%0 Journal Article %A Yedael Y. Waldman %A Arjun Biddanda %A Natalie R. Davidson %A Paul Billing-Ross %A Maya Dubrovsky %A Christopher L. Campbell %A Carole Oddoux %A Eitan Friedman %A Gil Atzmon %A Eran Halperin %A Harry Ostrer %A Alon Keinan %T The genetics of Bene Israel from India reveals both substantial Jewish and Indian ancestry %D 2015 %R 10.1101/025809 %J bioRxiv %P 025809 %X The Bene Israel Jewish community from West India is a unique population whose history before the 18th century remains largely unknown. Bene Israel members consider themselves as descendants of Jews, yet the identity of these ancestors and their arrival time to India are unknown, with speculations on arrival time varying between the 8th century BCE and the 6th century CE. Here, we characterize the genetic history of Bene Israel by collecting and genotyping 18 Bene Israel individuals. Combining with 438 individuals from 32 other Jewish and Indian populations, and additional individuals from worldwide populations, we conducted comprehensive genome-wide analyses based on FST, PCA, ADMIXTURE, identity-by-descent sharing, admixture LD decay, haplotype sharing and allele sharing autocorrelation decay, as well as contrasted patterns between the X chromosome and the autosomes. Bene Israel individuals resemble local Indian populations, while at the same time constituting a clearly separated and unique population in India. They share genetic ancestry with other Jewish populations to an extent not observed for any other Indian population. Putting the results together point to Bene Israel being an admixed population with both Jewish and Indian ancestry, with the genetic contribution of each of these ancestral populations being substantial. The admixture took place in the last millennium, about 19-33 generations ago. It involved Middle-Eastern Jews and was sex-biased, with more male Jewish and local female contribution. It was followed by a population bottleneck and high endogamy, which has led to increased prevalence of recessive diseases in this population. This study also provides an example of how genetic analysis advances our knowledge of human history in cases where other disciplines lack the relevant data to do so. %U https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2015/09/10/025809.full.pdf