Celt - No such thing !!!

[authun]

Is R1b no longer attributed to an Iberian refugium?

The hypothesis fell out of favour with some geneticists a few years ago.

The hypothesis as described by Jim Wilson was based on 3 assumptions, none of them anything to do with yDNA. They were based on linguistics, the Rh blood group and the assumption that the mtDNA lineages of the Basques went back to the paleolithic.

In 2005, Santos Alonso stated that this hypothesis had entered genetic studies as a circular argument and investigated the yDNA to see if this was true; "There is a trend to consider the gene pool of the Basques as a 'living fossil' of the earliest modern humans that colonized Europe."

His conclusion in this yDNA study was:

"At least some lineages of Y chromosome in modern Basques originated and have been evolving since pre-Neolithic times. However, the strong genetic drift experienced by the Basques does not allow us to consider Basques either the only or the best representatives of the ancestral European gene pool. Contrary to previous suggestions, we do not observe any particular link between Basques and Celtic populations beyond that provided by the Paleolithic ancestry common to European populations, nor we find evidence supporting Basques as the focus of major population expansions."

In 2006, Ana M González' study stated that:

"It is customary, in population genetics studies, to consider Basques as the direct descendants of the Paleolithic Europeans. However, until now there has been no irrefutable genetic proof to support this supposition. Even studies based on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), an ideal molecule for constructing datable maternal genealogies, have failed to achieve this."


Izagirre found:

"The absence of haplogroup V in the prehistoric samples analyzed conflicts with the hypothesis proposed by Torroni et al., in which haplogroup V is considered as an mtDNA marker for a major Paleolithic population expansion from southwestern Europe, occurring approximately 10,000-15,000 years before the present (YBP).".

In addition, those paleolithic markers which were found, eg. U8a, were in low frequencies:

Studying the cemetary at Aldaieta, Alzualde found:
"The variability of the mtDNA haplogroups of the historical population of Aldaieta falls within the range of the present-day populations of Europe's Atlantic fringe, whereas the prehistoric populations of the Basque Country display clear differentiation in relation to all others. Consequently, we suggest that between 5,0001,500 YBP approximately, there may have been gene flow amongst the western European populations that homogenised mtDNA lineages."

In other words, one of the 3 assumptions, the mtDNA argument is by no means secure and no yDNA has been found to support the hypothesis. Indeed, according to Cinnioglu, R1b entered Anatolia during the paleolithic and dispersed from there. The most recent mtDNA study in France, Pennarun E et al. states:
"The French Basques’ mtDNA pool shares some common cardinal features with that of the Spanish Basques, represented in the high prevalence of haplogroup H. However, the French Basques do show a number of distinct features, most notably expressed in the much higher frequency of haplogroups linked with the Neolithic diffusion in Europe."

The best that can be said about the 'out of iberia' hypothesis is that it is suspect. Some people are beginning to suggest that R1b ushered in the centum indoeuropean languages and R1a the satem indo european languages. I think this may be just a coincidence however.

best
Harry Amphlett