Asturian-American Migration Forum

There's an interesting genetics study by Jonathan Friedlaender mentioned in an article in today's NYT (January 18, 2008) about the origin of Polynesians and Micronesians.

Long thought to have been early human migrations from island to island starting in archipelagos like Indonesia, the study now confirms one of the theories that was out of favor, placing the origin of Polynesian populations 3,500 years ago in Taiwan and the Chinese coast.

Here is an abstract of the article:

"In an analysis of the DNA of 1,000 individuals from 41 Pacific populations, an international team of scientists found strong evidence showing that Polynesians and Micronesians in the central and eastern islands had almost no genetic relationship to Melanesians, in the western islands like Papua New Guinea and the Bismarck and Solomons archipelagos.

The researchers also concluded that the genetic data showed that the Polynesians and Micronesians were most closely related to Taiwan Aborigines and East Asians. They said this supported the view that these migrating seafarers originated in Taiwan and coastal China at least 3,500 years ago."


And here's the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/18/world ... ref=slogin

Here's another article about a more recent genetic study of neolithic and bronze age bones from present day Ireland.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environ ... 69?SThisFB

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Ancient DNA sheds light on Irish origins
By Paul Rincon
Science editor, BBC News website
28 December 2015
From the section Science & Environment

Image: Uragh stone circle, County Kerry

Scientists have sequenced the first ancient human genomes from Ireland, shedding light on the genesis of Celtic populations.

The genome is the instruction booklet for building a human, comprising three billion paired DNA "letters".

The work shows that early Irish farmers were similar to southern Europeans.

Genetic patterns then changed dramatically in the Bronze Age - as newcomers from the eastern periphery of Europe settled in the Atlantic region.

Details of the work, by geneticists from Trinity College Dublin and archaeologists from Queen's University Belfast are published in the journal PNAS.

There was a great wave of genome change that swept into Europe
Prof Dan Bradley, Trinity College Dublin

Team members sequenced the genomes of a 5,200-year-old female farmer from the Neolithic period and three 4,000-year-old males from the Bronze Age.

Opinion has been divided on whether the great transitions in the British Isles, from a hunting lifestyle to one based on agriculture and later from stone to metal use, were due to local adoption of new ways by indigenous people or attributable to large-scale population movements.

The ancient Irish genomes show unequivocal evidence for mass migration in both cases.

Wave of change
DNA analysis of the Neolithic woman from Ballynahatty, near Belfast, reveals that she was most similar to modern people from Spain and Sardinia. But her ancestors ultimately came to Europe from the Middle East, where agriculture was invented.

The males from Rathlin Island, who lived not long after metallurgy was introduced, showed a different pattern to the Neolithic woman. A third of their ancestry came from ancient sources in the Pontic Steppe - a region now spread across Russia and Ukraine.

"There was a great wave of genome change that swept into [Bronze Age] Europe from above the Black Sea... we now know it washed all the way to the shores of its most westerly island," said geneticist Dan Bradley, from Trinity College Dublin, who led the study.

Image: Ballynahatty skull, excavated near Belfast in 1855, the Ballynahatty woman lay in a Neolithic tomb chamber for 5,000 years

Prof Bradley added: "This degree of genetic change invites the possibility of other associated changes, perhaps even the introduction of language ancestral to western Celtic tongues."

In contrast to the Neolithic woman, the Rathlin group showed a close genetic affinity with the modern Irish, Scottish and Welsh.

"Our finding is that there is some haplotypic [a set of linked DNA variants] continuity between our 4,000 year old genomes and the present Celtic populations, which is not shown strongly by the English," Prof Bradley told BBC News.

"It is clear that the Anglo-Saxons (and other influences) have diluted this affinity."

image: A reconstruction of the Ballynahatty Neolithic skull

Today, Ireland has the world's highest frequencies of genetic variants that code for lactase persistence - the ability to drink milk into adulthood - and certain genetic diseases, including one of excessive iron retention called haemochromatosis.

One of the Rathlin men carried the common Irish haemochromatosis mutation, showing that it was established by the Bronze Age. Intriguingly, the Ballynahatty woman carried a different variant which is also associated with an increased risk of the disorder.

Both mutations may have originally spread because they gave carriers some advantage, such as tolerance of an iron-poor diet.

The same Bronze Age male carried a mutation that would have allowed him to drink raw milk in adulthood, while the Ballynahatty woman lacked this variant. This is consistent with data from elsewhere in Europe showing a relatively late spread of milk tolerance genes.

Prof Bradley explained that the Rathlin individuals were not identical to modern populations, adding that further work was required to understand how regional diversity came about in Celtic groups.

"Our snapshot of the past occurs early, around the time of establishment of these regional populations, before much of the divergence takes place," he explained.

"I think that the data do show that the Bronze Age was a major event in establishment of the insular Celtic genomes but we cannot rule out subsequent (presumably less important) population events contributing until we sample later genomes also."

una cosa son los genes y otra las costumbres etui samsung galaxy a9 etui galaxy a9

¡Exacto, Johana! Bienvenida al foro.

This article briefly explores the origins of Celtic art and culture and its links to the regions we today think of as the "Celtic nations."

--------------------------------

‘Celts: Art and Identity’ Review: A Cultural Conundrum
Everything you thought you knew about the Celts is wrong.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/celts-art-a ... 1449526809

By BARRYMORE LAURENCE SCHERER
Dec. 7, 2015

Celts: Art and Identity
British Museum, London
Through Jan. 31, 2016


With due respect to the Boston Celtics, the first thing to note about the historical term “Celt” is that the pronunciation in Britain is KELT. And possibly the most important thing we learn at “Celts: Art and Identity,” the fascinating show at the British Museum through Jan. 31, 2016 (and then at the National Museum of Scotland, in Edinburgh, March 10 through Sept. 25, 2016) is that a lot we have taken for granted isn’t so clear-cut. The conventional identification of Celtic language and peoples with Scottish, Irish, Cornish, Welsh, Manx and Breton culture dates back only to the 18th century. Mid-19th-century scholars and antiquarians expanded the term to include distinctively ornamented objects of Iron-Age Europe and early medieval Britain and Ireland.

[Photo: Gundestrup caldron (150-50 B.C.).]

In fact, the term “Celt” was first recorded about 500 B.C. by the Greeks, who used the word “Keltoi” to describe various peoples living in different parts of the European continent. A map near the exhibition entrance charts regions stretching from modern Portugal, France and Italy as far east as Serbia, Bulgaria and Turkey, which Ancient Greek and Roman authors described as “Celtic.” For these commentators, “Celt” meant “different” or “foreign.” Among the earliest objects in the show is a carved stone statue made by these Keltoi some 2,500 years ago in what is now southwestern Germany. Surprisingly, the Greco-Roman authors don’t mention Keltoi in connection with the British Isles.

Developed in partnership between the British Museum and the National Museums of Scotland, this first British exhibition on the subject in 40 years explores not only how this identification evolved but also why, despite the powerful influence of both real and imagined Celtic legacies, recent scholarship has challenged the idea of the Celts as a single people in history. It presents the breadth of Celtic art and culture in ancient times into the Early Medieval era of Christianity, ultimately tracing the influence exerted by this legacy today—however romanticized.

[Photo: ‘Queen Mary’s Harp’ (15th century).]

On display is an extraordinary array of utilitarian and ornamental objects related to farming, warfare, modes of dress—bronze shields, wine flagons inlaid with coral, works in stone, leather, painted pottery, gold and silver. A large selection of torcs—distinctive neck-rings—and other jewelry attest to the variety and sophistication of Celtic goldsmithing and metalworking techniques. Representing cultural cross-currents that still puzzle scholars is the massive silver Gundestrup caldron (150-50 B.C.)—unearthed in a Danish bog but now thought to have been fashioned by peoples in ancient Romania or Bulgaria. Similarly, the so-called “Queen Mary’s Harp,” a 15th-century Scottish clarsach, displayed on its elaborately carved 1904 Celtic-style presentation case, neatly embodies the engaging romantic spell cast by the Celtic Revival that formed part of the late-19th-century Arts and Crafts movement. Such an instrument appears on modern Irish euro coinage and as the venerable Guinness stout trademark.

You may come away from this intellectually iconoclastic show with more questions than answers, but the many beautiful objects here are profoundly compelling. And pondering their tangled, far-reaching Celtic connections will surely puncture a great many preconceptions.

Mr. Scherer writes about music and the fine arts for the Journal.

This article briefly explores the origins of Celtic art and culture and its links to the regions we today think of as the "Celtic nations."

--------------------------------

‘Celts: Art and Identity’ Review: A Cultural Conundrum
Everything you thought you knew about the Celts is wrong.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/celts-art-a ... 1449526809

By BARRYMORE LAURENCE SCHERER
Dec. 7, 2015

Celts: Art and Identity
British Museum, London
Through Jan. 31, 2016


With due respect to the Boston Celtics, the first thing to note about the historical term “Celt” is that the pronunciation in Britain is KELT. And possibly the most important thing we learn at “Celts: Art and Identity,” the fascinating show at the British Museum through Jan. 31, 2016 (and then at the National Museum of Scotland, in Edinburgh, March 10 through Sept. 25, 2016) is that a lot we have taken for granted isn’t so clear-cut. The conventional identification of Celtic language and peoples with Scottish, Irish, Cornish, Welsh, Manx and Breton culture dates back only to the 18th century. Mid-19th-century scholars and antiquarians expanded the term to include distinctively ornamented objects of Iron-Age Europe and early medieval Britain and Ireland.

[Photo: Gundestrup caldron (150-50 B.C.).]

In fact, the term “Celt” was first recorded about 500 B.C. by the Greeks, who used the word “Keltoi” to describe various peoples living in different parts of the European continent. A map near the exhibition entrance charts regions stretching from modern Portugal, France and Italy as far east as Serbia, Bulgaria and Turkey, which Ancient Greek and Roman authors described as “Celtic.” For these commentators, “Celt” meant “different” or “foreign.” Among the earliest objects in the show is a carved stone statue made by these Keltoi some 2,500 years ago in what is now southwestern Germany. Surprisingly, the Greco-Roman authors don’t mention Keltoi in connection with the British Isles.

Developed in partnership between the British Museum and the National Museums of Scotland, this first British exhibition on the subject in 40 years explores not only how this identification evolved but also why, despite the powerful influence of both real and imagined Celtic legacies, recent scholarship has challenged the idea of the Celts as a single people in history. It presents the breadth of Celtic art and culture in ancient times into the Early Medieval era of Christianity, ultimately tracing the influence exerted by this legacy today—however romanticized.

[Photo: ‘Queen Mary’s Harp’ (15th century).]

On display is an extraordinary array of utilitarian and ornamental objects related to farming, warfare, modes of dress—bronze shields, wine flagons inlaid with coral, works in stone, leather, painted pottery, gold and silver. A large selection of torcs—distinctive neck-rings—and other jewelry attest to the variety and sophistication of Celtic goldsmithing and metalworking techniques. Representing cultural cross-currents that still puzzle scholars is the massive silver Gundestrup caldron (150-50 B.C.)—unearthed in a Danish bog but now thought to have been fashioned by peoples in ancient Romania or Bulgaria. Similarly, the so-called “Queen Mary’s Harp,” a 15th-century Scottish clarsach, displayed on its elaborately carved 1904 Celtic-style presentation case, neatly embodies the engaging romantic spell cast by the Celtic Revival that formed part of the late-19th-century Arts and Crafts movement. Such an instrument appears on modern Irish euro coinage and as the venerable Guinness stout trademark.

You may come away from this intellectually iconoclastic show with more questions than answers, but the many beautiful objects here are profoundly compelling. And pondering their tangled, far-reaching Celtic connections will surely puncture a great many preconceptions.

Mr. Scherer writes about music and the fine arts for the Journal.

¿Cómo es la composición genética de los españoles?...El español es un pueblo muy homogéneo..No hay diferencias....
http://zpeconomiainsostenible.blogia.co ... lo-muy.php


Los humanos éramos cuatro especies que se aparearon entre sí
http://informe21.com/ciencia-y-tecnolog ... n-entre-si