# Does DNA show there was a Aaron?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-dna-show-there-was-a-aaron/561535>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [November 22, 2010, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-dna-show-there-was-a-aaron/561535 "2010-11-22T12:21:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Bpelta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Bpelta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bpelta)\
**Post date:** [November 22, 2010, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-dna-show-there-was-a-aaron/561535/1 "2010-11-22T12:21:12Z")

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Sorry, not exactly sure where to put this thread…  
I just saw this [in Newsweek](http://www.newsweek.com/2010/06/03/the-dna-of-abraham-s-children.html):

> [@](#):
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> …Michael Hammer of the University of Arizona, made the first big splash when he discovered that genetics supports the biblical account of a priestly family, the Cohanim, descended from Aaron…one specific genetic marker on the Y chromosome (which is passed on from father to son, as membership in the priestly family would be) is found in 98.5 percent of people who self-identify as Cohanim, he and colleagues reported in a 1997 paper in Nature (the PBS science series Nova did a nice segment on that work, summarized here). The Cohanim DNA has been found in both Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews, evidence that it predates the time when the two groups diverged, about 1,000 years ago. DNA can also be used to infer when particular genetic markers appeared, and suggests that the Cohanim emerged about 106 generations ago, making it fall during what is thought to be the period of the exodus from Egypt, and thus Aaron’s lifetime.