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From: Alan R <>
Subject: [DNA] Oppenheimer;s concept of R1b populations walking up ancient Atlantic coast toBritain and Ireland
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2006 13:46:45 +0000 (GMT)


I have noticed Oppenheimer's idea of a dryland early
journey between Atlantic Europe and Atlantic Britain
mentioned a couple of times on the list. I would just
like to comment here that, unlike the North Sea, I
understand that the sea between Iberia/ western France
and the British Isles was flooded by 10,000BC, fully
2000 years before the first known settlement of
Ireland or Scotland and also before a short cold snap
(peaked c. 9000BC) that many think cleared the British
Isles of people again. Consequently, contra
Oppenheimer, the current evidence is against Atlantic
movements on foot contributing to the permanent
settlement of the British Isles.

That said, I would not rule it out and would like to
be proved wrong! New finds constantly catch
archaeologists out. It is hard to get an entirely
satisfactory group of maps showing the changing
Atlantic coast and if anyone knows of any on the web,
I would much appreciate it if they could let me know.
There is a possibility that the archaeological record
is misleading and that many lost generations of
settlement on an early land journey between Atlantic
Europe and Atlantic British Isles are simply invisible
as the area is now under water. This would be
especially true for people who focused on coasts and
marine sources as nearly all of the old Atlantic shore
between NE Spain/ SW France and the British Isles is
now well out at sea, as are the original Atlantic
coastlines of the British Isles. I also wonder if the
extreme cold snap centred on 9000BC could have dropped
sea levels again and exposed land in the Atlantic area
between the continent and the British Isles?

I remember once being told that the nearest match
between the narrow blade Mesolithic of Ireland and
Scotland superficially appeared to be the Sauveterrian
culture (of c. 8000BC onwards) in the Garrone Valley
area of SW France but this seemed ridiculously far
away with no linking intermediate groups. However,
given the genetic evidence for the similarity of the
Basque area and the north and west of the British
Isles, together with the entirely flooded ancient
coastline, I wonder about there being some
significance to this resemblance. There are, however,
major archaeological missing links and the best
evidence for such an Atlantic movement may always
remain genetic. It is theoretically possible to
dredge shallow marine areas for archaeological remains
at points chosen as most likely hot-spots (e.g
submerged river valleys etc) but nobody is going to
fund that!

Alan

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