DNA-R1B1C7-L Archives

Archiver > DNA-R1B1C7 > 2007-11 > 1195662622


From: "Paul Conroy" <>
Subject: Re: [DNA-R1B1C7] On Behalf of Something like ethnic specifics
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 11:30:22 -0500
References: <e0d2d2870711210738v2d99482apd79ac9419901afed@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <e0d2d2870711210738v2d99482apd79ac9419901afed@mail.gmail.com>


David,

I agree with your analogy for the most part, and I myself have a few
relatively close matches (GD 3) with a person in Syria and another in Papua
- I suspect that the first might be related to British crusaders, while the
second might be related to people of British descent in Port Moresby.

However a few corrections:
I posted an article previously that explained why about half the O'Neill
surname holders were in a different haplogroup and not R1b1c7 like the
descendants of Niall - basically a medieval coup, which placed a man -
possibly with the surname Kelly - on the O'Neill throne.

Niall was a fifth century warlord and lived about *1600* years ago - which
closely matches the Trinity study that the "time to most recent common
ancestor" (TMRCA) of 1700 years for R1b1c7 in the samples they studied.
Since then this haplogroup has been shown to be of wider geographic
distribution, and I'm sure that if a survey were done today in Britain and
Ireland, we would find an older TMRCA, maybe as old as 3,000 yo - which
would possibly be in line with the spread of Neolithic agriculture to these
islands.

Lastly, as regards ethnicity, one could arguably say that - with the above
caveats - that this group is of Caucasian origin, and more specifically
British Isles (including Ireland), and maybe, maybe more specifically Irish.

The question is did this haplogroup arise in Ireland and spread - before or
after Niall - or was this haplogroup present at low frequencies in Ireland
and Britain for a much longer time period, and then underwent a rapid
expansion in the O'Neill and related lineages. So then we would have a large
cluster related to the O'Neills and maybe related small clusters in Ireland
and Britain showing much greater time depth. So if the TMRCA of R1b1c7 was
found to be 3,000 yo in an expanded sample, that would not be inconsistent
with the bulk of carriers today being descended from Niall.

Cheers,
Paul


On Nov 21, 2007 10:38 AM, David Ewing <> wrote:

> Though the Y-chromosome is passed through the paternal line and all men
> have
> it, it does not code for "maleness." It does contain a gene that codes for
> a
> signal that causes the undifferentiated gonads in the embryo to become
> testes rather than ovaries. The testes then began producing testosterone,
> which has effects on a lot of different organ systems. These organ systems
> and their responses to testosterone are coded on autosomes, not on the
> Y-chromosome. The Y-chromosome only provides a "switch that turns on
> maleness;" the maleness itself is coded in the autosomes. Neither the
> Y-chromosome or "maleness" have anything to do with hair color or any
> other
> observable feature that could be imputed to be an ethnic or racial
> characteristic.
>
> Consider this. Imagine that an R1b1c7 man had accompanied Marco Polo to
> China in 1266. How did an R1b1c7 man meet Marco Polo? Who knows, maybe an
> Irish boy was captured by Viking slavers in 800 A.D. and sold to an
> Italian
> slave-owner, and his progeny remained in Italy. Suppose further that this
> R1b1c7 man fathered a son with a Chinese woman, and that this son and his
> descendants fathered sons with Chinese women, all the way down to the
> present. At 30 years a generation, we would be talking about 25
> generations.
> So how many great grandparents do each of us have 25 generations ago?
> Calculate this by raising 2 to the 25th power: 33,554,432. Unbelievable,
> eh?
> Over 33 million 23rd great grandparents for each of us. This means that
> the
> 23rd great grandson of the R1b1c7 man who went to China with Marco Polo
> would be 1/33,554,432th Irish and 33,554,431/33,554,432th Chinese. That is
> 99.97% Chinese. But he will be R1b1c7. So are you and he both in the same
> ethnic group? Of course not. He is Chinese. You are whatever you claim to
> be.
>
> Now, I don't think there were 33 million Chinese in 1266, and even if
> there
> were, undoubtedly there would have been more than a few marriages between
> cousins down through 25 generations, including probably some
> intermarriages
> with some part-Irish cousins. Indeed, if the "pure" Irish ancestor of our
> R1b1c7 fellow who traveled with Marco Polo was taken to Italy in 800 AD,
> in
> the 15 generations between him and our traveler, there would have been so
> much intermarriage with Italians that for all practical purposes he would
> have been by then "pure" Italian, whatever that means. But still he would
> have been R1b1c7.
>
> I should be very surprised indeed if we tested everyone that we would not
> find R1b1c7 represented amongst the Eskimo, Austrailian Aborigines,
> Polynesians (I think some of these have been found already), American
> Indians and African Americans (I am sure some of these have been found),
> Chinese and practically every other ethnic group you can imagine. So how
> can
> R1b1c7 be an ethnic group?
>
> Niall lived 600-odd years ago. The common ancestor off all R1b1c7 men
> lived
> more like 4000 years ago. I consider it extremely unlikely that Niall is
> my
> ancestor, and though I acknowledge that if he was in fact R1b1c7 he is a
> cousin of some degree, I do not consider that such evidence as we have
> constitutes proof that Niall was R1b1c7. Maybe he was, maybe not. There
> are
> sure a bunch of modern-day O'Neills that are not R1b1c7. Who is to say
> they
> are not the "true" descendants of Niall and the R1b1c7s among us are
> descended from folks who were living in Ireland and Scotland long before
> the
> Gaels (including Niall's ancestors) showed up?
>
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