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Evaluating Population Origins And Interpretations Of Identity: A Case Study Of The Lemba Of South Africa, Jessica R. Engel

Anthropology Theses

This study compares genetics and linguistics of the Lemba, a population living primarily in South Africa, as a means to identify any possible correlation between these two sources, to better understand how identity is impacted by ancestry testing, and to examine the Lemba’s claim to Jewish ancestry with this evidence. The methods compare allele frequency data from several populations that were expected, based on Spurdle and Jenkins (1996), Casanova et al (1985), Ritte et al. (1993), Santachiara Benerecetti et al (1993), and Soodyall (2013), to be geographically proximate to and thereby more closely related the Lemban people. Results were clustered …