y chromosomes; and, second, that the mutation rate acts
as a biological clock enabling geneticists to estimate when related populations
divided.
The
Centre for Genetic Anthropology in the department of biology at University
College London (UCL) is one of the world leaders in using genetic variation to
study population history. This lab will process the DNA samples collected by
the Expedition and has recently performed experiments on two populations which
have used these two characteristics of the Y chromosome to establish some
extraordinarily interesting conclusions which provide an suggestive background
to the hypothesis being tested by the Expedition.
The
Cohenim
The Jewish priesthood is said to be descended from Moses’ brother Aaron. The
Hebrew word for priest is kahen and Jewish tradition claims that the
priestly caste is preserved in men surnamed Cohen. The laboratory tested a
large group of male Jews called Cohen and found that 50% have a genetic
signature signifying a common male ancestor who, if a constant mutation is
assumed rate, lived in 2,100 to 3,250 BP (Before Present).
The
oral traditions of the Lemba
The Lemba are a black, Bantu speaking group in South Africa, Zimbabwe and
Mozambique. Their oral tradition claims Jewish descent. This is not uncommon.
The myth of the ‘lost ten tribes’ exiled from Samaria in 722 BC is a powerful
one, and as a legitimating myth of origins may be compared to royal houses
claiming descent from Alexander. Indeed, the nineteenth century saw the
establishment of a sect of ‘British Israelites’.
However,
genetic testing of the Y chromosome showed the existence of the genetic
signature of Cohen and a high level of genetic types typical of Jewish
populations. Therefore, the Lemba’s oral tradition has gained considerable
support as reflecting a genuine historical event. In
the light of this, it would appear not unlikely that genetic traces of
Alexander’s settlers remain in modern Afghans.
Fieldwork
DNA sampling may be done with simple mouth swabs to remove cheek cells, which
are then preserved in chemicals in a test tube.
We
will collect DNA samples from modern populations in locations around Herat,
Kandahar, Ghazni, Kabul, Nuristan and mountain valleys likely to have been
sheltered from the murderous Mongol invasions.
To
ensure a statistically reliable conclusion, a separate field trip was made in
2002 to northern Greece to collect 200 samples from the modern population to
provide a further control for part b of the hypothesis outlined above.
It
is also possible to extract DNA from ancient remains, and a further control
sample can be derived from the teeth of ancient Macedonian skeletons. The body
of Alexander’s father, Philip of Macedon, was excavated ten years ago.
Laboratory
work and analysis
Some months of laboratory work will be needed to process the samples, followed
by statistical analysis of the results.
If
genetic traces of Alexander’s settlers remain in the modern population they
will be fairly obvious. Asian DNA is quite different from European.
However,
by having a wide sample, including DNA from modern Europe already gathered, the
conclusions reached will be final. We will have settled a question that has
preoccupied European travellers since Marco Polo.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/84980529/The-Spectator-Alexander-in-Afghanistan-Project-Matthew-Leeming
