Y-DNA haplogroups of ancient civilizations OFFTOPIC about British I2
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Until recently nobody had any idea of the real impact of mass migrations and wars on the genetic structure of a population. DNA tests helped clarify this.Originally Posted by stuibhard
It had long been speculated that the English descended almost exclusively from the Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and Normans. People were convinced that the ancient Britons, mixed with various peoples brought by the Roman occupation, were all killed or displaced to Wales and Cornwall by the Germanic invaders.
This interpretation of history was based entirely on modern linguistic evidence. DNA proved it to be utterly wrong. In Western England as much as half of the Y-DNA is of pre-Anglo-Saxon origin. Even in the most Germanic regions of East Anglia and Yorkshire (core of the Danelaw), 10 to 20% of the Y-DNA is not Germanic.
It is important to keep in mind that Y-DNA represents only the paternal lineages. In times of wars and migrations, men spread their DNA more than women. Rapes or local women were common, but so were cases of men-only groups of invaders who took local wives. Again, it was thought than Anglo-Saxon did not intermarry with Celtic Britons, but DNA tests in Anglo-Saxon cemeteries have shown otherwise.
There is no reliable way to determine the ethnic origins on the maternal side within Europe. Mitochondrial DNA can tell a European from an African or an Asian apart, but not a Europeans between themselves. It is my guess that the proportion of female Celto-Roman ancestors in England is at least 50% higher than on the paternal line.
For more information see my post Genetics of the British and Irish people.
The same is true of other regions. Greco-Roman DNA in Belgium or Spain represents about 10-15% of the total. Older Celtic lineages make up about 40% of the modern population in Belgium and over 60% in Spain. The big Frankish, Saxon and Frisian migrations to Belgium only account for about 50% of the Y-DNA.
The Vandals, Visigoths and Suebi left a minimal impact on the Iberian genetic make-up. Even in Galicia and northern Portugal, the old Suebi kingdom, Germanic haplogroup hardly reach 5% of the total.
No trace has yet been found of the Alans and Vandals in the Maghreb. It seems that the further away a population travelled from its homeland, and the lesser its lasting genetic impact.
All this to say that the impact of mass migrations has been grossly exaggerated by historians.
Wars since the Renaissance have not had much impact on the European population either. It is true that in the Americas Europeans freely killed or raped non-Christian civilians because it wasn't considered as a sin by the Church. They intermarried converted local women on a big scale because few European women would make the trip to the Americas in the early days (it was too rough and dangerous).
But in Europe things were radically different. Rapes did occasionally occur during wars, but it was usually condemned by the Church and/or by military leaders themselves. Napoleon has been known to execute some of his own soldiers (even officers) who were charged with raping locals. It was not considered civilised. Only soldiers ought to die in armed conflicts. The same is true today in Iraq. In that regard things haven't changed much since the 18th century (at least).
Belgium has been the battlefield of Europe for centuries. It was under Spanish administration for 250 years, and yet Spanish haplogroups are close to non-existent.
You have to realise that haplogroup I arose over 20,000 years ago, during the Ice Age, at a time when northern Europe was a no-man's land, and even the south was sparsely populated.To me, what is more telling is not what is represented genetically today within a given current population but rather what is absent from that population. For instance, I2 is non-existent in Scandinavia. Why is that so when it is older than the rest of Haplogroup I and had more opportunity to get there? Some force- either nature or man kept them out.
It is likely that members of I* (note that the asterix means that there is no further subclade, so I2*-A as you wrote is not correct) spread to 3 or 4 different regions during the Ice Age. No one knows for sure, but I imagine that a first group of I* moved to the Franco-Cantabrian refuge, then expanded from there to Scandinavia at the end of the Ice Age. This group became I1.
Another group remained in the Balkans (where I probably arose), while a third group moved to the Middle East. The Balkanic group became I2*. The Middle-Eastern remained I*.
At the end of the Ice Age, some I2 moved north from Croatia straight to northern Germany. They became I2b. The rest remained in the Balkans and later developed the mutation for I2a.
A subgroup of I2a moved to Italy, and probably settled in Sardinia when low sea levels allowed passage from Italy, then remained landlocked for millennia when the waters receded. They became I2a2. Some migrated much later (probably from Roman times onwards) to north-east Spain and around the shores of the Mediterranean around Sardinia (Italy, North Africa), where I2a2 is found at low frequencies.
Stonehenge is not so ancient in terms of genetics. It is only 5,000 years old. Most haplogroups are over 10,000 or 20,000 years old. Deep subclades may be 5,000 to 1,000 years old.My group is I2, still around today and found in very high concentrations in southeastern Europe and Sardinia・ut my family is from Scotland. Further investigation reveals me to be I2*-A, which is Ancient I2, meaning I have none of the later mutations that define present-day Slavs, Croats, Bosnians, Sardinians and the like. My group pre-dates even the known ancient cultures and peoples, so its not quite accurate to say I2 is a Slavic group (you aren't stating that but it is very common on the web)- but one can say that today it's various subclades are primarily found in modern-day southern Slavs in the highest concentrations.
I2*-A, and its cousins I2*-B and I2*-C are still found throughout Europe and just east of the Urals and into Anatolia but in extremely low frequencies in all areas. That diversity and low frequency is one of the distinctions of the group. Due to its age its likely had ample time to have its members slowly extinctualized by others. At one time it may have constituted a major group but so much time has passed, so many new groups have popped up, we may never know. This is likely true for R* or R1* which if it exists would be found likely farther to the east (I'm not up on that at all).
So, although I知 I2, I知 not a Slav. I知 the direct descendant of a people who split very early from the pack and are truly ancient. We were there before Stonehenge, before the Picts, before the Romans etc.
If you are I2a and from Scotland, you can either descend from someone from the Balkans or Iberia who moved to Britain in Roman times, or from a heterogeneous group of Neolithic farmers originating in the Near-East (composed of hg E, J2 and G2), who had mixed for a few thousands years with people from the Balkans (picking up I2a on the way) before making their way to Britain around 7,000 years ago. It is these early farmers who are thought to have built Stonehenge.
At present it is estimated that about 1% of all Scots and 2.5% of all English people belong to hg I2. It is less than the total of Near-Eastern haplogroups (E, G, J), which make up 4% of the Scottish population and 7% of the English one.
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