The Paternal Connection Between an Iron Age Israelite Lineage and Haplogroup J-M92

By Trevor H., guest contributor to ExploreYourDNA

Hero image: AI generated illustration of an eastern Mediterranean family travelling below a hilltop monastery. It is not a reconstruction of a documented site and is not a portrait of any real person.

An ancient paternal lineage recovered at Kiriath-Jearim, near Jerusalem, offers an intriguing connection with haplogroup J-M92, whose descendants include the Jewish founder lineage J-L556. Their relationship places an Iron Age lineage and a prominent Jewish paternal family on neighboring branches of a much older genealogical tree.

That tree reaches into the interconnected history of the Caucasus, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and the Levant. Its later branches extend into Sicily and Jewish communities in Europe, suggesting several possible routes through which related paternal lines spread across the Mediterranean.

The connection at Kiriath-Jearim

In their 2025 excavation report, Arie Shaus and David Reich assigned the Kiriath-Jearim male I14918 to J2a1a1a2b2a1b1~, using ISOGG version 15.73. His reported radiocarbon interval is 739 to 409 BCE, placing him within the late Iron Age and its aftermath.

In the corresponding long-form nomenclature, J-M92 is J2a1a1a2b2a1a. The shared ancestral designation is J2a1a1a2b2a1: M92 occupies its "a" branch, while the Kiriath-Jearim man belongs within its "b" branch. More precisely, M92 is sister to the broader branch containing his paternal lineage.

This relationship gives the discussion a concrete ancient anchor near Jerusalem. It connects the wider paternal ancestry of Jewish J-L556 with a related lineage present in the landscape of ancient Israel and Judah. It also raises a compelling historical question: when did these related branches become established across the Levant and its neighboring regions?

Kura-Araxes and the northern connections of the Levant

One possible background lies in the prehistoric connections between the South Caucasus, eastern Anatolia, and the Levant.

The Kura-Araxes archaeological tradition emerged during the fourth millennium BCE. Around the beginning of the third millennium BCE, it expanded across eastern Anatolia, northwestern Iran, and parts of the northern and southern Levant. Its southern Levantine connections are especially visible in Khirbet Kerak ware, a distinctive pottery tradition associated with communities maintaining practices rooted farther north.

Ancient DNA reveals a corresponding history of northeastern ancestry entering the Bronze Age southern Levant. Agranat-Tamir and colleagues modeled the populations they studied as deriving ancestry from earlier local Levantine inhabitants together with populations related to the ancient Caucasus or Zagros. They discussed Kura-Araxes connections and later Hurrian connections as possible historical settings for these contributions.

Kura-Araxes movements therefore offer one possible route through which some northern paternal lineages reached the Levant. Further movement through eastern Anatolia, northern Mesopotamia, and Syria could have continued this process over subsequent centuries. The genetic history varied by region, and research on the northern Levant suggests that additional sources and movements were involved.

For J-M92 and the related Kiriath-Jearim branch, this provides a plausible regional framework. Demonstrating that either specific lineage traveled with Kura-Araxes communities would require ancient carriers along the proposed route.

Jewish J-L556 and its parent J-L560

Within J-M92, J-L556 is a recognized Ashkenazi Jewish paternal founder lineage. Its branching pattern reflects the survival and expansion of a paternal family during the medieval development of Ashkenazi communities.

Its abbreviated placement on YFull is:

J-M92 > ... > J-Y20492 > J-Y20051 > J-L560 > J-L556

This distinguishes the relatively recent expansion of Jewish L556 descendants from the deeper history of their parent lineage.

The Sicilian connection is particularly interesting. YFull displays a sample from Ragusa, Sicily, within J-L560 but outside J-L556. Thus, the Sicilian line and the Jewish L556 cluster share ancestry within L560. An Italian Jewish-coded sample also appears in a downstream L556 branch.

The wider family includes Middle Eastern relatives at several levels. J-SK1155 is L560's named sister branch under J-Y20051. Iraqi and Saudi Arab samples appear elsewhere beneath the broader J-Y20492 ancestor. The Jewish, Sicilian, Iraqi, and Arabian connections therefore belong to different depths of the same paternal tree.

Genetic-genealogy discussions also report Assyrian connections in this broader paternal neighborhood and attribute a likely Middle Eastern origin interpretation to Kevin Alan Brook. These provide additional leads for investigating a western Asian background, although the specific Assyrian placement and Brook's original wording need to be traced to their sources.

Several possibilities emerge from this distribution. An ancestral western Asian lineage may have reached Jewish and Sicilian populations separately. Alternatively, the close Sicilian relationship may reflect movement involving Mediterranean Jewish communities. Both possibilities fit a region connected by trade, settlement, and migration over many centuries.

Megiddo and the Bronze Age timeframe

Bronze Age Megiddo supplies another important geographical reference. Its ancient inhabitants belonged to the interconnected world of Canaan, whose northern connections extended through Syria toward Mesopotamia and the Caucasus. Genetic research identified northeastern ancestry at the site, including individuals showing a particularly strong Caucasus-related connection.

Megiddo individual I4519 also appears in the paternal comparisons published with the Kiriath-Jearim study, making him relevant to the investigation of related branches in the ancient Levant.

YFull's September 2026 tree estimates J-L560's TMRCA at approximately 3,700 years ago and J-L556's at approximately 1,150 years ago. TMRCA means the estimated time to the most recent common paternal ancestor of the sampled branch members. L556's formation estimate is approximately 3,700 years ago, illustrating the difference between a branch's formation and the later common ancestor of its surviving descendants.

L560's estimate places its surviving paternal connections within a broadly Bronze Age setting. A proposed similarity with the age of the Megiddo branch is worth investigating, but the exact comparison depends on identifying that sample's downstream branch and its estimated common ancestor. A burial date alone cannot supply that TMRCA.

Several waves into southern Europe

The Mediterranean distribution of these lineages can be considered against a history of repeated movement from western Asia into southern Europe.

The earliest major layer was the expansion of Anatolian farmers, beginning thousands of years before Kura-Araxes. Later interactions across Anatolia, the Aegean, and southeastern Europe added further ancestry. These connected regions form part of the geographical framework described in ancient DNA research as the Southern Arc.

Roman imperial mobility brought another substantial eastern Mediterranean contribution to Italy. Ancient genomes from Rome document immigration associated with eastern Mediterranean ancestry, providing a setting in which paternal lines from the eastern Mediterranean could become established farther west.

Movement continued during the Byzantine period. Historical research documents monastic networks from Palestina (the former Judaea, then renamed the Byzantine province of Palaestina Prima, which included Jerusalem) reaching Rome and Sicily, alongside Syrian migration involving clergy and laypeople. Monasteries of Jerusalem belonged to this religious world. These networks offer additional possible routes for eastern Mediterranean ancestry into Italy, although monastic movement itself does not necessarily imply a large reproductive contribution.

Jewish diaspora movements provided another enduring connection. Jewish settlement in Rome dates to the second century BCE, and later arrivals included merchants, diplomats, and captives from Judaea. These communities created lasting links between the Levant and Italy and offer a natural historical context for exploring the Mediterranean history of Jewish J-L556.

Sicily could have participated in several of these processes. Its L560 connection may reflect ancient eastern Mediterranean settlement, Jewish migration, Byzantine-era mobility, or overlapping episodes of movement.

Kiriath-Jearim's cultural significance

Kiriath-Jearim gives the paternal connection a significant cultural setting. In the biblical narrative, the town housed the Ark of the Covenant after its return from Philistine territory and before David brought it to Jerusalem. It also appears as a boundary town between Judah and Benjamin. These traditions place it within the territorial and religious geography of ancient Israel.

Excavators have proposed that its monumental elevated platform was constructed during the reign of Jeroboam II in the eighth century BCE, potentially expressing northern Israelite influence near Judah. This interpretation connects the site with the political and religious relationship between Israel, Judah, and Jerusalem during the monarchic period.

The man buried at Kiriath-Jearim carried a paternal lineage belonging to a sister branch of J-M92. Jewish J-L556, its parent L560, and their Mediterranean and Middle Eastern relatives preserve other parts of this extended paternal history. Their relationships invite a reconstruction that brings together ancient Levantine communities, northern connections through Anatolia and Mesopotamia, and the later journeys of Jewish and other eastern Mediterranean populations.

Trevor H.

References

1. Ancient DNA Shaus A, Reich D (2025). The Iron II Burial Cave: Ancient DNA Sampling. Chapter 28 in Finkelstein I, Romer T (eds.), Kiriath-Jearim: The Shmunis Family Excavations. Tel Aviv University and Penn State University Press, open access. muse.jhu.edu/book/135621
2. Ancient DNA Shaus A, Reich D, Goldenberg G, Freud L, Eshed V, Finkelstein I (2023). Ancient Mitochondrial DNA Analysis of an Iron II Burial Cave on the Slope of Tel Kiriath-Yearim. tau.ac.il
3. Ancient DNA Agranat-Tamir L et al. (2020). The Genomic History of the Bronze Age Southern Levant. Cell 181(5): 1146 to 1157. doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2020.04.024
4. Ancient DNA Skourtanioti E et al. (2020). Genomic History of Neolithic to Bronze Age Anatolia, Northern Levant, and Southern Caucasus. Cell 181(5): 1158 to 1175. doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2020.04.044
5. Ancient DNA Lazaridis I et al. (2022). The genetic history of the Southern Arc: A bridge between West Asia and Europe. Science 377: eabm4247. doi.org/10.1126/science.abm4247
6. Ancient DNA Antonio ML et al. (2019). Ancient Rome: A genetic crossroads of Europe and the Mediterranean. Science 366: 708 to 714. doi.org/10.1126/science.aay6826
7. Y-DNA tree YFull YTree, branches J-L560 and J-L556, consulted September 2026. yfull.com/tree/J-L560