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[Stevo]

Where the heck has YCCHgI gone?

He was interesting.

[M.O'Connor]

The tallest building on this Island is 5 stories. That's the big hotel in the Capital..



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[Stevo]

We use bricks or cement blocks today. We are still piling them up..

Here in the Washington, D.C., area, those piles of bricks are damned expensive!

[M.O'Connor]

We use bricks or cement blocks today. We are still piling them up..

[Stevo]

Megaliths were built throughout Europe.

http://megalithic.co.uk/modules.php?...ery&file=index

True, but there are different types of megaliths, and the skeletal remains associated with them differ physically from one region to another. The grave goods associated with the megaliths of different areas also differ.

It doesn't look like all the megaliths of Europe can be attributed to just one kind of people or just one culture.

It seems the idea of piling up big rocks occurred to a lot of different people all over Europe.

[M.O'Connor]

Megaliths were built throughout Europe.

http://megalithic.co.uk/modules.php?op=modload&name=My_eGallery&file=index

[Stevo]

I think I basically agree with you, YCCHgI. Mr. Gatto is a smart guy, and his blog is cool, well organized, and it makes one think.

Maybe further study will turn up more I1b2s in Scandinavia than Rootsi, et al, found. There's always that possibility.

For me, the idea that I1b2 mariners sailed up out of the western Mediterranean, or from the northern coast of Iberia, and landed in the British Isles, there to spread the culture that built Stone Henge and the other British megaliths, is intriguing and compelling. Frankly, I believe that's what happened.

Thanks for bringing Mr. Gatto's blog to our attention, and thanks for a fun and interesting thread.

[YCCHgI]

Stevo,

You make some very good points, and I for once will not claim to have all the answers. I realize scientists have for years speculated on the identities of the prehistoric Euro populations. (And no I do not personally believe I1b2 is linked to Celtic languages, but because language requires a written record, I'm not sure we'll ever know).

What's amazing about all the models, is how often science comes full circle. It happens in physics too. Some old master almost intuits a theory, it falls out of vogue, then modern science proves it to be true.

I won't get too heavily into IE origins; there are tons of other threads here about the same. Again, I don't personally think the I1b2 clade is linked to IEs necessarily. (I myself favor the R1a/J2 Renfrew/Cavalli-Sforza/Gimbutas combo model.)

My only point in posting that paper was to show that others accept the notion of a genetic link between the various pre-IE substrata of Europe. If you view it as only the possibility that some "megalithic mariners" (to use Gatto's term) VISITED the various locales, we may actually be in agreement.

After all, all it could take is one gets blown off course, and starts spinning yarns to a vastly different people about how his homeland was better because of the things they could do with stones. Those people then build them with a vastly different industry and different technology. Kind of like how Iran is trying desperately to show the West it can get nuke technology. Or not!

Ultimately, I am appreciative of Gatto's work. It has certainly opened my eyes to a different theory, and because it sounds like you buy it for all the countries that touch the Western Atlantic/Western Mediterranean seaboard, it seems like it has opened yours.

My point: It doesn't take too much of a stretch to find a model under which you and I and Mr. (or Ms.) Gatto all would agree. There's a big tent out there and room for all of us!

[Stevo]

Bulletin: a recent paper focusing primarily on mtDNA utterly supports the hypothesis on the blog that is the subject of this thread.

McEvoy, et.al. : The Longue Duree of Genetic Ancestry: Multiple Genetic Marker Systems and Celtic Origins on the Atlantic Facade of Europe. (2004)

From the summary, in bold, verbatim:

"[M]ultiple genetic marker systems indicate a shared ancestry throughout the Atlantic Zone, from Northern Iberia to Western Scandinavia, that dates back to the end of the last Ice Age."

That settles that.

That settles that?

A couple of remarks.

Prior to the advent of genetic testing, many historians, anthropologists, and archaeologists believed a small, long-skulled population inhabited much of Europe. According to this idea, they were a pre-Indo-European people. Some scholars believed they might have had a matriarchal society and a largely matriarchal religion, worshipping chiefly the "Earth Mother."

According to this idea, this aboriginal European population was suppressed and ultimately assimilated by the patriarchal, male-Sky-God-worshipping Indo-European tribes pressing in from the East.

With the advent of genetic testing, however, many have altered their ideas about such an I-E invasion and account for the spread of Indo-European languages and culture in other ways (there are a number of theories about this).

Are you saying your I1b2s represent the male side of that shared pre-I-E ancestry?

Wouldn't haplogroup R be a more likely candidate for such a position? Most of the males of Europe fall into R1b or R1a, and haven't Rs been around in Europe since the LGM?

Don't they form a hefty proportion of the Scandinavian population?

Of course, I think the old I-E invasion idea makes a lot of sense and wonder about some of the assumptions being made at present.

I wonder if the R1bs and R1as weren't the Indo-Europeans. I know the current idea is that the R1as were, but I wonder if the western flip side of that coin wasn't the R1bs. But that is fodder for another thread.

Now, I'll try to some up the recent posts by Stevo and Mmaddi as best as possible:

--You accept the theory as to Iberia and Britain despite equally tiny numbers in Portugal, Scotland and other Iberian coast regions (1%, .6%, etc.) yet reject it for the same reasons when applied to Scandinavia.

--You previously posted that it was not about the percentage in S. Sweden, and rejected the theory because of "only one example" of I1b2 found there -- yet when reminded that there is "only one example" in other key regions in the study, you change it to a percentage argument, comparing percentages.

--You presumably (let's hope) understand and accept the notion that dispersals are, well, dispersals, and that gene frequency lessens from the situs as distance grows.

Look at a map of J2 emanating from the Near East, R1a emanating from Eastern Europe, N3 emanating from Finnland, etc. You don't seem to recognize that this would be the same for I1b2 (e.g. lessening as one heads NE) if the putative homeland was faraway Cantabria.

I'll say it again: the significance of I1b2 lies not in its percentages or how many sampled in one lone study by one set of researchers. On the contrary, the significance of I1b2 is that it is found in a locale, period.

A sample is a sample. Presumably other scientific sampling would turn up between 0.5 and 1.0 % in S. Sweden, and all the other regions mentioned in the study (like Wales, Scotland, Portugal, Italy) that share similar percentages.

And I'm always down for a glass of good Cannonnau!

What's Cannonnau?

Cannonau is a strong, red Sardinian wine.

A sample is a sample, all right. And one I1b2 out of a 168-person sample only supports the Rootsi, et al, conclusion that there is an "extremely low frequency of I1b2 in the Scandinavian peninsula" (p.7).

One kind of people built the megaliths in the western Mediterranean and Britain. Another kind built the megaliths of Scandinavia and North Germany.

There are very few I1b2s anywhere outside the western Mediterranean. A few are found in the British Isles, and the British Isles are close enough to the I1b2 "heartland" so that it is not inconceivable that I1b2 mariners spread the western Med megalithic culture there. After all, the megaliths of the western Med are of the same basic type as those in Britain, and the skeletal remains associated with both of them are of the same physical type.

When one comes to Scandinavia and North Germany, however, the megaliths have a different structure, and the skeletal remains associated with them, as well as the grave goods, are very different from those of the western Mediterranean and Britain. Couple that with the apparent dearth of I1b2s in Scandinavia and North Germany and that spells doom to Mr. Gatto's theory for those regions.

[YCCHgI]

Bulletin: a recent paper focusing primarily on mtDNA utterly supports the hypothesis on the blog that is the subject of this thread.

McEvoy, et.al. : The Longue Duree of Genetic Ancestry: Multiple Genetic Marker Systems and Celtic Origins on the Atlantic Facade of Europe. (2004)

From the summary, in bold, verbatim:

"[M]ultiple genetic marker systems indicate a shared ancestry throughout the Atlantic Zone, from Northern Iberia to Western Scandinavia, that dates back to the end of the last Ice Age."

That settles that.

Now, I'll try to some up the recent posts by Stevo and Mmaddi as best as possible:

--You accept the theory as to Iberia and Britain despite equally tiny numbers in Portugal, Scotland and other Iberian coast regions (1%, .6%, etc.) yet reject it for the same reasons when applied to Scandinavia.

--You previously posted that it was not about the percentage in S. Sweden, and rejected the theory because of "only one example" of I1b2 found there -- yet when reminded that there is "only one example" in other key regions in the study, you change it to a percentage argument, comparing percentages.

--You presumably (let's hope) understand and accept the notion that dispersals are, well, dispersals, and that gene frequency lessens from the situs as distance grows.

Look at a map of J2 emanating from the Near East, R1a emanating from Eastern Europe, N3 emanating from Finnland, etc. You don't seem to recognize that this would be the same for I1b2 (e.g. lessening as one heads NE) if the putative homeland was faraway Cantabria.

I'll say it again: the significance of I1b2 lies not in its percentages or how many sampled in one lone study by one set of researchers. On the contrary, the significance of I1b2 is that it is found in a locale, period.

A sample is a sample. Presumably other scientific sampling would turn up between 0.5 and 1.0 % in S. Sweden, and all the other regions mentioned in the study (like Wales, Scotland, Portugal, Italy) that share similar percentages.

And I'm always down for a glass of good Cannonnau!

What's Cannonnau?

[Stevo]

By the way, congrats on getting tested, Stevo. I hope you test as I1b2!!! Wouldn't that be great? Any chance you're of Swedish descent?

Trying to keep it light,

YCCHGI

If I am of Swedish descent it is unknown to me.

The truth is what I want to know. If it is I1b2, great.

Then you and I could share some Casu Marzu and a glass of Cannonau!

[Stevo]

Please look at this from the viewpoint of cold, hard statistics. I'm no expert on statistics, but there is a clear situation here. Yes, as both you and Stevo have stated, it's only in Sardinia that I1b2 is found at double digit percentage levels. But that mere fact doesn't mean that there's not a gradient of percentages in the other countries where Rootsi's paper has found I1b2.

In Sweden, 1 out of 168 is 0.6%. Look at the table on page 3 of the paper, at http://hpgl.stanford.edu/publication...v75_Semino.pdf. The percentages found among Spanish and French Basques is 6.0, Bearnais is 7.7, in low Normandy in France is 2.4 and in Ireland is 2.6 These percentages are anywhere from 4 to almost 13 times that of Sweden. While all these percentages are single digit, I think "extremely low frequency" is a good description of the percentage in Sweden, while the other geographic areas I just cited above would be more accurately described as "low frequency" or "quite low frequency." While you may think that's a matter of semantics, the numbers here don't lie.

Also, my understanding of population genetics says that it can be determined which is the older pool of a haplogroup when comparing two or more geographic areas by comparing the diversity of haplotypes. In other words, the area that has more diversity in the haplotypes of a specific haplogroup is regarded as an older population of that haplogroup and probably the area which contributed the haplogroup to the younger area. This makes sense, since the longer a haplogroup has been in existence, the more mutations will have taken place and the more diverse haplotypes there are.

So if there is just one I1b2 found by Rootsi in Sweden in his study how on earth can you even determine the diversity of I1b2 in Sweden? You can't even say how long I1b2 has been there, using this established method of population genetics. There is simply no way you can prove that the one I1b2 the study found in Sweden did not descend from someone from Spain or the British Isles who migrated to Sweden in 1900 or 1800 or 1000 AD. And Gatto's theory, which I think makes sense for the British Isles and Mediterranean, is talking about megalith builders who lived thousands of years ago.

Mike Maddi

Excellent points.

That is my thinking, too. There is no way one I1b2 out of a 168-person sample can be used to prove that I1b2 mariners settled southern Sweden. The only thing such a finding may establish is that there are hardly any I1b2s anywhere in Scandinavia, which is basically what Rootsi, et al, said.

Perhaps further sampling would turn up more I1b2s and back up Mr. Gatto's theory, but it doesn't seem likely.

[MMaddi]

A little math needed here

Stevo,

Something just dawned on me, with all the back and forth that has been going on here.

You do realize that I1b2 is found in extremely low numbers EVERYWHERE it is found?

Sardinia is the one exception, and the experts cannot agree on whether the numbers there are 25 - 41%. As an aside, they explain these numbers as Founder Effect and Genetic Drift. For those who need a refresher on these concepts (like I did), this means a few founders settled the island, they were disproportionately I1b2, and for some reason, other groups died out there causing the artificially high numbers.

What I am trying to say is: ANY presence of I1b2 is extraordinary. It's not like the other haplogroups.

YCCHGI

Please look at this from the viewpoint of cold, hard statistics. I'm no expert on statistics, but there is a clear situation here. Yes, as both you and Stevo have stated, it's only in Sardinia that I1b2 is found at double digit percentage levels. But that mere fact doesn't mean that there's not a gradient of percentages in the other countries where Rootsi's paper has found I1b2.

In Sweden, 1 out of 168 is 0.6%. Look at the table on page 3 of the paper, at http://hpgl.stanford.edu/publication...v75_Semino.pdf. The percentages found among Spanish and French Basques is 6.0, Bearnais is 7.7, in low Normandy in France is 2.4 and in Ireland is 2.6 These percentages are anywhere from 4 to almost 13 times that of Sweden. While all these percentages are single digit, I think "extremely low frequency" is a good description of the percentage in Sweden, while the other geographic areas I just cited above would be more accurately described as "low frequency" or "quite low frequency." While you may think that's a matter of semantics, the numbers here don't lie.

Also, my understanding of population genetics says that it can be determined which is the older pool of a haplogroup when comparing two or more geographic areas by comparing the diversity of haplotypes. In other words, the area that has more diversity in the haplotypes of a specific haplogroup is regarded as an older population of that haplogroup and probably the area which contributed the haplogroup to the younger area. This makes sense, since the longer a haplogroup has been in existence, the more mutations will have taken place and the more diverse haplotypes there are.

So if there is just one I1b2 found by Rootsi in Sweden in his study how on earth can you even determine the diversity of I1b2 in Sweden? You can't even say how long I1b2 has been there, using this established method of population genetics. There is simply no way you can prove that the one I1b2 the study found in Sweden did not descend from someone from Spain or the British Isles who migrated to Sweden in 1900 or 1800 or 1000 AD. And Gatto's theory, which I think makes sense for the British Isles and Mediterranean, is talking about megalith builders who lived thousands of years ago.

Mike Maddi

[YCCHgI]

Stevo,

Something just dawned on me, with all the back and forth that has been going on here.

You do realize that I1b2 is found in extremely low numbers EVERYWHERE it is found?

Sardinia is the one exception, and the experts cannot agree on whether the numbers there are 25 - 41%. As an aside, they explain these numbers as Founder Effect and Genetic Drift. For those who need a refresher on these concepts (like I did), this means a few founders settled the island, they were disproportionately I1b2, and for some reason, other groups died out there causing the artificially high numbers.

What I am trying to say is: ANY presence of I1b2 is extraordinary. It's not like the other haplogroups.

It is far too easy for us to say Rootsi sampled from an immigrant community, when the truth is that accomplished scientists ALWAYS control the sample by verifying genealogies in a given locality as far back as possible.

It is far too easy to dismiss the Swedish sample because there was only one individual, yet the truth is, in the Rootsi study, there was only one I1b2 individual in the samples from Andalusia, Lyons (France), Wales, Calabria, the Madeiran Islands, etc. etc.

You (and everyone else, every geneticist in the world!) deems those samples significant, yet you pooh-pooh the Swedish sample. Why?

(I won't even list the examples of times where Rootsie only found 2.)

This goes back to my point on sampling. It is an accepted scientific method. What is key is that the study samples enough TOTAL individuals. And in Sweden, as in the other countries, they did.

As far as I can tell from looking at the blog that is the topic of this monster of a thread, Ma Gatto consolidated all the data from all the available studies. She added STR data to confirm and augment the work by Capelli, Torroni, Rootsi, etc.

I cannot stress enough that this is a clade where a number of 2.0+ % in a given locale is considered extraordinary(!) If you throw out the Sardinian sample because of the factors above and a reference to Castile in Rootsi, no population breaks two digits.

By the way, congrats on getting tested, Stevo. I hope you test as I1b2!!! Wouldn't that be great? Any chance you're of Swedish descent?

Trying to keep it light,

YCCHGI

[Stevo]

In my post above I left out the I1a that was spread to Britain - especially eastern and central England - by the Anglo-Saxon and later Viking invaders.

But I was really talking about the prehistoric spread of the various forms of I, which is why I left the Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings out.