[5] Men from this lineage share a common paternal ancestor, which is demonstrated and defined by the presence of the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) mutation referred to as M267, which was announced in (Cinnioğlu 2004).

It can also be found much less commonly, but still occasionally in significant amounts, in parts of southern Europe and as far east as Central Asia.

[citation needed] Since the discovery of haplogroup J-P209 it has generally been recognized that it shows signs of having evolved ~ 20,000 years ago somewhere in northwestern Iran, the Caucasus, the Armenian Highlands, and northern Mesopotamia.

A recent study with the extant variation concludes that the Caucasus is likely to be the source of the Greek and Italian haplogroup J-M267 chromosomes.

They also propose that this movement of people may also be linked to the dispersal of Semitic languages by hunter-herders, who moved into arid areas during periods known to have had low rainfall.

Thus, while other haplogroups including J-M267 moved out of the area with agriculturalists who followed the rainfall, populations carrying J-M267 remained with their flocks (King 2002 and Chiaroni 2008).

They list three regions which are particularly important to their proposal: Studies show that J-P58 group is not only in itself very dominant in many areas where J-M267 or J1 are common, but it also contains a large cluster which had been recognized before the discovery of P58.

The authors also say that "Omanis show a mix of Eurasian pool-like and typical Arabic haplotypes as expected, considering the role of corridor played at different times by the Gulf of Oman in the dispersal of Asian and East African genes."

Nebel 2002 then pointed out that the GMH is also the most frequent type of J-P209 haplotype found in north-west Africans and Yemenis, so it is not restricted to Israel and Palestine.

They concluded that J-M267 in this region is a result of two distinct migration events: "early Neolithic dispersion" and "expansions from the Arabian peninsula" during the 7th century.Semino 2004 later agreed that this seemed consistent with the evidence and generalized from this that distribution of the entire YCAII=22-22 cluster of J-M267 in the Arabic-speaking areas of the Middle East and North Africa might in fact mainly have an origin in historical times.

More recent studies have emphasized doubt that the Islamic expansions are old enough to completely explain the major patterns of J-M267 frequencies.

Chiaroni 2009 rejected this for J-P58 as a whole, but accepted that "some of the populations with low diversity, such as Bedouins from Israel, Qatar, Sudan and UAE, are tightly clustered near high-frequency haplotypes suggesting founder effects with star burst expansion in the Arabian Desert".

In conclusion, the authors were negative about the usefulness of STR defined modals for any "forensic or genealogical purposes" because "they were found across ethnic groups with different cultural or geographic affiliation".

Tofanelli et al. 2014 responded by saying: "In conclusion, while the observed distribution of sub-clades of haplotypes at mitochondrial and Y chromosome non-recombinant genomes might be compatible with founder events in recent times at the origin of Jewish groups as Cohenite, Levite, Ashkenazite, the overall substantial polyphyletism as well as their systematic occurrence in non-Jewish groups highlights the lack of support for using them either as markers of Jewish ancestry or Biblical tales.

[25][26] Ebla was an ancient East Semitic-speaking city and kingdom in Syria in the early Bronze age that was destroyed by the Akkadians.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to put this sample in the context of the current haplogroup J1-M267 variation because of the poor quality of the DNA sequence.

[27] An ancient sample of J1 was found at Satsurblia Cave circa 11,000 BC, specifically belonging to the rare J1-FT34521 subclade.