BAMAD-118

Brit-Am Anthropology and DNA Update (8 December, 2013, 25 Tevet 5774)

Contents:
1. Descendants of Nial in Ireland and Scotland. A clarification.
2. R1b in Africa and Elsewhere;  The Atlantic  Modal  Haplotype of Western Europe. A Possible Egyptian and Assyria Link?
3. Top ten reasons to love Irish redheads (PHOTOS)
4. Different Pygmy Groups Evolved Independently
5. DNA shows Irish people have more complex origins than previously thought
by Marie McKeown
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1. Descendants of Nial in Ireland and Scotland. A clarification.
Recently Clifford Riley sent us a message,
Brit-Am Now no. 2171 Ten Tribes Studies.
http://hebrewnations.com/features/5/2171.html
#4. Clifford Riley: The O'Neils Came From Egypt!
In this message Clifford expressed his belief that Nial (or his predecessor) was of Egyptian stock but had married an Israelite.
Clifford based his ideas partly on DNA findings.
He seems to have confused information from different sources with legends about Nial.
His letter was followed by another. From these missives it follows that his ideas were possibly based on a confusion between R1b on the whole, the Atlantic Modal Haplotype and other matters.
He says that the DNA sequences of Nial has also been found amongst the Basques of Spain and the Egyptians. This is mistaken. Apparently he means the Atlantic Mode  which is different but also common in Ireland, see below.
Nial may well have been an Israelite.
Or a mercenary who served with the Israelites.
We had written privately to Clifford on this matter and also posted relevant notes to our list.
See:
#3. Egyptian Pharaohs: What YDNA haplogroups did they belong to?
http://hebrewnations.com/features/bamad/bamad115.html#a3
In short Clifford has confused the specific ancestral DNA  of Nial with the AMH or with R1b in general.
The Haplotype associated with Nial is R-M222 also known as R-P312-4b or  R1b1c7.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_R1b_(Y-DNA)
R-M222 is a sub-group of a sub-group of a sub-group etc of the main group of R1b. It is associated with the descendants of Nial.
See:
Brit-Am Now no. 2173 Ten Tribes Studies.
http://hebrewnations.com/features/5/2173.html
#1. No Proof that Nial  was an Egyptian.

Even if some Irish DNA has similarities to the Basques that of Nial has not.
There is nothing wrong with the Basques or the Irish or the Egyptians. We just should just get our facts straight to start with.

We repeat,
The YDNA sequences of descendants of Nial is known as R-M222.
R-M222 is a sub-group of a sub-group of a sub-group etc of the main group of R1b.
R-M222 is almost unique to Ireland and Scotland with a minority scattering in other parts of Western Europe that may be traced to the Irish Diaspora.
There is no connection with Egypt or anywhere else.
R-M222 is however a sub-group of R-P312-4 (R-L21) which  is most common in England and Ireland (25-50% of the whole male population).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_R1b_(Y-DNA)
R-M222 is relatively very recent. Even if their ancestors did come from somewhere else DNA science as it is now understood says that  R-M222  developed, increased and multiplied  within the last 1500 to ca 1000 years or less.  Today, in an almost miraculous manner, it is to be found amongst millions of males of mainly Irish and Scottish descent.

Apart from that,
It should also be noted that ALL R1b in Western Europe would appear to be relatively recent.

We suspect that environmental factors may also be involved.

DESPITE THE ABOVE,

Clifford Riley may be onto something. The AMH (not Nial!!) may have a clear link to the Middle East, see the entries below. This link may tie in with Irish Legends.

Perhaps Clifford could look the information over, slightly revise his suggestions, and get back to us?
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2. R1b in Africa and Elsewhere;  The Atlantic  Modal Haplotype of Western Europe. A Possible Egyptian and Assyria Link?
R1b is mainly associated with Western Europe. It does however also have pockets in Asia and Africa.
A type of R1b is found in Egypt (ca. 7%) and also amongst Black African groups and amongst Australian aborigines (ca. 7%).
23% of the Central Sahel region (i.e. northern Black Africa just south of the Sahara) has R1b.
R1b (Y-chromosomal DNA)  is found in 60 to 95% of men in northern Cameroon in Black Africa.

Wikipedia tells us:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_R1b_(Y-DNA)
While Western Europe is dominated by the R1b1a2 (R-M269) branch of R1b, the Chadic-speaking area in Africa is dominated by the branch known as R1b1c (R-V88).
The Chadic-dialects are considered by some to be offshoots of Ancient Egyptian.

The Case of North Cameroon's Genetic Outliers
http://washparkprophet.blogspot.co.il/2010/04/case-of-north-cameroons-genetic.html
Northern Cameroon is home to two major Y-DNA genetic outliers. A group Chadic language speaking people, a majority of whose men are genetically related most closely to the Atlantic modal haplotype, in a variant found nowhere else, and a group of Niger-Congo language speaking Fulani people where one of six of their men have a type T haplotype (discussed previously at this blog two post ago), which is found in the Nile River Valley, Somolia, Southern India, Mesopotamia and at low frequency in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe.

Atlantic modal haplotype
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_modal_haplotype
It reaches the highest frequencies in the Iberian Peninsula, in Great Britain and Ireland. In the Iberian Peninsula it reaches 70% in Portugal as a whole, more than 90% in NW Portugal and nearly 90% in Galicia (NW Spain), while the highest value is to be found among Spain and the Basques.

Notes:
Taking the above together we obtain a possible link via the  AMH (Atlantic Modal Haplotype of R1b) between Ireland, the Basques, Spain, Chad in Black Africa and Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia.  See the note below and it will be seen that Assyria was also involved.

An Assyrian Connection?
The Kanem-Bornu Empire existed in modern Chad and Nigeria.
Some researches try to connect the creation of Kanem-Bornu with exodus from the collapsed Assyrian Empire c. 600 BC to the northeast of Lake Chad.[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanem-Bornu_Empire
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3. Top ten reasons to love Irish redheads (PHOTOS)
http://www.irishcentral.com/ent/Top-ten-reasons-being-a-Irish-redhead-is-awesome---PHOTOS-212543771.html
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4. Different Pygmy Groups Evolved Independently
Evolution of the Pygmy Phenotype: Evidence of Positive Selection from Genome-wide Scans in African, Asian, and Melanesian Pygmies
http://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/humbiol/vol85/iss1/12/
Andrea Bamberg Migliano et al

Abstract

Human pygmy populations inhabit different regions of the world, from Africa to Melanesia. In Asia, short-statured populations are often referred to as "negritos." Their short stature has been interpreted as a consequence of thermoregulatory, nutritional, and/or locomotory adaptations to life in tropical forests. A more recent hypothesis proposes that their stature is the outcome of a life history trade-off in high-mortality environments, where early reproduction is favored and, consequently, early sexual maturation and early growth cessation have coevolved. Some serological evidence of deficiencies in the growth hormone/insulin-like growth factor axis have been previously associated with pygmies'  short stature. Using genome-wide single-nucleotide polymorphism genotype data, we first tested whether different negrito groups living in the Philippines and Papua New Guinea are closely related and then investigated genomic signals of recent positive selection in African, Asian, and Papuan pygmy populations. We found that negritos in the Philippines and Papua New Guinea are genetically more similar to their nonpygmy neighbors than to one another and have experienced positive selection at different genes. These results indicate that geographically distant pygmy groups are likely to have evolved their short stature independently. We also found that selection on common height variants is unlikely to explain their short stature and that different genes associated with growth, thyroid function, and sexual development are under selection in different pygmy groups.
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5. DNA shows Irish people have more complex origins than previously thought
by Marie McKeown
http://www.sott.net/article/263587-DNA-shows-Irish-people-have-more-complex-origins-than-previously-thought

Extracts:
The red-hair gene is most common in Irish blood.
The blood in Irish veins is Celtic, right? Well, not exactly. Although the history many Irish people were taught at school is the history of the Irish as a Celtic race, the truth is much more complicated, and much more interesting than that ...

Research into Irish DNA and ancestry has revealed close links with Scotland stretching back to before the Ulster Planation of the early 1600s. ...the closest genetic relatives of the Irish in Europe are to be found in the north of Spain in the region known as the Basque Country. These same ancestors are shared to an extent with the people of Britain - especially the Scottish.

DNA testing through the male Y chromosome has shown that Irish males have the highest incidence of the haplogroup 1 [R1b] gene in Europe. ...

This is mirrored in genetic studies which have compared DNA analysis with Irish surnames. Many surnames in Irish are Gaelic surnames, suggesting that the holder of the surname is a descendant of people who lived in Ireland long before the English conquests of the Middle Ages. Men with Gaelic surnames, showed the highest incidences of Haplogroup 1 (or Rb1) gene.