Geneticists Find for Ancient Irish Near East and Pontic Steppe Origins

Summary: Geneticists at Ireland’s Trinity College and Northern Ireland’s Queen’s University Belfast find for the ancient Irish Near East and Pontic Steppe origins.

"Her genes tell us she had black hair and brown eyes" ~ reconstruction of Ballynahatty Neolithic skull by Elizabeth Black: Barrie Hartwell, no usage restrictions, via EurekAlert!

Human genome sequences are identifying for the ancient Irish Near East and Pontic Steppe origins, according to data published Dec. 28, 2015, in the online Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Four co-investigators at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, and three at Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland, base their findings upon Early Bronze Age and Neolithic remains. Extractible DNA conserves sufficient information for Barrie Hartwell, co-author and senior research fellow at Queen’s University Belfast, to reconstruct head-and-throat views of a dark-haired, brown-eyed lass. It derives from a Neolithic woman whose remains, preserved through a megalithic burial between about 3343 and 3020 B.C., were discovered in Northern Ireland in 1855.

Analysis establishes the Neolithic female’s farming pursuits.

The Lebor Gabhàla from the ninth century A.D. finds Ireland’s pre-history one of invasions subsequent to the megalithic (“built with great stones”) tomb-builders of 3500 B.C.

The Book of Invasions gives earliest Celtic immigrations to the Cruithnigh from ancient Scotland in 600 B.C. and the Euerni from continental Europe in 500 B.C. It has the third wave of Celtic immigrants, the spear-bearing Laighin, migrate from what is now western Normandy, France, to the Emerald Isle in 300 B.C. It identifies as the fourth wave Gaelic-speaking Feni fleeing Roman expansion into Gaul and receiving the Emerald islander names Connachta (“Conn’s people”) and Eoghanacht (“Owen’s people”).

Early Bronze Age male and Neolithic female remains join to demystify pre-Celtic Ireland.

Linguists and philologists know of Celtic as an ancient language, with Eurasian geo-origins and ties to China’s light-eyed, light-haired, tall, Tocharian language-speaking Tarim River Basin mummies.

Archaeologists and paleo-anthropologists list among ways of tracking Celtic migrations from Eurasia to Ireland following evidence of defensible fortifications, salt extraction, trained horses and woven textiles. They mull whether the introduction of agriculture among hunter-gatherers in 3750 B.C. and of metallurgy among farmers in 2300 B.C. recognizes cultural adoption or population change. They note haplogroup genealogy-extracted answers in Neolithic Ballynahatty and on Rathlin Island, County Antrim, from Early Bronze Age cist-burial remains of about 2026 to 1534 B.C.

Female-transmitted mitochondrial and male-transmitted Y-chromosome DNA offer genealogical and genetic reconstructions from prehistory.

Neolithic sequencing proves shared alleles (alternative genes) with Luxembourg’s ancient hunter-gatherers, genetic drift with ancient Scandinavians and Spaniards and HV0 membership with ancient French and Germans. It qualifies the Neolithic Irish as descendants of the Near East’s (west Asia’s) ancient migrant farmers and relatives of the southwest Mediterranean’s ancient Sardinians and Spaniards.

Early Bronze Age sequencing reveals mitochondrial J2b and U5 and Y-chromosome R1b1a2a1a2c, R1b1a2a1a2c1 and R1b1a2a1a2c1g haplogroups as milk-drinkers prone to cystic fibrosis and hemochromatosis (dietary iron-retention). It suggests descendants of ancient Eurasians from the Caucasus Mountains and of Yamnaya herders with Pontic Steppe origins and relatives of ancient English, Scots, and Welsh.

Light-haired Yamnaya immigrants turn the Irish into blue-eyed speakers of a Celtic language.

Ballynahatty Skull ~ Prior to excavation near Belfast in 1855, she had lain in a Neolithic tomb chamber for 5,000 years; subsequently curated in Queens University Belfast: Daniel Bradley, Trinity College Dublin, no usage restrictions, via EurekAlert!

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Ballynahatty skull reconstruction: Barrie Hartwell, no usage restrictions, via EurekAlert! @ http://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/105943.php?from=315215

Ballynahatty skull: Daniel Bradley, Trinity College Dublin, no usage restrictions, via EurekAlert! @ http://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/105942.php?from=315215

For further information:

Cassidy, Lara M.; Rui Martiniano; Eileen M. Murphy; Matthew D. Teasdale; James Mallory; Barrie Hartwell; and Daniel G. Bradley. Published Ahead of Print 28 December 2015. “Neolithic and Bronze Age Migration to Ireland and Establishment of the Insular Atlantic Genome.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 113, no. 2 (Jan. 12, 2016): 368-373. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1518445113
Available @ http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/12/22/1518445113
Available @ http://www.pnas.org/content/113/2/368.full

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