Irish Ancestors and the Mesolithic period

[Daco Celtic]

Not at that time and in fact Bell Beakers were a bit of a puzzle. Genetics has sorted out the Bell Beakers now.

Do you know if he has revised what he presented in this video?

[Grace O'Malley]

Do you know if he has revised what he presented in this video?

Koch has so I presume he has but they still have that theory of Celtic from the West which to me is daft. They are experts but I think they ignore some logic in their conclusions. It's quite odd to me. It is really difficult waiting for Cassidy's latest paper to come out. People would have seen this paper because you can get it on university portals but you need a password. Someone did put a link in on Anthrogenica but it was taken down by the site moderators before I got a look at it.

Their Celtic from the West is not supported by the vast amount of linguists and with good reason. One of the most interesting questions to me lately is "Are Irish even Celtic genetically?" My thoughts are no from a genetics perspective. That doesn't mean that there wasn't any Celtic migration which I hope Cassidy will cover in her paper.

[Daco Celtic]

Koch has so I presume he has but they still have that theory of Celtic from the West which to me is daft. They are experts but I think they ignore some logic in their conclusions. It's quite odd to me. It is really difficult waiting for Cassidy's latest paper to come out. People would have seen this paper because you can get it on university portals but you need a password. Someone did put a link in on Anthrogenica but it was taken down by the site moderators before I got a look at it.

Their Celtic from the West is not supported by the vast amount of linguists and with good reason. One of the most interesting questions to me lately is "Are Irish even Celtic genetically?" My thoughts are no from a genetics perspective. That doesn't mean that there wasn't any Celtic migration which I hope Cassidy will cover in her paper.

Thanks, I appreciate your thoughts on this. You mention that they aren't Celtic from a genetics perspective. I assume you are referring to insular Celts? I'm not a huge fan of the word "Celtic" because people too often confuse language, culture, and genetics. I'm not totally convinced we know what constitutes Celtic genetics. Would you call Irish more Germanic rather than Celtic?

[Petalpusher]

That would be weird with that much R1b, like 80%. But in the end it still piles up various mesolithic type of ancestry, just not a lot in pure form or precisely from the era.

[Grace O'Malley]

Thanks, I appreciate your thoughts on this. You mention that they aren't Celtic from a genetics perspective. I assume you are referring to insular Celts? I'm not a huge fan of the word "Celtic" because people too often confuse language, culture, and genetics. I'm not totally convinced we know what constitutes Celtic genetics. Would you call Irish more Germanic rather than Celtic?

I personally don't agree with labelling something like genetics as Celtic or Germanic. I agree with what you have said. Celtic and Germanic are both language group and the people that spoke these languages don't necessarily have to be the same genetic wise i.e. not all present Germanic populations plot together today. A lot of genetics that we see now appears to have been set down in the Bronze Age and before these language groups evolved. I wouldn't call the Irish Germanic but their genetics is more similar to populations today that are Germanic. They are closest to their British neighbours, the Dutch and Scandinavians. Irish appear to have got most of their genetics from the Bronze Age but there might have been a few smaller migrations after but the Bronze Age Beakers have contributed the most.

I'd personally like to hear what Creoda thinks on this topic.

[Grace O'Malley]

That would be weird with that much R1b, like 80%. But in the end it still piles up various mesolithic type of ancestry, just not a lot in pure form or precisely from the era.

Petalpusher I always value your insight so could you expand on this?

[Creoda]

I personally don't agree with labelling something like genetics as Celtic or Germanic. I agree with what you have said. Celtic and Germanic are both language group and the people that spoke these languages don't necessarily have to be the same genetic wise i.e. not all present Germanic populations plot together today. A lot of genetics that we see now appears to have been set down in the Bronze Age and before these language groups evolved. I wouldn't call the Irish Germanic but their genetics is more similar to populations today that are Germanic. They are closest to their British neighbours, the Dutch and Scandinavians. Irish appear to have got most of their genetics from the Bronze Age but there might have been a few smaller migrations after but the Bronze Age Beakers have contributed the most.

I'd personally like to hear what Creoda thinks on this topic.

I agree with everything you've said. I think Irish are majority Irish Bell Beaker, and probably more Celtic than Germanic, but not by as much as people would think. On the other hand I think the English (at least SE English) are majority Celtic + Germanic, minority British Bell Beaker.

[Daco Celtic]

I personally don't agree with labelling something like genetics as Celtic or Germanic. I agree with what you have said. Celtic and Germanic are both language group and the people that spoke these languages don't necessarily have to be the same genetic wise i.e. not all present Germanic populations plot together today. A lot of genetics that we see now appears to have been set down in the Bronze Age and before these language groups evolved. I wouldn't call the Irish Germanic but their genetics is more similar to populations today that are Germanic. They are closest to their British neighbours, the Dutch and Scandinavians. Irish appear to have got most of their genetics from the Bronze Age but there might have been a few smaller migrations after but the Bronze Age Beakers have contributed the most.

I'd personally like to hear what Creoda thinks on this topic.

Yes, I agree. There is a strong connection between theses populations. I also think there is a lot of genetic overlap between what we call "Celts" and Germanic tribes.

[Petalpusher]

I was reacting to the first post's bottomline that 80% of Irish's dna comes from the mesolithic, but we have come a long way since then in genetics. Just from an Ydna perspective it would have been weird (even if ydna dynamics are sometimes very weird and random), but yeah Irish are mostly a late neo + BA mix, with likely less recent input compared to the rest of UK. Their true local mesolithic is probably just a few percents acquired in the early neolithic, so you add that + what the farmers already had, + what the IE had, it makes up a good chunk of mesolithic in the end, but it's not from that era for the most part.

I also don't buy much in the Celtc/Germanic stuff, Bell Beaker folks were Bell Beaker folks.. it's possible some locations resulted with different bias in looks, but scientifically there s no real way to distinguish them at the beginning, only what you make of them in culture, languages, afterwards.

[Grace O'Malley]

I was reacting to the first post's bottomline that 80% of Irish's dna comes from the mesolithic, but we have come a long way since then in genetics. Just from an Ydna perspective it would have been weird (even if ydna mechanics are sometimes very weird and random), but yeah Irish are mostly a late neo + BA mix, with likely less recent input compared to the rest of UK. Their true local mesolithic is probably just a few percents acquired in the early neolithic, so you add that + what the farmers already had, + what the IE had, it makes up a good chunk of mesolithic in the end, but it's not from that era for the most part.

Most of the genetics appear to have been brought in with the Bell Beakers. Irish appear to be more GAC than Irish neolithic for example. I'm sure Cassidy's paper will go into this stuff and have some ancient genomes to clarify the picture a bit more.