origin of the Germanic tribes

[Haganus]

Who knows much more about the origin of the Germanic tribes.? Or they had an origin in Scandinavia or in the continent. I cannot believe the Germanic tribes simultanously lived in Norwegian and Sweden and Germany. Who can give me more information?

Where did their ancestors live during the Ice Age? In southwest
France? R 1b is for them very important and perhaps the
Cro-Magnos had R 1 b. But according to Ellen Levy-Koffmann R 1b had
not a French, but Caucasian origin.

[Stevo]

According to Dr. J. P. Mallory, in his book, In Search of the Indo-Europeans, the consensus among linguists is that the Germanic languages began with the Jastorf Culture of NW Germany and the neighboring Harpstedt Culture nearby in the Netherlands.

Those areas are predominantly R1b1c, especially R1b1c9.

[T E Peterman]

Contrary to what Aryan theorists would have proposed decades ago, the Germans are less pure than other parts of Europe, at least when it comes to y-DNA. The overwhelming majority belong to either R1b, R1a, or I1a -neither of these groups really comprises a substantial majority. Some have suggested that R1b roughly corresponds to Celts, R1a to Slavs, & I1a to Scandinavians; of course all 3 are far older than any type of Celtic, Slavic, or Scandinavian identity.

The R1b component of Germans was probably R1b1c9, which apparently was one of the earliest offshoots of the R1b1c trunk. The group probably spoke a proto-Germanic language 1000s of years ago, that may have been more similar to the proto Celtic/ proto-Italic languages than it would have been to modern German. This proto-Germanic language was shifted by influence from a non-Indo European group. I suggest that this non IE population may have been the I1a component.

Timothy Peterman

[Johnserrat]

The germanic substrate hypothesis has largely fallen out of favour as more and more Indo-European etymologies are found for the words previously believed to have been part of a non-IE substrate language.

John

[Haganus]

But if there is no substratum in Germanic languages, when does the
Germanic language arise? And where? In Scandinavia? If the Germanic language arose at the European continent, then other non indo-european
languages must be spoken in Scandinavia before.

[Hando]

Contrary to what Aryan theorists would have proposed decades ago, the Germans are less pure than other parts of Europe, at least when it comes to y-DNA. The overwhelming majority belong to either R1b, R1a, or I1a -neither of these groups really comprises a substantial majority. Some have suggested that R1b roughly corresponds to Celts, R1a to Slavs, & I1a to Scandinavians;

proto-Germanic language was shifted by influence from a non-Indo European group. I suggest that this non IE population may have been the I1a component.

Timothy Peterman

So if Scandinavians are I1a, then are you saying that Scandinavians are non-Indo European?

[T E Peterman]

A lot of people will respond by pointing out that language isn't carried by DNA and is a cultural phenomenon. Yet, each language originated from some place -some population in the remote past. By categorizing populations according to y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA analysis, it gives us a way of looking at people without relying on aspects as superficial as geography or physical appearance.

Within Europe, there are two huge y-DNA families: R and "I". There are other smaller Y groups, but to simplify things a bit, let's consider R and "I". How closely related are these patrilines? How far back in time does one have to go to find a common, patrilineal ancestor? Estimates vary, but the common ancestor could have lived as far back as 40,000 to 50,000 years ago.

What do we know about the Indo-European language family? It has been estimated by some linguists that this language family originated in about 8500 BC, plus or minus a thousand years. Common sense tells us that this language must have arisen in a single population & then spread from there, either by population growth or diffusion. Considering that the common ancestor of R & I lived tens of thousands of years earlier, it seems logical that Indo-European languages could have arisen in one or the other (or neither), but not both.

Which non-Indo European languages are the Indo-European languages most similar to? This is important, because it might give us a clue to the origin of proto-Indo European. I'm no linguist, but most charts show that these languages are from Siberia and include: Uralic, Altaic, Turkic, Manchurian, etc., and beyond them, Amerind (a name for 95% of languages spoken by Native Americans).

Now let's consider who R and "I" are most closely related to. R is a genetic "brother" to Q. Q is usually found in Native Americans and in northern Siberia. The combined group of RQ is called P. P is a genetic "brother" to NO, M, and L. NO is the y-DNA ancestor of many East Asians, as well as Uralic, Finno-Ugric peoples from all across Russia. L is found in India, and M is found in Papua New Guinea. Together, P, NO, M, and L are all nested under K. The important point here is that R's patrilineal next of kin, were in East Asia & most specifically (consider Q) eastern Siberia.

What about "I"? His genetic "brother" is the J haplogroup, which is represented today by Jews, Arabs, Berbers in North Africa, and is considered by many to be the haplogroup of neolithic farmers that spread from the Near East into Europe, bringing farming technology with them. Together IJ is a "brother" to G, which is strongest in the Caucasus, H, which is strongest in India, and K, which is the ancestor to all of the above. G, H, IJ, and K are all nested under F. F is the common ancestor, thus, of R and "I" who lived 40,000 to 50,000 years ago.

Until one considers the K haplogroup, "I" doesn't have any relatives in Siberia, or East Asia. "I" and J don't appear to have ever crossed Central Asia. J remained in the Middle East, while "I" spread into Europe. After the death of the Neanderthals, "I" may have had Europe all to itself for many thousands of years, until the arrival of the R haplogroup from eastern Siberia.

"I" wouldn't have had any reason to speak a language that is similar to Uralic, Altaic, Turkic, Manchurian, & Amerind, until exposed by contact to people who already did. The principle of parsimony suggests that R brought the Indo-European languages to Europe and the "I" folk adopted it, adding their influence when they did.

What language did the "I" folk speak? Of course, that remains a mystery. Basque and Etruscan are thought to be distantly related to Caucasian. But the "I" folk are as distantly related to the G folk of the Caucasus, as they are to the K>P>R folk of eastern Siberia. Many of the J folk of the Middle East, speak languages that are Semitic, belonging to the Afro-Asiatic language family. But some linguists suggest that this language group arose in north Central Africa, by a people long gone -that population moved eastward & northward as the Sahara Desert dried up, which suggest to me that Afro-Asiatic was the language of E3b.

All that this tells us is that the "I" and J folk probably didn't originate the Semitic languages, although many of the J folk obviously adopted them. The Sumerians of Mesopotamia, who may have been an early J population, spoke a language that was said to be unrelated to any other language & it may have been a relic of the earlier J language.

It's sad to think, but the language family represented by the people who domesticated wheat & cattle in the Middle East, and were the great painters of caves in Europe, may be gone from this planet, not represented by any contemporary language.

Timothy Peterman

[Haganus]

But there exist the problem of the origin of the R 1b. Most of the
R1b haplogroups live in west and southwest Europe. In West-Europe
(the Netherlands, Scandinavia and Germans) R1 b have fair hair and
blue eyes. In southwest Europe they are dark haired. This is a
strange situation. The ancient Cro-Magnons were fair hair, see
the ancient Guanchos of the Canarian Islands. Maybe dark haired
mediterraneans from Asia Minor invaded Spain?

There exist a theory of Ellen Levy-Coffmann that the haplogroup
R 1b came to West-Europe after the ice age. Who can tell and give
me more explanation?

Erik

[Stevo]

But there exist the problem of the origin of the R 1b. Most of the
R1b haplogroups live in west and southwest Europe. In West-Europe
(the Netherlands, Scandinavia and Germans) R1 b have fair hair and
blue eyes. In southwest Europe they are dark haired. This is a
strange situation. The ancient Cro-Magnons were fair hair, see
the ancient Guanchos of the Canarian Islands. Maybe dark haired
mediterraneans from Asia Minor invaded Spain?

There exist a theory of Ellen Levy-Coffmann that the haplogroup
R 1b came to West-Europe after the ice age. Who can tell and give
me more explanation?

Erik

Physical appearance is a matter of autosomal dna and has a lot to do with long residence in a particular kind of environment.

Remember also that there is still another side to the dna equation, and that is mtDNA.

Also there are different genetic mixes in different regions. It's not as if you are looking at 100% unadulterated R1b1c anywhere.

As I mentioned earlier, the consensus among linguists, especially Germanicists, is that Proto-German originated among the Jastorf and Harpstedt cultures of NW Germany and the Netherlands respectively. Those areas are 55% or more R1b1c, and 50% or more of that is R1b1c9. R1b1c9 is also prevalent in nearby Denmark, where it is also about 50% of the R1b1c.

[Hando]

As I mentioned earlier, the consensus among linguists, especially Germanicists, is that Proto-German originated among the Jastorf and Harpstedt cultures of NW Germany and the Netherlands respectively. Those areas are 55% or more R1b1c, and 50% or more of that is R1b1c9. R1b1c9 is also prevalent in nearby Denmark, where it is also about 50% of the R1b1c.

WHat about in the other Scandinavia countries? Norway and Sweden. What is the prevalent Y DNA there?

[T E Peterman]

The 2005 map of Europe by J. D. McDonald can be somewhat informative on this matter. The following are over 75% R1b:

Ireland
Scotland
Wales
the Basques

The following are 50 to 75% R1b:
England
France
Spain
Portugal
Denmark

The following are just under 50% R1b:
Germany
Italy
Iceland

The following are about 25% +- R1b:
Norway
Sweden
Czech Rep
Austria
Hungary
Poland
Rumania

The rest are less than 20%.

The following is over 50% R1a:
Poland

The following are close to 50% R1a:
western Russia
Ukraine
Austria
Czech Rep

The following are about 25% to 33% R1a:
Norway
Estonia

The following are about 20 to 25% R1a:
Sweden
Lapland
Germany
Rumania
Hungary
Macedonia
Iceland

The rest are less than 20%

The following are about 40 to 50% I:
Sweden
Macedonia
Ukraine

The following are about 25 to 40% I:
Iceland
England
France
Norway
Denmark
Lapland
Rumania
Hungary

The following are 20 to 25% I:
Scotland
Ireland
Wales
Portugal
Austria
Germany
Czech Rep
Greece
Poland
western Russia
Poland
Finland

The picture that emerges is a population component of I spread across Europe, in most places maybe a quarter of the population, but in parts of the Balkans & Scandinavia rising to nearly 50%.

R1b is the majority population component in most centum speaking lands (Celtic, Italic, and Germany)

R1a comes close to a majority in most satem speaking lands (Slavic) -at least it is greater than the R1b content.

Let's take a look at the difference between France and Germany, since these nations are on the frontline of this issue. France was the home of the Gauls, and Germany was supposedly settled by Germans:

France is just over 50% R1b
Germany is just under 50% R1b

France is about 30% I
Germany is just under 25% I

France is less than 10% R1a
Germany is nearly 25% R1a

The R1a content is the main difference. Perhaps the substrate that made German different from the other centum languages was ...an influence from an extinct satem language (rather than a non-IE language)

The one thing that stands out in the Celtic/ Basque, Atlantic fringe populations is the almost complete absence of R1a.

Where the R1a content increases somewhat to between 10% and close to 33%, but remains generally less than or equal to the R1b content, people tend to speak Germanic languages -this includes Scandinavia.

Where the R1a overtakes the R1b content in a big way, people tend to speak Slavic languages.

Sadly, I must maintain that the original language of the "I" folk is most likely extinct.

Timothy Peterman

[Stevo]

WHat about in the other Scandinavia countries? Norway and Sweden. What is the prevalent Y DNA there?

Norway is about 30% R1b1c of various kinds, about 30% R1a, and about 30% I1a.

Denmark is about 50% R1b1c, roughly 50% or so of it apparently R1b1c9. I think it is about 30-40% I1a and about 10-15% R1a.

Sweden is about 25% R1b1c, most of it the South and West, I believe. It may be about 40-50% I1a, with the highest proportions in the North. The rest is mostly R1a and N3, I believe.

I agree with Tim Peterman that I predates R1b1c and R1a in Europe and is pre-Indo-European.

[Johnserrat]

There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that "I" predates "R" in europe. To suggest that Is spoke a non-IE language in europe is completely unsupportable.

There is no evidence of any invasion by Rs into I territories in europe following the Last Global Maximum.

Is and Rs in north-western europe have been admixed for many thousands of years. The germanic languages have not been around nearly that long. Similarly, the celtic areas were also admixed thousands of years prior to celtic languages developing. These respective cultures are really not very old compared to the haplogroups under discussion here.

I should further note that haplogroup I is believed to have entered europe around 20-25,000 years ago. This does not make I old enough to have formed part of the initial cro-magnon population.

John

[MMaddi]

There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that "I" predates "R" in europe. To suggest that Is spoke a non-IE language in europe is completely unsupportable.

There is no evidence of any invasion by Rs into I territories in europe following the Last Global Maximum.

Is and Rs in north-western europe have been admixed for many thousands of years. The germanic languages have not been around nearly that long. Similarly, the celtic areas were also admixed thousands of years prior to celtic languages developing. These respective cultures are really not very old compared to the haplogroups under discussion here.

I should further note that haplogroup I is believed to have entered europe around 20-25,000 years ago. This does not make I old enough to have formed part of the initial cro-magnon population.

John

John,

I realize that you want to claim that the population geneticists still back up your position about R1b and how long it's been in Europe. But you just lost a major backer of that position.

In the new paper by Karafets, et al, among whose co-authors is Dr. Michael Hammer of the Univ. of Arizona, they estimate the ages of the various SNPs that define major haplogroups. You can view the supplementary material for this study at http://www.genome.org/cgi/data/gr.7172008/DC1/1 - on page 35 of that file you'll find the authors' estimates for haplogroup ages.

At the FTDNA conference in October in his preview presentation for this paper, Hammer gave estimates for the age of R1 as 30,000 years and R1b as 25,000. In this new paper, their estimate for R1 is 18,000. No estimate is given for R1b, but it obviously must be younger.

This study estimates I's age as 22,200 years, at mid-range of your citing of previous estimates. You state that the estimate for I's entry into Europe is 20-25,000 years ago. I's presence in Europe is thousands of years older than the new estimated age for R1 - 3 SNPs upstream of R1b1c!

So, maybe it's time for you to consider what Stevo and I have argued and you have consistently painted as unsupported by any scientific studies. You might want to take a look at the R1b1* and ht35 R1b1c Projects here at FTDNA, together with the discoveries that have been made about new SNPs upstream of most of R1b1c.

These SNPs show that the oldest form of R1b1c, called ht35, are only found at significant levels in Turkey, eastern Europe and southern Italy. They are hard to find in R1b1c's with western European ancestry. So, if the oldest forms of R1b1c (which according to Hammer et al., is certainly no more 18,000 years old and probably significantly less) are found in the east and not in the west, how is it possible that R1b1c wintered the Ice Age (if it even existed then!) in the Iberian refugium?

Mike

[PDHOTLEN]

What about mine?

It looks to me, by the above report (P.32), that not enough SNPs have been tested for my own R1a1 sample. Although I may be R1a1*, there are two other possibilities on the graph that have not been tested for in my case (P98 & PK5). And why is my SRY10381.2 negative?

G986T