U152 Homeland Revisited

[Dorianfinder]

R1b-U152 Variance gives us an indication of how diverse the haplotypes within a specific subclade are within a specific region. Until now the expectation has been that where we find high frequencies of R1b-U152 we can expect to find higher diversity of haplotypes (variance) as the population is older and has had more time to diversify.

According to preliminary findings, it appears that this assumption does not hold true for U152.

The highest variance for R1b-U152 appears to be in the vicinity of North West Europe whereas the highest frequency for R1b-U152 can be found in the region of Alpine and North Italy.

The low variance in Italy with high frequency suggests a limited, gradual growth trend by a group who entered Italy from the North and formed a colony.

What determines the R1b-U152 homeland, frequency or variance?
http://www.u152.org/images/stories/U...2011_01_18.pdf

[Dorianfinder]

The variance for R1b-U152 suggests that the expansion took place in Central-Western Europe. However as you can see by the map above the North-Eastern Europe is sometimes favored for a Celtic homeland.

[Taranis]

The variance for R1b-U152 suggests that the expansion took place in Central-Western Europe. However as you can see by the map above the North-Eastern Europe is sometimes favored for a Celtic homeland.

Yes, that is most weird. In general, Celtic name evidence in Central Europe in Antiquity extends approximately to the Rhine Delta, from there to the mouth of the Main River. From the sources of the Main river it extends into Bohemia, so we might draw a line from the source of the Main through the Erzgebirge mountains towards the Oder (the Lugians in modern-day Silesia). From there into the western Carpathians (modern-day Slovakia). The problem with this is, by the time this is recorded (1st century AD / 2nd century AD), Celtic presence in Central Europe is effectively vestigial as Rome conquered all lands up to the Rhine and the Danube, and Germanic tribes have simultaneously migrated as far south as the Danube. There is a fairly large wedge of land between the area described above (in particular northern Hesse is worthy to mention here) in which Celtic name evidence is absent, but in which a sizable number of La-Tene sites have been found. The question is this: how did the situation look like centuries earlier, before Germanic tribes started migrating southwards? It's virtually impossible to tell what the ethnolinguistic situation really looked like in earlier centuries, and where the Celtic/Proto-Germanic language boundary did run, say in 500 BC.

On another note, the image you have there is quite inaccurate with Iberia. The "Celtiberians" (in the proper sense) lived only in the upper areas of the Douro and Ebro rivers. There was a number of other ostensibly Celtic-speaking peoples (most importantly the Gallaecians) which lived in the western part of the Iberian penninsula. This wasn't a homogenously Celtic area either, as there were also the (non-Celtic, but nonetheless Indo-European and Celtic-influenced) Lusitanians in the Tejo river area.

Another note that I would like to add: what the map also ignores is the linguistic divides inside the Celtic-speaking world, specifically the Q/P divide. P-Celtic languages were spoken in Gaul, in the Alps, and in the east, as well as in Britain (though there is evidence Britain would have been originally Q-Celtic, too), whereas Q-Celtic (the more archaic variety) was spoken in Ireland and on the Iberian penninsula. In my opinion, if R1b-U152 was spread by predominantly Celtic peoples, they would have been P-Celtic.

[Knovas]

There was a map showing all the east side of Spain as "Iberian" culture (including a vast territory covered by the Ebro river). However, those peoples must have enterely Proto-Celtic stock, since for what I see at Euroegenes, Catalans report very high North Atlantic scores.

Here is what I am refering to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Iberia_300BC.svg

[Taranis]

There was a map showing all the east side of Spain as "Iberian" culture (including a vast territory covered by the Ebro river). However, those peoples must have enterely Proto-Celtic stock, since for what I see at Euroegenes, Catalans report very high North Atlantic scores.

Here is what I am refering to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Iberia_300BC.svg

Yes, Catalonia is a very large problem. The Iberians were obviously a non-Indo-European people. The question is this: did the Proto-Celts merely pass through this area, was the area Celtic before the Iberians arrived (presumably from the south?), or did the Proto-Celts take an entirely different route to settle in the western/northern parts of the Iberian penninsula?

[Dorianfinder]

On another note, the image you have there is quite inaccurate with Iberia. The "Celtiberians" (in the proper sense) lived only in the upper areas of the Douro and Ebro rivers. There was a number of other ostensibly Celtic-speaking peoples (most importantly the Gallaecians) which lived in the western part of the Iberian penninsula. This wasn't a homogenously Celtic area either, as there were also the (non-Celtic, but nonetheless Indo-European and Celtic-influenced) Lusitanians in the Tejo river area.

I believe the map depicts the Celt-Iberians in the not-so-proper sense and simply indicates in a non-specific manner where the Celts had traveled towards. Thank-you for pointing this out though, it makes quite a bit of difference.

In my opinion, if R1b-U152 was spread by predominantly Celtic peoples, they would have been P-Celtic.

If proto-Celtic 'kw' appears somehow closer to Q-Celtic languages and P-Celtic less so. This raises the question in my mind whether or not R1b-U152 may have expanded as a non Celtic source possibly influencing the shift to P-Celtic perhaps? Any thoughts on this..

[Taranis]

I believe the map depicts the Celt-Iberians in the not-so-proper sense and simply indicates in a non-specific manner where the Celts had traveled towards. Thank-you for pointing this out though, it makes quite a bit of difference.

The problem is that we know very little about the Celts in the northwestern parts of the Iberian penninsula. We know quite a bit about the Celtiberians proper because they had adopted the writing system of the Iberians, and there is a fair corpus of the Celtiberian language as a result. In contrast the other Celtic peoples of the Iberian penninsula were illiterate until the Roman period, and even from the Roman period most Gallaecian evidence for instance is purely onomastic (place names, town names, personal names, deity names).

If proto-Celtic 'kw' appears somehow closer to Q-Celtic languages and P-Celtic less so. This raises the question in my mind whether or not R1b-U152 may have expanded as a non Celtic source possibly influencing the shift to P-Celtic perhaps? Any thoughts on this..

The problem is that the Q/P shift (at least in Celtc) is a simplification of the actual situation:

- In addition to Q/P, Brythonic and Gaulish share a number of innovations (common sound laws) not found in Goidelic or Celtiberian.

- Brythonic and Goidelic share a number of innovations (usually called "Insular Celtic") absent in both Celtiberian and Gaulish (which are dubbed "Continental Celtic" in contrast). The question is which of these arose first. From the looks of it, it appears that the P-Celtic features arose earlier because ancient Irish (as recorded in the Ogham inscriptions) was essentially "Continental Celtic".

- Celtiberian has a number of innovations not found anywhere, and in most scenarios on the development of the Celtic languages, they are the first branch to diverge.

Having said this, there is the issue that the Q (or rather "Kw") to P shift (not the other sound laws in Brythonic and Gaulish, though!) did not only occur in the Celtic languages, but also in the Italic languages (specifically the Osco-Umbrian branch, but not in Latin for instance) as well as in Greek. Since we know that the shift had not occured in Mycenean Greek yet (you might call Mycenean Greek "Q-Greek"), this shift must have occured after the Bronze Age collapse in Greek.

So yes, I have speculated on a common source of this sound shift.

[Knovas]

Well, it's almost sure that ancient Catalans were "Celts" assimilated to the Iberian culture...but it's curious such huge influence in a large number of people. Geneticaly speaking, there's little evidence of those Iberian speakers. We can assume it as the Southern part reported (including in this case very low Near Eastern compared to other Southern Europeans), but that's nothing concrete, impossible to link it with specific populations as it's obvious the conection we find between quite Iberians and the rest of the Atlantic fringe (France, UK and Ireland) while checking the North Atlantic scores.

There aren't referent populations today from where could be possible to get an idea.

[Taranis]

Well, it's almost sure that ancient Catalans were "Celts" assimilated to the Iberian culture...but it's curious such huge influence in a large number of people. Geneticaly speaking, there's little evidence of those Iberian speakers. We can assume it as the Southern part reported (including in this case very low Near Eastern compared to other Southern Europeans), but that's nothing concrete, impossible to link it with specific populations as it's obvious the conection we find between quite Iberians and the rest of the Atlantic fringe (France, UK and Ireland) while checking the North Atlantic scores.

There aren't referent populations today from where could be possible to get an idea.

I don't think that the ancient population of Catalonia was necessarily Celtic, primarily because there is very little in the way of Celtic name influence in Catalonia (yes, there is plenty of Celtic name evidence if you go into the West into Celtiberia proper (modern-day western Aragon and northeastern Castille, but not in Catalonia). First off, you have to consider that the Basques too are heavy carriers of R1b, and I don't see why the Iberians couldn't have been predominantly carriers of R1b, either. There's also quite a bit of evidence for language contact between Basque and Iberian. We don't if Basque and Iberian were part of the same language family (we know too little about the language of the Iberians to say for sure), but at the very least there are Iberian loans into Basque (or possibly vice versa).

I know that Basque R1b in itself is a mystery, but if the Basques are predominantly R1b, I don't see why the Iberians should not have been R1b, either.

[Knovas]

But I said they were assimilated to the other culture, for this reason I wrote "Celts". Peoples that, at least, genetically speaking weren't different from the main Celts. Basques and the rest of Iberians are related in a substantial degree today, but in ancient times is not that clear.

It's too bad as I said other times, that Dienekes' is not running more K=12 with the Sardinian and Basque components. I'm curious about the results we cannot see. It's possible parts of Lleida and the Tarragona province were hardly influenced by the Basques, but I don't see it in the rest of Catalunya.

[Maciamo]

I don't think that the ancient population of Catalonia was necessarily Celtic, primarily because there is very little in the way of Celtic name influence in Catalonia (yes, there is plenty of Celtic name evidence if you go into the West into Celtiberia proper (modern-day western Aragon and northeastern Castille, but not in Catalonia). First off, you have to consider that the Basques too are heavy carriers of R1b, and I don't see why the Iberians couldn't have been predominantly carriers of R1b, either. There's also quite a bit of evidence for language contact between Basque and Iberian. We don't if Basque and Iberian were part of the same language family (we know too little about the language of the Iberians to say for sure), but at the very least there are Iberian loans into Basque (or possibly vice versa).

I know that Basque R1b in itself is a mystery, but if the Basques are predominantly R1b, I don't see why the Iberians should not have been R1b, either.

I think that the high frequency of R1b among the Catalans happened in a similar fashion as in the Basques. It's doubtful that Basque and Iberian languages superseded Celtic after R1b people settled there. It is far more likely that these were Neolithic languages that survived the R1b invasion. One of my favourite scenario is that an army of R1b men invaded north-east Spain, killing most of the local (presumably I2a1 and G2a) men and taking their women. In a polygamic system, there would have been several local Basque or Iberian speaking women for one Celtic-speaking man, and the children would have ended up speaking the language of their mothers, who remained numerically dominant. This is all the truer if the men didn't care much about their offspring's education. That's how one Y-DNA lineage can become dominant in a conquered territory without language change in the overall population after a few generations. To confirm this, we need to compare the mtDNA lineages of the Basques, Aragonese and Catalans to those of Celtic-speaking regions like France, southern Germany or the British Isles. If there is a significant difference, then we could presume that the mtDNA of Northeast Spain isn't Celtic and that would solve the mystery of Basque and Iberian languages in a high R1b region.

[Taranis]

But I said they were assimilated to the other culture, for this reason I wrote "Celts". Peoples that, at least, genetically speaking weren't different from the main Celts. Basques and the rest of Iberians are related in a substantial degree today, but in ancient times is not that clear.

It's too bad as I said other times, that Dienekes' is not running more K=12 with the Sardinian and Basque components. I'm curious about the results we cannot see. It's possible that Lleida and the Tarragona province were hardly influenced by the Basques, but I don't see it in the rest of Catalunya.

Sorry, I think the problem is also an enduring confusion of the meaning of "Iberian". In the modern sense "Iberian" refers to the inhabitants of the entire penninsula. In contrast, the entire penninsula in Antiquity was refered to as "Hispania", from which of course the modern-day country name "Spain" derives. But when I meant "Iberian" in my post, I am refering explicitly to the ancient non-Indo-European people that lived in a wide arc from the Roussillon to central-western Andalusia.

I think that the high frequency of R1b among the Catalans happened in a similar fashion as in the Basques. It's doubtful that Basque and Iberian languages superseded Celtic after R1b people settled there. It is far more likely that these were Neolithic languages that survived the R1b invasion. One of my favourite scenario is that an army of R1b men invaded north-east Spain, killing most of the local (presumably I2a1 and G2a) men and taking their women. In a polygamic system, there would have been several local Basque or Iberian speaking women for one Celtic-speaking man, and the children would have ended up speaking the language of their mothers, who remained numerically dominant. This is all the truer if the men didn't care much about their offspring's education. That's how one Y-DNA lineage can become dominant in a conquered territory without language change in the overall population after a few generations.

Yes, I absolutely agree that the scenario is far more likely than the idea that Iberian (or even the Basques!) supplanted a Proto-Celtic population. As I mentioned, there is a decisive evidence for a relationship between Basque and Iberian (wether these were just loans or they were part of the same language family is hard to say at this point, however), and also Catalonia has very little in the way of evidence for Celtic name evidence. It is far more likely that until the Greeks and later the Romans showed up, there were basically no Indo-Europeans in the east and southeast of the Iberian penninsula. Another linguistic aspect is that there are surprisingly few Celtic loans in Basque.

On that note, a similar scenario (an analogue, if you will) to what you describe as a possible scenario for the Basques/Iberians is also historically attested in the Carribean when the Caribs invaded and conquered the Arawakians.

[Knovas]

Yes, I know it Taranis. And, if Basques and Iberians were part of the same language family, it's very likely that genetically speaking they were quite as the same. Now I remember that FR1 is from Gascony (not completely Basque, but has quite of it) and he reports very high North Atlantic too. At the moment, none of the Spaniards reported a substantial level of Basque in the analysis I mentioned, for this reason it would be interesting to see the rest: there are at least 2 Catalans or individuals with some Catalan roots, and there's another one coming.

[razyn]

One of my favourite scenario is that an army of R1b men invaded north-east Spain, killing most of the local (presumably I2a1 and G2a) men and taking their women. In a polygamic system, there would have been several local Basque or Iberian speaking women for one Celtic-speaking man, and the children would have ended up speaking the language of their mothers, who remained numerically dominant. This is all the truer if the men didn't care much about their offspring's education. That's how one Y-DNA lineage can become dominant in a conquered territory without language change in the overall population after a few generations...
and that would solve the mystery of Basque and Iberian languages in a high R1b region.

I recently alluded to something like this on the thread about "Lack of G2a in Basque," except that my suggestion was more of a navy than an army; more of a trading enclave than an invasion; and the main successful haplogroup was specifically R1b-Z196 (because that's ancestral to SRY2627 and M153, via two separate lines of descent). But the key elements are there -- for the Mother Tongue to be that of the local mothers, not that of the recently arrived (or intermittently present) fathers.

The R1b guys may also have had some other advantage over the local guys, for purposes of breeding and lineage survival, besides bronze axes, war chariots and other militaria. Maybe they had immunities that were inherited by their children, and not by the children of the G2 or other local men in Iberia generally, and Basque country in particular.

[Maciamo]

I recently alluded to something like this on the thread about "Lack of G2a in Basque," except that my suggestion was more of a navy than an army; more of a trading enclave than an invasion; and the main successful haplogroup was specifically R1b-Z196 (because that's ancestral to SRY2627 and M153, via two separate lines of descent). But the key elements are there -- for the Mother Tongue to be that of the local mothers, not that of the recently arrived (or intermittently present) fathers.

The R1b guys may also have had some other advantage over the local guys, for purposes of breeding and lineage survival, besides bronze axes, war chariots and other militaria. Maybe they had immunities that were inherited by their children, and not by the children of the G2 or other local men in Iberia generally, and Basque country in particular.

I certainly agree with your views.

[bertrand]

Maciamo,
With regard to your recent Map on U152 distribution, could you please tell me which areas in Switzerland show the highest concentrations?
And in Germany?
It seems that there is a high concentration crescent going from Mainz, Germany, through Alsace, France to Bern, switzerland, no?
Thanks for your help

Bertrand