The First "People of the British Isles" Paper

[rms2]

Scroll down to the August 10, 2011 entry of Dienekes' Anthropology Blog for the description of this paper.

There are a number of interesting things about this paper, whose researchers, incredibly, didn't bother to parse the non-R1a1 element of R1 beyond R1xR1a1. Weird.

Anyway, one of the first things that struck me is the level of R1a1 versus I (I is as far as they went in that direction, as well) in Orkney, 34% R1a1 to just roughly 8% I. If one attributes the R1a1 to the Norwegian Vikings, why is the level of I so low? Modern Norway is supposed to have at least as much I as R1a1.

[rms2]

Scroll down to the August 10, 2011 entry of Dienekes' Anthropology Blog for the description of this paper.

There are a number of interesting things about this paper, whose researchers, incredibly, didn't bother to parse the non-R1a1 element of R1 beyond R1xR1a1. Weird.

Anyway, one of the first things that struck me is the level of R1a1 versus I (I is as far as they went in that direction, as well) in Orkney, 34% R1a1 to just roughly 8% I. If one attributes the R1a1 to the Norwegian Vikings, why is the level of I so low? Modern Norway is supposed to have at least as much I as R1a1.

Naturally, R1xR1a1 is a proxy for "Ancient Britons" in this paper. :-O

[authun]

There are a number of interesting things about this paper, whose researchers, incredibly, didn't bother to parse the non-R1a1 element of R1 beyond R1xR1a1. Weird.

The paper is more about the technique of surname based sampling than 'genetics'. Hence the broad groups. To understand the sampling methods used, the associated paper 'Local, rural and British A British approach to sampling' needs to be read.

http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ejhg2011153a.html

"Although readers will have to wait for future publications to discover the insights from these large-scale genetic analyses, the current paper describes the sampling strategy and initial 3865 samples in some detail, outlines an approach to investigating fine-scale population structure using surnames, and presents some preliminary genetic analyses of a handful of chosen loci."

What is exactly meant by a handful of chosen loci and how many more loci will be studied in later publications is obviously of interest to us, but no clarification is given.

The paper itself is available at:

http://www.peopleofthebritishisles.org/Paper1.pdf

best
authun

[authun]

Naturally, R1xR1a1 is a proxy for "Ancient Britons" in this paper. :-O

Not quite, there are a number of markers:

"The samples were genotyped with a number of markers that were
chosen because they have been used to differentiate populations by many
different studies over the years. Specifically, they were: HLA20–22 (typed at a
low-medium resolution, Table 2, Supplementary Table 1), MC1R (R151C
(rs1805007) and R160W (rs1805008), the minor alleles of which are associated
with red hair23),24,25 ABO26,27 (rs7853989, the SNP that differentiates alleles A
and B) and the Y chromosome (NRY).1,2,28,29 The six most common NRY
halogroups2 were typed (Table 2) as defined by specific SNPs (R1a1 (rs3908),
F(xI/J2/R1) (rs2032652), E (rs9306841), I (rs2032597), J2 (rs2032604) and
R1(xR1a1) (rs2032624))."

and it is a combination of these markers that are used, rather than any individual SNP. For  a proxy of the 'indigenous british population' they used the combination found in the south west, for the anglo saxon proxy, they used the combination found in the eastern parts of England.

Obviously we would like to know if they are going to test for more SNPs on the NRY. Perhaps 6 was enough for this surname study but, for a more detailed study of the people of the british isles, it isn't.  It's all very broad brush at the moment.

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authun

[Mikewww]

... For  a proxy of the 'indigenous british population' they used the combination found in the south west, for the anglo saxon proxy, they used the combination found in the eastern parts of England...

While I admit that using proxies is necessary to look for clues as to what happened, it makes me nervous. A proxy is nothing more than an assumed association based on preconceived notions.

We all know what happens when we assume.... (if you don't I'll insert the appropriate blanks.) LOL.

[authun]

While I admit that using proxies is necessary to look for clues as to what happened, it makes me nervous. A proxy is nothing more than an assumed association based on preconceived notions.

Yes, they acknowledge that and point out:

"We recognise that these distinctions are somewhat arbitrary and their effect will be investigated in more detail in the future work."

I don't think there's anything that we can glean from this paper and we'll have to wait.

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authun

[rms2]

Here's a question.

Dienekes displays the MC1R table and says, "The minor alleles in MC1R are associated with red hair, and it seems that this is maximized in Orkney."

Yet the values for those alleles are lowest in Orkney. Are low values on those alleles associated with red hair, as opposed to high values? Or did Dienekes misspeak?

[authun]

Dienekes displays the MC1R table and says, "The minor alleles in MC1R are associated with red hair, and it seems that this is maximized in Orkney."

Yet the values for those alleles are lowest in Orkney. Are low values on those alleles associated with red hair, as opposed to high values? Or did Dienekes misspeak?

No I don't think he did, but I don't know enough about MC1R to be sure about what is meant. The text in the paper does say:

"Specifically, they were: HLA20–22 (typed at a low-medium resolution, Table 2, Supplementary Table 1), MC1R (R151C (rs1805007) and R160W (rs1805008), the minor alleles of which are associated with red hair²³),^24,25 ABO^26,27 (rs7853989, the SNP that differentiates alleles A and B) and the Y chromosome (NRY).^1,2,28,29"


The caption under the table explains:

"Only the major allele frequencies are presented for the MC1R"

So it's an odd thing that he placed a table which excludes minor alles under a statement which makes a statement about them.

I think, but am not sure, that he has taken the statement from Supplementary Figure 4 which shows a series of maps for all the SNPs tested:

http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/vaop/ncurrent/extref/ejhg2011127x1.doc

Oddly enough, these maps don't appear to represent all the areas tested.

authun

[rms2]

Naturally, R1xR1a1 is a proxy for "Ancient Britons" in this paper. :-O

Not quite, there are a number of markers:

"The samples were genotyped with a number of markers that were
chosen because they have been used to differentiate populations by many
different studies over the years. Specifically, they were: HLA20–22 (typed at a
low-medium resolution, Table 2, Supplementary Table 1), MC1R (R151C
(rs1805007) and R160W (rs1805008), the minor alleles of which are associated
with red hair23),24,25 ABO26,27 (rs7853989, the SNP that differentiates alleles A
and B) and the Y chromosome (NRY).1,2,28,29 The six most common NRY
halogroups2 were typed (Table 2) as defined by specific SNPs (R1a1 (rs3908),
F(xI/J2/R1) (rs2032652), E (rs9306841), I (rs2032597), J2 (rs2032604) and
R1(xR1a1) (rs2032624))."

and it is a combination of these markers that are used, rather than any individual SNP. For  a proxy of the 'indigenous british population' they used the combination found in the south west, for the anglo saxon proxy, they used the combination found in the eastern parts of England.

Obviously we would like to know if they are going to test for more SNPs on the NRY. Perhaps 6 was enough for this surname study but, for a more detailed study of the people of the british isles, it isn't.  It's all very broad brush at the moment.

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authun

Please, give me credit for at least some intelligence. I read the section on genotyping before I made my initial post, but it is not difficult to see that R1xR1a1 is indeed used as the y-dna proxy for "ancient Britons". That is evident in the choice the authors made to use the sample from Cornwall-Devon-Pembrokeshire to represent the ancient Britons, Kent-Norfolk-Lincolnshire to represent the Anglo-Saxons, and Orkney as a place of "known substantial Norse Viking influence". The population serving as a proxy for the ancient Britons has a frequency of 75% R1xR1a1, the highest of all the sample populations. Orkney, the proxy for the Vikings, has the lowest, at about 58%, and the Kent-Norfolk-Lincolnshire "Anglo-Saxons" have the next lowest, at about 60%. The groups representing the center and the north are not mentioned as proxies for any one particular group. Their frequencies of R1xR1a1 are 68 and 66%, respectively.

While it is true that all of those alleles, including the autosomal ones, were genotyped, it's pretty obvious that, in terms of y-dna, R1xR1a1 (okay, R1b) is intended as the proxy for the ancient Britons. MtDNA was not used as a factor, after all.

The authors' choices of proxy populations have historical underpinnings, it is true, but the net effect was to make seriously under-resolved R1b represent ancient Britons.

I'm not sure Cornwall-Devon-Pembrokeshire was a good choice to represent the ancient Britons. It is well known that there were substantial incursions of Irish into that region during the post Roman period, with Irish settlements all along the Bristol Channel and the Severn Estuary.

In fact, in their book, Celtic Realms, Dylan and Chadwick argue that it was the Irish invasions that motivated much of the British settlement of Armorica, since the settlers came largely from Cornwall and Devon. When British settlers were going to what would become Brittany, the Anglo-Saxons hadn't gotten that far west and were not troubling Devon and Cornwall. Gildas was virulently anti-Anglo-Saxon, so he wrongly blamed them for the exodus.

[authun]

Please, give me credit for at least some intelligence. I read the section on genotyping before I made my initial post, but it is not difficult to see that R1xR1a1 is indeed used as the y-dna proxy for "ancient Britons". That is evident in the choice the authors made to use the sample from Cornwall-Devon-Pembrokeshire to represent the ancient Britons, Kent-Norfolk-Lincolnshire to represent the Anglo-Saxons, and Orkney as a place of "known substantial Norse Viking influence".

Perhaps I have misunderstood you but your initial remark suggested to me at least that the authors intended to interpret R1xR1a1 as exclusively indigenous briton wherever he was in the British Isles purely on the basis that the south west had high frequencies and that they saw the south west as being representative of ancienct britons.

This is not my understanding, which is that R1xR1a1 may be seen as either indigenous or migrant depending on the presence of other alleles. As you can see from the maps in Supplemental Fig. 4, and as you have pointed out, R1xR1a1 exists at relatively significant frequencies in the anglo saxon areas. I don't think they are going to interpret all those instances as indigenous briton, at least I hope not.

This is a very early paper and the proxies used are not definitive. They state:

"We recognise that these distinctions are somewhat arbitrary and their effect will be investigated in more detail in the future work."

One caveat however, when they did the pilot series, Face of Britain, individuals were portrayed as, for example, 90% anglo saxon, 10% indigenous Briton rather than the population groups being described in term of admixture. They may be sticking with this format, though I doubt it having read the newsletters of the PoBI site.

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authun

[Iain Seoras Gunn]

In fact, in their book, Celtic Realms, Dylan and Chadwick argue that it was the Irish invasions that motivated much of the British settlement of Armorica, since the settlers came largely from Cornwall and Devon. When British settlers were going to what would become Brittany, the Anglo-Saxons hadn't gotten that far west and were not troubling Devon and Cornwall. Gildas was virulently anti-Anglo-Saxon, so he wrongly blamed them for the exodus.
[/quote]

Rich, very interesting information. For years now, I have had a wry smile on my face when the Breton contingent is mentioned in connection with the invasion by William of Normandy - just deserts for the Anglos. Celtic Realms is a must read for me. Although I am not sure how this squares with the Arthurian legends primarily Mount Baden which are supposedly placed in the south west of England. My own feelings are that the action may have taken place on the Scottish borders. After so many years of Roman occupation and pacification the southern tribes were somewhat emasculated and only the Picts could have put up a credible resistance to the Anglo-Saxon advances.

[rms2]

Rich, very interesting information. For years now, I have had a wry smile on my face when the Breton contingent is mentioned in connection with the invasion by William of Normandy - just deserts for the Anglos. Celtic Realms is a must read for me. Although I am not sure how this squares with the Arthurian legends primarily Mount Baden which are supposedly placed in the south west of England. My own feelings are that the action may have taken place on the Scottish borders. After so many years of Roman occupation and pacification the southern tribes were somewhat emasculated and only the Picts could have put up a credible resistance to the Anglo-Saxon advances.

My impression is that, as usual, the Celts were too busy fighting each other to put up a united front against the Anglo-Saxons for long.

[rms2]

Please, give me credit for at least some intelligence. I read the section on genotyping before I made my initial post, but it is not difficult to see that R1xR1a1 is indeed used as the y-dna proxy for "ancient Britons". That is evident in the choice the authors made to use the sample from Cornwall-Devon-Pembrokeshire to represent the ancient Britons, Kent-Norfolk-Lincolnshire to represent the Anglo-Saxons, and Orkney as a place of "known substantial Norse Viking influence".

Perhaps I have misunderstood you but your initial remark suggested to me at least that the authors intended to interpret R1xR1a1 as exclusively indigenous briton wherever he was in the British Isles purely on the basis that the south west had high frequencies and that they saw the south west as being representative of ancienct britons.

This is not my understanding, which is that R1xR1a1 may be seen as either indigenous or migrant depending on the presence of other alleles. As you can see from the maps in Supplemental Fig. 4, and as you have pointed out, R1xR1a1 exists at relatively significant frequencies in the anglo saxon areas. I don't think they are going to interpret all those instances as indigenous briton, at least I hope not.

This is a very early paper and the proxies used are not definitive. They state:

"We recognise that these distinctions are somewhat arbitrary and their effect will be investigated in more detail in the future work."

One caveat however, when they did the pilot series, Face of Britain, individuals were portrayed as, for example, 90% anglo saxon, 10% indigenous Briton rather than the population groups being described in term of admixture. They may be sticking with this format, though I doubt it having read the newsletters of the PoBI site.

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authun

I suspect they will and already do regard R1xR1a1 as "ancient Briton". A man with R1xR1a1 on his y-dna line will be seen to be British in his y-dna. The other, autosomal, alleles will be interpreted as having been contributed by non-British sources (Anglo-Saxons, for example) if they are more typical of the chosen non-British proxy populations. Thus the composite picture of the modern Englishman: in this case an "ancient Briton" on his y-dna line, but admixed as a whole.

Maybe I'm wrong, and future installments will bring greater refinements, but, honestly, I doubt it.

[Bren123]

Scroll down to the August 10, 2011 entry of Dienekes' Anthropology Blog for the description of this paper.

There are a number of interesting things about this paper, whose researchers, incredibly, didn't bother to parse the non-R1a1 element of R1 beyond R1xR1a1. Weird.

Anyway, one of the first things that struck me is the level of R1a1 versus I (I is as far as they went in that direction, as well) in Orkney, 34% R1a1 to just roughly 8% I. If one attributes the R1a1 to the Norwegian Vikings, why is the level of I so low? Modern Norway is supposed to have at least as much I as R1a1.

Naturally, R1xR1a1 is a proxy for "Ancient Britons" in this paper. :-O

So in this study,what happened to R1b1b2?

[authun]

Maybe I'm wrong, and future installments will bring greater refinements, but, honestly, I doubt it.

I've been waiting since it was announced in 2004 so, if they don't offer finer analyisis, I am going to be very disappointed.

The Wellcome Trust is a medical organisation but the launch of the PoBI project appears to be managed by the team at Leicester. I think they started started the association with surname based sampling. You may remember their paper, 'Excavating Past Population Structures by Surname-Based Sampling: The Genetic Legacy of the Vikings in Northwest England'

http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/25/2/301.full.pdf

Although this paper also only looks at a handful of SNPs, they do test for more. Turi King published 'Africans in Yorkshire? The deepest-rooting clade of the Y phylogeny within an English genealogy' which was a surprising result of the PoBI pilot in Yorkshire back in 2005/6.

http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/v15/n3/pdf/5201771a.pdf

I hope I am not going to be disappointed anyway.

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authun

[authun]

So in this study,what happened to R1b1b2?

That's what we are worrying about. Effectively R1xR1a1 means R1b in this case but we are hoping that later publications will start to analyse the subclades.

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authun

[rms2]

For what it's worth, I figure my own y-dna ancestors were "ancient Britons", that or maybe post-Roman Period Irish invaders (that sounds cool).

[Mikewww]

For what it's worth, I figure my own y-dna ancestors were "ancient Britons", that or maybe post-Roman Period Irish invaders (that sounds cool).

Do we have any idea how large an impact the Gauls and Belgae had on Britain during the Romano-Gallic War?

[rms2]

For what it's worth, I figure my own y-dna ancestors were "ancient Britons", that or maybe post-Roman Period Irish invaders (that sounds cool).

Do we have any idea how large an impact the Gauls and Belgae had on Britain during the Romano-Gallic War?

I'm not sure. Myles Dillon and Nora Chadwick, in their book, Celtic Realms, mention refugees from Gaul showing up in Ireland at that time, but I'll have to take a look to see if they give any indication of a number. If they do, I don't recall it.

[rms2]

For what it's worth, I figure my own y-dna ancestors were "ancient Britons", that or maybe post-Roman Period Irish invaders (that sounds cool).

Do we have any idea how large an impact the Gauls and Belgae had on Britain during the Romano-Gallic War?

I'm not sure. Myles Dillon and Nora Chadwick, in their book, Celtic Realms, mention refugees from Gaul showing up in Ireland at that time, but I'll have to take a look to see if they give any indication of a number. If they do, I don't recall it.

I'm still looking for the Gaulish refugees reference, but, in the meantime, here is something interesting regarding Irish incursions and settlements in Britain during the immediate post-Roman Period. It's a quote from Sanas Cormaic (Cormac's Glossary), which dates from the 9th century but is supposed to be based on oral tradition (Dillon and Chadwick, Celtic Realms, p. 54).

The power of the Irish over Britain was great, and they divided Britain between them into estates . . . and the Irish lived as much east of the sea as they did in Ireland, and their dwellings and their royal fortresses were made there. Hence Dind Tradui . . . that is, the triple rampart of Crimthann Mór, son of Fidach, king of Ireland and Britain as far as the English Channel . . . From this division originated the fort of the sons of Liathán in the lands of the Britons of Cornwall (Dind map Lethain, dún maic Liathán) . . . And they were in that control for a long time, even after the coming of St. Patrick to Ireland.

A little further down the same page, Dillon and Chadwick write:

Traditionally, then, all the South Welsh seaboard was occupied in the fifth century by a closely related Munster tribe which Cormac locates on the opposite shores of the Severn Sea, and this tribe, or certain Irish kingdoms, command all the approaches to the south-west of Britain - south and south-western Wales, the Bristol Channel and the Dumnonian Peninsula.

[A.D.]

I wonder how much intermingling there was between Ireland and Britain and Britain the opposite coat of Europe.  It probably slowed/stopped during the roman period then started again. there's plenty of place names, archaeology  Even some y-dna ( I'm thinking M222?) to suggest this. A Lot of tribe names relate to the places they inhabit. There's plenty of legendary connections
There was a theory that Arthur was a title for a position of war chief and was held by a number of people melded into 1 tale hence Baden  Hill could have been several places/battles. I think Francis Prior  believes it has bronze age origins (sward from stone/mould and all that)

[razyn]

Apparently something from this project has lately hit the Times.  I just saw this link (to a Cornish reaction to it) on Eupedia:

http://www.savecornwall.org/?p=235

[Mark Jost]

Apparently something from this project has lately hit the Times.  I just saw this link (to a Cornish reaction to it) on Eupedia:

http://www.savecornwall.org/?p=235

DAILY MAIL REPORTER:

The results show that those from Cornwall and Wales are among the most genetically distinct Britons on the mainland and carry DNA from the tribes that colonised Britain in the last Ice Age.

In contrast, those from central and south-east England are a ‘genetic cocktail’ with ancestors from tribes that invaded the British Isles.

Peter Donnelly, professor of statistical science at Oxford University, said the study also showed that those from Norfolk, who claim descent from the Iceni, a tribe led by warrior queen Boadicea, are genetically very similar to people from the West and South.

It also found that Scots had strong genetic similarities to the northern English.
 
In the study, which will be presented at the Royal Society's summer science exhibition this summer, Mr Donnelly and his colleagues analysed the genetic make-up of 2,000 Britons.

The subjects, who had to be rural dwellers with at least four grandparents born in the same area, had 500,000 points in their DNA studied.
Scientists then worked out how distinct their DNA was from

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2160853/For-truest-Brits-west-Welsh-Cornish-ancient-Britons-DNA-analysis-finds.html#ixzz1yLftDLWI

[razyn]

In the study, which will be presented at the Royal Society's summer science exhibition this summer, Mr Donnelly and his colleagues analysed the genetic make-up of 2,000 Britons.

Here's a little tidbit about that.  The exhibition in London will run July 3-8.

http://sse.royalsociety.org/2012/exhibits/genetic-maps/

[Mark Jost]

Here's a little tidbit about that.  The exhibition in London will run July 3-8.

http://sse.royalsociety.org/2012/exhibits/genetic-maps/

I sure can not wait to see the paper and see what, if any, haplogroups are identified on the Website image shown as the groups are distinguished by colors.