In 1977, a study determined the ABO blood types of 68 skeletons of Jewish residents from 1,600 to 2,000 years ago in and around Jerusalem. 55 of those findings were diagnosable. And more than half of the ABO blood groups were found to be the otherwise rare AB blood group.
Sixty-eight ancient skeletons, unearthed at Jerusalem and En Gedi and, according to the archeological data belonging to Jewish residents of these places from about 1,600 to 2,000 years ago, were ABO-typed by means of the hemagglutination-inhibition test. The blood groups of 13 skeletons were undiagnosable and the remaining 55 showed the following distribution: 30.91% A-group, 14.54% B-group, 50.91% AB-group and 3.64% O-group. According to these findings, the population to which these skeletons belonged must have had a high frequency of genes IA and IB, and a low occurrence of O blood group and its related IO gene.
This of course is a small study and does not represent blood type frequencies of the ancient Hebrews in general. But the high AB frequency is interesting nonetheless.
Seen here: ABO-typing of ancient skeletons from Israel.
Continue here: Which were the blood types of the ancient Hebrews?
Read also: Is there a Basque-Jewish-Rh Negative connection?
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