Professor Steve Jones is a world-acclaimed Cymreig (Welsh) Geneticist born in Aberystwyth, Cymru (Wales). In his famous book "Y: The Descent of Man" he uses genetic evidence from the Y chromosomes of Cymro (Welsh Men) to trace our origins and kinship relationships. This Cymraeg (Welsh) article in "Y Faner Newydd" explains the ideas:

Y Cromosomau a Hanes Cymru

Emyr Williams explains some of Steve's ideas in Saesneg (English) in his article:

Are we the progeny of stone age Siberians ?

Listen to world-famous Gaidhlig rock group Runrig from Uist in Alba (Scotland) explain in song our Celtic respect for our ancestors which has remarkable similarities to the respect Chinese have for their ancestors:

Runrig - Cnoc Na Feille / Siol Ghoraidh

Well, our Cymreig scientist, Professor Steve Jones, certainly started something. Research in this area has progressed at a furious pace as is summarised below on the following haplogroup "ancestry trees" from the Wiki. The top "tree" shows the human descent as shown on the Y-chromosome DNA in the cell nucleus of male humans, while the bottom map shows the corresponding "tree" as shown in the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) in the mitochondria "cell energy factories" that are passed down from mother's in their eggs to all her offspring. The descent of all humans from African ancestors on the top of each tree is shown. Also important to us is the close ancestral relationship of aboriginal Siberians called Kets and Selkups shown in orange to us Celts and Basques shown in red and to Chinese (and South-East Asians including Indonesians) shown in green with Indigenous Americans being closest to the Kets and Selkups as well. We are indeed close "blood brothers". Similarly, a close relationship can be shown between us Celts and Central Asians (particularly the Yuezhi-Tocharian-Kushan-derived part of the Uyghur people) and the people of northern India and Pakistan as well of course particularly with other Europeans. This forms a Eurasian "family". The Ket people have Eurasian features, some look like actor Charlie Bronson of Lipka Tartar descent. Celts and Basques have very dominant high frequencies of Y-Haplogroup R (predominantly R1b by far) while Chinese and South-East Asians are mainly Y-Haplogroup O. Kets, Selkups and Indigenous Americans are dominantly Y-Haplogroup Q which closely related to both R and O.

NOTE: Each heading and halplogroup letter on these DNA ancestry "trees" from the Wiki are links you can click on to read more - the Wiki contributors are constantly updating these as new evidence comes to hand.

Human Y-chromosome DNA (Y-DNA) haplogroups (by ethnic groups · famous haplotypes)

most recent common Y-ancestor

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A

BT

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B

CT

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CF

DE

|

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C

F

D

E

|

G

H

IJK

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IJ

K

|

|

I

J

L

M

NOP

S

T

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NO

P

|

|

N

O

Q

R

When DNA from the remains of an ancient Cro-Magnon Man were analysed they were found to be mtDNA haplogroup N which is as you can see ancestral to most Celtic-Basque, Chinese and Indigenous American haplogroups so the Kets and Selkups which have many different descent lines from haplogroup N (called N*) seem to be a remnant of our ancestors. Interestingly, their way of life was until recently rather similar to that of Cro-Magnon Man including sophisticated fishing as well as hunting and gathering technologies (around Lake Baikal then the Yenisei River). One is reminded of the high esteem Celtic people have held for the Bradan (Salmon of Knowledge) which was one of the main foods of Cro-Magnon Man. From later Cro-Magnon remains from southern Italy it has been found that early Europeans were of the mtDNA-Haplogroup HV or pre-HV with Celts and Basques being around 60% descendant mtDNA-Haplogroup H (Welsh 59.8%, Galicians 59.2%, Basques 57.8% Piedmont 56.8%, Valencians 53.33%). Most closely related to pre-HV (and hence descendant H) is mtDNA-Haplogroups F and B which together make up around half of Chinese and South-East Asians. Haplogroup B represents the founding populations of China and South-East Asia while F is associated with the spread of the Sino-Tibetan language family which includes Chinese.

Linguistically, there is a remarkable parallel to the close genetic relationship. When I was investigating the possible ancestral language from which the Sino-Tibetan languages evolved, I found that the Ket language was thought to be the best contender. Not only that but This postulated language super-family was called at that time "Palaeo-Eurasiatic" but is now called Dene-Caucasian now that the theory has gained some significant evidence from a more scientific approach to analyzing the relationships between languages (see "modified glottochronology" link below) and the convergence of this evidence with that from recent genetic studies with the dates agreeing remarkably well. See the excerpt from the Wikipedia articles on Dene-Caucasian and Proto-Indo-European (PIE - grandparent of the Celtic languages):

[Dene-Caucasian] Family tree proposals

Starostin's view

The Dené-Caucasian family tree and approximate divergence dates (estimated by modified glottochronology) proposed by S. A. Starostin and his colleagues from the Tower of Babel project:^[25]

1. Dené-Caucasian languages [8,700BCE]

1.1. Na-Dené languages (Athabascan-Eyak-Tlingit)

1.2. Sino-Vasconic languages [7,900BCE]

1.2.1. Vasconic [e.g. Basque - neighbour of Celtic]

1.2.2. Sino-Caucasian languages [6,200BCE]

1.2.2.1. Burushaski

1.2.2.2. Caucaso-Sino-Yenisseian [5,900BCE]

1.2.2.2.1. North Caucasian languages [early neighbour of PIE, grandparent of Celtic]

1.2.2.2.2. Sino-Yeniseian [5,100BCE]

1.2.2.2.2.1. Yeniseian languages

1.2.2.2.2.2. Sino-Tibetan languages

Bengtson's view

John D. Bengtson groups Basque, Caucasian and Burushaski together in a Macro-Caucasian (earlier Vasco-Caucasian) family (see the section on Macro-Caucasian below).^[26] According to him, it is as yet premature to propose other nodes or subgroupings, but he notes that Sumerian seems to share the same number of isoglosses with the (geographically) western branches as with the eastern ones:^[27]

1. Dené-Caucasian

1.1. The Macro-Caucasian family

1.1.1. Basque [neighbour of Celtic]

1.1.2. North Caucasian [early neighbour of PIE, grandparent of Celtic]

1.1.3. Burushaski

1.2............................................ (Sumerian?)

1.3. Sino-Tibetan

1.4. Yeniseian

1.5. Na-Dené

 

So, now we have some language origin dates to play with: around 8,000 BC for Vasconic (e.g. Basque) and around 6,000 BC for North Caucasian (e.g. Abkhazian). To put it another way 8,000 to 6,000 BC for a neighbour and early neighbour of Celtic and PIE respectively.

[Proto-Indo-European]

Proposed areal connections

The existence of certain PIE typological features in Northwest Caucasian languages may hint at an early Sprachbund[5] or substratum that reached geographically to the PIE homelands.[6] This same type of languages, featuring complex verbs and of which the current Northwest Caucasian languages might have been the sole survivors, was cited by Peter Schrijver to indicate a local lexical and typological reminiscence in western Europe pointing to a possible Neolithic substratum.[7]

["Sprachbund" refers to a group of languages that have become similar in some way because of geographical proximity and language contact, i.e. they are neighbours, so the Celtic parent langauge was likely a neighbour of the Northwest Caucasian languages. e.g. Abkhazian, Circassian]

Proposed genetic connections

Many higher-level relationships between Proto-Indo-European and other language families have been proposed, but these hypothesized connections are highly controversial. A proposal often considered to be the most plausible of these is that of an Indo-Uralic family, encompassing PIE and Uralic. The evidence usually cited in favor of this consists in a number of striking morphological and lexical resemblances.

The following map from the Wikipedia shows the dispersal of men with Y-haplogroups R (reds - R1b and R1a), Q (brown), O and N (both purple) from their common ancestor Y-haplogroup NOP (located next to its parent Y-haplogroup K on the map) somewhere in South, SouthWest or Central Asia or Siberia. Please note that haplogroup F and its subclades contain more than 90% of the world's existing male population. Ancestral haplogroup F* Y-chromosomes have been found to be particularly common among the Kucong or Yellow Lahu, a group of hunter-gatherers who live in the Ailao Mountains of Yunnan on the border between China and Burma, they are also found among men in India and Korea. This may indicate an origin in South East Asia rather than the South West Asia region shown on the map below This is further reinforced by the discovery that Haplogroup NO*, which comprises all Y-chromosomes in the Haplogroup NO-M214 line that do not belong to either of the common descendant haplogroups N or O, is found with its highest reported sampled frequencies being about 5.7% (2/35) in a sample of Buyi from SW China and 5.7% (4/70) in Japanese from Tokushima on the southern island of Shikoku. In further agreement with this area of origin patrilines derived from Haplogroup P-M45 are labeled for sake of convenience as Haplogroup P* and are reported to have been found at low to moderate frequency among modern South Asia where it is most frequent among the Muslims of Manipur (30%) and the Madia Gond(25%) in Eastern and Central India respectively.

UPDATE: The area of origin of males with Y-DNA Haplogroup F* (from whom most Eurasians descend) on the map above should now be moved to South or South-East Asia (most probably near the Ailao Mountains of China's South-Western Yunnan Province near the border with Burma where the male Kucong or Yellow Lahu hunter-gatherers still have a high frequency of F*) Notice on the above map that the dominant R Haplogroup of Celts origin area is a next door neighbour to the origin areas for peoples speaking the Dene-Caucasian (Y haplogroups R, O, G and J2) and Uralic languages such as Finnish (Y haplogroup N). Notice also that this area is the origin of the Neolithic way of life - agriculture and pastoralism.

So now we come to the real bombshell, the very recent reconstuction of a dated "family tree" of the "Celtic-Basque" haplogroup R1b as published on the Wikipedia's article on R1b. The red text shows the mutation tree starting from the oldest ancestors on the left to the latest descendants on the right for us "Insular Celts" - common in the Celtic Isles off the North-West coast of Europe such as Prydain (Britain), Éireann (Ireland), Mannin (Isle of Man), etc, but also found in France, Germany and Scandinavia (Other Celtic-Basque peoples are shown in other colours: green text - "Iberian Celts" - common in regions of Spain and Portugal with a Celtic-Basque-Iberian heritage such as Minho, Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, Euskara, Catalonia and down to Andalusia, but also in the Celtic Isles, France and Germany, brown text - "Alpine Celts" - common in the Alps in regions of Alpine Germany,Switzerland including and Northern Italy, but also from Greece to the Bay of Biscay, blue text - "River Celts" - common in Austria particularly around the western core Urnfield-Hallstatt area,along the Rhine to the Netherlands and down the Danube to Bulgaria):

The above Wikipedia tree is now out of date (2008 version) for the more update 2009 version please refer to the Irish Type III DNA web site which I have used for this article. I have also used part of the following dated map (Good one Giacomo !!!) whose information I have updated for this article with the latest research concerning the post-glacial Palaeolithic Magdalenian spread from Spain and the Mediterranean-Atlantic Neolithic sea-borne spread from research done in Crete, Sicily, Liguria, France, Switzerland, Southern Germany, the lower Danube Balkan region, Iberia, Breizh, the Celtic Isles, the Low Countries and Scandinavia:

Haplogroup migration maps - History of R1b from the Ice Age origins until the beginning of the Hallstatt period (1200 BCE)

Note that in the above map the distribution of the P312 (S116) mutation is better explained by the sea-borne spread of the Impressa-Cardium pottery people and descendant Megalithic people (early Celts) than by the implausibly long land routes shown.

Now to put some people, places, approximate dates and tie-ups with Celtic legends on these mutations from the Wikipedia article. Each one of these "steps" marks a population and diversity explosion accompanying the settlement of new environments with new technologies

1. R1b base mutation - M343 - R1b* Jordan (13.7% particularly the Dead Sea area with 44.4%) in the Middle East Turkey (Europe to Western Asia) - later than 16,500 BC [The following in square backets is now atrributed to Y-DNA Haplogroup I* males - "Eurasian Magdalenian" - distribution and dates approximately match that of the Upper Palaeolithic Magdalenian culture (Portugal to Russia) who appear to have lived a remarkably similar lifestyle to the Ket people living in teepees (as well as caves). The date corresponds with the start of the end of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) in Europe (LGM was at 18,000 BC) when Europe and Western Asia were being repopulated as the ice retreated.] Only an extremely small percentage of populations in this range today have this mutation without any subsequent mutations but these people laid the foundation for the other R1b people that would come later. Famous for their cave art in caves with significant astronomical alignments (equinoxes and solstices) and apparently representing both hunting shamanism and star constellations according to the latest research.] The presence of significant R1b* diversity and percentages in Valencia Spain Spain (see map under Section 8d below) indicates that there was significant genetic contribution there from Sephardic Jews whose area of origin included the Dead Sea area. Magdalenian colonisation spread from Iberia after the last Ice Age. [See the distribution of their art below that reflects this spread (from the Wikipedia article on the Upper Palaeolithic) This map and Magdalenian references will be moved to an earlier section on Y-DNA Haplogroup I* males and their contribution as indigenous hunters and gatherers and astronomers to the cultures of early Neolithic fishing-farming-pastoral Celts and Basque settlers]

2. R1b1 - P25 - R1b1* - starting 15,000 BC (Arabian Peninsula) and 13,000 BC (Northern Africa Saharan) - "Green Saharan-Arabians" - Northern Cameroon (Africa - Arabia: Guinea-Bissau, Rwanda, Sudan, Egypt, Oman). [Now being rewitten to include the latest evidence - some will be moved to an earlier section on Y-DNA Haplogroup I males and some to outline a whole new African branch of the R1b tree: It seems an extension of the south-eastern Magdalenians (see the red dots showing the location of their mural art in the caves of Antalya in southern Anatolia in the map above - the people there to this day have high percentages of ancient haplogroups like F, K and our early R) went out into Arabia and down to the Jordan River valley to near the Dead Sea then migrated down the Nile into Egypt, the Sudan and northern Cameroon in Africa and then branched out to reach West Africa, Rwanda and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa. This all happened when the Arabian and Saharan deserts were becoming wetter and greener with large game feeding on the spreading grass and with swelling rivers and lakes with fish. The dog was domesticated as shown by a Magdalenian burial site in Germany called Bonn-Oberkassel which has joint human and dog interments dated to 12,000 BC. Hunting dogs, along with a number of Magdalenian hunting innovations such as the bow and arrow, enabled the expansion to new areas. Their cave art may have inspired the abundant rock art of the Sahara. Found also in Ashkenazi Jews this is testament to their tradition that they originated and were exiled from the Dead Sea-Sinai corridor where R1b1* is found still today.]

4. R1b1b2 - M269 - R1b1b2* - "Byblos Pre-Proto-Celtic" culture - between 7,000 and 6,000 BC - most closely corresponding to Haplotype 35 (also called ht35 or Armenian Modal Haplotype) - Armenia (32.4 % of Armenians), Anatolia (16.3 % of Turks), Iran (15.2% of northern Iranians and 6% in southern Iranians), along the Himalayas (a chain of Megalthic cultures including the Burusho whose language may be related to Vasconic) to Nepal (11% of Newars) and sail across the Mediterranean to Crete, mainland Greece (pre-Sesklo Thessaly), the Balkans, Italy, Malta and Algeria (10% of Algerian Arabs). Another group R1b1b1 "Tocharian" moves mainly east (but also to SE Europe and north to the Urals) along the Elburz Mountains of Iran to Central Asia especially Turkmenistan (36.7% of Turkmens, 9.8% of Uzbeks, 8.7% of Tatars, 5.6% of Kazakhs) at around 7,000 BC and on to the western China by 1,800 BC to form the Tocharians (also called Yuezhi and Kushans), an Indo-European speaking people that inhabited the Tarim Basin in Central Asia until they were later absorbed by various Turkic peoples (around 60% of Uyghur ancestry is thought to be of Tocharian origin). This distribution and date of both these groups corresponds with the Neolithic population and diversity explosion and also with the inital spread of the basal Centum Indo-European. Anatolia like Iberia is a centre of diversity for R1b as befits a source area from which expansion occurred. The spread of our R1b1b2 M269 ancestors by "skin-boat" cwch/curragh from Anatolia to Thessaly in Greece is shown below in red by the right hand arrow (from there they radiated further partly shown in orange - see later):

The following article explains how this sea-borne colonisation occurred:

http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2008/08/first-farmers-in-mediterranean.html

The sea-borne spread of the "Celtic" language family enabling communication between coastal communities forming a trading network would have prevented too much language divergence as is explained by the following article using an analogy with and another sea-borne language family - the Austronesian or Malayo-Polynesian language family:

"Language at the End of the Ice Age..."

5. R1b1b2a and R1b1b2a1 - P311 (L23 and L51) - R1b1b2a* and R1b1b2a1*- newly discovered - "Thessalian Pre-Sesklo Pre-Proto-Celtic" - not found in Europe NW of the Balkans (perhaps represents the initial Thessaly-Balkan area radiation). Watch this space as we will be bringing you updates on this "missing links" leading to us Celts and Basques as they are found by futher deep-clade testing of populations. The Greek-Balkan area would have offered many favourable micro-climates for the further development of agriculture and animal husbandry as research has shown.

6. R1b1b2a1a - P310 - R1b1b2a1a* - "European Pre-Proto-Celtic" most closely corresponding to Haplotype 15 (also called ht15 or Atlantic Modal Haplotype). From the Thessaly, Greece, Albania and the southern Balkan area people with this mutation populated the rest of Europe by two main routes - the Mediterranean-Atlantic sea-borne route (around 75-50% of European R1b) and the Danubian-Rhine river-borne route (around 25-50% of European R1b) as shown in the following Wikipedia map (from the green circle at Thessaly, Greece):

See the P312 section 7a following for an outline of the people with this mutation following the sea-borne Mediterranean-Atlantic route.

People with this mutation following the Danubian-Rhine route halted for a considerable time at the base of the Iron Gates gorges on the Danube due to the upstream presence of a large population of a hunter-gathering people with Y Haplogroup I-M423 (who had moved into Europe earlier from the Middle-East and still dominate in the Croatia-Bosnia and Moldavia areas - early adoption of agriculture from the R1b-P310 colonists enabled survival in the face of this "human flood"). Thus, a large complex and advanced Neolithic settlement with long-houses developed at the base of the Iron Gates gorges before further progress (like a dam ready to burst) as agriculture was adapted to colder northern climates as a "package". Eventually, the agrarian colonists burst up the Danube past the gorges to the Central-Northern Continental Europe R1b-P310 "human floodplain" following the rivers. Their modified Indo-European "Old European" language may have given rise to many of the river names of northern Europe adopted by later north-east expanding Celtic-derived language families like Germanic (read this Celtic-Basque branch history below starting at 7a) - see "Old European hydronymy" for details. See the R1b (left) and I-M423 (right) haplogroup maps from the Wikipedia below to see this progress graphically illustrated:

7a. R1b1b2a1a2 - P312 - S116 - R1b1b2a1a2* "Proto-Celtic" (representing 75-50% of European R1b) sailing from Greece to the northern Mediterranean (Liguria and Italy) and moving up the Rhone Valley into southern France, Switzerland and Alpine Germany, sailing over to Iberia (Spain and Portugal) out into the Atlantic coast and up to western France (Brittany), to the Celtic Isles and over to Scandinavia. These colonists carried goats, sheep and cereal grains with them in their cwch/curragh boats.The distribution matches the spread of the Impressa-Cardium pottery culture, in particular, the earliest Impressa wave of this culture from 6,000BC to 5,500 BC (R1b is found in greatest frequency in the interior populations of Mediterranean islands like Crete and Sicily following the subsequent sea-borne migrations of people with higher frequencies of other haplogroups such as J). As suggested by the blue question mark on the above map, the "Proto-Celtic" people following the sea-borne route stemmed from a population with this further P312 mutation probably in the Aegean Sea area (56% of the interior Lasithi Plateau population of Crete is R1 haplogroup, i.e. early Cretan population and the R1b in Crete is more closley related to Italian R1b than Anatolian or Balkan). Each of the major coastal and upstream Neolithic colonies they formed developed new mutations as outlined under level 8 mutations (see 8a to 8f below). See the map below for details of these colonisations (from the goat DNA:ancestry paper with dates in shown as years ago - take off 2,000 years for BC). This sea-borne route explains the distribution of this mutation in peninsulas, islands, other coastal areas and adjacent river valleys which would otherwise require long and implausible land migration paths). The "human flood" of P310-P312 colonists fleeing the overpopulation caused by the agriculture lifestyle (and advanced fishing innovations like navigation) is graphically illustrated on the map below where Impressa-Cardium culture maritime settlements leap-frog each other at the estimated rate of 10-20 km per year in their race westwards along the Mediterranean coast with each colony expanding rapidly in population and forcing settlement inland as well as northward up the western Atlantic coast of Europe to the present Celtic lands:

Starting at 5,400 BC at Carrowmore in NW Ireland sea-borne P310-P312 colonist's settlements develop Megalithic monuments with astronomical allignments perhaps with input from the R1b* Magdalenian hunter-gatherer-fishers who initally lived apart but after some time were incorporated by the population explosion of the colonists. A similar process occurred with the Andalusian P310-P312 colonists advancing in southern Portugal at Evora at 5,000 BC and in Breizh at 4,800 BC (see the orange areas on the map from the Wikipedia on the right for where these sophisticated settlements developed initially). There is ample archaeological evidence of sea-borne communication between these growing settlements to form a "networked civilisation" that even had its own unit of length called the "Megalithic yard" (the precursor of the metre). See my separte article on the Megalithic Celtic Civilisation for details and links. A back-migration from these Atlantic centres to the Mediterranean coast appears to have occurred later which explains a mutation on Insular Celtic L21 R1b that is found there.

Moving on, the following map from the Wikipedia shows the cultures in Europe at between 4.500-4,000 BC. The "proto-Celtic" colonies cultures are shown in the mid-green Printed Cardium Pottery area, the red-brown Andalusian area and the Atlantic western red areas (Byblos culture is shown in dark green in the Near East incuding Cyprus).

Moving on further, the following map from the Wikipedia shows the cultures in Europe at between 4.000-3,500 BC. The "proto-Celtic" colonies are shown as having expanded enormoulsy.

7b. U106 "Nebra Celtic germination" around 1,900 BC Unetice-Tumulus-Urnfield

8a. U152 "La Tene and Hallstatt Celt/South Central Europe" Starting from 5,600 BC in Liguria-French Midi (Early Neolithic Impressa wave at Baume d'Oullen) these "Ligurian" colonists spread up the rivers in particular the Rhone into eastern France, Switzerland (Helvetians), southern Germany and the lakes district of northern Italy (a succession of cultures culminating in the Lepontic Celts) at some stage developing this mutation on top of P312/S116. The U152 mutation was later spread over an even wider area by the La Tene Celts and their offspring in north-eastern Italy the Italic Apennine inhumation culture that ultimately became the Romans. Linguistically, we know that they applied our Cymraeg word "genau" (meaning "mouth" in Saesneg) to the mouths of rivers and lakes as in Genoa and Geneva. David Faux in his 6 Apr 2008 article posted on RootsWeb titled "Analysis and Early Interpretation of the R1b1c10 Data - Part 1" came to a similar conclusion based on the data (R1b1c10 is another name for U152) that the origins seem to be in the early Neolithic in particular associated with the Impressed Ware-Cardium pottery culture of the Mediterranean based on the greater diversity of U152/S116 in the Ligurian - Marseille - northern Sardinian zone. Two very interesting and well-researched articles on the distribution and possible origins and cultural-liguistic associations also written by David Faux are here:

A Genetic Signal of Central European Celtic Ancestry: Preliminary Research Concerning Y-Chromosome Marker U152 Part 1

A Genetic Signal of Central European Celtic Ancestry: Preliminary Research Concerning Y-Chromosomal Marker U152 Part 2

In these articles David has given many alternative explanations and given the very latest research at Ynys Mon and other part of the Celtic Isles we can now say with some certainty that Continental Celts did migrate to a number of areas. In particular, David points out that Ynys Mon was the pre-eminent "Sacred Isle" of the Druidic Religion of the Celts continent-wide through Europe and this is reflected in the significant proportion of U152 R1b found there alongside the Insular Celtic L21 R1b. The around 90% prevalence of R1b at Ynys Mon precludes any later explanation such as Anglian invasion because that would have injected a substantial proportion of haplogroup I into the population. The migration of U152/S116 people from south central Europe to the Celtic Isles has been taking place since at least 2,300 BC as oultined at the top of my article "Megalithic Celts".

See also the Wikipedia article on the Celtic Hallstatt culture (1200 to 500 BC including Hallstatt A to D) with a diagram of its distribution across Europe:

This diagram in both the 2 Wikipedia articles on the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures shows the spread of both:

The Wikipedia also has an article on the Celtic La Tène culture (450 BC to 1st century AD) with another map representing this another way:

8b. M65 "Basque Private" Recently discovered, probably only small numbers and associated with M153.

8c. M153 "Basque" Starting from around 5,600 BC near Narbonne on the Mediterranean coast of France and following the route taken by the Canal du Midi past Carcassonne into the headwaters of the Garonne River down into the dense forests of the Aquitaine region and the down the other rivers draining into the Bay of Biscay at Bayonne and into NE Atlantic Spain, these colonists became isolated from the coastal and navigable river "milieu" of the other P312 groups whose trading lingua-franca became Proto-Celtic and later Celtic. This isolation would have resulted in the genetic drift recognised to have occurred in the Basque population and similarly the conservative retention of the Vasconic language. Basque archaeologists have analysed the DNA from burials and discovered the same dominant mtDNA haplogroups as are found in other "Proto-Celtic" Neolithic groups and evidence of continuity past the Roman era. What seemed to be archaic features were not found in the burials indicating these features probably result from either a much more recent admixture or from genetic drift in an isolated population. The scattered occurrence of seemingly Basque-derived place and family names in many Celtic areas had previously been taken as evidence that the Basques are some pre-existing population in Celtic areas but now it seems a much better explanation is that Basque (Vasconic) was one of the languages spoken by the Proto-Celtic peoples and the 2 languages were "fellow-travellers" (possibly with Basque occupying a ritual significance like Sumerian did among Akkadians as mentioned earlier). There is striking evidence of a Basque superstrate "vocabulary without grammar" influence on Celtic languages which I will outline.

8d. M167 "Iberian/Western Europe" Starting at 5,800 BC in Andalusia P312 colonists following a more direct southern route along the northern coast of the Maghreb in north Africa (from Malta,Sicily or perhaps directly from the Aegean via Oran in Algeria) established coastal colonies that thrived on the cereal grains, legumes and olives the colonists brought with them (but no domesticated pastoral animals). The Cantabrian area was colonised by 5,550 BC. Around 5,400 BC P312 colonists following the northern route colonised Catalonia and up the Ebro River bringing goats and sheep as well. They sailed out along the Atlantic Ocean coast of Portugal and up to Galicia and southern Breizh). The following map by Dienekes Pontikos in his article Major study of Iberian Y-chromosomes (Adams et al.) shows the breakup of Y-haplogroups in the population of each region in Iberia and the adjacent Maghreb regions of North Africa today: The dominance of the Neolithic Proto-Celtic colonists from Anatolia (P310+ ht35 decendants probably most P312) is graphically shown by the Red, Dark Pink, Purple and Mid Orange sectors. The new Iberian-wide Celtic mutation M167 that developed some time after initial Neolithic colonisation, probably in Catalonia, is shown by the Mid Orange sectors in each region. [For the mainly Basque mutations M153 (Purple sectors) and M65 (Dark Pink) refer to sections 8b and 8c above. Notice also the significant genetic influence from Sephardic Jews bringing R1b* and K* haplogroups without major subsequent mutations in Valencia and Ibiza. Notice also the survival of residual R1b* unmutated Magdalenian Y-DNA (Valencia and Sephardic Jews as Light Pink sectors), see section 1 above, and Aurignacian Cro-Magnon K* (Light Cream-White sectors in Ibiza, Southern Portugal, Extrmadura and Sephardic Jews) but notice not in the Basque country. Notice also the small Dark Orange sector of R1* in West Andalusia probably from Romany Gypsies originating from India (near R1 haplogroups original home in Iran). The coastal minority enclave nature of Maghreb Proto-Celtic colonies is demonstrated (not present in interior Saharawi).]. Only the Insular Celtic languages show evidence of a Afro-Asiatic substrate "grammar without vocabulary" influence which may have arisen in the coastal Neolithic enclaves among the then hunter-gatherer Berbers of the Maghreb (E3b haplogroup).

8e. S68 "Scotland/Sweden Private ?" Recently discovered, thought to be no more than 2% of R1b and seems associated with L21 below. Interesting possibilities given its distribution.

8f. L21 "Insular Celts" before 3,200 BC (5,400 BC Eireann, 4,800 BC in Breizh) Celtic Isles (Prydain, Éireann, Mannin...). The great navigational and sea-going abilities of the P312/S116 Impressa-Cardium people is expressed in the Wikipedia article on them:

"The most notable characteristic of this culture was their great navigation capabilities, demonstrated by finds of remains of species that can only be fished in the open seas. This seafaring nature would be essential in their ability to colonize large regions of the Mediterranean coasts."

This ability enabled them to sail from Andalusia, Portugal and Galicia to fish in the Altlantic. Their first settlement we know of was established in the area around Carrowmore in NW Eireann (Ireland) around 5,400 BC where they build the earliest Megalithic site so far discovered in Western Europe. This settlement was initially an advanced fishermans settlement as attested by the shell middens found, but as agriculture was adapted for colder northern climates, these Insular Celtic P310-P312 settlers with the L21 mutation later brought the agricultural "package" over to both Britain and Ireland causing further population expansion.

9a. R222 "North-West Irish" Gaels. This mutation appears to have developed in the Carrowmore settlement raea and spread to other parts of Eireann and Western Alba particularly spread of the Ui Niall.

9b. M37 recently discovered Australian Celtic mutation (this must be the tip of the mutation iceberg waiting to be discovered given the huge Celtic-Basque diasporas in North and South America and Southern Africa). One is reminded of that colony of Australian Parma Wallabies moved to an Hawaian island that formed a sub-species after a short time (we are just another animal after all - we should not forget this and become so arrogant to think we are immune from such change).

9c. P66 recently discovered Italian mutation which may point to back migration of sea-borne Atlantic Insular Celts into the Mediterranean at the time of the Celtic Megalithic Civilisation.

to be continued...this article will be continually updated as new research results come to hand...

Bob Jones February 2009 (updated June and July 2009, March 2010) You are free to use any of the above information with the following restrictions:

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