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Subject: Re: [DNA] "Celtic" dna
Date: Sat, 08 Jan 2005 19:21:55 +0000


Nice overview of things Ellen. I agree with everything you said until the part below <snipped>. I take exception to one or two points you make since there is no evidence to back up some of the conjecture.

Where do you find evidence that R1a was in Britain in Neolithic times? Although at this point we can't be certain of much, the evidence coming from studies at TCD for Ireland indicate almost zero R1a - particularly in the Western areas. The only R1a is found in the areas known to have been settled by the Vikings. Jim Wilson was the first to state that R1a is "the" Viking marker in Britain. If you are R1a, and your ancestors came from Britain, then it is a slam dunk that they arrived there with the Vikings - although it is possible that some few relate to earlier immigrants such as the Western Sarmatians.

As far as I can see there is no evidence of ancient Britons being anything but R1b and I1c (now I2) as reflected in the work being done at TCD. The few J2, G2 and so on in britain can be best explained as a funcition of the well documented presence of Sarmatian and other Roman mercinaries who are known to have settled in Britain after their military service (many were given land grants there).

If you have even a snipit of evidence that R1a in Britain is anything but a Viking marker I would like to see it - and so would the academic world at large.

David F.



-------------- Original message --------------

> Alan and List:
<snipped>

> I think it is impossible to tell what the DNA
> contribution of mainland Indo-European speakers to
> places like Ireland were. As Don noted in his post,
> they undoubtedly contained some percentage of R1b,
> though I disagree strongly that they were "almost all
> R1bs." My theory, based on haplogroup distributions,
> that the early Indo-European speakers, including the
> Celts, were a mixture of haplogroups, with possibly
> high percentages of R1a and some unknown percentage of
> R1b - possibly very high as well.
>
> A recent linguistic study directly addressing some of
> the issues in these posts was conducted by Dr. Peter
> Forster at the Molecular Genetics Laboratory. These
> new linguistic studies use DNA techniques for
> mutational change to determine how languages come into
> being. It is debateable whether such DNA techniques
> are appropriately transferable to linguistics studies,
> though their results have been quite spectacular.
>
> According to Forster's study, the formation of the
> Celtic languages and their migration through Europe is
> pushed back thousands of years than what has been
> previously accepted. Also, Forster's study proposes
> the novel theory that the Celtic languages (minus
> Continental Celtic) split in Britain. Thus, there
> were not separate migration waves of P and Q speakers
> into Britain (thus, they would be genetically very
> similar). This has become known as the "single wave
> to Britain" theory.
>
> Now this study ties into the earlier spectacular
> linguistic study published recently indicating that
> the earliest Indo-Europe languages (Hittite, Greek,
> etc) formed in Turkey about 8000-9000 BC, migrating
> out of that area with the Anatolian farmers.
>
> The Celtic language is believed to have formed in the
> second wave of Indo-European migrations, between
> 3000-4000 years ago, probably just north of Anatolia -
> around the Black Sea (where there was undoubtedly
> heavy concentrations of R1a peoples, along with some
> R1b, J, E, etc). This formation date is particularly
> important because it coincides with the date that
> farming was introduced to Britain - about 4000 BC.
>
> So it appears that movement of the Indo-European
> languages, culture and in some cases, haplogroup
> migrations, may be tied particularly to emergence of
> agriculture in Europe.
>
> According to Forster, to impose a language on the
> majority, it is necessary to have some kind of elite
> knowledge - one leading theory is that the knowledge
> was agriculture, the other suggests it was the ability
> to tame and ride horse coming from the Asian steppes
> and Black Sea area.
>
> Ellen Coffman

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