Because of centuries of endogamy, today's 10 million Ashkenazi Jews descend from a population of 350 who lived about 600–800 years ago.[13][14]

[JeanneDArcAlter]

Because of centuries of endogamy, today's 10 million Ashkenazi Jews descend from a population of 350 who lived about 600–800 years ago.[13][14] That population derived from both Europe and the Middle East. Some evidence shows that the population bottleneck may have allowed deleterious alleles to increase in the population by genetic drift.[15]