Celts were haplogroup I?

[Noaide]

The Sea Saami myths

Hi Native,

Your poor knowledge about Saami history is unbelievable, I guess we can blame the Norwegian politicians for that, normally as I remember the Saami history was always at one page in the last page in the primary school history books together with a picture of a Saami beside a reindeer, the rest of Saami history you learn at the local pub.

You mention the myth seasaami, here I have some seasaami myths from your wonderful icelandic sagas, this is from Heimskringla The Sons Of Harald the seasaami made two warships for the Viking Sigurd that sailed much faster than the other Vikings warships using sea saami high-technology using skinn.

"It is said that Sigurd made the Laplanders construct two boats for him during the winter up in the fjord; and they were fastened together with deer sinews, without nails, and with twigs of willow instead of knees, and each boat could carry twelve men. Sigurd was with the Laplanders while they were making the boats; and the Laplanders had good ale, with which they entertained Sigurd. Sigurd made these lines on it: --

"In the Lapland tent
Brave days we spent.
Under the grey birch tree;
In bed or on bank
We knew no rank,
And a merry crew were we.

"Good ale went round
As we sat on the ground,
Under the grey birch tree;
And up with the smoke
Flew laugh and joke,
And a merry crew were we."

These boats were so light that no ship could overtake them in the water, according to what was sung at the time: --

"Our skin-sewed Fin-boats lightly swim,
Over the sea like wind they skim.
Our ships are built without a nail;
Few ships like ours can row or sail."

In spring Sigurd and Magnus went south along the coast with the two boats which the Laplanders had made; and when they came to Vagar they killed Svein the priest and his two sons.

Source: http://lind.no/nor/splitt.asp?lang=g..._haraldssonene

Noaide

Saami populations have approximately 40% N. The current percentage for Norwegians is less than 5%, and is most likely due to immigration after the viking era. The maps I have seen have not identified any N on Iceland at all. The viking history, and the settlement of Iceland, is well document in written history. The highest quality written sources are the Icelandic sagas from ca. 1100-1200 A.D. Genetic data confirm the written history. Haplogroup I1a were one of the major haplogroups found amongst both Norwegian and Swedish vikings, and doesn't prove Saami ancestry at all.

The only myth we are dealing with here is about "sea Saami" and "Saami seamen". Not a single town along the Norwegian coast have Saami majority. The viking sagas, which are incredibly detailed as to names and background of crews, never mentioned Saami vikings as far as I know. Karasjok and Kautokeino, the only two towns in the interior in Northern Norway, are also the only Saami towns. The oldest remains of people found in Northern Norway is the Komsa-civilization (10 000 BC - 2000 BC), known for their exceptionally big teeth. Saami people generally have very small teeth. These remains should be tested for genetic data.

I fully understand why Saami extremists spend so much time on establishing the false myth of sea Saamis instead of on preserving the traditional Saami ways of living, since the coastal areas have lots of valuable natural resources like oil, gas, fish and whales. Many Saami people are very talented, get a good education, and move to Oslo where they make lots of money and become very successful. This makes the Saami extremist desperate, and that is one reason why they come up with extreme ideas like that Sea Saamis dominated the coast all the way down to Trondheim, one of the cities that once were a viking capital.

The Norwegian vikings had many different haplogroups like R1b, I, R1a and Q. Even small populations like the Saamis have several haplogroups. This makes it completely unlikely that the Celts only had one haplogroup.

[Stevo]

The Norwegian vikings had many different haplogroups like R1b, I, R1a and Q. Even small populations like the Saamis have several haplogroups. This makes it completely unlikely that the Celts only had one haplogroup.

Well said.

the keltoi were j2 e3b r1a r1b I G and others

No doubt true.

No one was testing dna back then before admitting a man or woman to the tribe.

Even today, most folks still fall in love and get married without the subject of dna testing ever coming up.

[Native]

Rosser et al, 2000, Am J Hum Gen 67; 1526-1543, shows in Table 1 that Hg2 (Eu18-I) is found in 32% of Icelandic population and in 31% of the Saami population. I don't think thare are much Hg N among the Norwegian coast Saami population (Dupuy et al, 2006). I have read that Saami seamen were part of the expeditions of the so-called Viking. It is important to realize thet the Viking myths are of newer date. They were conciously used in the nation-building of the new nation Norway from 1814 (Constitution, separation from Denmark and joining Sweden) and from 1905 when we finally became independent.

Saami populations have approximately 40% N. The current percentage for Norwegians is less than 5%, and is most likely due to immigration after the viking era. The maps I have seen have not identified any N on Iceland at all. The viking history, and the settlement of Iceland, is well document in written history. The highest quality written sources are the Icelandic sagas from ca. 1100-1200 A.D. Genetic data confirm the written history. Haplogroup I1a were one of the major haplogroups found amongst both Norwegian and Swedish vikings, and doesn't prove Saami ancestry at all.

The only myth we are dealing with here is about "sea Saami" and "Saami seamen". Not a single town along the Norwegian coast have Saami majority. The viking sagas, which are incredibly detailed as to names and background of crews, never mentioned Saami vikings as far as I know. Karasjok and Kautokeino, the only two towns in the interior in Northern Norway, are also the only Saami towns. The oldest remains of people found in Northern Norway is the Komsa-civilization (10 000 BC - 2000 BC), known for their exceptionally big teeth. Saami people generally have very small teeth. These remains should be tested for genetic data.

I fully understand why Saami extremists spend so much time on establishing the false myth of sea Saamis instead of on preserving the traditional Saami ways of living, since the coastal areas have lots of valuable natural resources like oil, gas, fish and whales. Many Saami people are very talented, get a good education, and move to Oslo where they make lots of money and become very successful. This makes the Saami extremist desperate, and that is one reason why they come up with extreme ideas like that Sea Saamis dominated the coast all the way down to Trondheim, one of the cities that once were a viking capital.

The Norwegian vikings had many different haplogroups like R1b, I, R1a and Q. Even small populations like the Saamis have several haplogroups. This makes it completely unlikely that the Celts only had one haplogroup.

[Jim Denning]

On the Genographic Project, Spencer Wells gives a short video summary of each haplogroup. (This might only be visible to those who have actually joined the project--e.g., by paying $15 to transfer DNA information from FTDNA to the project.)

Wells considers it "possible" that the Celts were haplogroup I and spread it throughout central and western Europe. Surely he can't be referring to I1b, which is mostly Slavic, nor I1a, which is mostly Scandinavian. Perhaps he is referring only to I1c?

the keltoi were j2 e3b r1a r1b I G and others

Saami I1a

I think that must have happened long before the viking era and the colonization of Iceland, because there doesn't seem to be any Saami/Finish haplogroup N on any of the maps I have found of Iceland. I guess it would also take many generations to accumulate enough Q-people to get such a percentage amongst the colonizers. This is of course a question DNA-analysis should be able to answer.

Rosser et al, 2000, Am J Hum Gen 67; 1526-1543, shows in Table 1 that Hg2 (Eu18-I) is found in 32% of Icelandic population and in 31% of the Saami population. I don't think thare are much Hg N among the Norwegian coast Saami population (Dupuy et al, 2006). I have read that Saami seamen were part of the expeditions of the so-called Viking. It is important to realize thet the Viking myths are of newer date. They were conciously used in the nation-building of the new nation Norway from 1814 (Constitution, separation from Denmark and joining Sweden) and from 1905 when we finally became independent.

[MAB]

There was a programme recently which looked at this very thing to try and determine if there is a specific group that would identify people as Celts and the conclusion was no.

[Stevo]

I would also like to answer the hypothesis in this thread:

I do not believe celts only had haplogroup I. Maybe haplogroup I was the major haplogroup in celtic populations, but I have never understood exactly who the celts were and don't want to jump to any conclusions.

I don't think there is any evidence that y-haplogroup I was ever well-represented among the Celts or was the basis of the Celtic population.

The Celts were predominantly a western and central European group, although they did spread to the South and East.

As a consequence, it is likely the Celts reflected the genetic demographics of their homelands.

I think most of us have a tendency to want things to be simple. We want to be be able to say this haplogroup was this and that haplogroup was that.

But it's not that easy. No one was testing dna as a prerequisite to social and sexual intercourse in ancient times.

Certain groups form the bulk of the population in a given region, but not in anything like a "pure" or monolithic sense.

The Celts were a people of Northwestern and Central Europe. No doubt their genetic profiles reflected the gene pools of the regions in which they lived.

[Stevo]

I think it might be best if we left discussion of the Vikings to another thread.

This one was supposed to be about the Celts and the relationship of y-haplogroup I to them.

I am of the opinion that such historical European groups were not genetically homogeneous, that Celt is an ethno-linguistic term.

There may have been a preponderance of certain haplogroups in this or that people, but they were not simply one, single, monolithic thing.

The e-Keltoi site recommended by Victor has a wealth of information.

[Native]

I would also like to answer the hypothesis in this thread:

I do not believe celts only had haplogroup I. Maybe haplogroup I was the major haplogroup in celtic populations, but I have never understood exactly who the celts were and don't want to jump to any conclusions.

[Native]

Haplogroup Q is interesting, since it's the only one in Iceland that is originated from Asia. It's possible that the Vikings picked it up on their journeys to Bjarmaland:

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb....il/haplo_q.htm

I think that must have happened long before the viking era and the colonization of Iceland, because there doesn't seem to be any Saami/Finish haplogroup N on any of the maps I have found of Iceland. I guess it would also take many generations to accumulate enough Q-people to get such a percentage amongst the colonizers. This is of course a question DNA-analysis should be able to answer.

[Eki]

Haplogroup Q is interesting, since it's the only one in Iceland that is originated from Asia. It's possible that the Vikings picked it up on their journeys to Bjarmaland:

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~gallgaedhil/haplo_q.htm

[Native]

^^ Keep in mind that both Shetland and the Orkneys have been Norwegian territory for most of the recorded history. The conclusion would still be same though, as shown by the Europe map in this file ( http://www.scs.uiuc.edu/~mcdonald/Wo...groupsMaps.pdf ) The Viking haplogroups were R1b, I, R1a and Q, at least for the Norwegian vikings. It may change the order though, because there are more I and R1a than R1b in Norway, while R1b is very dominant on the British Isles. Maybe the order was more like: I, R1b, R1a, and Q.

[Eki]

The Norwegian Vikings had the following y-DNA haplogroups (in this exact order):

R1b, I, R1a, and Q

We know this for sure because these haplogroups are present on Iceland, which was colonized by Norwegian vikings more than 1000 years ago and have been more or less isolated since then.

I think considerable amount of Iceland settlers came from Ireland and the British Isles. Here's an article by Helgason et al. "Estimating Scandinavian and Gaelic Ancestry in the Male Settlers of Iceland":

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/AJHG/journal/issues/v67n3/001900/001900.text.html?erFrom=5330598396646148607Guest

"The data suggest that 20%–25% of Icelandic founding males had Gaelic ancestry, with the remainder having Norse ancestry."

[Native]

The site's Atlas of the Human Journey used to say that about Y-Haplogroup I but no longer does. Now it says something equally silly about the Vikings, as if such groups from relatively recent recorded history were genetically homogeneous.

I chalk such things up to marketing. What better way to get someone to purchase a kit than to make him think he might find out his ancestors were Vikings?.

The Norwegian Vikings had the following y-DNA haplogroups (in this exact order):

R1b, I, R1a, and Q

We know this for sure because these haplogroups are present on Iceland, which was colonized by Norwegian vikings more than 1000 years ago and have been more or less isolated since then. These haplogroups are also the dominant ones in Norway nowadays, but there are also a few other haplogroups that must have come to the country somewhere between today and the viking era. These new haplogroups in the country are:

N, E3b, and J

[Victor]

<<<>>>

I like the fact that the site is oriented toward history and archaeology.

Some folks try to abandon those disciplines in favor of reading the genetic tea leaves.

Can't be done.

I fully agree! Those tea leaves can be intoxicating and produce wild hallucinations.

If you recall, I made a reference to astrology and how there's the risk of approaching genetic genealogy in the same way. The parallel is this: astrology groups all humans in 12 zodiac signs; we just need to identify our sign. Genetic genealogy groups all humans in 18 haplogroups; .....

You get the idea.