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5,000 year old DNA reveals the surprising origins of the Irish
Irish Central ^ | March 31, 2017 | Sandie Angulo Chen

Posted on 11/23/2017 6:14:32 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet

With a vial of saliva and a little cutting-edge science, AncestryDNA can tell you if you’ve got any Irish heritage in your genes. And with a lot of cutting-edge science, researchers in December 2015 published a study telling the world where that Irish heritage first originated.

By studying the 5,000-year-old remains of a female farmer buried near Belfast, Ireland, and the remains of three men buried 3,000 and 4,000 years ago on Rathlin Island in County Antrim, archaeologists and geneticists now say they now know where the modern Irish people originally came from.

The remains of the Stone Age female farmer show that she resembled modern people from Spain and Sardinia, suggesting she had roots there. But her ancestors ultimately originated from the Fertile Crescent, the once-lush region of the Middle East where humans first practiced agriculture. Those migrants brought cattle, cereals, and ceramics, along with black hair and brown eyes.

The remains of the Bronze Age male farmers show a different group of migrants entering Ireland one to two thousand years later. Those farmers came from the Pontic steppe of southern Russia. They brought metalworking culture, the genetic disposition for blue eyes, and the gene for a blood disorder so often found in Ireland that it’s known as the Celtic disease: haemochromatosis.

Using a technique called whole-genome analysis, scientists at Trinity College Dublin studied the DNA from all four bodies to establish a history of ancestral migration and settlement.

“There was a great wave of genome change that swept into [Bronze Age] Europe from above the Black Sea … we now know it washed all the way to the shores of its most westerly island,” geneticist and lead researcher Dan Bradley told the BBC.

The research shows that cultural changes in the ancient British Isles, such as the introduction of agriculture and metalworking, likely arrived because of large-scale migrations rather than the adoption of new ways by indigenous people.

DNA research isn’t just for looking back thousands of years. With AncestryDNA, you can discover whether your grandparents or great-grandparents really did hail from Ireland or any one of 26 distinct ethnic populations. AncestryDNA can also be an invaluable tool in genealogical research by matching up your DNA with relatives you might never have known and by identifying common forebears you may never have heard of.

From there, the 16 billion historical records on Ancestry can help you search forwards or backward in time to fill in your family tree — wherever that tree first took root.


TOPICS: History; Science
KEYWORDS: ancientautopsies; ancientnavigation; fartyshadesofgreen; genealogy; genetics; godsgravesglyphs; helixmakemineadouble; ireland; irish
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I'm about 47% Scandinavian, with some Italian/Greek, Western and Eastern European and 2% North African.
1 posted on 11/23/2017 6:14:33 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Why hasn’t the alien guy weighed in on this?


2 posted on 11/23/2017 6:16:46 PM PST by Reily
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Ireland’s symbol, the Harp, is the same as King David’s...


3 posted on 11/23/2017 6:21:20 PM PST by JPJones (Who is FOR tariffs? George Washington, Ronald Reagan and Me.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I was betting on the Levant. I was close.


4 posted on 11/23/2017 6:22:01 PM PST by Oratam ("Let justice be done tho' the heavens fall.")
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To: Reily

5 posted on 11/23/2017 6:26:55 PM PST by treetopsandroofs (Had FDR been GOP, there would have been no World Wars, just "The Great War" and "Roosevelt's Wars".)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I had always heard that my great-grandma was half Cherokee. My genealogy research shows that she lived in Comanche territory, and that is where she raised my grandpa.

So, it is a little odd for a half Cherokee woman to live in Comanche territory, but not completely implausible.

But the Ancestry.com DNA analysis found no Native American ethnicity in my background. Instead, it shows southeastern African, the Bantu tribe. And I have compared the ethnicity results from enough relatives to figure out that great-grandma was the source of that ethnicity. I figure she claimed to be half Cherokee to hide the fact that she was a mulatto.

Oh, and I have Irish ancestors, as well.


6 posted on 11/23/2017 6:29:36 PM PST by exDemMom (Current visual of the hole the US continues to dig itself into: http://www.usdebtclock.org/)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Not true at all. The Irish are direct descendants of the Gods. That’s why they drink so much of the God’s nectar, beer.


7 posted on 11/23/2017 6:35:12 PM PST by Az Joe (Gloria in excelsis Deo)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

The Scythian and Lost Tribes

So the mythology is likely correct


8 posted on 11/23/2017 6:35:30 PM PST by Nifster (I see puppy dogs in the clouds)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet; SunkenCiv

What about the red headed mummies in China wearing plaid?


9 posted on 11/23/2017 6:36:32 PM PST by Bodleian_Girl (Please see my profile to find out why the Birmingham News is trying to destroy Judge Roy Moore)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

My mother and father were Irish,
so I guess I’m Irish stew.


10 posted on 11/23/2017 6:36:54 PM PST by sparklite2 (I hereby designate the ongoing kerfuffle Diddle-Gate.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Lots of Scots-Irish but no Irish whatsoever. The two are different genetically, and it doesn't appear the two mixed when the Scots fled to N. Ireland.

English, German, French, some Spanish and Scandinavian going by my daughter's DNA analysis.

If it's not all based on mitochondrial DNA, the above might not hold completely true. And I didn't want ancestry with their TOS getting custody of my DNA.

11 posted on 11/23/2017 6:37:27 PM PST by Aliska
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To: Az Joe

“Not true at all. The Irish are direct descendants of the Gods. That’s why they drink so much of the God’s nectar, beer.”

Slainte!


12 posted on 11/23/2017 6:39:10 PM PST by dljordan (WhoVoltaire: "To find out who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.")
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

God looked down upon ta earth and was saddened by what he saw his children doing. So He wept and his tears fell on ta green hills of Ireland and created ta Irish folk.

At least that’s what my wife told me.

My Dad said the Irish were Spaniards who didn’t know how to use a compass.


13 posted on 11/23/2017 6:39:12 PM PST by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: dljordan

“Croí folláin agus gob fliuch!”

(A heathy heart and a wet mouth!)


14 posted on 11/23/2017 6:44:11 PM PST by Az Joe (Gloria in excelsis Deo)
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To: Aliska

Northern Irish are basically lowland Scots. They made great pioneers.

Highland Scots came from Ireland and settled in the Western Islands and the North of Scotland. They are also mixed with Norse.


15 posted on 11/23/2017 6:44:52 PM PST by yarddog (Romans 8:38-39, For I am persuaded.)
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To: blueunicorn6

Part of the Spanish Armada shipwrecked on the west coast of Ireland in 1588. The Irish killed almost all of them right away. We haven’t changed much.


16 posted on 11/23/2017 6:46:17 PM PST by Az Joe (Gloria in excelsis Deo)
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To: Bodleian_Girl

Best guess - that same Russian steppes group spreading along the grassy plains along the route that became the Silk Road.


17 posted on 11/23/2017 6:50:28 PM PST by tbw2
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I think it is historically known that Celts were first recorded in known times as being in Galatea. Next they were in France and Germany then in Ireland.

The Scots were an Irish tribe.


18 posted on 11/23/2017 6:51:20 PM PST by yarddog (Romans 8:38-39, For I am persuaded.)
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To: yarddog
Thank you for that info. Yes, mine were very rugged pioneers in Pennsylvania mostly.
19 posted on 11/23/2017 6:53:05 PM PST by Aliska
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To: yarddog
The Scots were not Irish. 😡
20 posted on 11/23/2017 6:55:16 PM PST by Jonty30 (What Islam and secularism have in common is that they are both death cults)
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