From a leading authority on population genetics, a deep dive into ancestry and origins in the Middle East that interrogates culture, identity, migration, and ethnicity to reframe what it means to be indigenous to any land. In recent years, as companies like 23andMe and Ancestry.com have made genetic testing available across the globe, it has become relatively simple to find out where your ancestors came from. But acclaimed geneticist Pierre Zalloua believes that these test results have led to a dangerous oversimplification of what one's genetic heritage means. People have conflated genetic ancestry with other ways of defining themselves such as 'origin,' 'ethnicity,' and even 'race' but give no attention to the complexities that underlie these concepts. Nowhere is this interplay more important, and more controversial, than in the Levant--an ancient region known as one of the cradles of civilization, and which now includes modern-day Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and parts
