New Study Shows MASSIVE Ancient BA Immigration Into Ireland

moore2moore

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How very timely: "Origins of the Irish down to mass migration, ancient DNA confirms"

The study found R1b in Ireland to be the result of mass immigration (and not elite dominance).

http://www.theguardian.com/science/...ass-migration-ancient-dna-confirms?CMP=twt_gu

This is consistent with what I posted about the rather prosaic explanations for current distributions. Hunter gatherers started with small population sizes. Cereal farmers had medium. The influx of herders, with a ready supply of meat, and milk, and cereals had larger population sizes. And mass migration.

Full link to study here:

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/12/22/1518445113.full.pdf

From the article:

"These people [bearing R1b] also brought with them the inherited variation that permits the digestion of milk in maturity.
 
Thanks for the post. They had R1b-L21. So, probably the primary ancestors of modern British and Irish. My guess is there is significant but minority Neolithic ancestry in British and Irish though.
 
Great news. Are those earliest L21 found so far?

Yes. Bell beaker from Central Europe had U152, which today is mostly Italy, and then France/Switzerland. So, it matches geography. U152 settled in Central Europe/Italy and L21 settled in the British Isles. Next we need R1b-DF27 from Iberia dating 2000 BC.

I discussed on this thread, most West European male lines decent from a small family of R1b-P312 males who expanded in circa 2000 BC.
 

I 'll say my thoughts later (for my personal pleasure)

concerning Ballynahatty woman, she is from the Late Neolithic (3343/3020 from a Megalithic culture of apparently Long Barrows sort.
She shows as waited more links to already well mixed Post-cardial Neolithic people of West and Southwest Europe and close to Gokhem too.
the survey says she doesn' show the characteristics of a bottlenecked group of farmers; I'm not surprised if she is descended from one of these LongBarrows people and close groups which expanded surely along all the Atlantic and North Sea shores until Scandinavia and which play a role in the formation of Funnel-TricherBK (more in North).
to conclude is a pity she has not been tested for the chromosome Y (laughings)
 
Irish_BA have a close genealogical relationship with modern North Sea Europeans, especially Isles Celts(now English speakers, but ethnically Celts) from the British isles.

This is from Supp. Table S14.2 It's the amount of "Haplotypes" given to moderns by ancients. I don't understand the science, all i know is it tracks recent ancestry.

Rathlin1
Scottish36.512
Ireland36.313
Welsh35.745
GermanyAustria33.658
French32.299
English32.213
Norwegian31.425
Orcadian30.072
Tuscan29.202
Spanish28.613
Hungarian28.995
Belorussian28.418
Polish26.957
NorthItalian27.829
Bulgarian26.21
SouthItalian26.127
Russian25.537
Lithuanian25.067
Greek24.341
Syrian23.896
Turkish23.886
Chuvash23.865
Basque23.824
 
This is interesting:
heir partial MN ancestry.These analyses, taken with the PCA and ADMIXTURE results,indicate that the Irish Bronze Age is composed of a mixtureof European MN and introgressing Steppe ancestry (9, 10). Toestimate the proportion of Yamnaya to MN ancestry in each IrishBronze Age sample, we took three approaches. First, fromADMIXTURE analysis (Fig. 1), we examined the green Caucasusancestry component. We presume an ultimate source of this asthe Yamnaya where it features at a proportion of 40% of theirtotal ancestry. In our three Irish Bronze Age samples, it is presentat levels between 6–13%, which, when scaled up to include theremaining 60% of Yamnaya ancestry, imply a total of 14–33%Yamnaya ancestry and therefore 67–86% MN in the Irish BronzeAge. Second, for each Bronze Age Irish individual, we calculatedthe proportion of MN ancestry by using the ratio f4(Mbuti, Ballynahatty;X, Dai)/f4(Mbuti, Ballynahatty; Gok2, Dai), which gaveestimates between 72 ± 4% to 74 ± 5%, implying again a substantialYamnaya remainder. Third, we followed the methods described inHaak et al. (9), which use a collection of outgroup populations, toestimate the mixture proportions of three different sources, Linearbandkeramik(Early Neolithic; 35 ± 6%), Loschbour (WHG; 26 ±12%), and Yamnaya (39 ± 8%), in the total Irish Bronze Agegroup. These three approaches give an overlapping estimate of∼32% Yamnaya ancestry
It means that when these IE/R1b guys got to Ireland they only sported about 30% of original Steppe/Yamnaya ancestry. They have already heavily mixed with MN residents of Central Europe. I could suppose it was either by means of mixing in South West Yamnaya with farmers of Cucuteni, or somewhere else in Central Europe.
 
Thanks for the post. They had R1b-L21. So, probably the primary ancestors of modern British and Irish. My guess is there is significant but minority Neolithic ancestry in British and Irish though.

Most of it is as expected, but it's nice to get confirmation, isn't it? :) Of course, it's not the genetic community they have to convince, it's the archaeologists of the Anglo-speaking world. I was a bit stunned at the figures they cited for archaeologists who even after this recent slew of ancient dna still won't accept the important role of migration in both the Neolithic and the Bronze Age transitions.

In terms of the Middle Neolithic ancestry in these Bronze Age Irish men it's certainly there, but probably not from the Irish Middle Neolithic people, or at least that's what I understand them to be saying here:

"However, like other European Bronze Age samples, this introgressionis incomplete, as they also show significant MN ancestrywhen placed in a clade with Yamnaya. The highest levels of MNancestry were observed when either Ballynahatty or Gok2 (Scandinavian)was the sample under study. However, when paired withcentral European Bronze Age populations, the Rathlin samplesshow no trace of significant introgression from Ballynahatty, suggestingthat earlier Irish populations may not have been a source oftheir partial MN ancestry."

So, that begs the question, one, as to what happened to the Irish Middle Neolithic people, and two, where did these Bronze Age people pick up their Middle Neolithic ancestry? I, like LeBrok, have always thought that perhaps the downstream L51+ was in the southwestern steppe or adjacent Balkan areas before it started to move more into Central Europe. We'll see if that turns out to be the case. As to the Irish MN, there are papers showing that the agriculture crash in Ireland was particularly severe, if I remember correctly, with the number of sites dwindling severely. I'll see if I can dig it out. I think I got it from Jean Manco originally.

What do you make of the claim of 40% WHG in her? I haven't been keeping track of each piece of amateur analysis, but in addition to the 10% picked up initially, I though it was then an additional 10-15-20% over the next thousands of years depending on the area, no?

Did you also note the total MN/Yamnaya figures for them? If you take into account all three methods used, they come up with 2/3 MN versus 1/3 Yamnaya, so certainly not the total replacement of some of the speculation I've seen. The number is smaller than in the Haak analysis though, isn't it, if we go by the figures from the graphic.

Untitled3.png


I'm sure you noted the pigmentation data in the supplement. Will you be adding it to your spreadsheets? Interesting that one didn't have the Herc2 derived snp at all (brown-eyed) and the rest were all heterozygous, right? So, some selection went on in subsequent years, but based on what?

Oh, another point, wouldn't it be quite a coincidence that these MN people whom the authors claim probably didn't contribute much to the modern Irish just so happened to also be heterozygous for the hemochromatosis risk allele?
 
Central European Corded Ware had ~75% Yamnaya ancestry. And these guys had ~32%.

So to get from Germany to Ireland, a lot of "banging with the locals" was necessary... :)

Unless they descended from some Non-CW group, which was already more mixed before.
 
This is interesting:

It means that when these IE/R1b guys got to Ireland they only sported about 30% of original Steppe/Yamnaya ancestry. They have already heavily mixed with MN residents of Central Europe. I could suppose it was either by means of mixing in South West Yamnaya with farmers of Cucuteni, or somewhere else in Central Europe.

We cross posted. :)

From the Haak chart I pasted in it looks like Eastern Bell Beaker was about 45% Yamnaya? So, they picked up an additional 15% during their trek to Ireland?

Take a look at what I highlighted about lastase persistence alleles too. It ties into what you were saying about there being a lot of ongoing selection for LP.
 
Angela said:
Did you also note the total MN/Yamnaya figures for them? If you take into account all three methods used, they come up with 2/3 MN versus 1/3 Yamnaya, so certainly not the total replacement of some of the speculation I've seen.

But what Y-DNA did those MN samples have ???

Because if they didn't have R1b, then it means almost total replacement of Y-DNA.

This implies that MN autosomal was from local females.

Kind of devastating for those poor MN men anyway.
 
From the Haak chart I pasted in it looks like Eastern Bell Beaker was about 45% Yamnaya?

Yes, correct.

Question is: Where did they manage to loose the other 55% between Russia and Germany ???

And also Western Corded Ware was 75% Yamnaya, while Eastern Bell Beaker (their immediate neighbours) just 45%.

So this is strange, either Beaker got admixed by Corded, or both groups travelled independently.
 
Fire Haired, you posted this:

From Supplementary Table S14.2:

Similarity of Irish Bronze Age Rathlin1 Celtic individual to modern populations (from top to bottom):

1) Scottish ------------- 36.512
2) Ireland -------------- 36.313
3) Welsh --------------- 35.745
4) GermanyAustria ---- 33.658
5) French -------------- 32.299
6) English -------------- 32.213

(...)

IMO this shows that Gaelic Celts (ancestors of Irish+Scots) were not the same as Brythonic Celts.

Welsh are just slightly more similar to Gaelic Celts than Germans/French, and English even less.

And I remember that Welsh were most similar to Brythonic Celtic samples from July 2015 study:

http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/07/17/022723

http://biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2015/07/17/022723.full.pdf

Welsh are a purely Celtic group, so they should be more similar to all Celts if they were all identical.

But Scots - who are in general a bit less Celtic than Welsh - are still more similar to Gaelic Celts than Welsh.

This is IMO a clear proof, that Gaelic Celts were not genetically the same as were Brythonic Celts.

============================

That sample Rathlin1 is from Rathlin Island (these are areas where Scottish Dál Riata came from):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rathlin_Island
 
What do you make of the claim of 40% WHG in her? I haven't been keeping track of each piece of amateur analysis, but in addition to the 10% picked up initially, I though it was then an additional 10-15-20% over the next thousands of years depending on the area, no?
That's hell of a interesting conundrum. All MN show elevated WHG level up to 40%. Where did it come from? Additional mixing with remaining HGs? Invasions of HGs from North? There is no ANE to indicate first steppe invasions by then.
Or perhaps, it is CHG component who dispersed through farming communities together with new inventions? Looking at Yamnaya sample, on page 3, it should be the case.
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/12/22/1518445113.full.pdf

Did you also note the total MN/Yamnaya figures for them? If you take into account all three methods used, they come up with 2/3 MN versus 1/3 Yamnaya, so certainly not the total replacement of some of the speculation I've seen. The number is smaller than in the Haak analysis though, isn't it, if we go by the figures from the graphic.
In Ireland they have replaced quite a bit, but still they plot on PC somewhere off today's Irish. Perhaps some locals survived or perhaps due to Viking invasions.
 
Central European Corded Ware had ~75% Yamnaya ancestry. And these guys had ~32%.

So to get from Germany to Ireland, a lot of "banging with the locals" was necessary... :)

Unless they descended from some Non-CW group, which was already more mixed before.
If they were closer to Cucuteni than CW than they could have had much more EEF before they started their trek. Anyhow they were quite genetically distinct from pure Yamnaya when they have gotten to Ireland.
 
LeBrok said:
It means that when these IE/R1b guys got to Ireland they only sported about 30% of original Steppe/Yamnaya ancestry.

So they picked up 70% of Non-Steppe ancestry, but just 2% of Non-Steppe Y-DNA (assuming that originally Irish were 98% R1b):

From "Where the Irish pure R1b before the Viking and British invasions?" thread by Maciamo:

http://www.eupedia.com/forum/thread...e-R1b-before-the-Viking-and-British-invasions

Maciamo said:
It is enough for me to consider that Ireland before the 9th century was probably exclusively populated by R1b (98%) and I2a (2%) lineages. (...)

How on Earth could they become 68% Non-Steppe (while moving from Ukraine to Ireland), but preserving 98% of Steppe Y-DNA ???

That would imply that it was a migration of mostly (or almost exclusively) males, who married almost exclusively local women.

Were those Neolithic women all sex bombs? :)
 
Yes, correct.

Question is: Where did they manage to loose the other 55% between Russia and Germany ???

And also Western Corded Ware was 75% Yamnaya, while Eastern Bell Beaker (their immediate neighbours) just 45%.

So this is strange, either Beaker got admixed by Corded, or both groups travelled independently.

Wait, if they started out as sort of Corded Ware like (75% Yamnaya like), they "lost" 30 points to get to 45% (which is the Eastern Bell Beaker/Unetice level), correct? Then they lose more on the trip into Ireland. That could happen if instead of going up into northern relatively unpopulated areas they went through the more populous central zones.

If they started out as Yamnaya like, you're right, they lost 55 points. It could be explained if they traveled from the southwestern Ukraine and then into the southern Balkans, then maybe via a Danube route, or perhaps the L51+ group had been mingling for a while with CT? Anyway, they got to central Europe by a different route, in that case, as you say.

I don't know which way it happened. Interesting, right?

"But what Y-DNA did those MN samples have ???

Because if they didn't have R1b, then it means almost total replacement of Y-DNA.

This implies that MN autosomal was from local females.

Kind of devastating for those poor MN men anyway."

Well, if the authors of the paper are correct, their MN wasn't from the Irish MN people. I'm assuming, since we have Megalithic yDna that was I2 on the route that these people had taken, that they probably carried a lot of I2.

Anyway, the larger question remains. Ydna G2 is pretty low in central Europe. I2 does better but is it the original subclades we can attribute to the MN farmers, or is it I2 that remained hunter-gatherer in the east, got swept up by the Indo-Europeans, and thus got swept west?

Somebody call Sparkey! :)
 
@Tomenable,

There isn't extensive DNA from Welsh. I suspect they are not purely from Britons. There's probably part Germania(Anglo Saxon, etc.) via English and whatever else(French, Roman, etc.). The Iron age Briton genome is closest to Irish not Welsh. Added with information that Irish from 2000 BC have a close relationship to Welsh and Irish, I think Britons and Gealics have lots of common ancestry.

@Everyone,

1/3 "Yamnaya" and 2/3 MN+other West Eurasian makes sense. The mixing between MN and "Yamnaya" mostly happened in Central Europe. Before Steppe ever migrated to Central Europe they could have been as much as 1/4 via admixture with Balkan MNs. Corded Ware and Sintashta had much higher amounts of Steppe than anyone today. Most LNBA Central Europeans, even one from 1000 BC, have more Steppe than anyone. A combination of contentious admixture with MN and later migrations caused Steppe to go down.

@Y DNA,

The LNBA Irish technically belong to a differnt paternal lineage than Eastern Beaker. They had R1b-L21. They must have come from a P312-rich nation, where all non-L21 lineages went extinct. So, L21 as probably the lineage of royalty or something.
 
Fire Haired, you posted this:

From Supplementary Table S14.2:

Similarity of Irish Bronze Age Rathlin1 Celtic individual to modern populations (from top to bottom):

1) Scottish ------------- 36.512
2) Ireland -------------- 36.313
3) Welsh --------------- 35.745
4) GermanyAustria ---- 33.658
5) French -------------- 32.299
6) English -------------- 32.213

(...)

IMO this shows that Gaelic Celts (ancestors of Irish+Scots) were not the same as Brythonic Celts.

Welsh are just slightly more similar to Gaelic Celts than Germans/French, and English even less.

And I remember that Welsh were most similar to Brythonic Celtic samples from July 2015 study:

http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/07/17/022723

http://biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2015/07/17/022723.full.pdf

Welsh are a purely Celtic group, so they should be more similar to all Celts if they were all identical.

But Scots - who are in general a bit less Celtic than Welsh - are still more similar to Gaelic Celts than Welsh.

This is IMO a clear proof, that Gaelic Celts were not genetically the same as were Brythonic Celts.

============================

That sample Rathlin1 is from Rathlin Island (these are areas where Scottish Dál Riata came from):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rathlin_Island

I'm not sure of that, mainly because modern populations have mingled so much. For the English part of it has to be because they took the brunt of the Anglo-Saxon invasions. There's been a lot of introgression of "the English" into parts of Wales as well. Isn't there a pretty high level of U-106 there?

Given all the internal migrations within the British Isles I'm not sure that I'd totally rely on the relationship to modern populations. Doesn't some huge number of English people have at least one Irish grandparent? Am I remembering that correctly? Like 1/4 or 1/3?

So, although there is obviously continuity for the last 4000 years or so, I don't know that I'd bet a large sum that this is the exact order. It's certainly possible, though.
 

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