So what's the real deal on the origins of the Irish?

[Roisin1975]

Good afternoon, hailing from the DMV (D.C. area) and this is my very first post on this site. Anyhow I'm a biracial woman of African-American and European heritage, with the European heritage being heavily Irish, from the areas of Counties Antrim, Leitrim and Waterford, thus I'm greatly interested in Irish history and culture. but have read so many varying accounts of where the Irish actually come from, some saying we're related to the Vikings, some saying we're originally from the Middle East, some saying we're related to the Spanish and/or French, some saying we're from Central Europe and some saying we're related to the Scottish. I always thought that the Irish were an Indigenous people, and if I'm not mistaken, the Gaelic language that the Irish speak is an indigenous language to that region of the world, so what's the real deal on us, are we actually indigenous or are we actually settlers after a previous culture?

 

[Doggerland]

Hi,

the most cultures of today have replaced, assimilated or repressed a previous culture.
When it comes to the definition of being indigenous, it is not so easy. Some places in the world like the Americas may have be not been settled before 20.000 years ago by modern humans and so the first settlers or their descendants called Native Americans today.

In other parts of the world there had always been hominids (human-like creatures) like Homo Erectus that has been replaced by Homo Heidelbergensis, that has been replaced by Homo Neanderthalensis and so on.

When it comes to modern Homo Sapiens there is no clear picture who was where the first, because humans existed likely already 300.000 years ago.

You specially asked about Europe and Ireland. It is known that Europe was populated by Neanderthals before the last glaciation that happened 24.000 years ago. The current genetic evidence suggests that the Neanderthals where black skinned, dark eyed and curly haired. Their diet manly consisted of animals, but also traces of plant roots, nuts and mushrooms and been found on their teeth (In the dental calcus)
Europe looked this way, as the ice sheets covered it:https://blogs.egu.eu/divisions/cr/files/2016/03/LGM_Europe_Map_v1.jpg
After the ice sheets went away, humans settled the northern part of Europe again and the Neanderthals already got extinct in Europe. The firstmodern humans likely came from an area in the Western Mediterranean, North Africa or the Middle East, the Black Sea or a combination of this places.

The first Irish had entered the country since the paleolithic, they lived in small coastal settlements, practiced fishing and gathering of plants.

In the mesolithic age (10.000 years ago) the Irish may have looked like the british Cheddar Man:https://www.nhm.ac.uk/content/dam/n...ad-with-skeleton-in-background-full-width.jpg

In the neolithic age (6000 years ago) people that originated in Anatolia 15.000 years ago had entered the Island and practiced farming and animal husbandry.

I have analyzed genetic samples of them and they looked like this:

They had round faces with little up pointing noses and strong jaws.
Their eyes where green or hazel colored. They had dark, curly hair and light skin.

After the neolithic age the Bell Beakers entered the Isles (4500 years ago), a culture that practiced farming but also animal herding and horse breeding in a large scale. They had been horse riding warriors that had good archery skills. The origin of the Bell Beaker culture is unknown till today, they may originated in southwestern Europe and got genetically and cultural influenced by the steppe cultures above the Black Sea, that entered Europe 5000 years ago from the east. This event is known as Indoeuropean Invasion/Migration. It is believed that the invaders/migrants killed, replaced or repressed almost all males of the previous cultures with some few exceptions.
This happened in Ireland too.

There are many things that happened after this, if you are interested you can read the whole story here:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoric_Ireland#Glaciation_and_the_Palaeolithic

 

[CrazyDonkey]

Hi,
After the ice sheets went away, humans settled the northern part of Europe again and the Neanderthals already got extinct in Europe. The firstmodern humans likely came from an area in the Western Mediterranean, North Africa or the Middle East, the Black Sea or a combination of this places.

The first Irish had entered the country since the paleolithic, they lived in small coastal settlements, practiced fishing and gathering of plants.

In the mesolithic age (10.000 years ago) the Irish may have looked like the british Cheddar Man:https://www.nhm.ac.uk/content/dam/n...ad-with-skeleton-in-background-full-width.jpg

I2a Y-DNA WHG's dominated Europe in the Paleolithic and Mesolithic - they emerged from the Epigravettian Refugium in the modern-day Balkans, following the retreating ice sheets.

In the neolithic age (6000 years ago) people that originated in Anatolia 15.000 years ago had entered the Island and practiced farming and animal husbandry.

The Neolithic in Ireland and Britain was dominated by I2a farmers who were not descended from Cheddar Man, but were heavily admixed with EEF females, which likely happened on the Continent. It is questionable that these I2a's were Doggerland-survivors. They created the Megalithic Culture that dominated NW Europe.

After the neolithic age the Bell Beakers entered the Isles (4500 years ago), a culture that practiced farming but also animal herding and horse breeding in a large scale. They had been horse riding warriors that had good archery skills. The origin of the Bell Beaker culture is unknown till today, they may originated in southwestern Europe and got genetically and cultural influenced by the steppe cultures above the Black Sea, that entered Europe 5000 years ago from the east. This event is known as Indoeuropean Invasion/Migration. It is believed that the invaders/migrants killed, replaced or repressed almost all males of the previous cultures with some few exceptions.

This happened in Ireland too.

The main theory, I think, is that the Bell Beakers, who were R1b, were descended from the Yamnaya steppe-herders.

About 90% of the previous population was replaced, but it is unclear how or why - it was likely from a combination of violence, disease (plague?), monopolization of females (polygamy), and being pushed off other than "scrub" lands (marginalization), rather than from any single cause. 90% is not 100%, however, so it is possible that a remnant population was able to survive, perhaps in the Isles and Highlands of Scotland.

I-M284 (formed 10500 ybp) has been found in Ireland (NewGrange), but I-L126 has not, other than in Ulster, possibly from a 5th-Century CE migration of Brythonic "Cruithin" from modern-day Scotland. Qruithin (Q-Celtic) = Pritane (P-Celtic) = Britain (Latin). (About 10% of the population of SW Scotland and Ulster is I-M223, with much lower densities elsewhere. I-Y4751 (formed 1900 ybp), of the Isles Scot-Ire clade), with 22 branches at FTDNA, compared to 3 for I-Y4142 and 2 for I-S7753, two steps up, could show a sudden expansion following a severe bottleneck.