The "First" Irish people

Well don't the flood myths tie in with the melt water from the last ice age? You also had a massive area of land in the North Sea Doggerland (nothing to do with Stan Collymore) that was submerged where fishign boats regularly drag up stuff.
Isn't magog almost veering into book of revelation territory?

markesmith wrote: »

Thirded, but we're slightly off-topic

Belaresque et al (according to Wikipedia) recently published a paper claiming that the R1b that we and the Welsh share with the Basques may be due to genetic drift.

Would love to hear your opinions on this, or if this type of 'drift' is even possible or too much of a coincidence.

Some recent blog entries I read recently seem to indicate the basque similarities were due to interpretations at a time when genetic testing was in it's infancy and the mutation rates used for R1b gave an incorrect timeline of it arising around 15,000 years ago whereby recent tests give an estimate of around 3,000 - 5,000 years ago. Also the various branches of R1b weren't explored as much back then. The link below goes into it although it's a bit jargon heavy.
http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2010/08/r1b-founder-effect-in-central-and.html

Hopefully this study might shed some light.
http://www.ucc.ie/en/DepartmentsCentresandUnits/Archaeology/NewsItems/PrestigiousEuropeanFundingAwardforUCCArchaeologist/

Here is something from the DNA Forums website. The author no longer posts there but it seems he was well respected for his archaeological knowledge.



It’s not surprising that you are having trouble with the Iberian idea. Its nonsense. It’s been rejected by archaeologists, historians, classicists, Celtic studies experts, linguists etc for several decades. It is essentially based on nothing but the Irish invasion legends. The latter were written by monks writing in a classical tradition whereby a history or ethnology is put together by trying to connect tribes and places with similar names and linking them. Often when modern linguists look at them the etymology is completely nonsensical. In the case of the Milesian myth the word linking was Hibernia=Iberia, Scoti=Scythia etc etc. The legend is full of people given names to represent ancient names for the Irish - Goidel Glass (Goidel-Gael), an Egyptian princess 'Scota' or similar.

For example Hibernia is from the Ierne or Iverna or similar which comes from an Indo-European/proto-Celtic root for 'lush/fertile/fat/bursting land’ while Iberia is from the non-Celtic river name Ebro in eastern Spain. Gael is from a Welsh word Gwiddel (sorry spelling), a pejorative term meaning something like 'wild men of the woods'. Most of the waves and names in the book of invasions are fabricated. The idea was to create a unified history for all the Irish when in fact there never was one. There was never a wave of Gaels under a leader who arrived in Ireland and was the ancestor of all the Irish. Each tribe in reality had a different history.

There are grains of real ethnic/tribal names in the mythology but their origins are confused and not agreed - Cruithin, Erainn, Fir Domnainn, Fir Galieon, Fir Bolg for example. Linguists think they probably represent respectively early Iron Age tribes via Britain, the indigenous Bronze Age peoples of the island, the Domnoni/Damnoni trines of the Irish Sea area, NW Gaulish tribes and Belgae respectively. Other traditional, 19th century and even modern, interpretations are pretty well nonsense. Ideas like the Cruithin being Picts and therefore pre-Celtic etc is clearly nonsense. Even the name is Celtic for heaven’s sake! There has been an awful lot of nonsense written about the stuff over the last 1600 years. It’s too confused to tell us much beyond what I have quoted above as the modern linguist’s best guess. The legends themselves seem to have been written when these tribes and peoples had faded away somewhat and the real origins had already been forgotten or confused, which is not surprising seeing as they were written down at least 600 years after the events. The inaccuracy of the tales as regards the periods they claim to describe has been analysed by linguists and archaeologists and they are essentially too confused to be of much value at all.

What archaeology tells us about Irelands peopling is this:

1. Mesolithic-Ireland was likely settled from north Britain c. 8000BC by peoples who probably were located in the southern/mid North Sea area prior to arriving in the isles.

2. Early Neolithic-Ireland and Britain seem to have been mainly settled very quickly and homogeneously by a single group who likely arrived from NE France to SE England and spread through the isles from there across a 400 year period. There was probably another more minor input into western Britain and Ireland from NW France.

3. Mid- Later Neolithic-Ireland had strong contacts with all of western Britain from Cornwall to the Orkneys indicated by exchange items. There was possibly some much lighter contact with NW France shown by similar ideas in monuments, art etc although this was shadowy, did not extend to mundane artefacts and was clearly mainly contact rather than settlement.

4. Beaker period-Ireland suddenly became part of a really major network that extended beyond the isles for the first time. The beakers that have an agreed origin point to the Middle and Lower Rhine and south, eastern and northern Britain while the burial traditions and deposition habits of beaker are more like western Britain and NW France. It is suspected that Ireland's paramount position in NW European metallurgy came from Atlantic contacts via NW France. It seems likely that NW France is the common denominator or link between the NW European beaker types and the Atlantic burial and metallurgical traditions and it was likely crucial in terms of the beaker influence in Ireland.

5. Bronze Age-A lot of the mundane culture and burial traditions are purely insular with no continental parallels. There is a lot of similarity of mundane culture and ritual monuments/burial traditions within and between the isles but not much with the continent. The exception is metalwork where ideas seem to have flowed in a confusing network whose directions seem to have varied greatly over time although Central European influence seemed to steadily grow as the period went on. Ideas like 'Atlantic Bronze Age' have no real basis. On the basis of settlement, burial, ritual etc traditions it is very hard to see continental settlement on any sort of scale into the isles in this period although trade contact shown in metalwork, ore and influences must have been frequent.

6. Iron Age-influences came from west-Central and Europe via Britain in the Hallstatt C and La Tene periods. The influences are relatively weak and like the Bronze Age largely confined to metalwork. Ireland is especially insular in terms of the monuments, burial traditions and mundane material culture and seems different from both the continent and Britain (which itself has a lot of insularity-house shapes etc). This has lead many to feel that no large scale invasions took place in the Iron Age in Ireland although I think there is enough to suggest some small scale. I would say the same is also true for Scotland and much of the rest of Britain.

In general I would think that most archaeologists feel that the main populating events were the Mesolithic and/or the Early Neolithic with a much lesser (but ultimately significant??) input in the beaker period, very little movement in the Bronze Age other than flotsam brought by elite contact (marriages, craftsmen etc??) and perhaps some small groups of war bands etc in the Iron Age. I doubt many archaeologists would disagree hugely with that summary.

You will note that Iberia is conspicuously absent from this summary which I would say few archaeologists would find much to disagree with. Convincing evidence for Iberian contact is extremely rare. This is in line with the genetic evidence of R1b clades. Not only do they suggest that the populations are different in immediate origin with Ireland a lot more like Britain, NW France and the Rhineland etc, the low quantity of S116* or its Iberian subclades or indeed other Iberian Haplogroups like E etc also suggests that contact and gene flow afterwards was also very rare. This is fully in keeping with the archaeological evidence.

In light of that it is amazing the fact that Iberia keeps springing up in relation to Ireland and it essentially shows the power of myths. It is clear from archaeology and the breaking down of R1b into clades (especially after the discovery of L21) that Ireland should look to Britain, northern France and the Rhine area for its roots and stop being in denial that the Iberian myth is a myth. This myth appears to be fact-proof!!

Unfortunately the recent 'blood of the Irish' TV series (made before L21, MRCA re-dating which showed western R1b is much younger and our recent better understanding of the SE-NW spread from ancestral to derived R1b forms) has misinformed a new generation and perpetuated the Iberian myth in a slightly altered form. The only very indirect link with Iberia and a major populating event of the isles was the old Palaeolithic refugia idea and the outpouring north and east from that refuge in the Magdallenian phase and its possible (although this is not clear) contribution to NW European terminal Palaeolithic and Mesolithic groups including those that went to the isles. This is what ‘blood of the Irish’ clung to. However, when progress in the last year made clear that Iberian and indeed all western European forms of R1b are much younger than those in SE Europe and indeed probably not older than 5000 years old (the refugia people spread out about 14000 years ago and the hunter gathers reached even Ireland and Scotland 10000 years ago) then the last saloon for the theory locked it doors.

owenc wrote: »

Tbh because theres so many ethanices on this island you have to do your tree youself people are always saying everyone on the island are from france and all that but i bet yeh 9 times outta ten most people will do a tree and find they are english, its all false i have yet to do a tree which is not scottish. Everyone sittin there sayin that irish people as a whole are french i think thats a pile of rubbish because i have done a family tree and have gotten back to spain!! Most were scottish which proves my theory that most won't be from mainland europe it makes sense why would your ancestors come from somewhere further away than closer..

You are misleading things by applying modern labels such as national boundaries to a time when those labels didn't exist.

Enkidu wrote: »

Great find fontanalis!
In relation to the early points in his chronology, there is some interesting archeological and linguistic information. It would appear that most historians believe that the people who built he Dolmens and those who built passage tombs like Newgrange were two seperate cultures. The Dolmens are usually associated with Indo-Europeans culture (their spread throughout Europe matches the most likely spread of the Indo-Europeans in a similar time order).

So, one proposed timeline for Ireland is:
1. Original Mesolithic settlement.
2. Arrival of Indo-Europeans.
3. (Much Later) Arrival of Celts.

From a linguistic point of view this leaves an interesting scenario. Originally we have "Old Europeans" living in Ireland. Indo-Europeans arrive with their Dolmen building culture. This means the island could have been divided into Indo-European culture and non-Indo-European culture with a similar division of language. It wasn't until the arrival of the Celts that the island was totally Indo-Europeanised.

Would the wide spread nature of R1b (along with findings of it's more recent age) suggest that the original Mesolithic population was quite low in number?
One DNA haplogroup that pops up at a low level and which likely isn't attributable to the Normans (some of whom may have carried it) is one falling under I which is common around Scandanavia and ties in with the comment made regarding a North Sea origin for the orignal settlers made by the author of the post I pasted. Apparently a lot of people with the family name McCartan and McGuiness fall under this haplogroup. Some Irish researchers try to tie this to the cruithne, who apparently were supposed to be based around the Roscommon area, and isn't there some passage tombs in this region which may be quite old and then there's the ceide fields not too far away (probably too much speculation there).
What is known about the cruithne (from what I read the term has been romaticised much like Pict and Celt)?
Regarding Newgrange and passage tombs, there's a historian/archaeologist at Oxford called Barry Cunliffe who is big into the idea of the Atlantic seaboard playing a big part for trade and travelling etc; I think he claims that passage tombs along the Atlantic fringe of Europe (and even a bit inland on mainland Europe) can be traced to basic middens burials on the Northern Coast of Portugal.

Mervyn Crawford wrote: »

Fontanalis

Would you have time to give the link to the piece you qouted on page 13?

"Here is something from the DNA Forums website. The author no longer posts there but it seems he was well respected for his archaeological knowledge.



It’s not surprising that you are having trouble with the Iberian idea. Its nonsense. It’s been rejected by archaeologists, historians, classicists, Celtic studies experts, linguists etc for several decades. It is essentially based on nothing but the Irish invasion legends. The latter were written by monks writing in a classical tradition whereby a history or ethnology is put together by trying to connect tribes and places with similar names and linking them. Often when modern linguists look at them the etymology is completely nonsensical. In the case of the Milesian myth the word linking was Hibernia=Iberia, Scoti=Scythia etc etc. The legend is full of people given names to represent ancient names for the Irish - Goidel Glass (Goidel-Gael), an Egyptian princess 'Scota' or similar.

............"

Below is the link, you will have to sign up to the forum to view it though. It's about half way down. You can see it was quoted by someone else as the author removed his own posts.

http://dna-forums.org/index.php?/topic/6561-gaels-and-l21/page__hl__goidel__st__40