Metal-mining and stockbreeding explain R1b dominance in Atlantic fringe

I spun the thoughts that Maciamo posted a few times over in my head and a thought popped up. He found a correlation with migrations to metal-rich regions. The thought that came to me as a result had to do with Irish myths of their own origins. It is pretty well known that their myths tell the story of the various waves of migrations that came onto the island. A little less well known is the position taken by a number of writers that the stories of folk such as leprechauns may be a way for the ancient Irish to have explained as a euphemism what happened to the people who lived there prior to the Indo-European migrations. One writer (I can't recall which one now) believed that there may have been a tinge of guilt as a result of how the original inhabitants were treated and that the "little people" who exist in the fens or otherwise away from most people found their way into the lore of the island. It could have also explained how some remnants of the old population tried to endure by hiding out for a generation or two and that any that were "caught" were forced to reveal the source of their wealth. Maciamo wrote of the correlation that seems to show that the invaders pursued sources of metal. Can we be surprised that the myths may also treat this subject when they mention "finding and catching" a person who has been trying not to be found and that the individual must then reveal his "crock of gold" (knowledge of metal deposits)?
 
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I spun the thoughts that Maciamo posted a few times over in my head and a thought popped up. He found a correlation with migrations to metal-rich regions. The thought that came to me as a result had to do with Irish myths of their own origins. It is pretty well known that their myths tell the story of the various waves of migrations that came onto the island. A little less well known is the position taken by a number of writers that the stories of folk such as leprechauns may be a way for the ancient Irish to have explained as a euphemism what happened to the people who lived there prior to the Indo-European migrations. One writer (I can't recall which one now) believed that there may have been a tinge of guilt as a result of how the original inhabitants were treated and that the "little people" who exist in the fens or otherwise away from most people found their way into the lore of the island. It could have also explained how some remnants of the old population tried to endure by hiding out for a generation or two and that any that were "caught" were forced to reveal the source of their wealth. Maciamo wrote of the correlation that seems to show that the invaders pursued sources of metal. Can we be surprised that the myths may also treat this subject when they mention "finding and catching" a person who has been trying not to be found and that the individual must then reveal his "crock of gold" (knowledge of metal deposits)?

It is well known in Ireland that the Tuatha Dé Danann after losing to the Milesians retreated underground into the Sídhe and from then on became known as the Sídhe people or in english as the fairy people. They live in the mounds which are frequent around the Irish labdscape
 
Thanks for that. I had read about that some time ago. That story definitely describes similar circumstances; I did have one question, though.
Was the Tuatha de Danaan from an earlier wave of indo europeans or are they now held to be more likely original inhabitants? I had thought that they were among the earlier of the proto-celts to arrive, but the general opinion on this may have changed. If they were proto-celts, it would be interesting if they were treated in roughly the same way by the Milesians as the Tuatha may have treated the original inhabitants.
 
Thanks for that. I had read about that some time ago. That story definitely describes similar circumstances; I did have one question, though.
Was the Tuatha de Danaan from an earlier wave of indo europeans or are they now held to be more likely original inhabitants? I had thought that they were among the earlier of the proto-celts to arrive, but the general opinion on this may have changed. If they were proto-celts, it would be interesting if they were treated in roughly the same way by the Milesians as the Tuatha may have treated the original inhabitants.

The Tuatha de Danann were from an earlier wave of settlers. Before them (according to mythology) there were the Fir Bolg and the race of Nemed and others before them too.
 
Rather than taking the position of archaeologists and such who tend to dismiss in an outright fashion anything that they cannot prove by digging things up, I like to think that there is much to be gleaned from old myths. I hold that they often do present a summation of history, albeit one where much is added and the original picture is obscured.

We seem to have a correlation between settlements of certain groups and metal-rich areas. In at least one of those lands we have myths of indigenous people of sorts who have knowledge of locations of precious metal but who remain in hiding. When these "people" are discovered and captured, they can be forced to reveal where the gold is. I would imagine that the various waves of Indo-Europeans were comprised of men who were pretty aggressive in seeking out sources of wealth and, in consequence, power. In other words, maybe there is some truth behind the old stories of leprechauns. They may have been started out as real people and slowly morphed into what we read about today.

 
map.jpg
 
Very nice analysis Maciamo.
 
According to legend, Ireland were settled in waves by different invaders. Around 2000 BC a group named the Fir Bolg were supposedly defeated by the Tuantha De Danannan (who later themselves defeated by the Milesians).
After losing, the Fir Bolg were asked to chose a quarter of Ireland to settle, and chose the North West, also called Connacht.
Interestingly, the same area is the only area where haplogroup I shows up in Ireland. Assuming that the data is valid and representative, could this indicate that the legend holds truth? And could it also indicate that both the Tuantha De. D. and the Milesians were Indoeuropeans (R1b)?

(Can't post links yet, so google wikipedia for haplogroup I map Europe)
 
According to legend, Ireland were settled in waves by different invaders. Around 2000 BC a group named the Fir Bolg were supposedly defeated by the Tuantha De Danannan (who later themselves defeated by the Milesians).
After losing, the Fir Bolg were asked to chose a quarter of Ireland to settle, and chose the North West, also called Connacht.
Interestingly, the same area is the only area where haplogroup I shows up in Ireland. Assuming that the data is valid and representative, could this indicate that the legend holds truth? And could it also indicate that both the Tuantha De. D. and the Milesians were Indoeuropeans (R1b)?

(Can't post links yet, so google wikipedia for haplogroup I map Europe)

The particular Haplogroup I subclade that comes to my mind as being particularly ancient in Ireland is I2a1b2-Isles-C/D. Although it extends to eastern Ireland and even into Britain (and even a rare instance on the continent), it undoubtedly reaches peak frequency in Connacht, as you say.

I'm not sure that's enough evidence to elevate legend to fact, but it is a key observation.
 
According to legend, Ireland were settled in waves by different invaders. Around 2000 BC a group named the Fir Bolg were supposedly defeated by the Tuantha De Danannan (who later themselves defeated by the Milesians).
After losing, the Fir Bolg were asked to chose a quarter of Ireland to settle, and chose the North West, also called Connacht.
Interestingly, the same area is the only area where haplogroup I shows up in Ireland. Assuming that the data is valid and representative, could this indicate that the legend holds truth? And could it also indicate that both the Tuantha De. D. and the Milesians were Indoeuropeans (R1b)?

(Can't post links yet, so google wikipedia for haplogroup I map Europe)

Welcome to the forum.

I'd be cautious with that interpretation as pre-Indo-European peoples. All myths are to be taken with a grain of salt, yet at the same time, can include a grain of truth (or more than that).
If you read the "Book of Invasions", you'll realize that many of the Tuatha Dé Danann (literally "people/tribe of the goddess Danu") are Celtic deities that are clearly attested from both Britain and from the continent:

Lugh is Lugus
Ogma is Ogmios
Brighid is Brigantia
Tuireann is Taranis
Nuada is Nodons

If we look beyond Celtic pantheons, there's also parallels with Hinduism, namely the goddess Danu is also found there. Thus, the Tuatha Dé Danann, if they are actually based on anything, either represent the ancient Celtic gods, or they represent an earlier Celtic immigration wave. There's certainly the idea that was forwarded by Thomas Francis O'Rahilly that the Book of Invasions (largely) represents actual historic invasions, but I'm quite sceptical of many of it's aspect.
 
Modern scholarship (since 1970 anyway), does not look kindly on "The Book of Invasions". It is seen as a Medieval gloss on the ancient history which was meant to justify the O'Neill families’ claim to the High Kingship of Ireland. At the same time, the other prominent families had new ancestors grafted onto their line which just happened to be the O'Neill ancestors.

The best books about ancient Ireland, in my opinion, are these:
Irish Kings and High-Kings by Francis J Byrne, 2001
A New History of Ireland, Volume One edited by Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, 2005

Manuscripts older than "The Book of Invasions" record three base groups, all of whom made it into the Christian (or written) era. They were the Féini (O'Neill ancestors), the Ulaidh (Ulster), and the Laighin (Leinster). These "important" groups, in the eyes of the Annalists at least, sat over a much larger group over which they ruled. The largest of this other group was the Cruithne. Cruithne is the Q-Celtic version of the P-Celtic Pritani from which we get the latter name Britanni. So they came from Britain.

Byrne thinks that the Ulaidh (Uly) at least, were La Tène Celts who arrived from Galloway in Scotland a few hundred years BCE.

All but one of the major archeological waves into Ireland have left evidence only in the north and west half of the island. These are the Mesolithic, the four Megalithic eras and the La Tène era. The Bell Beaker is the only era with finds throughout the island.

The image in post #26 has been around a long time, but it inaccurate for Ireland. Dr. Sean O'Nuallain has a article in "Expedition" 1979, which has maps showing the individual locations of the four Megalithic eras. They are almost all in the north and west. I have a five page PDF from the book which I can no longer find on the Internet to share a link (maybe evil JSTOR again), but will gladly make it available to anyone interested.
 
Coon was a scientific fraud and a known racist. If you make use of Coon, chances are you are dealing with material that is suspect. No one with any academic reputation takes much of what Coon had to say about races with any seriousness. Do the research...

I wonder if you should not be a kind of 'racist anti-racist', are you?
COON first work (1936?) on Europe is not perfect (I 'm not always in accord with him for the making of some phenotypes, among them the "corded" one) and was a mix of personal works and compilations, BUT THERE WAS NO TRACE OF RACISM IN IT - what he wrote after that is an other thing... his vision of 'race' making in this first book ('the races of Europe') was modern for his time, do you know that?
 
I have revised my principal hypothesis regarding the propagation of haplogroup G2a3. Its presence in mountainous areas of Greece, Italy and southern France originally led me to think that it was linked to the diffusion of goat and sheep herding in the Neolithic via the Cardium Pottery culture.

However, three novel elements made me change my mind (or rather think of an additional migration). Firstly, the most common subclade of G2a in Europe is G2a3b1, and this clade is estimated to be only approx. 4500 years old. It is too young for a Neolithic dispersal across Europe.

Secondly, this G2a3b1 has been found in India alongside R1b1b2. If my theory that the Proto-Indo-European speakers originated near the Caucasus is correct, then we are almost bound to find some G2a in places settled by R1b1b. The modern Ossetians and Georgians have very high levels of both haplogroups. I think that the two originally represented different ethnic and linguistic groups (Indo-European vs Caucasian family), but their proximity would have led to some blending of population in the Caucasus region over time.

Thirdly, I realised that G2a3 was also high in northern Portugal, Galicia, Cantabria, Wales, the Alps and Bohemia, and it occurred to me that it was in the same copper- and tin-rich regions that the Indo-European R1b1b2 would have favoured. Brittany, Cornwall and Ireland do not have much G2a3 though, but extremely high levels of R1b1b2 to make up for it.

G2a3 would therefore represent Indo-Europeanised Caucasian people who migrated with R1b1b2 during the Bronze Age. It is possible that G2a3 percentage in western and central Europe remained fairly stable over time, while an originally small ruling elite of R1b1b2 grew exponentially due to their higher birth rate and cultural Indo-European predisposition of favouring of sons.

Y-G2 is not as high in Wales as you say here (even in your own docs about distribution of Y-HGs in Europe) and not too different from the %s from Brittany (2,5% vs 2,0%)
on an other side, the settlement of Brittons in Western Armoric did never overflow the previous yet mixed population where some ancestors was common to the Brittons ones too and others from different human stock)
 
And Armenians and mediterranians (the kind of people
from Analotia) are very rare in the British Islands and absent in Norway.

more than a type of so called 'mediterranean' can be found today in genuine irish, british and scandinavian people:
there is more than a 'mediterranean' type and it would be boring to go in details int this topic, but the Isles present a reasonable amount of them everywhere, the most in some Ireland districts and Western Brittain, from Cornwall to Glasgow area (weight: 25 to 40%?) - if we extract the 'archaic' element in them (paleolike evolved types of western geographical extraction), it lowers that to 15 to 25% of true 'meditarranean' or something close to it (a lot with the famous 'Long Barrows' people) -
as a whole, the total of 'mediterranean' types (all origins) do not go far over 5% in Scandinavia, but they seem being linked to megalithic regions... they are even denser in the Netherlands and Flanders -
'armenian' phenotype is not a too evident concept and its links with 'dinaric' is yet unclear (which of the 2 is an almost 'pure' homogenous phenotype and which is a mixture including this 'pure' phenotype: hard to say... but when anglo-saxon people speak about 'armenians' or 'armenoids' they think everytime to a kind of super-typical North Near-Eastern very dark people, even when there is question of a vague mixture including european 'dinarics' (some features common among Yougoslavians and Carpathian Romanians) like among the previous Bell Beakers of ancient Germany (some traces today too in Western Scandinavia and Brittain).
 
To verify my hypothesis, I checked the mtDNA frequences around Europe to see which region had the most maternal lineages typically associated with the Pontic-Caspian steppes, Caucasus and northern Anatolia. The most easily identifiable Indo-European mtDNA lineages are I, U2, U3, U4 and W.

I have one question: how do you know that those mtDNA lineages came to those areas with Bronze age R1b migrants and no with germanic peoples ?
 
Modern scholarship (since 1970 anyway), does not look kindly on "The Book of Invasions". It is seen as a Medieval gloss on the ancient history which was meant to justify the O'Neill families’ claim to the High Kingship of Ireland. At the same time, the other prominent families had new ancestors grafted onto their line which just happened to be the O'Neill ancestors.

The best books about ancient Ireland, in my opinion, are these:
Irish Kings and High-Kings by Francis J Byrne, 2001
A New History of Ireland, Volume One edited by Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, 2005

Manuscripts older than "The Book of Invasions" record three base groups, all of whom made it into the Christian (or written) era. They were the Féini (O'Neill ancestors), the Ulaidh (Ulster), and the Laighin (Leinster). These "important" groups, in the eyes of the Annalists at least, sat over a much larger group over which they ruled. The largest of this other group was the Cruithne. Cruithne is the Q-Celtic version of the P-Celtic Pritani from which we get the latter name Britanni. So they came from Britain.

Byrne thinks that the Ulaidh (Uly) at least, were La Tène Celts who arrived from Galloway in Scotland a few hundred years BCE.

All but one of the major archeological waves into Ireland have left evidence only in the north and west half of the island. These are the Mesolithic, the four Megalithic eras and the La Tène era. The Bell Beaker is the only era with finds throughout the island.

The image in post #26 has been around a long time, but it inaccurate for Ireland. Dr. Sean O'Nuallain has a article in "Expedition" 1979, which has maps showing the individual locations of the four Megalithic eras. They are almost all in the north and west. I have a five page PDF from the book which I can no longer find on the Internet to share a link (maybe evil JSTOR again), but will gladly make it available to anyone interested.

The Tuatha Dé Danann legend may be a gloss but it cmes own too "What part of the legend did the Christian monks glossed over" Every ancient legend is a subset of a subset copied page by page by bear hands; keep in mind, the monks lived before the printing press was invented so human error can always occur.

Ultimately, my question would be. Where did St. Patrick and the Monks get all this information about Goddess Danu and the ancient beings? After all, Abrahamic Religions like Christianity only believe in one god named Yeowah.
 
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The particular Haplogroup I subclade that comes to my mind as being particularly ancient in Ireland is I2a1b2-Isles-C/D. Although it extends to eastern Ireland and even into Britain (and even a rare instance on the continent), it undoubtedly reaches peak frequency in Connacht, as you say.

I'm not sure that's enough evidence to elevate legend to fact, but it is a key observation.

It appears also coincidentially that the Fir Bolgs; as well as the Celtoi/Halstatt Culture had some contact with the Greeks. On a speculative note that probably makes the Fir Bogs R1b.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebor_Gabála_Érenn#Fir_Bolg
Source from Wikipedia but I couldn't find the source that Wiki got it from

I find it ironic that the Tuatha De Danann came into Ireland between the Middle and Late Bronze Age. If anything if the the Dananns came to Ireland in 1477 BC, I would assume that they would be of R1B Haplogroup; probably even R1b-S28 Links to maps credit by eupedia: http://www.waa.ox.ac.uk/XDB/images/....ac.uk/XDB/images/world/tours/europe-map6.jpg

Sources: http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=maclaren&id=I71689
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHO047ud98E

Also, keep in mind that Celts had a tradition of honoring a common ancestor and applying it to their surname
For example, my Maternal Grandmother's Maiden name is MacDonald (Mac=Son and Donald=Kind Donald Grandson of Somerled) so that means I'm a Descendant of some sort to Kind Donald and Somerled.

Mac=Son and O'=Grandson

The Tuatha De Danann claimed decent from Nemed of the Nemedians by Irish monks whom worshiped the Goddess Danu; compare Danann and Danu

(There might be some Christian tweaks somewhere though so I'm mostly concerned with putting info on the table, seeking an updates and separating myth from fact so everything is up in the air as far as I'm concerned but please feel free to move this if I'm getting off subject :))
 
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To verify my hypothesis, I checked the mtDNA frequencies around Europe to see which region had the most maternal lineages typically associated with the Pontic-Caspian steppes, Caucasus and northern Anatolia. The most easily identifiable Indo-European mtDNA lineages are I, U2, U3, U4 and W.

In the paper "Palaeogenetic evidence supports a dual model of Neolithic spreading into Europe" you have:

The site ‘Camı de Can Grau’ (Granollers, Barcelona, Spain) is a necropolis excavated in 1994, which comprised 23 tombs dated by C14 between 3500 and 3000 cal years BC.

results were:

The general haplogroup composition of the Neolithic sample is: H (36.4%); T2 (18.2%); J1c (18.2%); I1 (9.1%); U4 (9.1%); and W1 (9.1%) (table 4). Although
the sample size is recognized to be small and, consequently, some haplogroups are not represented, the general composition is not significantly different from
that obtained from the current Iberian Peninsula dataset when random resamplings of 11 sequences are made (data not shown).

By the date of the necropolis, no indoeuropeans are expected... but part of the mtDNA would appear to be "indoeuropean". I think that the idea was good but the method is not longer valid, at least there.
 

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