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From: "Grady Loy" <>
Subject: Re: [Gen-Ancient] Georgia & the Caucasus - Garden of Eden? [Was: Edessa, Judea, and Armenia]
Date: Sun, 18 Apr 2004 05:55:46 +0900
References: <20040417115947.64564.qmail@web41703.mail.yahoo.com>


I do not know anything specific of the DNA of the Welsh or Irish other than
what I read in Mr. Moody's post. It may be significant though that it is
now coming to be thought that in the various prehistori and ancient
invasions of the British Isles, the actual numbers of migrants has tended to
be small. Certainly the numbers of Anglo Saxons that actually migrated from
the German are now thought to be small, at most several ten thousand onto
islands whose total population was somewhere between one and five million.
It appears increasingly as if Gildas account of the Anglo Saxons being
brought over as mercenaries or federates was right and they probably
rebelled when whoever it was that hired them lost power or was no longer
able to pay them. They took over and administered the country and the
conquered population, for whatever reasons some peoples as opposed to others
choose to do this, adapted to the ways and language of their conquerors.
Hence the change in language is not necessarily matched by a an equally
dramatic change in the genetic makeup of the population. It is likely that
the Celts from the continent were able to impose their rule and language on
the indigenous peoples of Great Britain and Ireland several hunred years
before the Romans and then the Saxons were able to do so. The people least
affected by these migrations would be the people in the west, the Welsh, the
West Country English, the Cymri of Cumberland, the Dalriatan Scots, the
Picts, the Irish, the Cornish and so on. This was likely to have been true
up to the Danish and Norse invasions anyway. The Danish and Norse Invasions
and the peaceful migrations of settlers from the European Low Countries and
from time to time from France probably affected the genetic makeup more
significantly of the English and perhaps to a lesser extent the West
Countries. However, I do not know one way or the other but would expect
that given that there is not that much real evidence for a fire and sword
conquest of the Britih Isles involving wholesale extermination or exiling of
indigenous populations (as was long believed to be the case) I would expect
the genetic makeup of the Celtic Countries of the British Isles to be
somewhat different and perhaps more "indigenous" to western Europe (though
we are all indiginous soemwhere) than that of the LaTene Celts or the
Halstatt Celts who first came out of Eastern Europe between two and three
thousand years ago.

I remeber hearing that the Alani were once settled around Orleans in France
(360's) and that they were the bodygaurd of choice for the Emperor Gratian
(Aetius likewise preferred the Huns, Aegidus the Franks and Avitus the
Visigoths) prior to his assasination by the usurping emperor Maximus.
Another "Scythian" (and perhaps essentially similar people from the Caucasus
or nearby) group were the Teifali who though not Germanic were regarded as
part of the Visigoths, and who settled near Poitiers in France in the mid to
late 400's and who were still a distinct population in that region in the
mid 500's. I would be interested to know if anyone knows more about their
origins.

Also on the topic of descents from the Georgian Royal family, Anna Comnena
mentiones a member of that family (Maria) marrying into the Byzantine
Comneni but not in the main line (to a brother of the emperor).

Best Regards

Grady Loy


----- Original Message -----
From: "Francisco Antonio Doria" <>
To: <>
Sent: Saturday, April 17, 2004 8:59 PM
Subject: RE: [Gen-Ancient] Georgia & the Caucasus - Garden of Eden? [Was:
Edessa, Judea, and Armenia]



Dear Carolyn,

I must say I'm having trouble following you. Basque is
an isolated language, perhaps related to another
isolated language in mid-Asia, while the Celtic group
is derived from the indo-european (or indo-hittite)
family.

It is conjectured that the name Iberia was carried
from Eastern Iberia to Spain by the Alans; the name
Galicia to Galiza in Northern Portugal was again
derived from some similar migratory movement.

The Basque people, again, is *very* isolated: one of
their genetic characteristics is the Rh negative blood
group.

fa


--- Carolyn Clark Campbell <>
escreveu: > This potential Basque-Celtic connection is
very
> interesting indeed.
> When my husband and I first came to Georgia a few
> years ago, we were
> told that the only hypothetical connections between
> the Georgian
> language group (which includes Georgian, Mingrelian,
> Svan and Tsan, and
> Georgian-Jewish [a dialect of Georgian as Yiddish is
> of German and
> Ladino of Spanish] -- all languages restricted to
> the Caucasus region)
> are Basque and Gaelic. Since then, we have heard
> that some linguists
> have pooh-poohed the potential Gaelic and/or Basque
> connections with
> Georgian -- now if they are connected with each
> other that adds to the
> sense that there could be possible connections of
> Georgian with both.
>
> The potential Basque connection with the Georgians
> is intriguing ...
> we've always been puzzled as to why ancient East
> Georgia (which is where
> the Udi live) was called Iberia, a term now used for
> Spain, although one
> theory was that the Romans simply used the term for
> "a far-away place,"
> which, of course, both Georgia and Spain were
> vis-à-vis ancient Rome. It
> would make sense that people from the Caucasus might
> want to settle in
> the Pyrenees, just as my Scottish ancestors were
> attracted to the
> mountains of North Carolina (many places in Georgia
> remind me of both
> Scotland and North Carolina).
>
> My friend who's been working with the Udi people
> here actually started
> with Irish voyage origin legends and worked his way
> back through 10
> locations in the early ballads to the Caucasus. It
> will make an
> interesting study when he finally gets a chance to
> write it.
>
> At present, all we have is interesting speculation,
> so it would be
> exciting to get some kind of scientific studies (DNA
> & linguistic) of
> the people here. Of course, because of all the
> foreign invasions the
> genetics of the people here are undoubtedly a vast
> hodge-podge. I'm told
> a significant number of newborns here in Georgia
> carry the "Mongol spot"
> -- which is common among Hungarians as well -- a
> large blue bruise-like
> birthmark in the "small" of the backside below the
> waist -- an
> indication of Asian genetic heritage -- I've noticed
> most Korean babies
> have the same marking, which disappears when they
> get older. The Mongol
> invasion of Georgia was so devastating that
> something like 90% of the
> people were killed during that period, and the
> population has never
> fully recovered in numbers.
>
> My husband, who is of Jewish descent (except through
> the
> paternal-paternal-paternal line, which is Prussian
> -- hence no Y DNA
> connection with early Jews, though one culturally
> inherits "being
> Jewish" through one's mother), and I, who am largely
> of Celtic descent
> (both the Clarks and the Campbells came from
> Scotland), though lots of
> my lineage is English, both feel absolutely "at
> home" in this culture --
> an odd experience in a land with such an alien
> language. We've traveled
> to many countries where we've loved the people and
> their culture, but
> never before had the "feeling" of almost having
> re-discovered "home". I
> keep eerily running into men who look remarkably
> like they could be my
> father's brothers, while my husband finds it an
> extraordinary experience
> to be warmly welcomed for his Jewish heritage by
> people who consider
> "their" Jews to be an important and treasured part
> of their own culture
> and history.
>
> Europeans who come here immediately identify Georgia
> as obviously
> European -- the appearance, the demeanor, the
> intellectual history is so
> evidently European. Italians write about how
> Italian the culture seems,
> but French see how closely it is allied to French
> culture, and the
> Germans and Dutch and Scandinavians feel a warm
> sense of brotherhood
> with the people. Yet having lived as a part of an
> Asian family in my
> early years (my first husband was Korean) I see so
> many parallels with
> Asian culture -- a Korean would feel very much at
> home in Georgian
> family life ... What is it about this place that we
> all feel such an
> affinity?
>
> (Undoubtedly totally irrelevant: a Malagasque friend
> of mine who spent
> some time with the Basques, upon seeing photos of my
> grandchildren who
> are 1/2 Irish, through their father, and 1/4 Korean,
> through my
> daughter, exclaimed -- oh, my! They look exactly
> like Basque children!)
>
> Carolyn Clark Campbell
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Phil Moody [mailto:]
> Sent: Saturday, April 17, 2004 7:31 AM
> To:
> Subject: Re: [Gen-Ancient] Georgia & the Caucasus -
> Garden of Eden?
> [Was: Edessa, Judea, and Armenia]
>
> "Carolyn Clark Campbell" wrote:
>
> the Ossetians (now trying to be independent of
> Georgia in the
> > south and Russia in the north), are more credibly
> claimed to be the
> > descendants of the Scythians, who moved across
> Europe as the Goths;
> and
> > years ago I remember reading in the National
> Geographic that the Celts
> > also originated here and spread across Europe
> during the last
> millennium
> > B.C. One linguist is trying to document a
> connection between Gaelic
> and
> > the language of the remaining Udi people (less
> than 1,000 left) who
> were
> > expelled by Stalin but have returned to their
> original homeland in
> East
> > Georgia, where the Romans originally called them
> Albanians (no
> relation
> > to current Albania) and they had a major
> civilization with its own
> > writing system.
>
> PLM: Perhaps, it would behoove this linguist to
> substantiate his
> research with
> some Y DNA testing of the Udi male population. Here
> is an interesting
> study
> online "Genetic evidence for different male and
> female roles during
> cultural
> transitions in the British Isles", at:
> http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/98/9/5078
>
> A few quotes to peak your interest:-)
>
> "Basque Population History. To investigate the
> degree of paternal
> genetic
> continuity in the British Isles through the
> Neolithic and the
> development of
> Iron Age cultures, we compared the Welsh and Irish
> samples with 50
> Basques
> (28, 29). The Basques are widely believed to be
> descended from the
> Paleolithic
> inhabitants of Europe for reasons including the
> following: ***(i) Basque
> is a
> non-Indo-European language with some features
> suggesting a distant
>
=== message truncated ===

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