Unresolved genetic mysteries you are curious about

[J. Ketch]

Some for me:

-How and when did Ireland became Celtic-speaking, and to what extent were the Bronze Age Irish replaced by British Celts in this process?
-How and when did England gain such a large chunk of 'French Iron Age' ancestry in the Middle Ages, was this primilarily from French migration related to the Norman conquest, or from earlier Frankish connections (as suggested in a study)?
-How and why did East Anglia go from being the most purely Anglo-Saxon part of England in the early middle ages to the most French/southern shifted part today?
-Were the Saxons who came to Southern England already mixed with Celts/Gauls, like modern Dutch and West Germans?
-When did the last European Hunter Gatherers die out, did some survive into the Bronze Age or later, and do they have traces in European mythology, such as trolls in Norwegian folklore, or the 'black men' who supposedly erected the Callanish Stones in Scotland?
-What killed off the Neolithic Farmers; were they mostly slaughtered by invading Indo-Europeans, mostly destroyed by disease, by 'climate change' or some combination?
-To what extent are people in Brittany descended from the Celtic British refugees they derive their language from, as opposed to native Armoricans?
-Why was WHG Y-dna so dominant among Neolithic Farmers in Atlantic Europe, despite only being 1/4 WHG autosomally?

More personally:

-How much Welsh ancestry I have (if any)?
-How much of my medieval Germanic ancestry is Norse, as opposed to Anglo-Saxon?

[drb234]

this would probably be a rough indicator of norse ancestry as compared to Anglo-Saxon. It's from the 2022 early english nature study using admixture 1.3
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GhGodRqW4AAYiOF?format=jpg&name=small

[J. Ketch]

this would probably be a rough indicator of norse ancestry as compared to Anglo-Saxon. It's from the 2022 early english nature study using admixture 1.3
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GhGodRqW4AAYiOF?format=jpg&name=small
That answers the English side (about what I'd expect), but it's a shame it doesn't include Ireland. From what I've seen I believe the Germanic ancestry in Ireland (what little there is) is somewhat evenly divided between Anglo-Saxon and Norse.

[drb234]

That answers the English side (about what I'd expect), but it's a shame it doesn't include Ireland. From what I've seen I believe the Germanic ancestry in Ireland (what little there is) is somewhat evenly divided between Anglo-Saxon and Norse.

They did model Irish ancestry, their Germanic ancestry is mostly Anglo-Saxon but they do have some "large" Norse admixture aswell
https://i.postimg.cc/nc0HHnBx/image.png

(same thing below i just made it slightly easier to read)
https://i.postimg.cc/nrNGmyQh/image.png

[J. Ketch]

They did model Irish ancestry, their Germanic ancestry is mostly Anglo-Saxon but they do have some "large" Norse admixture aswell
https://i.postimg.cc/nc0HHnBx/image.png

(same thing below i just made it slightly easier to read)
https://i.postimg.cc/nrNGmyQh/image.png
Thank you very much :thumb001: So the Anglo-Saxon ancestry is about double the Norse. Considering Irish history in its entirety that shouldn't be surprising.

[Gannicus]

Some for me:

-How and when did Ireland became Celtic-speaking, and to what extent were the Bronze Age Irish replaced by British Celts in this process?
-How and when did England gain such a large chunk of 'French Iron Age' ancestry in the Middle Ages, was this primilarily from French migration related to the Norman conquest, or from earlier Frankish connections (as suggested in a study)?
-How and why did East Anglia go from being the most purely Anglo-Saxon part of England in the early middle ages to the most French/southern shifted part today?
-Were the Saxons who came to Southern England already mixed with Celts/Gauls, like modern Dutch and West Germans?
-When did the last European Hunter Gatherers die out, did some survive into the Bronze Age or later, and do they have traces in European mythology, such as trolls in Norwegian folklore, or the 'black men' who supposedly erected the Callanish Stones in Scotland?
-What killed off the Neolithic Farmers; were they mostly slaughtered by invading Indo-Europeans, mostly destroyed by disease, by 'climate change' or some combination?
-To what extent are people in Brittany descended from the Celtic British refugees they derive their language from, as opposed to native Armoricans?
-Why was WHG Y-dna so dominant among Neolithic Farmers in Atlantic Europe, despite only being 1/4 WHG autosomally?

More personally:

-How much Welsh ancestry I have (if any)?
-How much of my medieval Germanic ancestry is Norse, as opposed to Anglo-Saxon?

-I want scientists to find Basal Eurasian remains with low to no contamination and get good coverage aDNA samples.
-More research on the Green Sahara and find more ANA samples like Takarkori but older.
-Many more high coverage low/no contamination Ancient Egyptian remains from both upper and lower Egypt. But more priority on upper Egyptian samples.
-More ancient DNA from Sub Saharan Africa mainly find out more about this mysterious archaic human ghost population that is detected in Sub Saharan DNA.
-More ancient DNA from Ireland. I'd like more BA and IA samples from Eire.

[Sebastianus Rex]

Subscribed

[Lucas]

Some for me:

-How and when did Ireland became Celtic-speaking, and to what extent were the Bronze Age Irish replaced by British Celts in this process?
-How and when did England gain such a large chunk of 'French Iron Age' ancestry in the Middle Ages, was this primilarily from French migration related to the Norman conquest, or from earlier Frankish connections (as suggested in a study)?
-How and why did East Anglia go from being the most purely Anglo-Saxon part of England in the early middle ages to the most French/southern shifted part today?
-Were the Saxons who came to Southern England already mixed with Celts/Gauls, like modern Dutch and West Germans?
-When did the last European Hunter Gatherers die out, did some survive into the Bronze Age or later, and do they have traces in European mythology, such as trolls in Norwegian folklore, or the 'black men' who supposedly erected the Callanish Stones in Scotland?
-What killed off the Neolithic Farmers; were they mostly slaughtered by invading Indo-Europeans, mostly destroyed by disease, by 'climate change' or some combination?
-To what extent are people in Brittany descended from the Celtic British refugees they derive their language from, as opposed to native Armoricans?
-Why was WHG Y-dna so dominant among Neolithic Farmers in Atlantic Europe, despite only being 1/4 WHG autosomally?

More personally:

-How much Welsh ancestry I have (if any)?
-How much of my medieval Germanic ancestry is Norse, as opposed to Anglo-Saxon?

Do you think Bell Beakers spoke in some proto-Celtic?
And Picts, they were some pre-Celts? Maybe BB remnants?

[J. Ketch]

Do you think Bell Beakers spoke in some proto-Celtic?
And Picts, they were some pre-Celts? Maybe BB remnants?
Proto-Celtic must be derived from whatever Bell Beakers spoke, but in the Celtic homeland of Central Western Europe. I think the Bell Beakers and Bronze Age people of Britain and Ireland spoke something different but related, which was gradually usurped by Celtic speech in the late Bronze Age and Iron Age, much like English usurped the Celtic languages.

The Picts were Celtic speakers, no question about it, and Pictish must have been closely related to Welsh in the South. They were like the Irish, mostly descended from the native Bronze Age/BB people but Celticised.

[Valenman]

Does the Basal Eurasian exist?
If it really exists, I'd like to know what haplogroups they had and what percentage of them are present in modern populations (it's currently a ghost population).

[Gannicus]

Does the Basal Eurasian exist?
If it really exists, I'd like to know what haplogroups they had and what percentage of them are present in modern populations (it's currently a ghost population).

You are right. It's a theoretical ghost population theorized to exist by David Reich and his colleagues. When it comes to Basal Eurasians, it's my hope they find something like Takarkori from the Green Sahara paper (which represents ANA) that might help clarify things.

[Gannicus]

Another genetic mystery I'd like to uncover is to figure out more about my Y lineage. I took the Big Y test on FTDNA.com but I match only 2 other people with my terminal SNP: J-FTC5373. One match is a person who reports that the country of origin of their earliest paternal ancestor is from Mexico. And the other match has no idea. It's still a mystery.
Basically no data in the database (I lol'd when I saw the Unicorn):


139477




Further upstream from J-FTC5373 is J-Y95647 followed by J-BY82631. It's at J-BY82631, that I match some Minoan males from Lasithi, Crete:

Hagios Charalambos 6

Hagios Charalambos 17

Hagios Charalambos 9


139470



Further up the branches I match some bronze age Levantines, an Imperial Roman, and surprisingly Kulubnarti Nubians from 650-1000 AD:

139471
139472



139473
139474


139475
139476

[Opie]

They did model Irish ancestry, their Germanic ancestry is mostly Anglo-Saxon but they do have some "large" Norse admixture aswell
https://i.postimg.cc/nc0HHnBx/image.png

(same thing below i just made it slightly easier to read)
https://i.postimg.cc/nrNGmyQh/image.png

Can English Germanic ancestry genetically be broken down into Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Norse?

I guess not but it would be cool to see which tribe is the most influential in terms of genetics.

[Figaro]

Can English Germanic ancestry genetically be broken down into Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Norse?

I guess not but it would be cool to see which tribe is the most influential in terms of genetics.

At this point, all tribes are probably pretty much a "blur" as far as the mixing of Germanic elements if I had to guess. They'd all be extremely similar genetically anyway.

[Opie]

At this point, all tribes are probably pretty much a "blur" as far as the mixing of Germanic elements if I had to guess. They'd all be extremely similar genetically anyway.

IllustrativeDNA usually assigns Nomad and Karluk when it comes to Turkic ancestry for Turkish. I don’t know if they can do the same thing for English.

[Lurgori]

Does the Basal Eurasian exist?
If it really exists, I'd like to know what haplogroups they had and what percentage of them are present in modern populations (it's currently a ghost population).

Same , where these guys were living too and their physical aspects would be interesting to know.
Another mystery that interests me is what groups exactly formed the so called "common west eurasians"? How much ancestry they had from the gravettian, if IJ was their predominant haplo and so on. How and when their mixing with basal populations happened.

[Lurgori]

Takarkori is way too young to really clarify thing much , tho it seems the closest we have to ancestral north africans, it is like if before finding the ANEs ( a previously ghost pop too) geneticists had only DNA from pre tocharian tarin basin mummies wich are a bronze age population.
I really dig in for some 35.000 years or older basal samples tho this is extremely unlikely to come about , mainly in the current state of the middle east and the world.

[Highwayman]

Were the Huguenots/Palatine refugees of the early modern era not enough to account for the southern shift in Southeast England?

[J. Ketch]

Can English Germanic ancestry genetically be broken down into Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Norse?

I guess not but it would be cool to see which tribe is the most influential in terms of genetics.
It can't be broken down beyond Anglo-Saxon and Norse, but we already know from history and archaeology that East Anglia, the Midlands and North were settled by Angles, the South was settled by Saxons, and Jutes were primarily in Kent and the Isle of Wight.

[J. Ketch]

Were the Huguenots/Palatine refugees of the early modern era not enough to account for the southern shift in Southeast England?
No, the large French-like admixture and southern shift is too uniform across England to be something so recent IMO, the population in 14th century Cambridgeshire from a study on the Black Death was strongly French-shifted and Celto-Germanic like modern East Anglians, as opposed to the overwhelmingly Germanic early medieval samples from Cambridgeshire.

[Peterski]

Do you exclude the possibility that this French IA-like ancestry existed in England already before the Anglo-Saxon migration?

[J. Ketch]

Do you exclude the possibility that this French IA-like ancestry existed in England already before the Anglo-Saxon migration?
I don't rule it out personally, but the Gretzinger paper did explicity, and it hasn't shown up in the many samples from pre Anglo-Saxon Britain. Moreover it is strongly associated with England, not Wales or Scotland, almost in exact parallell with Anglo-Saxon admixture. Wales was part of Roman Britain but it's barely present there.

That being said, what is most strange is how much of it there is on the south coast in the early Anglo-Saxon period, with almost none on the North Sea coast. Duncan Sayer said this was probably from Franks, but I'd say there's too much of it. This is why I suggested that maybe many 'Saxons' who came to Britain were already mixed.
https://i.postimg.cc/CMC7YBLm/Screenshot-2024-03-22-151548.png

[drb234]

Can English Germanic ancestry genetically be broken down into Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Norse?

I guess not but it would be cool to see which tribe is the most influential in terms of genetics.

No, Angles and Saxons are essentially genetically identical. Norse ancestry can be seperated though (with difficulty)

[drb234]

It can't be broken down beyond Anglo-Saxon and Norse, but we already know from history and archaeology that East Anglia, the Midlands and North were settled by Angles, the South was settled by Saxons, and Jutes were primarily in Kent and the Isle of Wight.

These groups have probably completely blended especially in urban areas after the industrial revolution and urbanization

[Purple Panther]

No, the large French-like admixture and southern shift is too uniform across England to be something so recent IMO, the population in 14th century Cambridgeshire from a study on the Black Death was strongly French-shifted and Celto-Germanic like modern East Anglians, as opposed to the overwhelmingly Germanic early medieval samples from Cambridgeshire.

What accounts for the French-like admixture? Was the immigration, of the Belgae and the Gauls, greatly downplayed in the historical record? Also, I don't get why Southern Americans are southern-shifted to the point where they match people in Southeast England since that region supposedly was where the New England Americans immigrated from in large part. Southern Americans immigrated from the Western British region to a great extent, as well as Ulster, so it seems like the shift is really just a mix that mimics a shift.

[Highwayman]

What accounts for the French-like admixture? Was the immigration, of the Belgae and the Gauls, greatly downplayed in the historical record? Also, I don't get why Southern Americans are southern-shifted to the point where they match people in Southeast England since that region supposedly was where the New England Americans immigrated from in large part. Southern Americans immigrated from the Western British region to a great extent, as well as Ulster, so it seems like the shift is really just a mix that mimics a shift.

He said in the OP that it is an unresolved mystery that he’s interested in, hence my suggestion that maybe Huguenots played a role.

All you southerners are uniformly shifted south with 2% SSA :p

[Purple Panther]

He said in the OP that it is an unresolved mystery that he’s interested in, hence my suggestion that maybe Huguenots played a role.

All you southerners are uniformly shifted south with 2% SSA :p

Some Southerners are descended from French Huguenots, but I don't think that their genes are that impactful. The Cajuns are anomalies for the region. Most people, in the region, seem to be blends of degrees of British (all constituent countries) and Irish (varies by person) with a bit of Continental European here and there. That's according to tests like Ancestry DNA, so it could be the noise (things like Cypriot) that shifts them southwards.

[Cernunnos]

I don't rule it out personally, but the Gretzinger paper did explicity, and it hasn't shown up in the many samples from pre Anglo-Saxon Britain. Moreover it is strongly associated with England, not Wales or Scotland, almost in exact parallell with Anglo-Saxon admixture. Wales was part of Roman Britain but it's barely present there.

That being said, what is most strange is how much of it there is on the south coast in the early Anglo-Saxon period, with almost none on the North Sea coast. Duncan Sayer said this was probably from Franks, but I'd say there's too much of it. This is why I suggested that maybe many 'Saxons' who came to Britain were already mixed.
https://i.postimg.cc/CMC7YBLm/Screenshot-2024-03-22-151548.png

Norman conquest of Anglo Saxon England might have had some role in it perhaps? :confused:

[Birchy]

Southern England always had stronger connections to the continent even before the Anglo Saxons & Normans going back to the Iron Age/Halstatt La Tene culture.

[J. Ketch]

Was the immigration, of the Belgae and the Gauls, greatly downplayed in the historical record?I don't think it's downplayed, from Caesar's account of Britain it seems to have been real and significant, and divided the 'maritime' Britons from the 'interior' Britons in culture and identity. There were Belgic tribes in Southern Britain, one in modern Hampshire were literally called Belgae, their main settlement known by the Romans as Venta Belgarum went onto become Winchester, the capital of Wessex. It has only been ignored genetically, which surprised me, apparently they didn't have a significant genetic influence on Iron Age Southern Britain, at least compared to the other great migrations that have been emphasised in recent studies. It's possible that the Belgic invaders were already genetically very similar to Southern Britons so their influence isn't noticed as much.


Also, I don't get why Southern Americans are southern-shifted to the point where they match people in Southeast England since that region supposedly was where the New England Americans immigrated from in large part. Southern Americans immigrated from the Western British region to a great extent, as well as Ulster, so it seems like the shift is really just a mix that mimics a shift.
The White Southerner gedmatch kits I collected (over 500) are actually slightly more continental shifted than Southeast English on average, but that is their closest European match. Only those from Alabama and Arkansas were closer to something less continental than SE English, as well as Utah from non-Southern states. As to why, IMHO it's because 1. the Southern US just doesn't have as much Insular Celtic ancestry as is commonly believed, Irish ancestry is vastly overreported, and 'Scots-Irish' seems to be more of a cultural marker these days than ancestral. 2. the ancestry of White Southerners is mostly English, and of that overwhelmingly Southern English, from both Southwest and Southeast England. Apart from Devon and Cornwall Southwest England is genetically very similar to Southeast England (as drb234's table shows) and not very Insular Celtic. 3. non Anglo-Celtic admixture in the South is not insignificant.

Distance to: US_Midwest
2.06043685 Dutch_South
3.05722096 Flemish
3.58030725 English_Southeast
3.92697084 English_Midlands
4.09655953 Dutch

Distance to: US_Northeast
2.02385770 Flemish
2.73177598 Dutch_South
3.54704102 Walloon
3.60186063 French_North
4.55154919 German_Southwest

Distance to: US_South
0.95916630 English_Southeast
1.37043789 English_Midlands
2.01156655 English_Southwest
2.46686035 Dutch_South
2.64270695 English_North

Distance to: US_West
1.17435088 Dutch_South
2.12539408 Flemish
2.84610260 English_Southeast
3.31743877 English_Midlands
3.47223271 French_Brittany

Distance to: US_Alabama
0.92130342 English_Midlands
0.95639950 English_Southeast
1.22298814 English_Southwest
1.78779193 English_North
2.09714091 Welsh

Distance to: US_Arkansas
0.63031738 English_Midlands
0.99408249 English_Southeast
1.11054041 English_North
1.42204079 English_Southwest
1.55492765 Dutch

Distance to: US_California
1.98891930 Flemish
2.97274284 Dutch_South
3.51072642 French_North
3.56946775 Walloon
4.25835649 German_Southwest

Distance to: US_Connecticut
2.06724454 Flemish
2.48328412 Dutch_South
3.86813909 French_North
4.34207324 Walloon
4.46498600 German_Southwest

Distance to: US_Florida
1.92626582 English_Southeast
1.95583742 Dutch_South
2.35660773 English_Midlands
3.00900316 Dutch
3.12254704 Flemish

Distance to: US_Georgia
0.91493169 English_Southeast
0.92433760 English_Midlands
1.15961200 English_Southwest
1.63505352 English_North
1.91770696 Welsh

Distance to: US_Illinois
2.76747177 Dutch_South
3.13568174 Flemish
4.14616690 German
4.69078885 English_Southeast
5.04840569 English_Midlands

Distance to: US_Indiana
1.55762640 English_Southeast
1.70897630 Dutch_South
1.93424404 English_Midlands
2.84731452 English_Southwest
2.98688801 French_Brittany

Distance to: US_Iowa
1.24221576 English_Southeast
1.44312162 English_Midlands
1.74135005 Dutch
2.45528002 Dutch_Central
2.47273128 English_North

Distance to: US_Kansas
1.76728605 Dutch_South
2.11388268 English_Southeast
2.55671664 English_Midlands
2.89946547 Flemish
3.25636300 Dutch

Distance to: US_Kentucky
0.91684241 English_Southeast
1.13881517 English_Midlands
1.57473807 English_Southwest
2.24857733 English_North
2.57206143 Welsh

Distance to: US_Louisiana
1.43345736 French_North
2.67011236 Walloon
3.94727754 Flemish
4.12703283 German_Southwest
4.65180610 French_Brittany

Distance to: US_Maine
1.88586850 English_Southeast
1.93613016 French_Brittany
2.24156196 English_Midlands
2.30761782 Dutch_South
2.49957996 English_Southwest

Distance to: US_Maryland
2.34217847 English_Southeast
2.57992248 Dutch
2.60535986 English_Midlands
2.73375200 Dutch_South
2.92682422 German_Northwest

Distance to: US_Massachussets
1.28526262 Dutch_South
1.36532048 Flemish
2.54664485 French_Brittany
3.73990642 French_North
3.83407094 English_Southeast

Distance to: US_Michigan
3.51579294 Dutch_South
3.53414770 German
3.67469727 Flemish
5.71370283 French_North
5.72702366 German_Southwest

Distance to: US_Minnesota
4.49553111 German
5.32521361 Swedish
6.49393563 Swedish_East-Svealand
6.60369593 Swedish_West-Svealand
6.64578814 German_Southeast

Distance to: US_Mississippi
0.85270159 English_Southeast
0.85276022 English_Midlands
1.52042757 English_Southwest
1.61263759 English_North
2.20873267 Dutch

Distance to: US_Missouri
1.67068848 English_Southeast
1.79019552 Dutch_South
2.14385167 English_Midlands
2.76389218 French_Brittany
2.87047034 English_Southwest

Distance to: US_Nebraska
1.48327341 English_Southeast
1.85806351 English_Midlands
2.26386837 Dutch_South
2.38903746 English_Southwest
2.85765638 French_Brittany

Distance to: US_New-Jersey
2.73992701 Flemish
3.52910754 Dutch_South
3.72412406 Walloon
3.90128184 French_North
4.23133549 German_Southwest

Distance to: US_New-York
3.09313757 French_Alsace
3.46171923 German_Southwest
3.48785034 Swiss_German
3.65609081 Walloon
4.32318170 French_North

Distance to: US_North-Carolina
1.07953694 English_Southeast
1.44038189 English_Midlands
2.00384630 English_Southwest
2.50701017 English_North
2.88211728 Dutch

Distance to: US_Ohio
1.39226434 Dutch_South
1.80803761 Flemish
3.57417123 French_Brittany
3.64280112 English_Southeast
4.12634221 English_Midlands

Distance to: US_Oklahoma
1.13710158 English_Southeast
1.22804723 English_Midlands
1.67098773 English_Southwest
2.21339106 English_North
2.60015384 Dutch

Distance to: US_Pennsylvania
2.55070578 Dutch_South
2.93071664 Flemish
4.53853501 German
4.66565108 English_Southeast
5.07686911 English_Midlands

Distance to: US_South-Carolina
1.25956342 English_Southeast
1.65589855 English_Midlands
2.24336800 Dutch_South
2.49120453 English_Southwest
2.76515822 Dutch

Distance to: US_Tennessee
0.83204567 English_Southeast
1.25960311 English_Midlands
2.12478234 English_Southwest
2.47066793 English_North
2.59474469 Dutch

Distance to: US_Texas
1.29390881 English_Southeast
1.75251248 English_Midlands
1.90976438 Dutch_South
2.69072481 English_Southwest
2.88613929 Dutch

Distance to: US_Utah
1.28537932 English_Midlands
1.30433891 English_Southeast
1.81598458 English_North
1.99802402 Dutch
2.03575539 English_Southwest

Distance to: US_Virginia
1.49916644 English_Southeast
1.87392636 English_Midlands
2.31747708 English_Southwest
2.65588027 Dutch_South
2.95712698 French_Brittany

Distance to: US_West-Virginia
1.40680489 English_Southeast
1.85639435 English_Midlands
2.03781746 Dutch_South
2.58253751 English_Southwest
2.82991166 French_Brittany

Distance to: US_Wisconsin
2.96162118 German
5.37316480 German_Southeast
6.69723077 Swedish
7.01228208 German_Northwest
7.55969576 Austrian_Salzburg-Upper_Austria

[drb234]

+.

[Highwayman]

The decline of genetic diversity in Scandinavians post viking age. Was this from a societal enforced selection against individuals mixed with British and Baltic ancestry? Or was the rural population “purer” and movement into cities combined with decreased migration input a natural “cleansing?”

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867422014684#:~:text=Highlights,the%20Viking% 20and%20Medieval%20periods.