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Archiver > DNA-R1B1C7 > 2008-10 > 1223025801


From: "David Wilson" <>
Subject: Re: [DNA-R1B1C7] MRCA of R1b1b2e as early as 1388 CE??
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2008 02:23:21 -0700
References: <c70.309d7fb3.3616a609@aol.com><7.0.1.0.2.20081003103116.024aa7f0@netvision.net.il>
In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20081003103116.024aa7f0@netvision.net.il>


There are good grounds for thinking that members of the NW Irish/Lowland
Scots cluster share a fairly recent common ancestor, but I am not sure that
the MRCA need be quite as recent as the TCD researchers calculate. Remember
that their calculations are based on a data base of only 17 STRs in which
the IMH (as they term the cluster) is distinguished from the more common R1b
modal haplotype at only two locations. Had their calculations included 25,
37 or 67 markers, they would have come up with different dates for the most
recent common ancestor, as well as different confidence intervals for the
proposed time depths.

But to be fair, even calculating from a richer data set won't change the
MRCA calculation by a huge amount. In general, if you make the simplifying
assumption that the 67 marker modal haplotype for the cluster reflects the
haplotype of the MRCA, then any M222+ individual living today has a very
high probability of being no more than 40 generations downstream from him.
At 30 years per generation (which is my preferred measure), we are looking
back 1200 years to the common ancestor with, of course, some margin of error
on either side of that date.

Note that the MRCA need not be the person in whom the M222 mutation first
occurred, nor does the MRCA need to be the famous Niall of the Nine Hostages
himself, to use the identification proposed by the Trinity College Dublin
team. Niall (who lived about 1600 years ago) may in fact be a direct
male-line ancestor, but the MRCA of the cluster could be one of his
descendants who lived several generations later.

In the last several months new forms of statistical analysis applied to
different levels of the Y-chromosome tree suggest that the large modern
European populations in the R branch may have differentiated more recently
than was long thought. If the S106 and S116 subhaplogroups (which are
modally quite similar) are no more than 4,000 to 5,000 years old, then it is
completely possible for the M222 group to be less than 2000 years old. M222
is subordinate to S116 and, based on simple mutation tallies, appears to be
half the age of S116 or even a little less.

I once believed that the NW Irish/Lowland Scot cluster represented the
survivors of the first post-glacial-maximum inhabitants of what we now call
Ireland. At a time when we thought that the majority of the most refined
Haplogroup R subclades had been in Europe for more than 20,000 years, that
was not an impossible notion. But now I tend to look at the world with a
more collapsed time frame. Do I think the common ancestor could have lived
barely 600 years ago, as the subject line asks? No. Am I open to the
possibility that the MRCA could have lived between 500 and 1000 CE? Yes.

David Wilson




-----Original Message-----
From:
[mailto:] On Behalf Of yair
Sent: Friday, October 03, 2008 12:39 AM
To:
Subject: [DNA-R1B1C7] MRCA of R1b1b2e as early as 1388 CE??



PubMed abstract:
"Genetic Investigation of the Patrilinear Kinship Structure of Early
Medieval Ireland"
Brian McEvoy, Katherine Simms, Brian G. Bradley,
http://www.irishtype3dna.org/McEvoy2008.pdf
re Neil lineage.
Bottom of second paragraph, left colomn, first page) MRCA Traced back to
1010 (standard deviation 390) years before present (YBP) i.e. 1388 [998] to
608 CE!!
This gives a result Much more recent than ALL previous estimates!
Have I misunderstood what was I read or does it really trace the ancestor of
IMH (R1b1c7 or R1b1b2e) back to so recent a time??


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