Brit-Am Anthropology and DNA Update (16 April 2013, Iyar 6, 5773)
Contents:
1. Evidence of early medieval trade and migration between Wales and the Mediterranean Sea region
2. The Celtic Genetic Connection to Red Hair
3. Addition to article, Red Irish: Rufosity in Ireland and Britain. Some Sources and Comments
4. DNA: one million Britons descended from the Romans!
5. Polynesian DNA shows up in a Brazilian tribe
6. Faces of Ancient Inhabitants of Israel-Canaan Reconstructed. Meet Delilah: TV series unveils 'biblical' faces
7. Eurasian Y chromosome R1b in Africa.
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1. Evidence of early medieval trade and migration between Wales and the Mediterranean Sea region
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030544031300023X
Journal of Archaeological Science
Volume 40, Issue 5, May 2013, Pages 2352-2359
Abstract
Imported Mediterranean pottery recovered from 5th-7th century settlement sites along the south Wales coast indicates that trade and contact between Wales and Byzantium continued following the collapse of the Roman Empire in the early-5th century. It is hypothesised that people as well as pottery continued to travel to Wales from Byzantium, some of whom subsequently settled amongst the local communities. Strontium and oxygen isotope analysis was undertaken on human remains (n = 33 individuals) from four early medieval cemeteries from south Wales. The study identified individuals who may not have been local to the British Isles, thus demonstrating that the isotopic analysis of human remains from Wales can further our understanding of migration to Britain during the early medieval period.
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2. The Celtic Genetic Connection to Red Hair
"The genetic causes, ethnic origins and history of red hair
http://www.eupedia.com/genetics/origins_of_red_hair.shtml
A very interesting and controversial Eupedia article.Article Connects red hair to R1b and to the Celtic and part of the Germanic peoples. Traces R1b to the Middle East.
Also points out that red hair is determined by environment and lattitude. The 45 degree is a distinguishing line in Europe.
Extracts:
Red hair is a recessive genetic trait caused by a series of mutations in the melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R), a gene located on chromosome 16. As a recessive trait it must be inherited from both parents to cause the hair to become red. Consequently there are far more people carrying the mutation for red hair than people actually having red hair. In Scotland, approximately 13% of the population are redheads, although 40% carry at least one mutation. There are many kinds of red hair, some fairer, or mixed with blond ('strawberry blond'), some darker, like auburn hair, which is brown hair with a reddish tint. This is because some people only carry one or a few of the several possible MC1R mutations. The lightness of the hair ultimately depends on other mutations regulating the general pigmentation of both the skin and hair.
Red hair has long been associated with Celtic people. Both the ancient Greeks and Romans described the Celts as redheads. The Romans extended the description to Germanic people, at least those they most frequently encountered in southern and western Germany. It still holds true today.
...Regardless of the definition, the frequency of red hair is highest in Ireland (10 to 30%) and Scotland (10 to 25%), followed by Wales (10 to 15%), Cornwall and western England, Brittany, the Franco-Belgian border, then western Switzerland, Jutland and southwest Norway. The southern and eastern boundaries, beyond which red hair only occurs in less than 1% of the population, are northern Spain, central Italy, Austria, western Bohemia, western Poland, Baltic countries and Finland. Overall, the distribution of red hair matches remarkably well the ancient Celtic and Germanic worlds. It is undeniable too that the highest frequencies are always observed in Celtic areas, especially in those that remained Celtic-speaking to this day or until recently.
Southwest Norway may well be the clue to the origin of red hair. It has been discovered recently, thanks to genetic genealogy, that the higher incidence of both dark hair and red hair (as opposed to blond) in southwest Norway coincided with a higher percentage of the paternal lineage known as haplogroup , including its subclade R1b-M222, typical of northwestern Ireland and Scotland (the so-called lineage of Niall of the Nine Hostages). It is now almost certain that native Irish and Scottish Celts were taken (probably as slaves) to southwest Norway by the Vikings, and that they increased the frequency of red hair there.
What is immediately apparent to genetic genealogists is that the map of red hair correlates with the frequency of haplogroup R1b in northern and western Europe. It doesn't really correlate with the percentage of R1b in southern Europe, for the simple reason that red hair is more visible among people carrying various other genes involved in light skin and hair pigmentation. Mediterranean people have considerably darker pigmentations (higher eumelanin), especially as far as hair is considered, giving the red hair alleles little opportunity to express themselves. The reddish tinge is always concealed by black hair, and rarely visible in dark brown hair. Rufosity being recessive, it can easily stay hidden if the alleles are too dispersed in the gene pool, and that the chances of both parents carrying an allele becomes too low. Furthermore, natural selection also progressively pruned red hair from the Mediterranean populations, because the higher amount of sunlight and strong UV rays in the region was more likely to cause potentially fatal melanoma in fair-skinned redheads.
At equal latitude, the frequency of red hair correlates amazingly well with the percentage of R1b lineages. The 45th parallel north, running through central France, northern Italy and Croatia, appears to be a major natural boundary for red hair frequencies. Under the 45th parallel, the UV rays become so strong that it is no longer an advantage to have red hair and very fair skin. Under the 41th parallel, redheads become extremely rare, even in high R1b areas.
The 45th parallel is also the traditional boundary between northern European cultures, where cuisine is butter-based, and southern European cultures, preferring olive oil for cooking. In France, the 45th parallel is the also limit between the northern Oil dialects of French and the southern Occitan language. In northern Italy, it is the 46th parallel that separates German speakers (in South Tyrol) from Italian speakers. The natural boundary probably has a lot to do with the sun and climate in general, since the 45th parallel is exactly halfway between the Equator and the North Pole.
Slavic, Baltic and Finnish people are predominantly descended from haplogroup R1a, N1c1 and I1. Their limited R1b ancestry means that the MC1R mutation is much rarer in these populations. This is why, despite their light skin and hair pigmentation and living at the same latitude as Northwest Europeans, almost none of them have red hair, apart from a few Poles or Czechs with partial German ancestry.
....the answer lies with the R1b people - thought to have recolonised Central and Western Europe during the Bronze Age.
.... The present author favours the theory of a Middle Eastern origin (a point upon which very few population geneticists disagree) followed by a migration to the North Caucasus and Pontic Steppe, serving as a starting point for a Bronze-age invasion of the Balkans, then Central and Western Europe. This theory also happens to be the only one that explains the presence of red hair among the Udmurts, Central Asians and Tarim mummies.
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3. Addition to article, Red Irish: Rufosity in Ireland and Britain. Some Sources and Comments
http://hebrewnations.com/articles/tribes/ireland-and-ulster/ruf.html
Eupedia Source: http://www.eupedia.com/genetics/origins_of_red_hair.shtml
 Southwest Norway may well be the clue to the origin of red hair. It has been discovered recently, thanks to genetic genealogy, that the higher incidence of both dark hair and red hair (as opposed to blond) in southwest Norway coincided with a higher percentage of the paternal lineage known as haplogroup R1b-L21, including its subclade R1b-M222, typical of northwestern Ireland and Scotland (the so-called lineage of Niall of the Nine Hostages).
 It is now almost certain that native Irish and Scottish Celts were taken (probably as slaves) to southwest Norway by the Vikings, and that they increased the frequency of red hair there.
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4. DNA: one million Britons descended from the Romans!
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/uk/one-million-romans-in-britain-29090442.html
Around one million men in the UK can claim to be direct descendants of the Romans, scientists have revealed.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9888402/One-million-Brits-descended-from-Romans.html
Extracts:
The Roman army invaded Britain in 43 AD and left around 400 years later, in the early 5th century. But historians and scientists claim that the legions left behind their legacy in the genes of many Britons.
A study by BritainsDNA, a commercial DNA testing company, compared Y chromosome markers found in men in Britain with those found in modern Italy. The results found five major types of DNA which were likely to have come from the Roman legions.
The first, known as Alpine, was found in 13% of Italian men, 6.5% of men in England and Wales, 4.3% in Scotland and 1.8% in Ireland.
As Ireland was never conquered and Scotland was only occupied for a short time, the researchers said these figures suggested this DNA was a "probable candidate" to be linked to the Romans.
When applied to the total population of the UK, it was estimated that 1.6 million men carried the Alpine marker, of which half a million may be descended from the Roman armies.
When the researchers included the four further markers - known as Balkan, Ancient Caucasians, Herdsmen-Farmers and Anatolian - they calculated that at least one million British men may be direct descendants of the Romans.
The study concluded: "Since the number of Italians or descendants of Italians in the legions did reduce very much over time, we estimate conservatively that one million men in Britain descend from Romans in the direct male line.
"What this fascinating piece of research shows is that the Romans did indeed do something for us, for about a million of us in fact."
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5. Polynesian DNA shows up in a Brazilian tribe
http://www.nature.com/news/dna-study-links-indigenous-brazilians-to-polynesians-1.12710
http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/04/polynesian-dna-mysteriously-shows-up-in-a-brazilian-tribe/
Indigenous people that lived in southeastern Brazil in the late 1800s shared some genetic sequences with Polynesians, an analysis of their remains shows.
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6. Faces of Ancient Inhabitants of Israel-Canaan Reconstructed. Meet Delilah: TV series unveils 'biblical' faces
forwarded by Mark Williams
http://www.timesofisrael.com/meet-delilah-tv-series-unveils-biblical-faces/
Extract:
The lifelike faces, fashioned from clay by a Canadian forensic artist, are based on the skulls of four people whose remains were unearthed in Israel. They include a male, perhaps a hunter, who lived 6,000 years ago and was buried in a Judean Desert cave; a baby interred inside a vase underneath a Jordan Valley house in the same period; a woman thought to be a Philistine who lived on the coast near Ashkelon 3,000 years ago; and a Galilean male ..
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7. Eurasian Y chromosome R1b in Africa.
Human Y chromosome haplogroup R-V88: a paternal genetic record of early mid Holocene trans-Saharan connections and the spread of Chadic languages
http://mathildasanthropologyblog.wordpress.com/2010/05/15/eurasian-y-chromosome-r1b-in-africa/
Extracts:
- Although human Y chromosomes belonging to haplogroup R1b are quite rare in Africa, being found mainly in Asia and Europe, a group of chromosomes within the paragroup R-P25* are found concentrated in the central-western part of the African continent, where they can be detected at frequencies as high as 95%.
It's fairly obvious that the male line of Chadic speakers followed a path into Africa via the Sinai, then down the West bank of the Nile and then struck out West to Lake Chad, acquiring wives as they went. ..Chadic has cognates for sheep and goats that look like they share a root with Cushitic and Egyptian.