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Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2006-11 > 1162428284


From: David Faux <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] Ice age refugiums
Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2006 16:44:44 -0800 (PST)
In-Reply-To: <45492D42.7060704@jarman.net>


Well, Italians or those of Italian parentage have not been exactly lining up to be tested for R1b (perhaps in part because it is less common there than Britain). Of three that I recall off hand, two were S21+ and the third was S28+. I think that this is giving us an indication of what we will find when we test our large Italian research sample. The S28 is from an area that was heavily settled by La Tene Celts. The S21 though could be a remenant of the Ice Age Refugium; or the Germanic peoples who came after Alaric and his Visigoths to knock on the doors of Rome. The Longoboards of course gave their name (and probably a lot of genetic input) to the Province of Lombardy in Italy. It is possible that most R1b is either Celt or Germanic in derivation. With a larger body of data to work with perhaps someone can tease out the most likely alternative by exploring diversity indices and the like. Also Alaric and his Visigoths were in Italy (after sacking Rome - albeit rather
gently as these things go) before moving on to Toulouse and the Aquitaine area of France. So if there was a stong similarity between the haplotypes of this part of France and Italy it might be instructive.

Alas I really don't think that a large percentage of people who are R1b from wherever in Europe have a clear awareness of how important these two markers are for understanding their deep ancestry and by extension the population history of their Y homeland. Those of Irish descent however appear to be keen to test now that EA demonstrated the link between M222 and Niall - NW Irish. If we could get those of Swiss descent (for example) to test en masse, I expect that S28 and to a lesser extent S21 would predominate - a legacy perhaps of the Celtic Helvici who are probably still residing in the mountain regions where their ancestors eluded Roman attempts to suppress (destroy) them; and the Marcomanni who moved south and west as the Roman Empire began to dissolve. There is so much to be learned. We have only scratched the surface.

I am very anxious to test the different regions of Spain for these markers. We really are only speculating now that R1b1c* and R1b1c6 outnumber R1b1c9 and R1b1c10. Surely there are pockets where the Suebi for example left their genetic imprint - but there is not even a handful who have a lineage traced to an area that history says was settled by these Germanic peoples. I expect that if the latter two R1b subclades are found in Spain it will be via Migration Period movements. To date the scant evidence suggests that the former two remained in an Iberian Ice Age Refugium while the latter two huddled much further east - but no one can say this with authority at present.

David Faux.

John German <> wrote:
Is the Italian S21+ now a genuine phenomenon or is it still just a
random happenstance?

Ken Nordtvedt wrote:

> I believe S21+ R1b is 75 percent of R1b in certain areas of greater Frisia.
> But R1b is only a certain fraction of total population.
>
>>From the pie charts I see for Netherlands and Denmark, S21+ R1b and I1a/I1c
> would be close competitors for numero uno.
>
> Ken

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