British Isles ancestry is Iberic?

[Catrau]

Blood of the Irish: DNA Proves Ancestry of the People of Ireland


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The red-hair gene is most common in Irish blood.


Blood of the Irish

The Blood in Irish veins is Celtic, right? Well, not exactly. Although the history many Irish people were taught at school is the history of the Irish as a Celtic race, the truth is much more complicated, and much more interesting than that ...

Research done into the DNA of Irish males has shown that the old Anthropological attempts to define 'Irish' have been misguided. As late as the 1950s researchers were busy collecting data among Irish people such as hair colour and height, in order to categorise them as a 'race' and define them as different to the British. In fact British and Irish people are closely related in their ancestry.

Research into Irish DNA and ancestry has revealed close links with Scotland stretching back to before the Ulster Planation of the early 1600s. But the closest relatives to the Irish in DNA terms are actually from somewhere else entirely!

Irish Blood: origins of DNA


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Medieval map of Ireland, showing Irish tribes.


The earliest settlers came to Ireland around 10,000 years ago, in Stone Age times. There are still remnants of their presence scatter across the island. Mountsandel in Coleraine in the North of Ireland is the oldest known site of settlement in Ireland - remains of woven huts, stone tools and food such as berries and hazelnuts were discovered at the site in 1972.

But where did the early Irish come from? For a long time the myth of Irish history has been that the Irish are Celts. Many people still refer to Irish, Scottish and Welsh as Celtic culture - and the assumtion has been that they were Celts who migrated from central Europe around 500BCE. Keltoi was the name given by the Ancient Greeks to a 'barbaric' (in their eyes) people who lived to the north of them in central Europe. While early Irish art shows some similarities of style to central European art of the Keltoi, historians have also recognised many significant differences between the two cultures.

The latest research into Irish DNA has confirmed that the early inhabitants of Ireland were not directly descended from the Keltoi of central Europe. In fact the closest genetic relatives of the Irish in Europe are to be found in the north of Spain in the region known as the Basque Country. These same ancestors are shared to an extent with the people of Britain - especially the Scottish.

DNA testing through the male Y chromosome has shown that Irish males have the highest incidence of the haplogroup 1 gene in Europe. While other parts of Europe have integrated contiuous waves of new settlers from Asia, Ireland's remote geographical position has meant that the Irish gene-pool has been less susceptible to change. The same genes have been passed down from parents to children for thousands of years.

This is mirrored in genetic studies which have compared DNA analysis with Irish surnames. Many surnames in Irish are Gaelic surnames, suggesting that the holder of the surname is a descendant of people who lived in Ireland long before the English conquests of the Middle Ages. Men with Gaelic surnames, showed the highest incidences of Haplogroup 1 (or Rb1) gene. This means that those Irish whose ancestors pre-date English conquest of the island are direct descendants of early stone age settlers who migrated from Spain.

Irish and British DNA : a comparison


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The Kingdom of Dalriada c 500 AD is marked in green. Pictish areas marked yellow.


I live in Northern Ireland and in this small country the differences between the Irish and the British can still seem very important. Blood has been spilt over the question of national identity.

However, the lastest research into both British and Irish DNA suggests that people on the two islands have much genetically in common. Males in both islands have a strong predominance of Haplogroup 1 gene, meaning that most of us in the British Isles are descended from the same Spanish stone age settlers.

The main difference is the degree to which later migrations of people to the islands affected the population's DNA. Parts of Ireland (most notably the western seaboard) have been almost untouched by outside genetic influence since hunter-gatherer times. Men there with traditional Irish surnames have the highest incidence of the Haplogroup 1 gene - over 99%.

At the same time London, for example, has been a mutli-ethnic city for hundreds of years. Furthermore, England has seen more arrivals of new people from Europe - Anglo-Saxons and Normans - than Ireland. Therefore while the earliest English ancestors were very similar in DNA and culture to the tribes of Ireland, later arrivals to England have created more diversity between the two groups.

Irish and Scottish people share very similar DNA. The obvious similarities of culture, pale skin, tendancy to red hair have historically been prescribed to the two people's sharing a common celtic ancestry. Actually it now seems much more likely that the similarity results from the movement of people from the north of Ireland into Scotland in the centuries 400 - 800 AD. At this time the kingdom of Dalriada, based near Ballymoney in County Antrim extended far into Scotland. The Irish invaders brought Gaelic language and culture, and they also brought their genes.

Irish Characteristics and DNA

The MC1R gene has been identified by researchers as the gene responsible for red hair as well as the accompanying fair skin and tendency towards freckles. According to recent research, genes for red hair first appeared in human beings about 40,000 to 50,000 years ago.

These genes were then brought to the British Isles by the original settlers, men and women who would have been relatively tall, with little body fat, athletic, fair-skinned and who would have had red hair. So red-heads may well be descended from the earliest ancestors of the Irish and British.

A spoof (and very funny) exploration into the characteristics of all Irish-blooded males can be read at this link: www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend. Identified genes include IMG or the Irish Mother Gene and the GK (MF) S Gene Kelly-Michael-Flately-Syndrome which explains the inability of the Irish man to move his hips while dancing!


Irish origin myths confirmed by modern scientific evidence

One of the oldest texts composed in Ireland is the Leabhar Gabhla, the Book of Invasions. It tells a semi-mythical history of the waves of people who settled in Ireland in earliest time. It says the first settlers to arrive in Ireland were a small dark race called the Fir Bolg, followed by a magical super-race called the Tuatha de Danaan (the people of the goddess Dana).

Most interestingly, the book says that the group which then came to Ireland and fully established itself as rulers of the island were the Milesians - the sons of Mil, the soldier from Spain. Modern DNA research has actually confirmed that the Irish are close genetic relatives of the people of northern Spain.

While it might seem strange that Ireland was populated from Spain rather than Britain or France, it is worth remembering that in ancient times the sea was one of the fastest and easiest ways to travel. When the land was covered in thick forest, coastal settlements were common and people travlleled around the seaboard of Europe quite freely.

Source: http://marie-mckeown.hubpages.com/hub/Irish-Blood-Genetic-Identity#

This article reminds me my visit last year to A Coruna and to the Hercules Tower. By this tower stands the statue of Breogan who built a very high tower and whose sun Ith saw in the distant horizon a green island (Ireland) he would conquer. It is the allegory of the Iberic settlement of the British Isles.

Photos I took there.

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Brigantia (A Coruna) in Galicia and Bragança in Portugal were named after Breogan (According to some)
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Fantastic places..

[Lábaru]

This study again, the specific ancestor vary depending on the version, sometimes the ancestors are the Basques, other are the Galicians or Cantabrian and Asturians.

Old and partially wrong.

[Catrau]

I know it is 1 year old and that you are very aware of this issue. Not everyone is as aware as you.

Do you want to explain why is it partially wrong. That is the purpose of the thread.

[Graham]

Aye, old study. For example it only mentions 'DNA of Irish males'. Meaning Ydna. It'll be the R1b connection..

The new younger R-L21 connection between Basqueland & the Isles, is interesting though. It may be worth testing the others in Iberia, on it.

[gold_fenix]

My own hypotesis is common antecessor, a common atlantic substratum viewing the hipothesis of someone there is a place where R1b branches found in Western Europe can be traced to Belgium , (i said for this of Belgium, the hidden Doggerland)

[Catrau]

It sounds more logic a mainland Europe crossing from France than a long trip from northern Iberia even if with scales.

Are there any studies comparing the irishwith the French Britons for example?

[1stLightHorse]

Brythonic/Irish/Welsh yeah, aka the Native British Isles people.

By this i mean, you can find Iberian celt y-dna markers in the Irish.

MMA fighter Rich Franklin tested for an Iberian celtic clade. Franklin is obviously an Irish name.
http://cdn.bleacherreport.net/images_root/slides/photos/001/095/222/rich_franklin_prev_display_image.jpg?1310666462

[Damião de Góis]

I think this should be sufficient to highlight how different we are. Even with the thing that binds us together: R1b.

http://img850.imageshack.us/img850/4161/r1bsubstructurev2.png

[Catrau]

Native might be a rhetoric style. How old are their archeological remains?
They must be some 10000 to 15000 years old (if I'm correct), the archeological remains from my ancestors, 1 mile from my home are 40000 years old. We know that there was a return to the higher latitudes after the last glaciation and that Iberia and Southern France were the initial exits.

[Catrau]

I think this should be sufficient to highlight how different we are. Even with the thing that binds us together: R1b.

http://img850.imageshack.us/img850/4161/r1bsubstructurev2.png

Of course. Also the British isles became the migration spot for many peoples thru history and those peoples effectively stay there. The Iberic connection should be diluted. Contrary to us. There wasn't much migration, there were occupations (mainly military). Maybe the barbarians might be the one that came to stay but they didn't had much impact. I read somewhere that in the north their impact can amount to 10-14% of the total ancestry. Those cheese graphs for us might be pretty close the Neolithic.

[Catrau]

Is distinctive DNA marker proof of ancient genocide?

"Did you know Ireland has the highest concentration of men with the R1b DNA marker? No fewer than 84 per cent of all Irish men carry this on their Y chromosome.

While this marker is also high on male Y chromosomes in parts of Britain, particularly Wales, according to commercial ancestry testing company IrelandsDNA, the high prevalence here may indicate the arrival of a lot of people at a broadly similar time who weren’t prepared to peacefully co exist with the settlers here.

“The high prevalence rates have always perplexed Irish geneticists and historians,” says Alastair Moffat of IrelandsDNA. The firm’s research proposes a new hypothesis. There is already established evidence suggesting that the first farmers, (carrying the Y chromosome lineage of ‘G’, which can be found across Europe) arrived in Kerry about 4,350BC.

According to IrelandsDNA, the so called ‘G-Men’ may have established farming in Ireland “but their successful culture was almost obliterated by what amounted to an invasion, even a genocide, some time around 2,500BC” (the frequency of G in Ireland is now only 1.5 per cent). “There’s a cemetery in Treille [France], where ancient DNA testing has been carried out and almost all men carry the ‘G’ marker but the women don’t,” says Moffat. They carry native/indigenous markers. This strongly suggests incoming groups of men.
Because the R1b marker is still so prevalent in Ireland and is also frequently found in places like France and northern Spain we believed that around 2,500 BC, the R1b marker arrived in Ireland from the south.”

Moffat admits it is just a hypothesis but cites connections which lead to this theory. “The first signs of farming in Ireland were found on the Dingle peninsula in Kerry, which suggests people coming from the south,” he says. “If you look at Lebor Gabála Érenn or The Book of the Taking of Ireland [a Middle Irish collection recounting mythical origins of life in Ireland dating from the 11th century] most of the invasions come from the south.”

The southern migrants referred to by Moffat were the Beaker people, originating from Iberia. It has also been suggested that it was they who may have brought Celtic languages up the Atlantic coast.
Moffat cites archaeological evidence, from the Copper Age, to suggest this movement. “Evidence for the beginning of the Copper Age in Ireland is also found in the south, particularly Ross Island in Killarney, where a tremendous complex system of prehistoric mines exists. It’s clear that the copper was exported.

“How did these new people impose themselves in such a big way,” he asks. “It has to have been through conflict. The early people were farmers so they invested generations of effort in improving the land. When these new people show up they must have used violence to shift the ‘G-Men’. The frequency of ‘G-Men’ is tiny in Ireland. Compare the statistics: 1 per cent versus 84 percent.”

Not everyone is convinced, however. “What they [IrelandsDNA] are suggesting is based on a very strong interpretation of a small piece of a genetic pattern,” says Prof Dan Bradley from the Smurfit Institute of Genetics. “There’s no real scientific evidence to warrant the use of terms like ‘genocide’. You can’t link modern genetic variation securely through archaeological strata without ancient DNA testing also. You can certainly have conjecture and there are indeed ways of looking at the time and depth of these things. But they have very wide margins for error. The reality is I don’t think we can securely place any of these DNA marker patterns in time without ancient DNA testing.”

Ancient DNA testing has been ongoing in Ireland for the last two years by Bradley in Trinity and Prof Ron Pinhasi in the UCD School of Archaeology, who is involved with a large project of ancient DNA testing throughout Europe.

“I don’t know of any time in history where a culture came in and completely wiped out another,” says Pinhasi. “You don’t see total wipeouts, unless there is reason for a population to become extinct, like massive climate change. But we have no reason to believe Bronze Age farmers became extinct this way.

“Sure there were a lot of population movements and mixing going on at this time. That’s why modern people don’t look like neolithic people, genetically speaking, but it would have had minimal impact on the gene pool” he says. “You’re not going to have hundreds of thousands of people suddenly coming from Spain but you would definitely have had smaller groups coming in boats. Plus there’s no archeological proof of any massive warfare or battles here at that time.”

The mapping out of ancient genetics of populations from 45,000BC to the Bronze Age, now under way, may very possibly reveal many misconceptions about our past."

Source:
The Irish Times (25th July 2013)
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/science/is-distinctive-dna-marker-proof-of-ancient-genocide-1.1426197

[Graham]

The Bell Beaker culture starting from Iberia going through the Basque region up west France to Brittany, & into Western Britain as R-L21. Bringing in the Proto-Celtic Culture & Bell Beaker culture. With older R1b found in the South & younger in the North West. I agree


Moffat can get too far ahead of himself though. Talking of genocide with a lack of evidence.

[Catrau]

Moffat can get too far ahead of himself though. Talking of genocide with a lack of evidence.

Agree, genocide could have happen but if use it to explain the massive R1b, it had to be a total wipe out and that seems improbable. Unless Ireland was almost depopulated.