Mark
Posted on 07/23/2011 7:26:30 PM PDT by Palter
Experts are asking people from north-east Wales to provide a DNA sample to discover why those from the area carry rare genetic make-up.
So far, 500 people have taken part in the study which shows 30% of men carry an unusual type of Y chromosome, compared to 1% of men elsewhere the UK.
Common in Mediterranean men, it was initially thought to suggest Bronze Age migrants 4,000 years ago.
Sheffield University scientists explain the study at Wrexham Science Festival. 'Quite extraordinary'
A team of scientists, led by Dr Andy Grierson and Dr Robert Johnston, from the University of Sheffield is trying to find out how and why this has come about.
Dr Grierson is leading the talk at Glyndŵr University on Tuesday and wants to speak to people with ancestry in the region to discover what is known about their family history - and to provide them with an opportunity to contribute a DNA sample to the project.
"The number of people in north-east Wales with this genetic make-up is quite extraordinary," he said.
"This type of genetic make-up is usually found in the eastern Mediterranean which made us think that there might have been strong connections between north-east Wales and this part of Europe somewhere in the past.
"But this appears not to be the case, so we're still looking to find out why it's happened and what it reveals about the history of the region."
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
ping.
DNA has a difficult time lying.
Ping.
A possibility is that those from the Mediterranean area were interbreeding in Wales all those years ago.
Mark
More likely they travelled from the near east to Wales.
whatever CZJ’s genes might be she’s made great use of them!
whatever CZJ’s genes might be she’s made great use of them!
1.)The Romans conquer Britannia and Mediterranean genes are introduced.
2.) Centuries pass. The Roman Empire collapses and Britannia is invaded by multiple waves of Germanic and Scandinavian invaders.
3.) The surviving Romano-Britons are pushed out of the indefensible lowlands but are able to mount a successful defense in the mountainous regions of Wales just as the Asturians mounted a successful defense against the invading Moors in their mountainous region of northwest Spain.
4.) Mediterranean genes survive in Wales and are concentrated in Wales.
Searching for the Welsh-Hindi link
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4328733.stm
A BBC journalist is urging helpful linguists to come forward to help solve a mystery - why the Hindi accent has so much in common with Welsh.
Sonia Mathur, a native Hindi speaker, had her interest sparked when she moved from India to work for the BBC in Wales - and found that two accents from countries 5,000 miles apart seemed to have something in common.
It has long been known that the two languages stem from Indo-European, the “mother of all languages” - but the peculiar similarities between the two accents when spoken in English are striking.
{End of excerpt. More at link.}
Y haplogroup E1b
Roman civilisation started its climb maybe 500 BC or so at its oldest. This study says these genes were introduced circa 2000 BC.
Seems logical to me.
One thing that always interested me was how Hindi speakers pick up English so easily and speak with idioms smoothly Whereas, my Asian wife and her cousins have a really hard time putting sentences together. The Hindi/English languages must be constructed similarly or we just think in the same patterns.
They are burdened by "the English filter" ~ a well known phenomenon where any idea not already accepted by English speakers is simply rejected out of hand and a new answer sought.
I suppose that stimulates more study, but it overlooks a lot of things already known from sources the Brits don't wish to study.
With respect to Eastern Mediterranean sources for y-chromosome purposes it doesn't matter if that didn't happen 4,000 years ago since, in fact, it did happen about 2500 (average) years ago.
The otherwise discredited sources are the Galician version of the Annals of the Kings. This is yet another version of history that was maintained by Gaelic speakers in Northern Spain BEFORE the Milesians invaded Ireland.
The next step in that invasion was when the Irish moved to Great Britain. That happened before the arrival of the Romans.
The Romans were in the habit of bringing foederati to conquered lands ~ so you could have some Eastern Mediterranean types brought to Great Britain at that time ~ remember, it only takes ONE GUY to pull this off.
Thanks. I’ve heard of the Proto-Indo-European root but have never seen a tree put together like that. I like it and have saved it.
there are also similarities between Hinduism and the ancient Celtic religions. example, the “white horse”.
I saw that but the hypothesis seemed to be "Iron Age migration" without considering other factors or explaining why they though the DNA was already there before the Roman conquest at the time of Clauduis.
Maybe the geneticist was used to thinking in terms of peaceful migrations and not in terms of strategic military retreats, desperate military stands and the defensibility of montainous regions as compared to the lowlands.
In Spain, at the shock of the Moorish invasion in 711 A.D., the Visogothic DNA that had been concentrated in central and southern Spain, within a couple of years, became concentrated in Asturias. This had nothing to do with peaceful migrations and everything to do with strategic military retreats and the defensibility of the Cantabrian Mountains.
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