Eire and the Aryan Connection

[Arahari]

http://celto-germanic.blogspot.com/2009/08/eire-and-aryan-connection.html


Ireland, Erin, Eireann or Eire represents probably the earliest place of settlement of the invading Aryan tribes from the east.
Irish mythology makes reference to five invasions. They are as follows:

The coming of the Partholan into Ireland.

The coming of the Nemed into Ireland.

The coming of the Firbolgs into Ireland.

The invasion of the Tuatha De Danaan.[The folk of the god whose mother is Dana].

The invasion of the Milesians[Sons of Miled] and the conquest of the Tuatha De Danaan.

We know that at least some of these if not all of the invading peoples were of Aryan stock.
As a minimum the Milesians are regarded as the ancestors of the Irish Gaels and the Tuatha De Danaan are widely referred to as the deities of the Irish people. In Irish mythology myth and history seem to blend and mortals and immortals do not appear to have such clear dividing lines between them as in say the Teutonic mythology.

The sciences of comparative linguistics, mythology and modern genetic testing all point to the Irish people having been in possession of Ireland from the earliest days of the Aryan dispersal.
It is conceiveable that the Aryans did not arrive in Ireland all at the same time but came in waves of immigration and possibly using different routes. Mythology tells us that the Milesians came by the way of Spain.

Ulick J. Bourke gives abundant linguiistical evidence in his Aryan Origin of the Gaelic Race and Language for the great antiquity of the Irish tongue putting it on a par with Sanskrit, Greek and Latin.

He has this to say about the various invasions:
"All these different migrations had come forth from the Keltic family home; and all spoke the same language. All were Aryan. Thus the ancient annals of Ireland accord most wonderfully with the teaching of the science of comparative philology."

One has only to look at the name or names of Ireland itself to see this ancient Aryan connection.

"For those who for whatever reason wish to resist the idea that the Celtic mythology and religion[as well as culture] is essentially based on Indo-European roots, it might be noted that the first element in the names Ire-land and Ira-n are the same liguistically, and both are related to the Arya-ns of India. Thus the great span of Indo-European culture, from the middle of Asia to the westernmost islands of Europe, can be seen in its full expanse from ancient times."
[Edred Thorsson , aka Dr Stephen Edred Flowers, The Book of Ogham]

This theme is further emphasised by Peter Berresford Ellis, author of various books on Celtic mythology, history and culture, "To demonstrate some of the similarities of vocabulary between Old Irish and Sanskrit, we may refer to the following: arya[freeman] in Sanskrit, from which that much maligned word Aryan comes from. In Old Irish, the cognate is aire meaning "a noble"." [The Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths and Legends].

In addition to the Aryan connection with the name Ire-land there is also the equally explicit connection with Er-in, Eire, Eireann[pronounced `Aryan`. The Ar Aryan prefix is cognate with Ir and Er and many examples of such connections may be found in other Indo-European languages. What they have in common is their meaning-Land of the Aryans, which is linguistically the same as Aryavarta[Sanskrit] or Iran/Eran.

The Aryan connection may also found in the names of some of the ancient Irish deities, eg Eremon. The name of this Irish god is cognate with Ariomanus a god from Celtic Gaul which in turn is cognate with the Sankrit Aryaman and the Iranian airyaman.[J.P. Mallory and D.Q. Adams, The Oxford Introdution to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World].

According to Irish mythology Eremon was one of three Milesian leaders who set out for the conquest of Ireland. Initially he occupied the north but after a war he became victorious and ruled the whole of Ireland from the sacred centre of Tara.
Prior to this Ireland at one time was ruled by three Danaan kings. The wife of one of these kings was called Eriu. Her name has persisted through the course of time and in the dative form her name, Erinn is now a poetic name for Ireland or Eire.
Professor L. Austine Waddell writes: "And Ireland of the Irish-Scots has also its "Holy Isles", with very ancient remains, including a magnificent "prehistoric" fort of cyclopean masonry in the Hitt-ite style, in Galway Bay, and also significantly named "Aran" or "Arran", which like the name "Erin" and "Ir-land", in series with the "Airy-ana" or "Ir-an" or "Land of the Aryans" of the ancient Sun-worsipping Aryans in the Orient." [The Phoenician Origin of Britons, Scots and Anglo-Saxons].

[Psychonaut]

I'm curious, do you write these entries and run the blogs they're simulposted on or are they copy/pastes?


We know that at least some of these if not all of the invading peoples were of Aryan stock.

While the Celtic language family is certainly Indo-European, I don't think there's any evidence at all that the Irish blood is correspondingly IE. We know that the R1a1 y-dna haplogroup roughly corresponds to the expansion of the IE peoples (the peoples not the languages), yet R1a1 frequencies in Ireland only approach 0.5%. The dominant y-dna haplogroup on the island is R1b, which is widely believed to have been introduced to Europe in the Paleolithic era. Likewise, craniofacially, the dominant Irish morphotype is Bruenn, which is an unreduced Cro-Magnoid morphotype that is also thought to correspond to the original Upper Paleolithic inhabitants of Europe. The Aryans are most strongly associated with the Corded (nearly all of the male Corded Ware bodies bear the R1a1 haplogroup) and Irano-Afghan morphotypes.

So, I'll agree that the Irish are culturally and linguistically IE, but I don't believe that there's much evidence to show that they're actually descended from the Proto-Indo-Europeans.

[Arahari]

I'm curious, do you write these entries and run the blogs they're simulposted on or are they copy/pastes?



While the Celtic language family is certainly Indo-European, I don't think there's any evidence at all that the Irish blood is correspondingly IE. We know that the R1a1 y-dna haplogroup roughly corresponds to the expansion of the IE peoples (the peoples not the languages), yet R1a1 frequencies in Ireland only approach 0.5%. The dominant y-dna haplogroup on the island is R1b, which is widely believed to have been introduced to Europe in the Paleolithic era. Likewise, craniofacially, the dominant Irish morphotype is Bruenn, which is an unreduced Cro-Magnoid morphotype that is also thought to correspond to the original Upper Paleolithic inhabitants of Europe. The Aryans are most strongly associated with the Corded (nearly all of the male Corded Ware bodies bear the R1a1 haplogroup) and Irano-Afghan morphotypes.

So, I'll agree that the Irish are culturally and linguistically IE, but I don't believe that there's much evidence to show that they're actually descended from the Proto-Indo-Europeans.

The articles contained in my three blogs are my original material unless otherwise stated.
Regarding your argument that the Irish or Celtic language group is Indo-European but the Irish themselves are not Indo-European I find startling.
All the evidence points to the Indo-European colonisation of Ireland at the very beginnings of the Aryan dispersal. In terms of the language`s antiquity[Gaelic] it is on a par with Latin, Greek, Lithuanian and Sanskrit. I would have to ask you how is possible for a language as purely Indo-European as Old Irish to be brought to Ireland without any trace of non-Indo-European admixture by an entirely or almost entirely non-Indo-European people? It beggars belief!
I also must point out to you that the RIb haplogroup is THE predominate haplogroup throughout western Europe and its has a presence also in Iran and parts of India. Even the Tocharian mummies found in the Tarim Basin in China predominately had this haplogroup.
You will find that if you care to study the geographical division between the Centum and Satem Indo-European language groups that they broadly corelate with the western R1b[Centum] and the R1a [Satem] divisions. There is simply not enough evidence to support the theory[and theory is all that it is] that the original speakers of Indo-European were bearers of the R1a gene and only the R1a gene. It is a common but a fatal mistake to use language as the absolute or main idicator of race. We simply do not know enough about the migrations and history of our ancestors to know truth of this matter.
The R1a and R1b haplogroups are extremely closely related and point back to a common genetic ancestor for both groups. I defy you to find any significant racial difference between the bearers of both genes. Also remember that all of us will have a variety of haplogroups in our ancestry stretching back thousands of years. The only genes that are reliably traceable are the Y Chromosone and mtDNA haplogroups but this only paints part of the picture and tells us only part of a story.

[Psychonaut]

The articles contained in my three blogs are my original material unless otherwise stated.

:thumb001:


All the evidence points to the Indo-European colonisation of Ireland at the very beginnings of the Aryan dispersal. In terms of the language`s antiquity[Gaelic] it is on a par with Latin, Greek, Lithuanian and Sanskrit. I would have to ask you how is possible for a language as purely Indo-European as Old Irish to be brought to Ireland without any trace of non-Indo-European admixture by an entirely or almost entirely non-Indo-European people?

Linguistic diffusion quite often takes place without a wholesale genetic takeover. A prime example would be the Norman conquest of Norther France. Although the Norman invaders were genetically North European (and the region remains so to this day), they adopted the Latin based French language within the span of a single generation. Something quite similar could have very easily happened during the formation of the Celtic ethnicity during their time in Central Europe where we have more or less even distributions of R1b and R1a. After a few pre-Celtic Upper Paleolithic groups were conquered in Eastern or Central Europe, the language could then have been carried Westward by R1b bearing indigenous Europeans, not Aryans.


I also must point out to you that the RIb haplogroup is THE predominate haplogroup throughout western Europe

Quite true.


and its has a presence also in Iran and parts of India.

Not really. According to the well sourced Wiki article, R1b frequency in India is only 0.55%. It does not list statistics for Iran, but the whole Middle East has very low frequencies of R1b.


Even the Tocharian mummies found in the Tarim Basin in China predominately had this haplogroup.

The Tarim mummies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarim_mummies) were not tested for y-dna, only for mt-dna.


You will find that if you care to study the geographical division between the Centum and Satem Indo-European language groups that they broadly corelate with the western R1b[Centum] and the R1a [Satem] divisions. There is simply not enough evidence to support the theory[and theory is all that it is] that the original speakers of Indo-European were bearers of the R1a gene and only the R1a gene. It is a common but a fatal mistake to use language as the absolute or main idicator of race. We simply do not know enough about the migrations and history of our ancestors to know truth of this matter.

The R1a and R1b haplogroups are extremely closely related and point back to a common genetic ancestor for both groups. I defy you to find any significant racial difference between the bearers of both genes. Also remember that all of us will have a variety of haplogroups in our ancestry stretching back thousands of years. The only genes that are reliably traceable are the Y Chromosone and mtDNA haplogroups but this only paints part of the picture and tells us only part of a story.

According to the Wiki articles, the split between R1a and R1b from R1 occurred around 18,500 years ago for R1b and between 15,000 and 30,000 years ago for R1a. This kind far predates the centum/satem split.

[Loki]

According to the Wiki articles, the split between R1a and R1b from R1 occurred around 18,500 years ago for R1b and between 15,000 and 30,000 years ago for R1a. This kind far predates the centum/satem split.

Good point. Genetically speaking, the Irish people are perhaps the most un-Aryan people on the European continent! It would appear that the "Aryan" (i.e. Indo-European) legacy in the Irish was mostly cultural and linguistic -- but that the overwhelming bulk of Irish genetic material far pre-dates any Aryan invasion of Europe. The Irish are, along with the Basques, very much aboriginal genetic Europeans.

[Arahari]

Good point. Genetically speaking, the Irish people are perhaps the most un-Aryan people on the European continent! It would appear that the "Aryan" (i.e. Indo-European) legacy in the Irish was mostly cultural and linguistic -- but that the overwhelming bulk of Irish genetic material far pre-dates any Aryan invasion of Europe. The Irish are, along with the Basques, very much aboriginal genetic Europeans.

Do you have any evidence to support your assertion that the "Irish are perhaps the most un-Aryan people on the European continent" or is this just a simple example of blind fratricidal hatred?
How do you account for the presence of a pure Aryan culture and language but the lack of an Aryan carrier?

[Psychonaut]

Do you have any evidence to support your assertion that the "Irish are perhaps the most un-Aryan people on the European continent" or is this just a simple example of blind fratricidal hatred?
How do you account for the presence of a pure Aryan culture and language but the lack of an Aryan carrier?

Why would it be based on hatred at all? The fact that the Irish are European Aboriginals means that their connection the Europe's soil runs deeper than that of any Indo-European who swept in from the East.

[Loki]

Do you have any evidence to support your assertion that the "Irish are perhaps the most un-Aryan people on the European continent" or is this just a simple example of blind fratricidal hatred?


Hatred? Why hatred? The Irish are fine Europeans. The fact that they're not Aryans, doesn't take anything away from that.

I think the onus is on you to provide genetic evidence. The "Aryan" gene is commonly known to be R1a1. That gene is almost nonexistent among the Irish.



How do you account for the presence of a pure Aryan culture and language but the lack of an Aryan carrier?

Easy. Dominating peoples often rub off their cultures on invaded populations. Just look at South America -- totally Roman Catholic, but how many of them are of pure Spanish or Portuguese origin?

[Arahari]

Linguistic diffusion quite often takes place without a wholesale genetic takeover. A prime example would be the Norman conquest of Norther France. Although the Norman invaders were genetically North European (and the region remains so to this day), they adopted the Latin based French language within the span of a single generation. Something quite similar could have very easily happened during the formation of the Celtic ethnicity during their time in Central Europe where we have more or less even distributions of R1b and R1a. After a few pre-Celtic Upper Paleolithic groups were conquered in Eastern or Central Europe, the language could then have been carried Westward by R1b bearing indigenous Europeans, not Aryans.

But where is your evidence that a cultural takeover took place in Ireland without a genetic takeover? It simply isn`t there unlike the Norman conquest example. And unlike the Norman conquest where there is evidence of liguistic change it is not be found in the Irish tongue. Old Irish is as pure an Aryan language as any language can be and there is nothing unAryan in the mythology of the Irish people to indicate any Aryan elitist takeover of a majority unAryan population. Genetic evidence would be there if your theory was correct.. The Irish are one of the most racially homogenous populations in Europe and their relative geographical location has helped to ensure this. You have presented no evidence, merely theories.
The disribution and intensity of R1b is greater than R1a in western and central Europe.
Your theory falters when one considers the presence of R1b in the Iranian population. R1a has no Aryan primacy over the R1b and in fact the evidence is that the Nordic racial type is most greatly represented by the R1b.


Hatred? Why hatred? The Irish are fine Europeans. The fact that they're not Aryans, doesn't take anything away from that.

I think the onus is on you to provide genetic evidence. The "Aryan" gene is commonly known to be R1a1. That gene is almost nonexistent among the Irish.



Easy. Dominating peoples often rub off their cultures on invaded populations. Just look at South America -- totally Roman Catholic, but how many of them are of pure Spanish or Portuguese origin?

Your reasoning is without the presentation of actual evidence and in my opion is not unrelated to the general anti-Irish and anti-Celtic sentiment prevalent amongst Germanic peoples, most expecially by those who claim to be `racially aware` but are particularist in their sympathies.
You claim that the R1a gene is THE Aryan gene which I find quite amusing when most geneticists dsclaim the idea of an Aryan race or even the race concept itself!
The R1b gene is the most common gene found amongst native Indo-Europeans in the western and northern European living space so I am afraid the onus is on you to establish that I am wrong especially when the very same R1b may be found amongst the Iranians who claim for themselves the title of `Aryan`.


Easy. Dominating peoples often rub off their cultures on invaded populations. Just look at South America -- totally Roman Catholic, but how many of them are of pure Spanish or Portuguese origin?

But where is your GENETIC EVIDENCE for the existence of an Aryan invading culture carrier in Ireland that is seperate from the R1b majority population.

[Loki]

Your reasoning is without the presentation of actual evidence and in my opion is not unrelated to the general anti-Irish and anti-Celtic sentiment prevalent amongst Germanic peoples, most expecially by those who claim to be `racially aware` but are particularist in their sympathies.


No, I am not motivated by ethnic bias in this at all. Besides, Germans usually like Irish people more than English, which makes nonsense of your claim that Germanic peoples are inherently biased against Celts. Scandinavians also love the Irish. Maybe 1,500 years ago, but not this day.



You claim that the R1a gene is THE Aryan gene which I find quite amusing when most geneticists dsclaim the idea of an Aryan race or even the race concept itself!


Then why are you pushing the Aryan idea? It's completely irrelevant these days. There are no pure Aryans anymore. Modern Europeans are intermixed varieties of Indo-European and aboriginal European genetic stock.


But where is your GENETIC EVIDENCE for the existence of an Aryan invading culture carrier in Ireland that is seperate from the R1b majority population.

All that is left seems to be linguistic, after these millennia -- which is hardly surprising.

[Psychonaut]

But where is your evidence that a cultural takeover took place in Ireland without a genetic takeover? It simply isn`t there unlike the Norman conquest example. And unlike the Norman conquest where there is evidence of liguistic change it is not be found in the Irish tongue. Old Irish is as pure an Aryan language as any language can be and there is nothing unAryan in the mythology of the Irish people to indicate any Aryan elitist takeover of a majority unAryan population. Genetic evidence would be there if your theory was correct.. The Irish are one of the most racially homogenous populations in Europe and their relative geographical location has helped to ensure this. You have presented no evidence, merely theories.
The disribution and intensity of R1b is greater than R1a in western and central Europe.

First, no serious geneticist advocates that R1b is in any way, shape or form a distinctly Aryan haplogroup. If you believe this to be true, the onus is on you to demonstrate (hopefully with some citations) it. Second, the reason you see no evidence of a transition from the pre-Indo-European language that the Irish spoke before they were "Aryaized" is that there is absolutely no record of what that language might've been. We simply do not have written records of Paleolithic languages. As a matter of fact, we don't for most of the old Celtic languages either. Most of that (as is the case with Proto-Germanic) is researched through linguistic reconstruction.


Your theory falters when one considers the presence of R1b in the Iranian population. R1a has no Aryan primacy over the R1b and in fact the evidence is that the Nordic racial type is most greatly represented by the R1b.

Uh...where are you getting your information on R1a and R1b distribution? Looking at this database (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-DNA_haplogroups_by_ethnic_groups), R1b frequency in Northern Iran is only 15.2% and in the South is a meager 6%. At 33% haplogroup J (an indigenous Near Eastern group) dominates in Iran.

And regarding documentation for the connection between R1a and the Indo-European expansion, here's a well sourced quote from Wiki:


Semino et al. (2000) propose two dates of expansion, suggesting that the spread of R1a from a point of origin in Ukraine following the Last Glacial Maximum may have been magnified by the expansion of males from the Kurgan culture area of present-day southern Ukraine, from where, according to Gimbutas proposals,[14] Indo-European languages spread.
Historical distribution of the Slavic languages. The area shaded in light purple is the Prague-Penkov-Kolochin complex of cultures of the 6th to 7th c. AD, likely corresponding to the spread of Slavic tribes at the time. The area shaded in darker red indicates the core area of Slavic river names (after EIEC p. 524ff.)

Spencer Wells (2002), postulates southern Russia/Ukraine as the likely origin of R1a (as identified by genetic marker M17) on the basis of both microsatellite diversity and frequency distribution.[15] He enlarged on the correlation of R1a with the expansion of the Kurgan people.

The current distribution of the M17 haplotype is likely to represent traces of an ancient population migration originating in southern Russia/Ukraine, where M17 is found at high frequency(>50%) It is possible that the domestication of the horse in this region around 3,000 B.C. may have driven the migration. The distribution and age of M17 in Europe and Central/Southern Asia is consistent with the inferred movements of these people, who left a clear pattern of archaeological remains known as the Kurgan culture, and are thought to have spoken an early Indo-European language. The decrease in frequency eastward across Siberia to the Altai-Sayan mountains (represented by the Tuvinian population) and Mongolia, and southward into India, overlaps exactly with the inferred migrations of the Indo-Iranians during the period 3,000 to 1,000 B.C.[7]

[Arahari]

The Independent, 28 August 2006:


A meeting of civilisations: The mystery of China's celtic mummies

The discovery of European corpses thousands of miles away suggests
a hitherto unknown connection between East and West in the Bronze
Age. Clifford Coonan reports from Urumqi

Published: 28 August 2006

Solid as a warrior of the Caledonii tribe, the man's hair is
reddish brown flecked with grey, framing high cheekbones, a long
nose, full lips and a ginger beard. When he lived three thousand
years ago, he stood six feet tall, and was buried wearing a red
twill tunic and tartan leggings. He looks like a Bronze Age European.
In fact, he's every inch a Celt. Even his DNA says so.

But this is no early Celt from central Scotland. This is the
mummified corpse of Cherchen Man, unearthed from the scorched
sands of the Taklamakan Desert in the far-flung region of Xinjiang
in western China, and now housed in a new museum in the provincial
capital of Urumqi. In the language spoken by the local Uighur
people in Xinjiang, "Taklamakan" means: "You come in and never
come out."

The extraordinary thing is that Cherchen Man was found - with
the mummies of three women and a baby - in a burial site thousands
of miles to the east of where the Celts established their biggest
settlements in France and the British Isles.

DNA testing confirms that he and hundreds of other mummies found
in Xinjiang's Tarim Basin are of European origin. We don't know
how he got there, what brought him there, or how long he and
his kind lived there for. But, as the desert's name suggests,
it is certain that he never came out.

His discovery provides an unexpected connection between east
and west and some valuable clues to early European history.

One of the women who shared a tomb with Cherchen Man has light
brown hair which looks as if it was brushed and braided for her
funeral only yesterday. Her face is painted with curling designs,
and her striking red burial gown has lost none of its lustre
during the three millenniums that this tall, fine-featured woman
has been lying beneath the sand of the Northern Silk Road.

The bodies are far better preserved than the Egyptian mummies,
and it is sad to see the infants on display; to see how the baby
was wrapped in a beautiful brown cloth tied with red and blue
cord, then a blue stone placed on each eye. Beside it was a baby's
milk bottle with a teat, made from a sheep's udder.

Based on the mummy, the museum has reconstructed what Cherchen
Man would have looked like and how he lived. The similarities
to the traditional Bronze Age Celts are uncanny, and analysis
has shown that the weave of the cloth is the same as that of
those found on the bodies of salt miners in Austria from 1300BC.

The burial sites of Cherchen Man and his fellow people were marked
with stone structures that look like dolmens from Britain, ringed
by round-faced, Celtic figures, or standing stones. Among their
icons were figures reminiscent of the sheela-na-gigs, wild females
who flaunted their bodies and can still be found in mediaeval
churches in Britain. A female mummy wears a long, conical hat
which has to be a witch or a wizard's hat. Or a druid's, perhaps?
The wooden combs they used to fan their tresses are familiar
to students of ancient Celtic art.

At their peak, around 300BC, the influence of the Celts stretched
from Ireland in the west to the south of Spain and across to
Italy's Po Valley, and probably extended to parts of Poland and
Ukraine and the central plain of Turkey in the east. These mummies
seem to suggest, however, that the Celts penetrated well into
central Asia, nearly making it as far as Tibet.

The Celts gradually infiltrated Britain between about 500 and
100BC. There was probably never anything like an organised Celtic
invasion: they arrived at different times, and are considered
a group of peoples loosely connected by similar language, religion,
and cultural expression.

The eastern Celts spoke a now-dead language called Tocharian,
which is related to Celtic languages and part of the Indo-European
group. They seem to have been a peaceful folk, as there are few
weapons among the Cherchen find and there is little evidence
of a caste system.

Even older than the Cherchen find is that of the 4,000-year-old
Loulan Beauty, who has long flowing fair hair and is one of a
number of mummies discovered near the town of Loulan. One of
these mummies was an eight-year-old child wrapped in a piece
of patterned wool cloth, closed with bone pegs.

The Loulan Beauty's features are Nordic. She was 45 when she
died, and was buried with a basket of food for the next life,
including domesticated wheat, combs and a feather.

The Taklamakan desert has given up hundreds of desiccated corpses
in the past 25 years, and archaeologists say the discoveries
in the Tarim Basin are some of the most significant finds in
the past quarter of a century.

"From around 1800BC, the earliest mummies in the Tarim Basin
were exclusively Caucausoid, or Europoid," says Professor Victor
Mair of Pennsylvania University, who has been captivated by the
mummies since he spotted them partially obscured in a back room
in the old museum in 1988. "He looked like my brother Dave sleeping
there, and that's what really got me. Lying there with his eyes
closed," Professor Mair said.

It's a subject that exercises him and he has gone to extraordinary
lengths, dodging difficult political issues, to gain further
knowledge of these remarkable people.

East Asian migrants arrived in the eastern portions of the Tarim
Basin about 3,000 years ago, Professor Mair says, while the Uighur
peoples arrived after the collapse of the Orkon Uighur Kingdom,
based in modern-day Mongolia, around the year 842.

A believer in the "inter-relatedness of all human communities",
Professor Mair resists attempts to impose a theory of a single
people arriving in Xinjiang, and believes rather that the early
Europeans headed in different directions, some travelling west
to become the Celts in Britain and Ireland, others taking a northern
route to become the Germanic tribes, and then another offshoot
heading east and ending up in Xinjiang.

This section of the ancient Silk Road is one of the world's most
barren precincts. You are further away from the sea here than
at any other place, and you can feel it. This where China tests
its nuclear weapons. Labour camps are scattered all around -
who would try to escape? But the remoteness has worked to the
archaeologists' advantage. The ancient corpses have avoided decay
because the Tarim Basin is so dry, with alkaline soils. Scientists
have been able to glean information about many aspects of our
Bronze Age forebears from the mummies, from their physical make-up
to information about how they buried their dead, what tools they
used and what clothes they wore.

In her book The Mummies of Urumchi, the textile expert Elizabeth
Wayland Barber examines the tartan-style cloth, and reckons it
can be traced back to Anatolia and the Caucasus, the steppe area
north of the Black Sea. Her theory is that this group divided,
starting in the Caucasus and then splitting, one group going
west and another east.

Even though they have been dead for thousands of years, every
perfectly preserved fibre of the mummies' make-up has been relentlessly
politicised.

The received wisdom in China says that two hundred years before
the birth of Christ, China's emperor Wu Di sent an ambassador
to the west to establish an alliance against the marauding Huns,
then based in Mongolia. The route across Asia that the emissary,
Zhang Qian, took eventually became the Silk Road to Europe. Hundreds
of years later Marco Polo came, and the opening up of China began.

The very thought that Caucasians were settled in a part of China
thousands of years before Wu Di's early contacts with the west
and Marco Polo's travels has enormous political ramifications.
And that these Europeans should have been in restive Xinjiang
hundreds of years before East Asians is explosive.

The Chinese historian Ji Xianlin, writing a preface to Ancient
Corpses of Xinjiang by the Chinese archaeologist Wang Binghua,
translated by Professor Mair, says China "supported and admired"
research by foreign experts into the mummies. "However, within
China a small group of ethnic separatists have taken advantage
of this opportunity to stir up trouble and are acting like buffoons.
Some of them have even styled themselves the descendants of these
ancient 'white people' with the aim of dividing the motherland.
But these perverse acts will not succeed," Ji wrote.

Many Uighurs consider the Han Chinese as invaders. The territory
was annexed by China in 1955, and the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous
Region established, and there have been numerous incidents of
unrest over the years. In 1997 in the northern city of Yining
there were riots by Muslim separatists and Chinese security forces
cracked down, with nine deaths. There are occasional outbursts,
and the region remains very heavily policed.

Not surprisingly, the government has been slow to publicise these
valuable historical finds for fear of fuelling separatist currents
in Xinjiang.

The Loulan Beauty, for example, was claimed by the Uighurs as
their symbol in song and image, although genetic testing now
shows that she was in fact European.

Professor Mair acknowledges that the political dimension to all
this has made his work difficult, but says that the research
shows that the people of Xinjiang are a dizzying mixture. "They
tend to mix as you enter the Han Dynasty. By that time the East
Asian component is very noticeable," he says. "Modern DNA and
ancient DNA show that Uighurs, Kazaks, Kyrgyzs, the peoples of
central Asia are all mixed Caucasian and East Asian. The modern
and ancient DNA tell the same story," he says.

Altogether there are 400 mummies in various degrees of desiccation
and decomposition, including the prominent Han Chinese warrior
Zhang Xiong and other Uighur mummies, and thousands of skulls.
The mummies will keep the scientists busy for a long time. Only
a handful of the better-preserved ones are on display in the
impressive new Xinjiang museum. Work began in 1999, but was stopped
in 2002 after a corruption scandal and the jailing of a former
director for involvement in the theft of antiques.

The museum finally opened on the 50th anniversary of China's
annexation of the restive region, and the mummies are housed
in glass display cases (which were sealed with what looked like
Sellotape) in a multi-media wing.

In the same room are the much more recent Han mummies - equally
interesting, but rendering the display confusing, as it groups
all the mummies closely together. Which makes sound political
sense.

This political correctness continues in another section of the
museum dedicated to the achievements of the Chinese revolution,
and boasts artefacts from the Anti-Japanese War (1931-1945).

Best preserved of all the corpses is Yingpan Man, known as the
Handsome Man, a 2,000-year-old Caucasian mummy discovered in
1995. He had a gold foil death mask - a Greek tradition - covering
his blond, bearded face, and wore elaborate golden embroidered
red and maroon wool garments with images of fighting Greeks or
Romans. The hemp mask is painted with a soft smile and the thin
moustache of a dandy. Currently on display at a museum in Tokyo,
the handsome Yingpan man was two metres tall (six feet six inches),
and pushing 30 when he died. His head rests on a pillow in the
shape of a crowing cockerel.

[Treffie]

The eastern Celts spoke a now-dead language called Tocharian,
which is related to Celtic languages and part of the Indo-European
group.

Yes, but not quite. According to this, it could be just as closely related to the Romance Languages. Where's your point?

http://www.public.iastate.edu/~cfford/Indoeuropean%20language%20family%20tree.jpg

[Psychonaut]

The Independent, 28 August 2006:

A meeting of civilisations: The mystery of China's celtic mummies...

This article mentions absolutely nothing about the R1b haplogroup for a very good reason: the mummies have not been shown to carry it. What you've just offered up is a prime example of the ignoratio elenchi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignoratio_elenchi) logical fallacy. Try again.

[Liffrea]

There is a school of thought that roughly matches the competing theories of Mallory and Cunliffe regarding IE origins. Essentially IE origins take place within eastern Anatolia and the surrounding lands of Armenia, north-west Iran, northern Iraq and Syria as per Cunliffe amongst the early agricultural pioneers, via acculturation the lands north of the Caucasus and Black Sea begin to adopt proto-IE language (Mallory’s evidence would also suggest some Finno-Ugric input into the west Eurasian steppe at some point as well).

What we see from this theory is the agricultural pioneers entering Europe c.8000BC arriving in northern Europe c.4000BC, then from 4000BC onwards the Eurasian steppe peoples (Aryans) begin their migration reaching India c.1,500BC and northern Europe c.2000BC, essentially a later arrival of Aryan/IE speakers over an earlier IE presence.

[Arahari]

Yes, but not quite. According to this, it could be just as closely related to the Romance Languages. Where's your point?

http://www.public.iastate.edu/~cfford/Indoeuropean%20language%20family%20tree.jpg

This was just an article that I had found by searching the Internet which I thought might be of use as we did touch upon the issue of the Tocharians which I suppose merits a thread in its own right.


Why would it be based on hatred at all? The fact that the Irish are European Aboriginals means that their connection the Europe's soil runs deeper than that of any Indo-European who swept in from the East.

I contend that the Irish are not aboriginal in the sense that they like the rest of us are invaders of the British Isles They have certainly been in occupation of their soil longer than the rest of us but that does not technically make them `aboriginal`.
If you care to study the Irish Book of Invasions it makes it clear that there were a number of invasions and we do not know whether these invasions were all of people of the same ethnic or racial stock.
There simply is no evidence that the Irish are not descended from Indo Europeans. Their pure and ancient Aryan language, their Aryan mythology and racial phenotype[which is no less Aryan than any other Northern European people`s] are Aryan.
Neither is there any evidence which supports the theory[and theory is all that it is] that the R1a gene is THE Aryan gene. You are twisting the genetic evidence to support your preconceived notions of a prehistoric event which no one can be sure about.
As I have already pointed out the Irish are genetically similar to the English, Scots, Welsh and other northern and central European peoples.


No, I am not motivated by ethnic bias in this at all. Besides, Germans usually like Irish people more than English, which makes nonsense of your claim that Germanic peoples are inherently biased against Celts. Scandinavians also love the Irish. Maybe 1,500 years ago, but not this day.


I am not taliking about `loving` or `liking` a people. Let`s stick to the facts please and drop the soppy Mills and Boon stuff!
Throughout history there has been a deep enmity between Teuton and Celt as there has been between Teuton and Slav. One especially senses this in the British Isles where Teutons and Celts live side by side and often very uneasily.
Now I am not supposing that you actively hate the Celts; I am simply pointing out to you that a sense that the Celt is inferior has over the millenia been inculcated within the subconscious if not the conscious of Teutonic man. One even finds this in the Germanic designation for the Cymry-Welsh which derives from the Anglo-Saxon Wealas which means foreigners.
Today amongst people who are racially aware this feeling that the Celts are somehow inferior translates itself into the incorrect theory that they are not quite Aryan whilst we are. Yet Teuton and Celt by and large share the same or similar DNA.


Then why are you pushing the Aryan idea? It's completely irrelevant these days. There are no pure Aryans anymore. Modern Europeans are intermixed varieties of Indo-European and aboriginal European genetic stock.


Read my words carefully! I NEVER SAID that I did not support the Aryan concept I merely said that most geneticists today don`t and that is not because of science but politics.


All that is left seems to be linguistic, after these millennia -- which is hardly surprising.


I am still waiting for you to explain how a pure and ancient Aryan language can be discovered in Ireland along with an Aryan mythology and yet no evidence of an alien culture bearer in the Irish gene pool?


I'm curious, do you write these entries and run the blogs they're simulposted on or are they copy/pastes?



While the Celtic language family is certainly Indo-European, I don't think there's any evidence at all that the Irish blood is correspondingly IE. We know that the R1a1 y-dna haplogroup roughly corresponds to the expansion of the IE peoples (the peoples not the languages), yet R1a1 frequencies in Ireland only approach 0.5%. The dominant y-dna haplogroup on the island is R1b, which is widely believed to have been introduced to Europe in the Paleolithic era. Likewise, craniofacially, the dominant Irish morphotype is Bruenn, which is an unreduced Cro-Magnoid morphotype that is also thought to correspond to the original Upper Paleolithic inhabitants of Europe. The Aryans are most strongly associated with the Corded (nearly all of the male Corded Ware bodies bear the R1a1 haplogroup) and Irano-Afghan morphotypes.

So, I'll agree that the Irish are culturally and linguistically IE, but I don't believe that there's much evidence to show that they're actually descended from the Proto-Indo-Europeans.

There is no evidence whatsoever to link the Y Chromosone haplogroup Ria with the original bearers of Proto-Indo-European. To seriously attempt such a link will only cause you to meet with derision in academic circles and yet you persist in using the limited genetic data that we have to support your own particular theory and present it as scientific fact. By doing this you are knowlingly attempting to deceive thousands of people.


First, no serious geneticist advocates that R1b is in any way, shape or form a distinctly Aryan haplogroup. If you believe this to be true, the onus is on you to demonstrate (hopefully with some citations) it. Second, the reason you see no evidence of a transition from the pre-Indo-European language that the Irish spoke before they were "Aryaized" is that there is absolutely no record of what that language might've been. We simply do not have written records of Paleolithic languages. As a matter of fact, we don't for most of the old Celtic languages either. Most of that (as is the case with Proto-Germanic) is researched through linguistic reconstruction.

Here again you deliberately misreprent the facts. I could equally argue that "no serious geneticist advocates that" R1a "is in any way, shape or form a distinctly Aryan haplogroup." Indeed they would be very wary of drawing any such conclusions even if they seriously thought along those lines because of the political repercussions. Science is governed by politics, especially since 1945 when no academic generally dares to use the term Aryan in the sense that it was always used prior to 1945.
You are clinging to the R1a haplogroup because of its prevalence in the east and the vague idea that the Indo-Europeans invaded from the east. You are trying to draw a tenuous link between the two when you simply do not know whether such a link really exists.
So there is no greater onus on me to prove my theory than there is on you to prove yours. Indeed I am not making out the argument that one single gene[unlike you] is the determiner of race. So the onus is back on to you!
If the Irish were `Aryanised` then so must every other northern European population because R1b is prevalent throughout northern and central Europe[the heartland of today`s Nordic Aryan race] just as it is in Ireland.
Where is the Aryanising culture bearing geneitic component in modern Ireland that is responsible for the 100% Aryanisation of the ancient language of Ireland and its mythology? Where is it? This question is not going away, no matter how difficult you find it or how uncomfortable it makes you feel.
If you care to take some time in consulting some books on comparative philology you will find abundant evidence to support the argument for the purity and antiquity of the Gaelic language.



Uh...where are you getting your information on R1a and R1b distribution? Looking at this database (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-DNA_haplogroups_by_ethnic_groups), R1b frequency in Northern Iran is only 15.2% and in the South is a meager 6%. At 33% haplogroup J (an indigenous Near Eastern group) dominates in Iran.

And regarding documentation for the connection between R1a and the Indo-European expansion, here's a well sourced quote from Wiki:[


Once again you are misrepresenting what I am saying instead of addressing what I have actually said. I have argued for the significant presence of R1b in the modern Iranian genepool and your statistics have proven me correct.
15.2% is very high when you consider that the Iranian population like the Indian is greatly misceginated and will eventually quite possibly become extinct.
Now you cannot account for the high presence of this R1b unless you accept that there is no less a case for the bearers of Indo-European culture carrying the both the R1b and R1a genes.
What you have been implying thus far is that the original bearers of Indo-European culture, language and civilisation can only be confined to one specific haplogroup which when you think of it is quite ludicrous isn`t it?

[Jarl]

There is no evidence whatsoever to link the Y Chromosone haplogroup Ria with the original bearers of Proto-Indo-European. To seriously attempt such a link will only cause you to meet with derision in academic circles and yet you persist in using the limited genetic data that we have to support your own particular theory and present it as scientific fact. By doing this you are knowlingly attempting to deceive thousands of people.

Noone is deceiving nobody here. There is some evidence that high frequency of R1a largely co-incides with the spread of of Indo-Iranian language family, including the Indo-Aryan family. That's no big secret really.

[Arahari]

There is a school of thought that roughly matches the competing theories of Mallory and Cunliffe regarding IE origins. Essentially IE origins take place within eastern Anatolia and the surrounding lands of Armenia, north-west Iran, northern Iraq and Syria as per Cunliffe amongst the early agricultural pioneers, via acculturation the lands north of the Caucasus and Black Sea begin to adopt proto-IE language (Mallory’s evidence would also suggest some Finno-Ugric input into the west Eurasian steppe at some point as well).

What we see from this theory is the agricultural pioneers entering Europe c.8000BC arriving in northern Europe c.4000BC, then from 4000BC onwards the Eurasian steppe peoples (Aryans) begin their migration reaching India c.1,500BC and northern Europe c.2000BC, essentially a later arrival of Aryan/IE speakers over an earlier IE presence.

This is interesting and supports the theories put forward by Colin Renfrew in Archaeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins and by Professor L. Austine Waddell in his theories regarding the Aryan origins of the Phoenicians, Sumerians and northern Europeans in his The Phoenician Origins of Britons, Scots Discovered By Phoenician and Sumerian Inscriptions in Britain by Pre Roman Briton Coins[1924]


Noone is deceiving nobody here. There is some evidence that high frequency of R1a largely co-incides with the spread of of Indo-Iranian language family, including the Indo-Aryan family. That's no big secret really.

Likewise there is a high frequency of R1b in the Iranian modern genepool which equally supports the R1b being such a carrier.
In fact when one considers the prevalence of R1a in the east it is found in particular amongst the non-Nordic and quite bastardised eastern European and asiatic populations whilst R1b is more closely associated with the more Nordic west.

[Jarl]

Likewise there is a high frequency of R1b in the Iranian modern genepool which equally supports the R1b being such a carrier.
In fact when one considers the prevalence of R1a in the east it is found in particular amongst the non-Nordic and quite bastardised eastern European and asiatic populations whilst R1b is more closely associated with the more Nordic west.

I agree. Both haplogroups were probably present among Indo-Iranians. However, R1b has an uncomparably lower freq than R1a among the said populations. The fact is that it is R1a, not R1b that links most of the IE-speaking nations. And if we look specifically at the Indo-Iranians, R1a must have been the predominant Y-chromosome among this group, and in fact the whole Eastern IE "satem" branch, since antiquity (regardless of who the original proto-Indoeuropeans had been).

And one has to bear in mind that Indo-Iranians, Indo-Aryans always constituted the Eastern-most IE branch. I seriously doubt these sun-burnt steppe herdsmen were "Nordic" looking, with pinkish skin, rufous, or with ash-blonde hair and thin faces. In fact, I know they were not. Since ancient times they revealed Eastern traits, like flattened faces, brachycephaly, wider zygomatic bones. If we ressurected them from their graves right now, they would certainly not look the same as modern Swedes or Norwegians,


Throughout history there has been a deep enmity between Teuton and Celt as there has been between Teuton and Slav. One especially senses this in the British Isles where Teutons and Celts live side by side and often very uneasily

Now I am not supposing that you actively hate the Celts; I am simply pointing out to you that a sense that the Celt is inferior has over the millenia been inculcated within the subconscious if not the conscious of Teutonic man. One even finds this in the Germanic designation for the Cymry-Welsh which derives from the Anglo-Saxon Wealas which means foreigners. Today amongst people who are racially aware this feeling that the Celts are somehow inferior translates itself into the incorrect theory that they are not quite Aryan whilst we are. Yet Teuton and Celt by and large share the same or similar DNA.

Agreed. However, the language can be imposed. The Irish are one of the fairest nations in Europe. A highly adapted population that must have lived along the coast of the Atlantic for long centuries. In addition to this, they are also known for their relatively robust, large crania. This almost certainly marks a high proportion of the Paleolithic hunter-gatherer blood. Logically, Ireland was one of the most isolated places in Europe. Populations inhabiting Ireland must have retained the Paleolithic character to a larger degree than the continental ones.

[Arahari]

http://www.eupedia.com/europe/origins_haplogroups_europe.shtml

Haplogroup R1b (Y-DNA)
R1b (see distribution map) is the most common haplogroup in Western Europe, reaching over 90% of the population in some parts of western France, northern Spain or Ireland. It is widespread as far as Central Asia and Africa.

Haplogroup R1* might have originated in southern Central Asia (between the Caspian and the Hindu Kush), then developed into R1b* then R1b1* in the northern part of the Middle East during the Ice Age. It presumptively moved to northern Anatolia and across the Caucasus during the early Neolithic, where it became R1b1b. The Near Eastern leftovers evolved into R1b1a (M18), now found at low frequencies among the Lebanese and the Druze.The Phoenicians (who came from modern day Lebanon) spread this R1b1a and R1b1* to their colonies, notably Sardinia and the Maghreb.

The Proto-Indo-Europeans belonged both R1a and R1b. Their homeland was in the Pontic-Caspian steppe, in what is known as the Kurgan culture (7000-2200 BCE). The presence of R1b in modern times between the Black Sea and the Caucasus hints at the Maykop culture (3500-2500 BCE) as their most plausible homeland, while the Eurasian steppes to the north were R1a territory.

R1b1b2 probably appeared during Maykop culture. It was an advanced Neolithic culture of farmers and herders, and one of the very first to develop metalworking, and therefore metal weapons. Stuck between two seas and the Caucasus, they imaginably traded actively around the Black Sea, notably with the other R1b people from northern Anatolia (those that didn't cross the Caucasus and might be the ancestors of the Hittites).

Horse were first domesticated in the neighbouring Yamna culture (modern Ukraine) approximately 3500 BCE, and chariots were invented in the north-eastern steppes around 2000 BCE. Cavalry and chariots played an vital role in the subsequent Indo-European migrations, allowing them to move quickly and defeat easily anybody they encountered. Combined with advanced bronze weapons and their sea-based culture, R1b people are excellent candidates for being the mysterious Sea Peoples, who raided the eastern shores of the Mediterranean during the second millennium BCE.

The European branch

The Indo-Europeans' bronze weapons and horses would have given them a tremendous advantage over the autochthonous inhabitants of Europe, namely the native haplogroup I (descendant of Cro-Magnon), and the early Neolithic herders and farmers (G2a and E-V13). This allowed R1a and R1b to quickly replace (in all likelihood through warfare) most of the native male lineages, although female lineages seem to have been less affected.

A comparison with the Indo-Iranian invasion of South Asia shows that 40% of the male linages of northern India are R1a, but only 20% of the female lineages could be of Indo-European origin (H, J, K, T, U). The impact of the Indo-Europeans was more severe in Europe because European society 4,000 years ago was less developed in terms of agriculture, technology (no bronze weapons) and population density than that of the Indus Valley civilization. This is particularly true of the native Western European cultures where farming arrived much later than in the Balkans or central Europe. Greece was the most advanced of European societies and was the least affected in terms of haplogroup replacement. Native European Y-DNA haplogroups (I1, I2a, I2b) also survived better in regions that were more difficult to reach or less hospitable, like Scandinavia, Brittany, Sardinia or the Dinaric Alps.

R1a people appear to have been the first to penetrate into Europe, with the Corded Ware (Battle Axe) culture (3200-1800 BCE) as a natural western expansion of the Yamna culture. They went as far west as Germany and Scandinavia. DNA analysis from the Corded Ware culture site of Eulau confirms the presence of R1a (but not R1b) in central Germany around 2600 BCE.

R1b1b2 is thought to have arrived in central and western Europe around 2300 BCE, by going up the Danube from the Black Sea coast. This correspond to an archeological vacuum in the old Maykop homeland, so the migration must have been on a massive scale, maybe due to pressure from other (R1a) Indo-European people from the north. There might have been several consecutive waves across the Black Sea to the Danube, but the largest one between 2500 BCE (end of the Maykop culture) and 2300 BCE (beginning of the Unetice culture).

It is doubtful that the Beaker culture (2800-1900 BCE) was already Indo-European (although they were influenced by the Corded Ware culture), because they were the continuity of the native Megalithic cultures. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that the following Unetice (2300-1600 BCE), Tumulus (1600-1200 BCE), Urnfield (1300-1200 BCE) and Hallstatt (1200-750) cultures were linked to the spread of R1b to Europe, as they abruptly introduce new technologies and a radically different lifestyle.

These Proto-Italo-Celto-Germanic R1b people had settled around the Alps by 2300 BCE, and judging from the spread of bronze working, reached Iberia by 2250 BCE, Britain by 2100 BCE and Ireland by 2000 BCE. This is assumably when the R1b-L21 lineage came to the British Isles, from southern Germany. A second R1b expansion took place from the Urnfield/Hallstatt culture around 1200 BCE, pushing west to the Atlantic, north to Scandinavia, and as far east as Greece and Anatolia (=> see Dorian invasion below).

The new Bronze Age culture flourished around the Alps (Unetice to early Hallstatt) thanks to the abundance of metal in the region, and laid the foundation for the classical Celtic culture. The Celtic Iron Age (late Halstatt, from 800 BCE) may have been brought by a more recent wave of immigrants from new Koban culture (1100-400 BCE) in the eastern Black Sea homeland.

Alpine Celts of Hallstatt are associated with the S28 (a.k.a. U152) mutation, although not exclusively. The Italic branch (also S28/U152) is thought to have entered Italy by 1200 BCE, but there were certainly several succesive waves, as attested by the later arrival of the Cisalpine Celts. The Belgae were another S28/U152 branch, an extension of the La Tène culture northward, following the Rhine, Moselle and Meuse rivers.

R1b-S21 (a.k.a. U106) is found at high concentrations in the Netherlands and northern Germany. Its presence in other parts of Europe can be attributed to the 5th- and 6th-century Germanic migrations. The Frisians and Saxons spread this haplogroup to the British Isles, the Franks to Belgium and France, and the Lombards to Austria and northern Italy. The high concentration of S21/U106 around Austria hints that it could have originated there in the Hallstatt period, or originated around the Black Sea and moved there during the Hallstatt period. In fact, southern Germany and Austria taken together have the highest diversity of R1b in Europe. Besides S21, the three major first level subclades of R1b1b2a1b (L21, S28, M167) are found in this area at reasonable frequencies to envisage a spread from the Unetice to Hallstatt homeland to the rest of western Europe.

=> Trivia : Kings of many European countries have been confirmed to be R1b through genetic genealogy.

The Greco-Anatolian branch

The Hittites (2000-1200 BCE) were the first Indo-Europeans to defy (and defeat) the mighty Mesopotamian and Egyptian empires. The Hittite ruling class was plausibly an offshoot of the Maykop culture that had entered northern Anatolia via the sea route and conquered the Hattian kingdom. The Hattians might have had some R1b from the old Anatolian branch (from the early Neolithic) mixed with the other Anatolian E-M78, G2a and J2 people.

Other waves of (seaborne) R1b1b2 invaders from the Pontic-Caspian homeland are thought to have settled in Anatolia a few centuries later, where they became the Luwians, Lycians and Lydians (1450 BCE). Troy was most probably a colony to secure the trade routes of the Sea Peoples between the Black Sea and the Aegean. The Trojans were Luwian speakers related to the Hittites, with proven cultural ties to the culture of the Pontic-Caspian steppe. The first city of Troy dates back to 3000 BCE, right in the middle of the Maykop period, and exatly at the time the first galleys were made.

The Maykop culture was succeeded by the Srubna culture (1600-1200 BCE), then the Colchian culture (1200-600 BCE), which extended into the western Caucasus. Its further expansion to the south of the Caucasus correspond to the first historical mentions of the Proto-Armenian branch of Indo-European languages (around 1200 BCE).

The presence of R1b in Greece could be attributed to the Dorian invasion (1200 BCE), which correspond to the expansion of the Urnfield culture throughout Europe and Anatolia, and to the destruction of the Near-Eastern civilizations by the Sea Peoples. Greek R1b (including southern Italy) is divided between the Proto-Celtic S116/P312 and the eastern variety (known as ht35) from Anatolia. If the Dorian were ht35, they could be the descendants of the Trojans (seeking revenge for the destruction of their city a few decades earlier), or of the Hittites (or a combination of both). If they were S116/P312, it means that they could have been Proto-Celts from Hallstatt. Of course it can't be ruled out that the Trojans asked their "cousins" from Hallstatt for help to defeat the Myceneans, thus invading as a hybrid R1b faction of S116/P312 and ht35. The S116/P312 element could also be due to the later Roman occupation of Greece.

The Cimmerians were the last recorded to leave the Pontic-Anatolian homeland around 800 BCE, passing through Anatolia before going to Europe. The Athenians of Classical Greece (510-323 BCE) made a point to re-established the connections with all the Black Sea ports afterwards, as if to confirm their new genealogical tie with the old Dorian/Trojan homeland (or simply because they could, for the first time in history, since most of the R1b civilization had emigrated).

The Central Asian branch

An early group of R1b1b people is thought to have migrated from Caspian Sea region to Central Asia, where it evolved into the R1b1b1 (M73) branch. This variety of R1b occurs almost exclusively in very specific Central Asian populations. The highest percentages were observed among the Uyghurs (20%) of Xinjiang in north-west China, the Hazara people of Afghanistan (32%), and the Bashkirs (55%) of the Abzelilovsky district of Bashkortostan in Russia (border of Kazakhstan).

Central Asian R1b1b1 could correspond to the Tocharian branch of the Indo-Europeans. It is possible that the Tocharians split from the main R1b body as early as 7,000 BCE. Over the centuries some groups of these nomadic tribes ended up around the southern Urals, others in the Tarim Basin (Xinjiang) or in southern Central Asia.

Mummies of fair-haired Caucasian people were found in the Tarim Basin, the oldest of which date back to 1800 BCE. The modern inhabitants of the Tarim Basin, the Uyghurs, belong both to this R1b-M73 subclade (about 20%) and to R1a1 (about 30%). This could mean that they had become a hybrid R1b-R1a society by the time they reached the Tarim Basin. But R1a1 could also have arrived independently during the Indo-Iranian migrations, or much later through some nomadic Scytho-Iranian tribes.

Historical migrations of R1b until 3200 years before present
Click to enlarge

Back migrations
The earliest known back migration of R1b was from Asia to Africa and took place around 15,000 years ago. A group of R1b1* people moving from the Levant to Egypt, Sudan and spreading in different directions inside Africa to Rwanda, South Africa, Namibia, Angola, Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Guinea-Bissau. The hotspot is Cameroon. R1b1* was observed at a frequency of up to 95% in some tribes of northern Cameroon (like the Kirdi), and about 15% nationwide. It is in all likelihood where the early R1b people first settled, then spread south and east along the coast.

Other back migrations occured from Europe to the Near East and Central Asia during the Antiquity and Middle Ages. R1b-S28 was found in Romania, Turkey and at the border of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Some of it was surely brought by the Alpine Celts (Hallstatt/La Tène culture), known to have advanced along the Danube, and created the Galatian kingdom in central Anatolia. The rest could just as well be Roman, given that R1b-S28 is the dominant form of R1b in the Italian peninsula. Some have hypothetised that Roman legions went as far as Central Asia or China and never came back, leaving their genetic marker in isolated pockets. See also Were the Romans and the Alpine Celts close cousins ?

A small percentage of Western European R1b subclades were also found among Christian communities in Lebanon. They are most likely descendants of the crusaders.

[Psychonaut]

There is no evidence whatsoever to link the Y Chromosone haplogroup Ria with the original bearers of Proto-Indo-European. To seriously attempt such a link will only cause you to meet with derision in academic circles and yet you persist in using the limited genetic data that we have to support your own particular theory and present it as scientific fact. By doing this you are knowlingly attempting to deceive thousands of people.

Oh really? Try this on for size. The Corded Ware (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corded_Ware_culture) culture is widely believed in academic circles to have been responsible (http://www.kortlandt.nl/publications/art111e.pdf) for the spread of the Proto-Indo-European language. In 2005, skeletons from a Corded Ware burial site were genetically tested. All of the males bore the R1a1 haplogroup (http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2008/11/17/0807592105.DCSupplemental/0807592105SI.pdf). Please don't take my word on this; check the sources I've linked.


If the Irish were `Aryanised` then so must every other northern European population because R1b is prevalent throughout northern and central Europe[the heartland of today`s Nordic Aryan race] just as it is in Ireland.

That's exactly what I'm insinuating. Regions where R1b and I1a are dominant (like the extreme Western and Northern parts of Europe) are furthest from the genesis of the Proto-Indo-European people. Their transformation from European Aboriginal to Indo-European was much less a matter of population replacement and much more one of cultural and linguistic diffusion. This explanation of the spread of the IE languages perfectly accounts for the fact that the inhabitants of Europe who speak non-Indo-European languages are genetically similar to their geographic neighbors. For example, the Basques, who are anything but Indo-European, are nearly indistinguishable from Iberians at large. The same is true of the Finns who are nearly identical, genetically, to their Baltic neighbors.

[Arahari]

Oh really? Try this on for size. The Corded Ware (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corded_Ware_culture) culture is widely believed in academic circles to have been responsible (http://www.kortlandt.nl/publications/art111e.pdf) for the spread of the Proto-Indo-European language. In 2005, skeletons from a Corded Ware burial site were genetically tested. All of the males bore the R1a1 haplogroup (http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2008/11/17/0807592105.DCSupplemental/0807592105SI.pdf). Please don't take my word on this; check the sources I've linked.



That's exactly what I'm insinuating. Regions where R1b and I1a are dominant (like the extreme Western and Northern parts of Europe) are furthest from the genesis of the Proto-Indo-European people. Their transformation from European Aboriginal to Indo-European was much less a matter of population replacement and much more one of cultural and linguistic diffusion. This explanation of the spread of the IE languages perfectly accounts for the fact that the inhabitants of Europe who speak non-Indo-European languages are genetically similar to their geographic neighbors. For example, the Basques, who are anything but Indo-European, are nearly indistinguishable from Iberians at large. The same is true of the Finns who are nearly identical, genetically, to their Baltic neighbors.

I suggest that you read my previous post and try to be a little more objective and stand back a little from promoting your own Y Chromosone haplogroup.

[Jarl]

Besides, R1b is apparently older than R1a. Which seems credible. There are many populations with high R1a frequencies, and low or residual R1b, but hardly any with exclusively R1a and no R1b. This is not true for R1b populations. For instance the Basques and the Irish, have no R1a (in case of the Irish the very low fraction of R1a is almost certainly a mark of Saxon and Norwegian colonisation).

[Psychonaut]

I suggest that you read my previous post and try to be a little more objective and stand back a little from promoting your own Y Chromosone haplogroup.

The article provides no citations for any of the questionable claims made. Even (good) Wikipedia entries cite individual points of data within the entry.

[Jarl]

That's exactly what I'm insinuating. Regions where R1b and I1a are dominant (like the extreme Western and Northern parts of Europe) are furthest from the genesis of the Proto-Indo-European people. Their transformation from European Aboriginal to Indo-European was much less a matter of population replacement and much more one of cultural and linguistic diffusion. This explanation of the spread of the IE languages perfectly accounts for the fact that the inhabitants of Europe who speak non-Indo-European languages are genetically similar to their geographic neighbors. For example, the Basques, who are anything but Indo-European, are nearly indistinguishable from Iberians at large. The same is true of the Finns who are nearly identical, genetically, to their Baltic neighbors.

If we are to believe the Kurgan hypothesis, then this should be correct. If we are to associate the proto-IEs with the steppe herdsmen, then R1a should have been the most prevalent among them, just as it is the most prevalent haplogroup among the modern populations which descend from them. Tu put it in another way, R1a can be regarded as a marker more typical of the proto-Indoeuropeans (according to the Kurgan hypothesis) than R1b.

[Arahari]

The article provides no citations for any of the questionable claims made. Even (good) Wikipedia entries cite individual points of data within the entry.

I am still waiting[and it has been a long wait] to see any evidence at all from you to support your theory that the Irish population are an `Aryanised` aboriginal population.
Where are the culture bearing `Aryans` in today`s Ireland?
How do you account for the purity and antiquity of Irish Gaelic?

[Treffie]

I am still waiting[and it has been a long wait] to see any evidence at all from you to support your theory that the Irish population are an `Aryanised` aboriginal population.
Where are the culture bearing `Aryans` in today`s Ireland?
How do you account for the purity and antiquity of Irish Gaelic?

Can you please define purity?

[Psychonaut]

I am still waiting[and it has been a long wait] to see any evidence at all from you to support your theory that the Irish population are an `Aryanised` aboriginal population.
Where are the culture bearing `Aryans` in today`s Ireland?
How do you account for the purity and antiquity of Irish Gaelic?

I won't be typing all of this out, but if you're able to get your hands on a copy of Stephen Oppenheimer's The Origins of the British: The New Prehistory of Britain and Ireland from Ice-Age Hunter Gatherers to the Vikings as Revealed by DNA Analysis, you can see on pp. 114-155 (entitled "After the Ice") discusses that Ireland was populated by three successive waves of R1b during the Upper Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic eras. All three waves are described by Oppenheimer as being pre-Indo-European Megalithic peoples.

[Arahari]

Can you please define purity?

Irish Gaelic is pure in regards to its lack of contamination from alien elements and its antiquity places it on the same level as Sanskrit and Latin.
I suggest that as a started you consult The Aryan Origin of the Gaelic Race and Language by Ulick J. Bourke.


I won't be typing all of this out, but if you're able to get your hands on a copy of Stephen Oppenheimer's The Origins of the British: The New Prehistory of Britain and Ireland from Ice-Age Hunter Gatherers to the Vikings as Revealed by DNA Analysis, pp. 114-155 (entitled "After the Ice") discusses that Ireland was populated by three successive waves of R1b during the Upper Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic eras. All three waves are described by Oppenheimer as being pre-Indo-European Megalithic peoples.

I intend to purchase a copy of that book but please be aware of one salient fact: Oppenheimer is a jew and as we know most jews are strangers to the truth.
However I am still waiting for your explanation as to how Aryan language and culture were brought to Ireland and imposed 100% on an aboriginal population and where the descendants of the culture bearers are today?
Do you think that you could address that question and not continue to ignore it?

[Psychonaut]

I intend to purchase a copy of that book

It's a great read.


but please be aware of one salient fact: Oppenheimer is a jew and as we know most jews are strangers to the truth.

Beautiful ad hominem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem). :tsk:


However I am still waiting for your explanation as to how Aryan language and culture were brought to Ireland and imposed 100% on an aboriginal population and where the descendants of the culture bearers are today?
Do you think that you could address that question and not continue to ignore it?

I explained it once, but you did not accept my explanation. Linguistic diffusion without genetic replacement happens all the time. Blacks in America speak English. Are they English? No. Hell, I speak English; does that mean I'm English? Also, no.

[Jarl]

I intend to purchase a copy of that book but please be aware of one salient fact: Oppenheimer is a jew and as we know most jews are strangers to the truth.

This is a very convenient way to dismiss a scientific fact. It can be used any time something does not conform to our beliefs. Yet a scientific argument remains refutable on scientific basis.


However I am still waiting for your explanation as to how Aryan language and culture were brought to Ireland and imposed 100% on an aboriginal population and where the descendants of the culture bearers are today? Do you think that you could address that question and not continue to ignore it?

The same way as it was imposed on the Etruscans, Lygurians or Iberians - all of whom had probably high frequencies of R1b. However, unlike the Basques, they inhabited much more accessible and attractive coastal plains. The fact is that most of Western Europe, before the coming of the Celts and Italics, was inhabited by pre-IE peoples. These were gradually assimilated.

[Arahari]

It's a great read.



Beautiful ad hominem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem). :tsk:



I explained it once, but you did not accept my explanation. Linguistic diffusion without genetic replacement happens all the time. Blacks in America speak English. Are they English? No. Hell, I speak English; does that mean I'm English? Also, no.

Not an "ad hominem" but a statement of fact. Oppenheimer is a jew is he not?
Now where is your evidence for the "linguistic diffusion" in Ireland. When did this happen and who were the agents of this "diffusion"?
Your negroes in America are visible by their very presence and DNA. So are the people of English descent. Where however is the presence of the Aryan culture bearers to Ireland?


This is a very convenient way to dismiss a scientific fact. It can be used any time something does not conform to our beliefs. Yet a scientific argument remains refutable on scientific basis.



The same way as it was imposed on the Etruscans, Lygurians or Iberians - all of whom had probably high frequencies of R1b. However, unlike the Basques, they inhabited much more accessible and attractive coastal plains.

There are as many "scientific facts" as their are `scientists` and people who want to make a fast buck out of their latest theory and Oppenheimer`s theories are by no means universally accepted.

[Psychonaut]

Not an "ad hominem" but a statement of fact. Oppenheimer is a jew is he not?

On the contrary, that's a classic ad hominem. You, correctly, state that Oppenheimer is a Jew and then insinuate that his ethnicity implies duplicity in an attempt to invalidate my use of him as a source. That's a classic ad hominem straight out of the Third Reich.


Now where is your evidence for the "linguistic diffusion" in Ireland. When did this happen and who were the agents of this "diffusion"?
Your negroes in America are visible by their very presence and DNA. So are the people of English descent. Where however is the presence of the Aryan culture bearers to Ireland?

Given that the Irish are nearly identical to the Basques genetically, there are only two options. Either the Irish were an indigenous Megalithic people who adopted an Indo-European language (which is what my sources indicate), or the Basques were an Indo-European people who somehow developed a non-Indo-European language (which is not claimed by any authority I'm aware of). There's really not any other way to reconcile the genetic similarities between the Irish and the Basques alongside the linguistic discrepancies.

[Jarl]

On the close genetic relations between Iberia and the British Isles:


although this genetic relationship is also very strong among Basques and other Spaniards. In fact, as Stephen Oppenheimer has stated in "The Origins of the British" (2006), although Basques have been more isolated than other Iberians, they are a population representative of south western Europe. As to the genetic relationship among Basques, Iberians and Britons, he also states (pages 375 and 378):

By far the majority of male gene types in the British Isles derive from Iberia (modern Spain and Portugal), ranging from a low of 59% in Fakenham, Norfolk to highs of 96% in Llangefni, north Wales and 93% Castlerea, Ireland. On average only 30% of gene types in England derive from north-west Europe. Even without dating the earlier waves of north-west European immigration, this invalidates the Anglo-Saxon wipeout theory... ...75-95% of British and Irish (genetic) matches derive from Iberia...Ireland, coastal Wales, and central and west-coast Scotland are almost entirely made up from Iberian founders, while the rest of the non-English parts of the Britain and Ireland have similarly high rates. England has rather lower rates of Iberian types with marked heterogeneity, but no English sample has less than 58% of Iberian samples...

In fact, according to a European-wide study, the main components in the European genomes appear to derive from ancestors whose features were similar to those of modern Basques and Near Easterners, with average values greater than 35% for both these parental populations, regardless of whether or not molecular information is taken into account. The lowest degree of both Basque and Near Eastern admixture is found in Finland, whereas the highest values are, respectively, 70% ("Basque") in Spain and more than 60% ("Near Eastern") in the Balkans.[33][34]

And on the indigenous character of the Basques:


high concentration of Rh- (a typical European trait) among Basques, who have the highest level worldwide, had already been taken as suggestive of the antiquity and lack of admixture of the Basque genetic stock before the advent of modern genetics, which has confirmed this view. In the 1990s Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza published his findings according to which one of the main European autosomal components, PC 5, was shown to be a typically Basque trait believed to have receded owing to the migration of Eastern peoples during the Neolithic and Metal Ages.[1][2] Further genetic studies on Y chromosome DNA haplogroups[3] and X chromosome microsatellites[4] also seem to point to Basques being the most direct descendants from prehistoric Western Europeans.Having the highest percent of "Western European genes" but found also at high levels among neighbor populations,as they are also direct descendants of the same People. However, Mitochondrial DNA have cast serious doubts over this theory[5][6]

[Arahari]

On the contrary, that's a classic ad hominem. You, correctly, state that Oppenheimer is a Jew and then insinuate that his ethnicity implies duplicity in an attempt to invalidate my use of him as a source. That's a classic ad himinem straight out of the Third Reich.



Given that the Irish are nearly identical to the Basques genetically, there are only two options. Either the Irish were an indigenous Megalithic people who adopted an Indo-European language (which is what my sources indicate), or the Basques were an Indo-European people who somehow developed a non-Indo-European language (which is not claimed by any authority I'm aware of). There's really not any other way to reconcile the genetic similarities between the Irish and the Basques alongside the linguistic discrepancies.

Not just "out of the Third Reich". It is a common and legitimate line of reasoning amongst all peoples and races who have ever had the misfortune to come into contact with jews.
You see a people are judged by their collective behaviour down the millenia. I see no reason to exclude the jews from such judgement.
If the Irish are "nearly identical to the Basques genetically" then so is most of the population of western Europe which does not do much to enhance your argument.
I am still waiting for you to explain your theory as to how the Irish were `Aryanised` and by whom? Moreover where are the Aryanisers today?

[Psychonaut]

Not just "out of the Third Reich". It is a common and legitimate line of reasoning amongst all peoples and races who have ever had the misfortune to come into contact with jews.
You see a people are judged by their collective behaviour down the millenia. I see no reason to exclude the jews from such judgement.
If the Irish are "nearly identical to the Basques genetically" then so is most of the population of western Europe which does not do much to enhance your argument.
I am still waiting for you to explain your theory as to how the Irish were `Aryanised` and by whom? Moreover where are the Aryanisers today?

Whatever dude, I'm done. I won't repeat my explanation for a third time.

[Poltergeist]

Genetic tests and statistics have been overrated in some circles.

(it doesn't mean I support Arahari in this discussion)

[Treffie]

Irish Gaelic is pure in regards to its lack of contamination from alien elements and its antiquity places it on the same level as Sanskrit and Latin.
I suggest that as a started you consult The Aryan Origin of the Gaelic Race and Language by Ulick J. Bourke.


No, I don't need to. As a Celtic language speaker (Welsh, mother tongue), I'm quite comfortable knowing that all the current Celtic languages derived from Proto-Celtic. Language is a transient medium which does not necessarily define ones origins.

[Jarl]

...Ireland, coastal Wales, and central and west-coast Scotland are almost entirely made up from Iberian founders, while the rest of the non-English parts of the Britain and Ireland have similarly high rates. England has rather lower rates of Iberian types with marked heterogeneity, but no English sample has less than 58% of Iberian samples...

I think this colonisation of the British Isles by continental Celts is also portrayed in Celtic mythology. They were most likely the people who assimilated the more primitive indigenous people:


The Roman historian Tacitus described the Britons as being descended from people who had arrived from the continent (which at that time was dominated by the Celts), comparing the Caledonians in modern-day Scotland to their Germanic neighbours, the Silures of southern Wales to Iberian settlers and the inhabitants of south east Britannia to Gaulish tribes. This migrationist view long informed later views of the origins of the British Iron Age and indeed the making of the modern nations. Linguistic evidence inferred from the surviving Celtic languages in northern and western Great Britain appeared to back this idea up and the changes in material culture which archaeologists observed during later prehistory were routinely ascribed to a new wave of invaders.

Both archeological and historical evidence points to the fact that Celts colonised Iberia and the British Isles from the Gaul during Iron Age assimilating or pushing out the indigenous people.

[Arahari]

Whatever dude, I'm done. I won't repeat my explanation for a third time.

You have only repeated your mantra that the Irish are `Aryanised` aboriginals. What you simply refuse to do is give me any detailed explanation as to how they were aryanised, by whom and where their descendents are today. Why won`t you answer my question?


No, I don't need to. As a Celtic language speaker (Welsh, mother tongue), I'm quite comfortable knowing that all the current Celtic languages derived from Proto-Celtic. Language is a transient medium which does not necessarily define ones origins.

You are entirely avoiding the point. If the Irish are by and large merely Aryanised as suggested then there would be some evidence of this in the Irish Gaelic language. There simply isn`t.


I think this colonisation of the British Isles by continental Celts is also portrayed in Celtic mythology.

The Irish Book of Invasions indicates a series of five invasions but does not specify the ethnicity or race of the invaders.

[Jarl]

The Irish Book of Invasions indicates a series of five invasions but does not specify the ethnicity or race of the invaders.

Im only pointing to the fact that:

1. Celts were strangers and newcomers to both Iberia and the British Isles during Iron Age. They assimilated the locals who were non-IE speakers.

2. Modern Iberians and Basques share a common ancestry and are genetically close to the Irish and the Welsh.

If this this pre-Celtic, pre-IE substratum is evident among the modern Iberians, who are strongly related to the Basques, and at the same time its also evident among the Irish and the Welsh - then it points to the fact that also the British Isles were inhabited by non-IE speakers, who were subsequently assimilated by the Celts.

[Treffie]

You are entirely avoiding the point. If the Irish are by and large merely Aryanised as suggested then there would be some evidence of this in the Irish Gaelic language. There simply isn`t.



So you're saying that because Irish Gaelic is `pure` that it makes the Irish Aryans? I'd like to know why you make this assumption? I can provide you with vocabulary from Norse that has entered into Irish Gaelic if you want. How pure do you want it to be? Every language on earth takes loan words from other dominant or neighbouring languages, Irish Gaelic isn't an exception.

[Arahari]

Im only pointing to the fact that:

1. Celts were strangers and newcomers to both Iberia and the British Isles during Iron Age. They assimilated the locals who were non-IE speakers.

2. Modern Iberians and Basques share a common ancestry and are genetically close to the Irish and the Welsh.

If this this pre-Celtic, pre-IE substratum is evident among the modern Iberians, who are strongly related to the Basques, and at the same time its also evident among thr Irish and the Welsh - then it points to the fact that also the British Isles were inhabited by non-IE speakers, but were subsequently assimilated by the Celts.

Celts may have been invaders to the British Isles but you cannot possibly know the race or ethnicity of any previous populations through any of the means that we have at our disposal. It is all guesswork, nothing more.
I see that no one has the capacity here to explain to me how, when and by whom the Irish were `aryanised` and where the descendents of these aforesaid Aryanisers are today.
The silence speaks volumes for your `theories`!

[Arahari]

So you're saying that because Irish Gaelic is `pure` that it makes the Irish Aryans? I'd like to know why you make this assumption? I can provide you with vocabulary from Norse that has entered into Irish Gaelic if you want. How pure do you want it to be? Every language on earth takes loan words from other dominant or neighbouring languages, Irish Gaelic isn't an exception.

If the Irish are merely aryanised aboriginals there would be evidence of aboriginal loan words in the Old Irish Gaelic lexicon. Where are they?
It is no use referring to post Aryan invasion loan words such as Norse because that has nothing to do with the alleged aryanisation of the Irish people which must have occurred thousands of years ago if there is any validity to the theory.

[Jarl]

Celts may have been invaders to the British Isles but you cannot possibly know the race or ethnicity of any previous populations through any of the means that we have at our disposal. It is all guesswork, nothing more.

Everything concenring the past is a guesswork...unless you've got a timemachine.


I see that no one has the capacity here to explain to me how, when and by whom the Irish were `aryanised` and where the descendents of these aforesaid Aryanisers are today.
The silence speaks volumes for your `theories`!

Noone has the capacity because you don't listen. Psychonaut already quoted Oppenheimer's argument. There is evidence that the Celtic populations of the Brisith Isles are strongly related to Basques and modern Iberians - who descend from the pre-IE populations.

[Arahari]

Everything concenring the past is a guesswork...unless you've got a timemachine.



Noone has the capacity because you don't listen. Psychonaut already quoted Oppenheimer's argument. There is evidence that the Celtic populations of the Brisith Isles are strongly related to Basques and modern Iberians - who descend from the pre-IE populations.

There is no evidence just the opinions of a jewish geneticist with no expertise in philology. and you cannot ignore philology, culture or mythology if you want to get at the truth of the situation.
I am still waiting for answers to the following questions:

Who were the invading aryanisers?

Where are their descendents today?

When did this aryanisation occur?

How did it take place?

Why is there no evidence of this in Old Irish?

[Treffie]

If the Irish are merely aryanised aboriginals there would be evidence of aboriginal loan words in the Old Irish Gaelic lexicon.

Not necessarily. The same could be said for the English language. There are only a few words that have made it across from the Celtic languages into English. Take Welsh for example

Bug
Coracle
Corgi
Cwm
Flanne
Penguin
Gull

That's about it. Old Welsh was spoken over most parts of England but yet English has absorbed virtually nothing, the same can be said for place names.

[Jarl]

Who were the invading aryanisers?

Celts from the Gaul and Iberia - as stated by Tacitus.


Where are their descendents today?

British Isles


When did this aryanisation occur?

Brisiths Isles


How did it take place?

Assimilation of the indigenous.


Why is there no evidence of this in Old Irish?

How do we know there is no evidence? Is Old Irish the same as the ancient Gaulish?

[007]

Likewise, craniofacially, the dominant Irish morphotype is Bruenn, which is an unreduced Cro-Magnoid morphotype that is also thought to correspond to the original Upper Paleolithic inhabitants of Europe.

Have you got a source for that? I only ask because I was surprised to find that most of the people I saw there were slight and black-haired. Meds or Atlantids, iow

[Psychonaut]

Have you got a source for that? I only ask because I was surprised to find that most of the people I saw there were slight and black-haired. Meds or Atlantids, iow

I'm going by Coon's The Races of Europe (http://www.theapricity.com/snpa/chapter-X2.htm). I know it's, in ways, an outdated source, but large scale analysis of morphotypes simply isn't done any more.

[Piparskeggr]

I'm going by Coon's The Races of Europe (http://www.theapricity.com/snpa/chapter-X2.htm). I know it's, in ways, an outdated source, but large scale analysis of morphotypes simply isn't done any more.

Interesting...I scale out to Coon's arm span to stature index for the Irish within a few 1/10000's: 1.0507 (72.5"/69"). Could be why the fellow from Ireland thought I was a Burke without knowing anything about me.

[Goidelic]

Agreed. However, the language can be imposed. The Irish are one of the fairest nations in Europe. A highly adapted population that must have lived along the coast of the Atlantic for long centuries. In addition to this, they are also known for their relatively robust, large crania. This almost certainly marks a high proportion of the Paleolithic hunter-gatherer blood. Logically, Ireland was one of the most isolated places in Europe. Populations inhabiting Ireland must have retained the Paleolithic character to a larger degree than the continental ones.

Yes, this is true Jarl, the Irish are well known for having very large crania. My father's hat size was 7 7/8, in Ireland they've been known for making hats up to 8 1/4. I've seen some Irish with megacrania must be that Paleolithic hunter-gatherer blood like you mentioned, I wonder if this trait is at similar frequencies elsewhere in the British Isles or is it just mainly exclusive to the Irish in terms of their population and relative breeding isolation? I suppose large variation in cranial traits can be found in almost all geographical populations based on diet, environment, genes and selection. However, sub-Saharans aren't particularly well-known for very large crania. I'm not referring to artificial congenital malformation of the cranium that results in hydrocephalus though.

[Jarl]

Yes, this is true Jarl, the Irish are well known for having very large crania. My father's hat size was 7 7/8, in Ireland they've been known for making hats up to 8 1/4. I've seen some Irish with megacrania must be that Paleolithic hunter-gatherer blood like you mentioned, I wonder if this trait is at similar frequencies elsewhere in the British Isles or is it just mainly exclusive to the Irish in terms of their population and relative breeding isolation? I suppose large variation in cranial traits can be found in almost all geographical populations based on diet, environment, genes and selection. However, sub-Saharans aren't particularly well-known for very large crania. I'm not referring to artificial congenital malformation of the cranium that results in hydrocephalus though.

I presonally am not a great fun of environmentalism or selectionism. Like 99% modern geneticists I believe in the Neutral Theory. I can't see how cranial size can be a subject of strong selection. Its pretty much irrelevant to every day life and survival. I think drift and isolation are the main factors responsible for differentiation of cranial shape and size. I know Scots, particularly the Highlanders and Hebrideans are noted for their large crania, and generally for their large body size. Some areas of Wales are also noted for high frequency of large dolichocephalic crania.

Sub-Saharans, and generally most Blacks, have a more gracile skeletons and thinner bones. Particluaraly the Afro-Asiatics and Niger-Kordofanians, but not only them. And it makes sense. If we look at huma fossils, Africa was the centre of gracilisation. Its where the earliest fully modern fossils appeared. As for Europe. Most physical anthropologists were convinced there had been a Neanderthal stage. Looking at some skeletal material, one has to admit there is such a possibilty. Perhaps this, along with relative isolation, best explains European robusticity. Thus far genetics seems to contradict this theory. Yet I don't fully understand single-originist arguments. To me they are slightly too far-fetched.

[Psychonaut]

I presonally am not a great fun of environmentalism or selectionism. Like 99% modern geneticists I believe in the Neutral Theory. I can't see how cranial size can be a subject of strong selection. Its pretty much irrelevant to every day life and survival. I think drift and isolation are the main factors responsible for differentiation of cranial shape and size. I know Scots, particularly the Highlanders and Hebrideans are noted for their large crania, and generally for their large body size. Some areas of Wales are also noted for high frequency of large dolichocephalic crania.

One thing about extremely large crania that Coon mentions (and I observe every day) is the phenomena of island gigantism. A morphotype that develops in isolation on an island tends to get very large. Hawaiians and Samoans in particular have gigantic heads.

[Goidelic]

I presonally am not a great fun of environmentalism or selectionism. Like 99% modern geneticists I believe in the Neutral Theory. I can't see how cranial size can be a subject of strong selection. Its pretty much irrelevant to every day life and survival. I think drift and isolation are the main factors responsible for differentiation of cranial shape and size. I know Scots, particularly the Highlanders and Hebrideans are noted for their large crania, and generally for their large body size. Some areas of Wales are also noted for high frequency of large dolichocephalic crania.

Yeah, I agree Jarl. I'm not big on the environmental or selection theories myself. I think that these crania in the British Isles could also be due to a drift/isolated British Isles Celtic trait? Scots are mainly derived through Celtic ancestors (linguistic term), along with Irish and Welsh. I'm sure some of the English who derive from more "Celtic" lineages might also share these large crania with the other British Islanders? Psychonaut made a good point in that other biogeographic Islanders tend to have large crania, such as Hawaiians and Samoans.

[Jarl]

One thing about extremely large crania that Coon mentions (and I observe every day) is the phenomena of island gigantism. A morphotype that develops in isolation on an island tends to get very large. Hawaiians and Samoans in particular have gigantic heads.

Indeed! Founder effect and drifs quickly "fixes" alleles, speeding the race formation process up. As soon as you wrote about it, I immediately remembered Coon's description of Fehmaran islanders.


Yeah, I agree Jarl. I'm not big on the environmental or selection theories myself. I think that these crania in the British Isles could also be due to a drift/isolated British Isles Celtic trait? Scots are mainly derived through Celtic ancestors (linguistic term), along with Irish and Welsh. I'm sure some of the English who derive from more "Celtic" lineages might also share these large crania with the other British Islanders? Psychonaut made a good point in that other biogeographic Islanders tend to have large crania, such as Hawaiians and Samoans.

I think it might not be even a Celitc trait per se. It is only more frequent among Celts today, because it were the Celts who arrived to Britain before the Saxons, and assimilated the earlier, indigenous populations of Britain. As for isolation - its not just the Islands. Its been known for long that mountains and valleys also preserve old racial stocks. One only needs to look at Coon's descriptions of the Riffians, the Albanians or the Valle Norwegians.