Irish DNA blueprint more closely related to Basques

gurramok · 15-09-2010 10:13am #1

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/dna-blueprint-of-the-irish-revealed-2333700.html

Indo wrote:

Major genetic surveys of Ireland and Britain have established that the gene pool of both islands is amongst the least diluted in Europe. The genetic evidence shows that three quarters of the ancestors of the Irish and British people were the pioneering settlers who arrived at the end of the last ice age between 17,000 and 8,000 years ago. The inescapable upshot of this is that the Irish are not Celts, any more than the English are Anglo-Saxons.

In fact, both the Irish and the British are Basques, with the Irish significantly more Basque than our neighbours across the pond, who've absorbed more migrations from Europe over the centuries.

Scientists estimate that Ireland's gene pool has changed remarkably little since the first hunter-gatherers from Iberia followed the retreating ice cap, beachcombing northwards and settling this newly exposed and empty land. The dilution rate for Ireland is estimated at a tiny 12%, against 20% for Wales and Cornwall, 30% for Scotland and 33% for England.

The genetics suggest that, with sea levels low, the Basques simply walked to Ireland, becoming cut off generations later when rising seas created the island we know. Ancient Irish legends say that there were six invasions or migrations from the south many generations before the Celts arrived around 300BC.

The evidence suggests that the Celtic language, fashions and technologies which are supposed to define our Irish heritage, were acquired as cultural accessories in the way that today's Irish schoolkids flounce about under the impression that they're gangsta rappers straight out of Compton or Beverly Hills brat-packers.

The Irish and Basques share by far the highest incidence of the R1b gene in Europe, which has a frequency of over 90% in Basque country and almost 100% along parts of Ireland's western seaboard.

If further proof were needed, there's the physical fact that the Basques are distinguished by a very high incidence of fair (and some reddish) hair, pale skin, blue eyes, and, apparently, sticky-out ears.

Can't find the Irish Times article on the subject. What are your thoughts on us being more closely related to the Basques?

Johnmb · 15-09-2010 12:06pm

This is old news. Although most reporters have a very poor understanding of the information they are reporting on. Both the Irish and the Basque populations are descended from the same ancient European population that existed way back when Ireland was first being settled, and neither have had as much new blood join them as have joined the other populations in other parts of Europe. There were no Basques at the time for us to be descended from them, just as there were no Irish for them to be descended from us. We are both descended from the same ancient population, but not from each other.

fontanalis · 15-09-2010 2:06pm

Johnmb wrote: »

This is old news. Although most reporters have a very poor understanding of the information they are reporting on. Both the Irish and the Basque populations are descended from the same ancient European population that existed way back when Ireland was first being settled, and neither have had as much new blood join them as have joined the other populations in other parts of Europe. There were no Basques at the time for us to be descended from them, just as there were no Irish for them to be descended from us. We are both descended from the same ancient population, but not from each other.

Exactly, it's also misleading to apply modern labels to ancient populations who knew of no such boundaries. The Basque region seems to have a very high rate of a certain genetic marker, something like 95% (in Ireland, Scotland and Wales it's around mid 70's and England around 60%). For a long time the Basques were thought to be unique in Europe from a genetic point of view (that title seems to go to the Finns), though their language being a language isloate is interesting.
I think the Atlantic seaboard played a big part in ancient Irish history so people from the West Coast may have deeper links than people on the East due to old links to England & Wales.
Anyway the timing of the moevemnts is now a bit all over the place, see below.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/09/a-tale-of-y-chromosomes-and-tea-leaves/

owenc · 15-09-2010 6:20pm

fontanalis wrote: »

Exactly, it's also misleading to apply modern labels to ancient populations who knew of no such boundaries. The Basque region seems to have a very high rate of a certain genetic marker, something like 95% (in Ireland, Scotland and Wales it's around mid 70's and England around 60%). For a long time the Basques were thought to be unique in Europe from a genetic point of view (that title seems to go to the Finns), though their language being a language isloate is interesting.
I think the Atlantic seaboard played a big part in ancient Irish history so people from the West Coast may have deeper links than people on the East due to old links to England & Wales.
Anyway the timing of the moevemnts is now a bit all over the place, see below.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/09/a-tale-of-y-chromosomes-and-tea-leaves/

What haplogroup is that?

owenc · 15-09-2010 6:24pm

gurramok wrote: »

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/dna-blueprint-of-the-irish-revealed-2333700.html

Can't find the Irish Times article on the subject. What are your thoughts on us being more closely related to the Basques?

Hmm that is interesting because one my relatives on my dads side did the y thingy dna test and got r1a. is that common...?

fontanalis · 15-09-2010 6:31pm

owenc wrote: »

What haplogroup is that?

That's R1b. Here is more discussion on the issue,and somethig in R1a.
http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2010/08/r1b-founder-effect-in-central-and.html

http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2009/11/finally-structure-in-haplogroup-r1a.html

owenc · 15-09-2010 6:36pm

fontanalis wrote: »

That's R1b. Here is more discussion on the issue,and somethig in R1a.
http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2010/08/r1b-founder-effect-in-central-and.html

http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2009/11/finally-structure-in-haplogroup-r1a.html

Ok, thanks hmmm interesting, so my family is not celtic then away farr out like 200ad? lol...... I know that mines is most common in scandanavia does anyone have any figures for the uk regions?

Revolution9 · 15-09-2010 6:37pm

Sinn Fein and ETA will be delighted.

fontanalis · 15-09-2010 6:39pm

owenc wrote: »

Ok, thanks hmmm interesting, so my family is not celtic then away farr out like 200ad? lol...... I know that mines is most common in scandanavia does anyone have any figures for the uk regions?

Don't get too carried away with things like celtic, I think it's more of a catch all term for peopel who speak one of the celtic languages (or spoke some of the extinct ones). I think geentics is good for an overall/geenral brush stroke movement of people. Trying to break it down to a micro level gets messy, imho.
Have a dig through the following list of entries, you might find more on R1a. My understanding is that it implies a more Easter origin (I think there was a glacial refuge around the Ukraine).
http://dienekes.blogspot.com/search/label/R1a

owenc · 15-09-2010 6:41pm

fontanalis wrote: »

Don't get too carried away with things like celtic, I think it's more of a catch all term for peopel who speak one of the celtic languages (or spoke some of the extinct ones).

Ok so what group does it belong to then? The whole celtic anglo saxon thing etc etc i mean? I hope its not some asian thing!:eek: Where is it most common in the uk or the british isles?

fontanalis · 15-09-2010 6:49pm

owenc wrote: »

Ok so what group does it belong to then? The whole celtic anglo saxon thing etc etc i mean? I hope its not some asian thing!:eek: Where is it most common in the uk or the british isles?

I think the people who fall under the terms celtic/saxon/pict/angle/jute/norman/viking all belong to R1b but there are many branches and whose to say that groups with modern names branched off as mutations occurred. Ultimatley I think the origin may be Asian or middle Eastern (the area around Kazakhstan and Tajikstan seemed to be important as the Ice Age ended), anyway I think the term Aryan in genetics implies more or less Asian as it was originally linguistc term.
It seems the whole thing may be revised as the article form the Discover Magazione blog said what was being attributed to 8,000 to 12,000 years may in fact be closer to 3,000 or 4,000. I think statistics is used a lot to judge mutation rates, trying to second guess population growth, family size etc

brianthebard · 15-09-2010 7:13pm

owenc wrote: »

Ok so what group does it belong to then? The whole celtic anglo saxon thing etc etc i mean? I hope its not some asian thing!:eek: Where is it most common in the uk or the british isles?

um, what's wrong with Asians? The term celtic, or at least the modern meaning, was pretty much invented by Matthew Arnold less than 200 years ago iirc. It doesn't have any meaningful connection to the past it pretends to describe. The same to an extent goes for the term anglo saxon.

owenc · 15-09-2010 9:47pm

fontanalis wrote: »

I think the people who fall under the terms celtic/saxon/pict/angle/jute/norman/viking all belong to R1b but there are many branches and whose to say that groups with modern names branched off as mutations occurred. Ultimatley I think the origin may be Asian or middle Eastern (the area around Kazakhstan and Tajikstan seemed to be important as the Ice Age ended), anyway I think the term Aryan in genetics implies more or less Asian as it was originally linguistc term.
It seems the whole thing may be revised as the article form the Discover Magazione blog said what was being attributed to 8,000 to 12,000 years may in fact be closer to 3,000 or 4,000. I think statistics is used a lot to judge mutation rates, trying to second guess population growth, family size etc

So scandinavians and scottish people are originally asians! omg. :eek: I'm going to look and see what the numbers for my thing are in the uk and where it is most common.......i always thought that because its asian it would be in spain and the southeast but whatever....

Maybe that is where i get my blue eyes from!?

owenc · 15-09-2010 9:52pm

brianthebard wrote: »

um, what's wrong with Asians? The term celtic, or at least the modern meaning, was pretty much invented by Matthew Arnold less than 200 years ago iirc. It doesn't have any meaningful connection to the past it pretends to describe. The same to an extent goes for the term anglo saxon.

Well i want something to be proud of that i like, i mean i'm sure theirs some heritages that you would hate to be even part of!? I certainly don't like this haplogroup after reading about its history, its not very popular in the uk either i feel like an outcast. :rolleyes:

brianthebard · 15-09-2010 10:18pm

owenc wrote: »

Well i want something to be proud of that i like, i mean i'm sure theirs some heritages that you would hate to be even part of!? I certainly don't like this haplogroup after reading about its history, its not very popular in the uk either i feel like an outcast. :rolleyes:

Em no I'm not like that, plus I can accept that a lengthy series of random events may have led to my genetic make up without personal issue.

fontanalis · 16-09-2010 12:26am

People ultimately have to come from somewhere, what were you expecting? Again it's more of a case of Asians and Europeans with R1a having common ancestry.
How can a Haplogroup be hated?

riffmongous · 16-09-2010 12:57am

I guess the question is how much faith do you put in blood? I'd like to point out that the historical St.Patrick didn't even come from Ireland which I think says a lot.

For me I'm proud of my Gaelic heritage and at the end of the day didn't we all come from Africa?

owenc · 16-09-2010 7:18am

AW well at least i know my scottish family originated in norway and not germany or france or spain or somewhere.... Please tell me that most scottish people in the north east have the r1a blood? and its just not my family i don't want to be an outcast. lol Where the picts r1a?

soundoulehead · 16-09-2010 8:03am

owenc wrote: »

AW well at least i know my scottish family originated in norway and not germany or france or spain or somewhere.... Please tell me that most scottish people in the north east have the r1a blood? and its just not my family i don't want to be an outcast. lol Where the picts r1a?

Where do you think the Norwegians came from then? Or the French? Or anyone?
The Normans were French (although originally Scandinavian) and have influenced the gene pool both here and in Britain, and the Angles and Saxons both came from present day Germany. In the end, just because a certain gene shows up in greater percentages in a particular modern population doesn't mean a thing. What is this a gene for anyway? Is there such a thing as an Irish gene? Or a Norwegian gene? Studies like this, while interesting, will always be jumped upon by nationalists in an attempt to somehow justify the fact that the see themselves as seperate from other nationalists. I understand the interest in heritage, but this talk about being an "outcast" is a bit silly in fairness. There is no single gene of nationality. I don't mean to get at you when I write this, but when you say you are glad your family didn't come from Spain etc, you are presuming the concept of a Spain even existed thousands of years ago.

owenc · 16-09-2010 8:15am

soundoulehead wrote: »

Where do you think the Norwegians came from then? The Normans were French (although originally Scandinavian) and have influenced the gene pool both here and in Britain, and the Angles and Saxons both came from present day Germany. In the end, just because a certain gene shows up in greater percentages in a particular modern population doesn't mean a thing. What is this a gene for anyway? Is there such a thing as an Irish gene? Or a Norwegian gene? Studies like this, while interesting, will always be jumped upon by nationalists in an attempt to somehow justify the fact that the see themselves as seperate from other nationalists. I understand the interest in heritage, but this talk about being an "outcast" is a bit silly in fairness. There is no single gene of nationality.

There is an irish gene if you do a y cromosone dna test it tells you where your ancestors where from and then it tells you your haplogroup result, it even gives you regions sometimes, like when my family did one the result came back as the north east of scotland where my name is actually one of the most common up there, it also told me that for a few centuries they lived in this area where i am now.

soundoulehead · 16-09-2010 8:24am

I know about doing the tests - actually it is very interesting, if you go to the National Geographic website they have a programme called the Genome Project, where you can trace movement of genes. However, there really isn't an Irish gene, no more than there is a Swiss gene - and if there are genes that show up more in one population than in another, given the very specific nature and purpose of one particular gene, it amounts to very little difference in the macro world of the individual. Environment has more influence on nationality than anything else, in my opinion. For example, if I have the Irish gene, does that mean that were I born on a desert island I would grow up with an inexplicible urge to flail my legs about and shout "feck" at the parrots?

Enkidu · 16-09-2010 8:44am

owenc wrote: »

Ok, thanks hmmm interesting, so my family is not celtic then away farr out like 200ad? lol...... I know that mines is most common in scandanavia does anyone have any figures for the uk regions?

Relating these Haplogroups to groups like the Celts is far too simplistic. The Celts refers to anybody who spoke a language in the Celtic language branch of Indo-European. It originally comes from the word Keltoi from Greek. Obviously the Celts would all have had similar customs and a very similar religion, since back then language groups carried religions in a way they don't now.

However R1a and R1b have no real relation to any of this. Both originate in Asia and most believe they are present in Europe now because of the Indo-Europeans. They were both probably Indo-European groups, possibly from two seperate expansions of the Indo-Europeans. Another possbility is that R1a is the Indo-Europeans and R1b a group closely related to them who adopted their customs. Haplogroup I on the other hand orginated in Europe and probably is the marker for the original population of Europe.

Most people in Western Europe are different only because they have different ratios of Haplogroups R1a, R1b and I. For instance take a look at the people on the west coast of Ireland and those on the east coast of England. They both have similar frequency of Haplogroup I. The difference is that they have slightly more Haplogroup R1a. So the difference between the Irish and the English is that we are slightly more descended from one Indo-European tribe and they're slightly more descended from another.

The only possible relation is that the Indo-European dialect that eventually became Proto-Celtic was spoken by people with a bit more descent from the R1b tribe.

Johnmb · 16-09-2010 12:07pm

owenc wrote: »

There is an irish gene if you do a y cromosone dna test it tells you where your ancestors where from and then it tells you your haplogroup result, it even gives you regions sometimes, like when my family did one the result came back as the north east of scotland where my name is actually one of the most common up there, it also told me that for a few centuries they lived in this area where i am now.

That's a little too simplistic a view of what your Y Chromosome actually tells you. It can lead to a fairly secure judgement as to where some of your ancestors came from, but that gets less and less secure the further back you go, and it is general, not specific to a particular person. There is no "Irish" gene, just an ancient gene that a lot of modern Irish still have, but it did not originate here. From an individual point of view, having that gene does not mean your ancestors were from here either. If 80% of the Irish population have it, and only 10% of the German population have it, then it is likely that if you have it your male line ancestors were Irish, but it is also possible that in your specific case one of them was a German who happened to fall within the 10% (and 10% of modern Germans is actually a higher number than 80% of modern Irish!). The further back you go, those nationalities become meaningless as they didn't exist, and to know for sure where your ancestors are actually likely to have come from you'd need to be able to test the dna from the ancient populations, not modern ones, something that is very difficult, in most cases impossible, to do.

brianthebard · 16-09-2010 12:35pm

owenc wrote: »

So scandinavians and scottish people are originally asians! omg. :eek: I'm going to look and see what the numbers for my thing are in the uk and where it is most common.......i always thought that because its asian it would be in spain and the southeast but whatever.... Maybe that is where i get my blue eyes from!?

It doesn't work like that, please stop taking these genetic tests that literally.

fontanalis · 16-09-2010 1:28pm

owenc wrote: »

AW well at least i know my scottish family originated in norway and not germany or france or spain or somewhere.... Please tell me that most scottish people in the north east have the r1a blood? and its just not my family i don't want to be an outcast. lol Where the picts r1a?

Well R1a seems high in Scandanavia. You said befoe you traced a Norman background to your family, the Normans were descended form Danish Vikings so that amy expalin it. Also the East Coast of Scotland had a lot of interaction with the Vikings.
The people who are now called the Picts (Pict was a term given to people in unconquered areas of Britain by the Romans, as they expanded the people/area shrunk so the term was applied to Scotland) were more than likely R1b, can anyone tell me if the Picts called themselves Picts? As with the term celt it also has nationalist overtones, basically meaning not English/Saxon.

owenc · 16-09-2010 4:08pm

soundoulehead wrote: »

I know about doing the tests - actually it is very interesting, if you go to the National Geographic website they have a programme called the Genome Project, where you can trace movement of genes. However, there really isn't an Irish gene, no more than there is a Swiss gene - and if there are genes that show up more in one population than in another, given the very specific nature and purpose of one particular gene, it amounts to very little difference in the macro world of the individual. Environment has more influence on nationality than anything else, in my opinion. For example, if I have the Irish gene, does that mean that were I born on a desert island I would grow up with an inexplicible urge to flail my legs about and shout "feck" at the parrots?

How where they able to tell that i live in northern ireland and that my family originates in north east scotland?

owenc · 16-09-2010 4:10pm

fontanalis wrote: »

Well R1a seems high in Scandanavia. You said befoe you traced a Norman background to your family, the Normans were descended form Danish Vikings so that amy expalin it. Also the East Coast of Scotland had a lot of interaction with the Vikings.
The people who are now called the Picts (Pict was a term given to people in unconquered areas of Britain by the Romans, as they expanded the people/area shrunk so the term was applied to Scotland) were more than likely R1b, can anyone tell me if the Picts called themselves Picts? As with the term celt it also has nationalist overtones, basically meaning not English/Saxon.

No i said a couple of weeks ago that surnamedb said my surname was imported into england and then scotland from normandy but since i have gotten the dna results this dosn't seem to be the case they seem to be norse, which is more likely in the north east of scotland

Enkidu · 16-09-2010 8:22pm

fontanalis wrote: »

can anyone tell me if the Picts called themselves Picts?

No, that's a Roman name. What they would have called themselves is unknown, since we know virtually nothing about their language. Not only are we unsure if their language was Celtic, we're unsure if it was even Indo-European.

fontanalis · 16-09-2010 9:09pm

Enkidu wrote: »

No, that's a Roman name. What they would have called themselves is unknown, since we know virtually nothing about their language. Not only are we unsure if their language was Celtic, we're unsure if it was even Indo-European.

Thanks, that's what I thought. I read somewhere that some Roman or greek scholar spoke of a semitic language being spoke in Scotland.
Don't some place names associated with the Picts use the prefix Aber for river or estuary have a similarity to Welsh?

soundoulehead · 16-09-2010 9:09pm

owenc wrote: »

How where they able to tell that i live in northern ireland and that my family originates in north east scotland?

What? They could tell from a DNA test where you are living at the moment? Because they'd have a hard job doing that with me, I can tell you that.

owenc · 16-09-2010 9:12pm

soundoulehead wrote: »

What? They could tell from a DNA test where you are living at the moment? Because they'd have a hard job doing that with me, I can tell you that.

They can i swear if i can get the website i'll show you. and i'm not lying it did say that on the dna test results. edit: i can't be bothered but it is there.

Irish DNA blueprint more closely related to Basques

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