Show me the money!

It would have taken some time for my Y-DNA to get across that watery channel from their mainland abode. Trade would have probably started things off, with a few folks risking the sea for establishing exchange with a new and expanding market. I've got some stuff that you might want, and you've got some stuff that I might want, so lets see if we can make a deal..."show me the money!"

I suspect that a few coastal settlements got started. With this new item called "iron", and a new design of the sword, things probably got off to a good start. Over the centuries, trade must have brought increasing numbers of those R1b1b(s) and it would become clear that this island place had something to offer. The Celtic burial rites started to show up, and that two-wheeled vehicle called the chariot started to get placed in grave sites. It would have taken several centuries for the blending of these new cultures, but they were clearly established throughout the island before any of those Latin speaking Romans started to arrive. A Celtic world, scattered about in smaller tribal groups, based upon the family unit. What a deal! At last, my Y-DNA arrived to its new home.

A helpful reference is: "Celtic Britain", by Lloyd Laing, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1979.

A Horse

At some point in time, the ice shelf forced it way down to the very edge of the Mediterranean Sea. This placed the timberline just north of the Swiss Alps moving along a westward position to the Pyrenees Mountain range. Snow and ice would not make for good living conditions, and the limestone caves along the Pyrenees Mountains would provide some underground shelter. What to do on those long winter nights? Doodling and drawing must have been one of the pastimes, for the caves of this region contain some of the earliest human doodles. A study of these drawings show that the horse was the most common figure drawn upon the walls of the caves. [a total of 780 times!] The bison was drawn 759 times. [ A bison was a mammal with a large head, short horns, and heavy forequarters, with a large fleshy hump.] The cow (small bovid) was drawn 212 times, and the ox (large bovid) was drawn 177 times. The reindeer (115 times) and other types of deer (290 times) were drawn. The mammoth was drawn 290 times. Little attention seemed to be placed on the rhino (20 times), the feline (26 times) , and the bear (50 times). Amazing, that the horse would be the animal that claimed the most wall space. It was the horse drawn, two wheel, chariot, that was first developed by the Hittites. The horse must have been a key animal in our Celtic-Iberian migration. A horse, a horse, my DNA for a horse! This would have been one of the last staging grounds for my R1b1b2 DNA before its final migration.

[The source for this information is "Secrets of The Ice Age, A Reappraisal of Prehistoric Man", by Evan Handingham, John Wiley & Sons, Canada, 1979. The totals are summarized from a chart on page 298.]

The Delta of the Danube

The R haplogroup migrating westward from around the north or south of the Black Sea, would meet at the delta of the Danube. This mouth would open the front door to more than 1700 miles of a branching, dense, deep water river network. The end of the road (water highway) would be the gorge in the Austrian Alps and the Western Carpathian Mountains. It was here that the family seemed to have its Celtic beginnings called by the experts the "La Tene culture". It would also be where the northern group moved along the Vistula, the Oder, the Elbe, and the Rhine to make that other R haplogroup, R1a. The R1a(s) would come to haunt us many, many years later.

As the La Tene culture expanded, it found the salt deposits to be especially helpful. At Hallstatt, meaning salt, the culture took its second stage of development called the "Hallstatt period". At this time, the family began to expand through France to the Iberian Peninsula, and to our yet to be homeland, the British Isles. By this time, the R1b1 folks would have clustered, bringing with them their Celtic roots, in language, family, society, and culture. What a trip to get to the land yet to become our home.

R1b1b

The launching pad, around the Black Sea, placed many of my R1b1b(s) around the world as it existed in the ice ages. For my Y-DNA, it would be the Welsh that clusters most of my recent family, even before the Romans arrived to the island. But, where did all the other R(s) go? The following table list the present day distribution of the R1b1b haplogroup. My Welsh homeland is at the top of the list with 89%! What a deal! After 50 years of doing my JONES family's genealogy, I had ended up in Wales before all this DNA stuff even got started. The first number in the table is the percent of those studied who had the R1b1b haplogroup. The second number is the total people used in the study. You will see that there are a number of groups that have a small amount of folks being studied. [The smaller the number in the group, the less reliable is the findings.]

R1b1b DNA:

Welsh (Anglesey) 89% 88
Basque (French/Spanish) 88% 67
Bashkirs 86% 43 [Turkic people- south Ural mountains]
Irish 82% 222
Scots 77% 61
Spanish(Minorca) 73% 37
Dutch(Germanic West) 70% 27
British(Germanic West) 69% 32
Spanish(Italic) 68% 126
Bagvalins(Caucesians) 68% 28
Orcadians(Germanic West) 66% 71
Spanish(Majorca) 66% 62
Spanish(south) 65% 162
Spanish(Valencia) 64% 73
Belgians(Germanic/Italic) 63% 92
English(Central) 62% 215
Portuguese(North Italic) 62% 328
Italians 62% 50
Italians(North Central) 62% 50
Spanish(Ibiza) 57% 54
Portuguese(south/Italic) 56% 57
Frisians(Germanic West) 56% 94
French(Italic) 52% 23
Bavarians(Germanic West) 50% 80
Germans(Germanic West) 48% 48
Morovins (Erzya) 46% 39

Wow! What a launching pad. Any readers from these areas? Please identify yourself.

Melting Pot and Launching Pad

The area around the Black Sea was both a melting pot and launching pad for many of the developing haplogroups. Central Asia has the highest number of haplogroups present today (total of 12), and provided a launching pad for the R haplogroup. The R haplogroup migrated northward [North Asia = 8%], southward [South Asia = 41%], and eastward [East Asia = 2%], while maintaining Central Asia at 31%. To the south was also the Middle East at 21%, and north Africa at 6%. [These percents represent the present haplogroup in each geographic area.]

For my JONES DNA it is the western migration that represents the movement of my Y-chromosome...to central Europe, most likely along the Danube River, to central Germany. Europe is presently represented by 45% of the R haplogroup. Around this same time R1 is thought to have emerged and somewhat later, R1b. [R1 at around 30,000years ago and R1b around 25,000 years ago.]

It is of interest that the Proto-Indo-European languages are traced to this Central Asia location. An article appearing in U.S. News and World Report, Nov.5, 1990 described how modern speech evolved from a single, ancient source. Anatolia is thought to have been this geographic location which is part of Central Asia. This was determined before most of the present DNA and genetic research had been accomplished. What a deal! Two different fields, linguists and genetics, some 10 years apart, coming to the same conclusions. [One of the first linguist was Sir William Jones, 1786!]

Now around 2000 B.C., the native Anatolian peoples are believed to have been the Hittites, Hurrians, and Mitannians. The Hittite Old Kingdom (ca. 1750 - 1550 B.C.) are believed to have sacked Babylon, ending the dynasty of Hammurabi. This Hittite Society has been termed "feudal". They pioneered construction of the light, horse-drawn chariot, with spoked wheels. This of course would require a lot of horses. They are also believed to have developed scale-armour, and one of the first people to accomplish the manipulation of iron ore. It is these folks that seem to be the root of my Celtic DNA.

On Up The Valley

You might expect that a valley would collect water. A set of parallel mountain ridges would certainly direct the flow of rain water. Grass, water, and ultimately salt, would provide a draw for all those needing life's provisions. At the equator, the sun would bear down, tend to dry things up, and make a return trip less attractive. Besides, that melting snow and ice, would offer a cooler climate, greener grasses, and lots of water. The picture to the right is another of the Rift Valley. The water collected on the floor of the valley is shown. Imagine yourself walking along, following the water''s edge. North, to the headwaters of the Nile. Then to the narrow land bridge between the Red Sea and Mediterranean Sea bringing you to the salt deposits now known as the Dead Sea. As the ice melted, migration farther north would bring you to the area where my R haplotype is thought to have emerged...the Black Sea. It was around this Black Sea that a split and spread of this R haplogroup is thought to have happened. Some to the northwest, some to the southeast, and some to the west, each to carry this R haplotype. The Caucasian mountains, the Mordvinian and near by Bashkirian mountains, and what was to be called Anatolia.

The Rift Valley

Our human ancestors are believed to have followed the herds of animals up the Rift Valley to the new lands of the Middle East. This was the corridor out of Africa, leading to the migration of the DNA that becomes my haplogroup. The Rift Valley was then believed to be an open plain where long grasses beckoned the animals to feed. In turn, these animals beckoned our ancestors to feed on them. I suspect that it was this migrating food supply that offered some advantage to the survival of my particular DNA. The picture to the right shows this not so fertile plain as it exists today. From the valley floor where I took this picture, the mountains rise fairly quickly to around 5,000 feet. It certainly would have looked different some 50,000 years ago!

My JONES haplogroup is R1b1b2. It would have the following "Gene Tree":

> 60,000 years ago - haplogroup A,

50,000 years ago - haplogroup B - to - haplogroup C at 50,000 years ago,

45,000 years ago - haplogroup F;

40,000 years ago - haplogroup K;

35,000 years ago - haplogroup P;

30,000 years ago - haplogroup R - to - haplogroup R1

25,000 years ago - haplogroup R1b

10,000 years ago - haplogroup R1b1b2 which is my Celtic roots.

Imagine that...I stood where my ancestors stood some 50,000 years ago!