Who were the Arabian Peninsula (0 – 600 AD)?

Arabian Peninsula is one of the 27 curated source populations in the Classical Antiquity era of the Ancestrify qpAdm analysis: a group of published ancient genomes from one archaeological context, pooled as a single reference the model can test your genome against.

Does Arabian Peninsula in my result mean they were my ancestors?

No. A source population is a reference the model tests against, never a statement about who your ancestors were. A coefficient on this source means the ancestry those burials represent helps explain your genome to within statistical noise — similar ancestry composition, not descent from those individuals. Ancestrify never claims a population is your ancestor.

What does a Arabian Peninsula percentage in a qpAdm model mean?

qpAdm estimates the mixture proportions that best explain your genome as a combination of the chosen sources, given a fixed set of outgroup (right) populations, and reports a p-value for whether the model is statistically acceptable together with a standard error for every proportion. The percentage is that estimated share, with its uncertainty published beside it.

How do I get a qpAdm model that uses Arabian Peninsula?

Order the Ancestrify qpAdm analysis (€29.99, one-time) and upload the raw file you already have from a consumer test. Your genome is merged into the AADR reference panel and modelled across both eras; each era's model is built from that era's source populations, so a model for the Classical Antiquity era draws on Arabian Peninsula where it improves the fit.

Can I model Arabian Peninsula ancestry for free first?

Yes. The Ancestrify Lab runs Global25 admixture calculators, a nearest-populations distance tool and an AdmixTools 2 workbench in your browser with no account, and several calculators cover the Classical Antiquity era. Those are G25 fits, not formal qpAdm models — the paid analysis is the one with a p-value.

Arabian Peninsula — ancient DNA source population (qpAdm)

Who they were

Artistic interpretation of the Arabian Peninsula (AI-generated artwork, not documentary evidence)

Period: 0 – 600 AD
Era in the analysis: Classical Antiquity
Region: Arabian Peninsula
Role in the model: Source (left) population — a reference qpAdm tests against

The Arabian Peninsula in the centuries before Islam was a mosaic of caravan kingdoms, coastal ports and pastoral tribes stretching from Nabataea to Himyar. Genetic studies of the region show a population built on a deep Natufian-related Levantine lineage, with substantial Iranian-related ancestry that arrived with Bronze Age contact across the Gulf, and an African contribution that accumulated along the Red Sea over many centuries (Almarri et al. 2021; Lazaridis et al. 2022). Arabians retain some of the smallest Neanderthal contributions of any Eurasians, a legacy of their early divergence from the rest of West Eurasia.

This ancestry is the core of present-day Arabian, Yemeni and Gulf populations and, through the Islamic expansions of the seventh century onwards, a meaningful layer across the Levant, Egypt and the Maghreb. In the model it is the southern-most West Eurasian source, distinct from the Eastern Mediterranean source in its lower European-related and higher African-related components.

In Ancestrify's qpAdm service, Arabian Peninsula is a source in the "Classical Antiquity" era. The report shows its weight with a standard error and a Z-score, so you can see not only how much of the model it carries but how confidently that share is separated from zero, and a model that cannot support it is rejected rather than published. For genomes from the Gulf, Yemen and the southern Levant it is usually the anchoring source, and its weight should be read together with the Eastern Mediterranean and Sub Saharan African sources.

Y haplogroups J1-P58 and E1b1b, and mtDNA R0a, J1 and L lineages, are characteristic of the peninsula's populations. A haplogroup alone is never evidence of a share.

In your report
The Arabian-Peninsula-related ancestry of the late antique and early Islamic period (c. 0–600 CE), represented by the Bedouin groups that best preserve it — the AADR holds almost no ancient Peninsular genomes, so, like the Sub-Saharan African entries, this population is built from present-day reference genomes. Its spread across the Maghreb and the Levant followed the Arab expansions of the 7th century.

Artwork is an AI-generated artistic interpretation informed by the archaeological record — not documentary evidence.

Where this population sits in the model

The Ancestrify qpAdm analysis models your genome once per era. The Classical Antiquity era has 27 curated source populations, and Arabian Peninsula is one of them: every candidate model for that era is a combination of these sources, tested against a fixed set of outgroup populations, and only a model that passes the statistical fit check is published — with a p-value, and a standard error on every proportion.

A reference, not a verdict: every population on this page is a source the model tests your genome against — a well-sampled point in ancient genetic space that a mixture of ancestries can be expressed in terms of. A weight on it means your genome is well described as partly resembling those people; it is never a statement that they, specifically, were your ancestors, and a population that fits well is not the only one that could.

Read how the method works on the qpAdm analysis page, or the definitions in the glossary.

Model it yourself for free

The Ancestrify Lab runs in your browser, with no account. Paste a Global25 row into an admixture calculator that covers the Classical Antiquity era, rank the closest ancient populations in the distance tool, or run f4, qpWave and qpAdm on the public panel in the AdmixTools 2 workbench. These are Global25 fits and exploratory statistics, not the formal qpAdm model of the paid analysis.

Questions

Who were the Arabian Peninsula (0 – 600 AD)?
Arabian Peninsula is one of the 27 curated source populations in the Classical Antiquity era of the Ancestrify qpAdm analysis: a group of published ancient genomes from one archaeological context, pooled as a single reference the model can test your genome against.
Does Arabian Peninsula in my result mean they were my ancestors?
No. A source population is a reference the model tests against, never a statement about who your ancestors were. A coefficient on this source means the ancestry those burials represent helps explain your genome to within statistical noise — similar ancestry composition, not descent from those individuals. Ancestrify never claims a population is your ancestor.
What does a Arabian Peninsula percentage in a qpAdm model mean?
qpAdm estimates the mixture proportions that best explain your genome as a combination of the chosen sources, given a fixed set of outgroup (right) populations, and reports a p-value for whether the model is statistically acceptable together with a standard error for every proportion. The percentage is that estimated share, with its uncertainty published beside it.
How do I get a qpAdm model that uses Arabian Peninsula?
Order the Ancestrify qpAdm analysis (€29.99, one-time) and upload the raw file you already have from a consumer test. Your genome is merged into the AADR reference panel and modelled across both eras; each era's model is built from that era's source populations, so a model for the Classical Antiquity era draws on Arabian Peninsula where it improves the fit.
Can I model Arabian Peninsula ancestry for free first?
Yes. The Ancestrify Lab runs Global25 admixture calculators, a nearest-populations distance tool and an AdmixTools 2 workbench in your browser with no account, and several calculators cover the Classical Antiquity era. Those are G25 fits, not formal qpAdm models — the paid analysis is the one with a p-value.