I2a1* ancestors from northern Spain

Johannes

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Ethnic group
Celtic/Germanic/Basque
Y-DNA haplogroup
I2a1
Hello everyone. I am new here. My Haplogroup is I2a1* My ancestors came from northern Spain -- Old Castile, Basque Country, Navarra -- which is mostly Celtic (R1b). What's confusing is how did this marker get into Spain? The Goths or Slavs? Does someone know? How does Sardinia possess such high percentages -- 44%?
 
[Mod note: moved post to its own thread.]

First, let's get our nomenclature straight. Who is telling you that you are "I2a1*" and do they provide a terminal SNP? I'm guessing that you're probably I2-M26, which is very old around the Pyrenees. Although no ancient samples from the Neolithic have found any in northern Spain in particular, ancient 5000-year-old I2-M26 has been found in nearby southern France. Nowadays, there is a lot of diversity of I2-M26 in northern Spain. It could have even spread from there originally, or perhaps from France or nearby. There is no real chance that it was spread there by the Goths or Slavs, it is almost certainly older than either population there.

Sardinians have such high I2-M26 due to a founder effect. It is one of the younger halogroups in Sardinia. Sardinian I2-M26 probably spread to Sardinia from a lineage with its origins around northern Spain or southern France or nearby.
 
Hi Sparkey, yes I thought I would be I2 M26 -- my ancestors were mainly Castilian/Basque/Navarrese and this marker is common in that region -- but a guy who works in Family Tree DNA came out with a subclade of Z102.
 
I just checked my e-mail with the information and I2 M26 is related to this Z102 marker. The guy said: "These are the SNPs that you are positive for are P37.2>CTS595>M26>L672>L160>PF4088>Z105>Z97" So yes I am I2a M26, but this of course means very little since my ancestors intermarried with other Spaniards and thus belonging to I2a does not necessarily mean I am I2 right? Since Spain has over 70% R1b, my ancestors were probably R1b but inherited the I2 marker.
 
I just checked my e-mail with the information and I2 M26 is related to this Z102 marker. The guy said: "These are the SNPs that you are positive for are P37.2>CTS595>M26>L672>L160>PF4088>Z105>Z97" So yes I am I2a M26, but this of course means very little since my ancestors intermarried with other Spaniards and thus belonging to I2a does not necessarily mean I am I2 right? Since Spain has over 70% R1b, my ancestors were probably R1b but inherited the I2 marker.

I'm not sure that I understand. If you're I2a M26, how can you not be I2? That's your y haplogroup, the haplogroup of your y line ancestor.

If you're asking whether a man's y dna classification necessarily tells him very much about his autosomal composition, then the answer is no, it doesn't necessarily do that, although it may, depending on the circumstances.

If you've been tested at 23andme, it should tell you roughly your autosomal composition, at least if most of your ancestors come from the same place. Of course, if you knew that, you wouldn't really need 23andme, which is one of the ironies of the situation.

If you're interested in the ancient population groups that make up your autosomal inheritance, then you can get another rough estimate by looking at something like the Lazaridis et al estimate of EEF/WHG/ANE in the genome of the people in your area.
http://www.eupedia.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=6711&d=1412908897

Of course, their model may change with their upcoming papers.
 
"I'm not sure that I understand. If you're I2a M26, how can you not be I2? That's your y haplogroup, the haplogroup of your y line ancestor."

Yes you are right. I am I2a. What I meant is that Y Haplogroups markers do not tell us everything about our DNA. We can inherit a certain Y haplogroup marker but does not mean we belong 100% to that race or ethnicity. We are always mixing with other haplogroups. For example, a Mulatto person with a white father inherits the R1b marker. He then goes on mixing with other Blacks for many generations. Even though some males will inherit R1b it does not mean he belongs to the R1b race or gene pool. Since the vast majority of males in northern Spain are R1b (combining R1a and I1 increases it more so) then my DNA is probably closer to the Celts/Germans than say Basques. I2a has stayed but has been bred out.
 
"I'm not sure that I understand. If you're I2a M26, how can you not be I2? That's your y haplogroup, the haplogroup of your y line ancestor."

Yes you are right. I am I2a. What I meant is that Y Haplogroups markers do not tell us everything about our DNA. We can inherit a certain Y haplogroup marker but does not mean we belong 100% to that race or ethnicity. We are always mixing with other haplogroups. For example, a Mulatto person with a white father inherits the R1b marker. He then goes on mixing with other Blacks for many generations. Even though some males will inherit R1b it does not mean he belongs to the R1b race or gene pool. Since the vast majority of males in northern Spain are R1b (combining R1a and I1 increases it more so) then my DNA is probably closer to the Celts/Germans than say Basques. I2a has stayed but has been bred out.

Yes, that's partially true, as I said in my prior post. However, I don't think there's any such thing as an "R1b race" or "R1b gene pool" in absolute terms. It seems to me that men who "carry" as well as "carried" R1b signatures can have and probably did have different autosomal or total gene pool patterns depending on the time and the areas. We don't have any really ancient R1b yet, but if it came from somewhere in ancient North Eurasia (as the Mal'ta find might suggest) or the Caspian Sea area more than 11,000? years ago, I think it's highly likely that they were very high in, perhaps exclusively ANE/EHG like, which would be very un-Basque, and un-Spaniard like. Everything I've seen lately, in fact, given the very low ANE levels in the Basques in particular seems to indicate that while they may carry a lot of y-dna R1b, they were actually not as impacted genetically by the "Indo-Europeans" as most of the rest of Europe. (Of course, this is all dependent on R1b originating in these places and at these times, which seems likely given the samples we have now.)

I also don't quite understand where you get this "Germanic" classification for Spaniards of any type. I've yet to see a Spaniard plot anywhere near the Germans, which makes sense given that I think it's highly implausible that a few thousand mostly male invaders are going to change the autosomal signature in any given area where the population numbers in the millions. You need folk movements for that. Even in terms of the French, the major area of overlap seems to be in the southwestern formerly Aquitanian speaking area, and therefore by definition not an Indo-European or "Celtic" speaking area. (Not coincidentally it's also an area very low in ANE.) That's all been clear since the days of Novembre et al and it's still the case today.
Europegenetics.jpg


See also:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_6XAIk6ygtg/Tcqj7WCS_jI/AAAAAAAADsU/WJDG6R2XnH0/s1600/waeu.png

None of the fiddling around that has gone on changes the basic positioning autosomally of the modern European, indeed, the West Eurasian populations.
 
"I'm not sure that I understand. If you're I2a M26, how can you not be I2? That's your y haplogroup, the haplogroup of your y line ancestor."

Yes you are right. I am I2a. What I meant is that Y Haplogroups markers do not tell us everything about our DNA. We can inherit a certain Y haplogroup marker but does not mean we belong 100% to that race or ethnicity. We are always mixing with other haplogroups. For example, a Mulatto person with a white father inherits the R1b marker. He then goes on mixing with other Blacks for many generations. Even though some males will inherit R1b it does not mean he belongs to the R1b race or gene pool. Since the vast majority of males in northern Spain are R1b (combining R1a and I1 increases it more so) then my DNA is probably closer to the Celts/Germans than say Basques. I2a has stayed but has been bred out.

There's a lot more on this websites besides the forum, and if you go to the Autosomal portion of the Genetics section and read that, you'll have a better understanding of what autosomal DNA is and how Basques could be mainly Y haplotype R1b but be low in ANE and not closely related to Celts or Germans with R1b. It mainly has to do with the scenario you described yourself - an R1b male will pass on his Y haplotype to all his male descendants, even if they keep marrying into a group that has autosomal DNA different from the original R1b male. And read about R1b in the section about Y haplotypes - R1b spread thousands of years ago and different subclades are found among some very different races.
 
"I also don't quite understand where you get this "Germanic" classification for Spaniards of any type." I did not mean to state that Spaniards are Germanic. But they do have or must have considerable Germanic genes. It was not "a few thousand mostly males" who went into Iberia but thousands of person of both sexes. The whole Visigothic nation (as well as the considerable number of Swabians, Vandals, and Alans) migrated to new uninhabited lands in what is now north-central Spain and northern Portugal. They went there because the Roman Emperor in the 5th century gave them free land. The population of Iberia was very low during the 5th century -- perhaps 3 millions. The barbarian horde must have numbered close to half million because historians believed that each barbarian nation comprised between 100,000 - 200,000 persons (male and female). Given that they lived in peace for 200 years they must have increased in numbers. The only evidence is that they were probably high on R1b. This is why Spain is 70%+ R1b.

The scatter plot is confusing. The only thing that makes sense is that the French cluster close to the Spanish, but why are the Irish, Scots, and Welsh (they don't show) so far away in the second quadrant? It has been known by geneticists that the Irish, Welsh, Celtic Scots and western English share close ties genetically to Spaniards. The scatter plot puts the Spanish in the third quadrant away from the others. It does not make sense to me. Spaniards are essentially Celtic, especially if they come from Central and NW Spain (northern Portugal as well). And what are the Slovaks doing in the fourth quadrant with the Italians??? Slovaks and Italians are related?

The autosomal table makes sense. EEF means Early European Farmers? ANE means "Ancient Near East" and EHG "European Hunter Gatherers"? I am more a historian than a biologist. Are the EEF Indo-European invaders??? Where do the Germanics, Celts, and Slavs fit in here? Why do Ashkenazi Jews, Sicilians, and Maltese dont have any EHG??
 
Spain is predominently R1b-DF27 more closely related to R1b-U152 (Italo-Gaulish) both downstream of R1b-ZZ11.The only link between Spanish R1b & R1b in UK / Ireland is the common Proto-Italo-Celto-Germanic R1b link to R1b-L11 which goes back to1500 bc.Prof. Sykes (Glacial retreat) presumption is generally refuted now as far as the Atlantic Celt / Iberian Celtic link goes anyway.
A cultural link still seems likely, however.
 

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