Hi John, Following up on your observation of May 28. You wrote: "In spite of that I can't quite shake off the remarks of O'Rahilly that the Ui Neill (ie, M222) were late comers to Ireland, arriving between 300 and 30 BC. Much of his theory seemed to be based on the evidence of Ptolemy's map of Ireland in which he could find no trace of a tribal name similar to Dal Cuinn, the original tribal designation from which the Ui Neill sprang. I can't find one either. Can anyone? And his statement that they should be in evidence in Ptolemy's map cannot be lightly disregarded. O'Rahilly believed that the Dal Cuinn came to Ireland from Gaul (not from England). But much of his theory is tangled up in linguistics, P vs. Q-Celt, and that part is not accepted by most linguists. I think he assumed all of Britain was P-Celtic speaking and therefore the Dal Cuinn (Q-Celts) could not have come from Britain. He seems to have thought Scotland at the time was also P-Celtic and therefore looked to the backwaters of Celtic Gaul for possible origin locations, where Q-Celtic was known to have survived in a number of tribal designations." This may help. Irish scholars right up to and including O'Rahilly had a very difficult time shaking off the influence of the Book of Invasions and the idea of a "Goidelic" invasion of Ireland. (Happily, the new generation of Francis John Byrne, Fergus Kelly, Toma/s O/ Cathasaigh, etc. doesn't have that problem.) One problem I've noticed with the idea of a "Goidelic" invasion - each of the 3 names for the "Goidels" or Gaeil popularized by the Book of Invasions are exonyms. Plus, they don't remotely satisfy/fulfill the Celtic tribal concept of "the god my people swear by". Those 3 names are: 1. Goidheal & variations - from Old Brythonnic gwyddel (and variations) = 'wild ones', applied to Irish invaders/marauders of Roman Britain 2. Scotti - seemingly from Latin, perhaps ultimately derived from the Greek word skotos- darkness (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoti ) 3. Ui/ Mi/leadh = descendants of the Miletus (Latin for 'soldier') So, we can discard any of those as the original name of any Celtic tribe who might have invaded. Da/l Chuinn isn't on Ptolemy's map, but the Da/l Chuinn are a branch of another people called the Fe/ini. Earlier spellings - Fe/ni, Fe/ne, etc. The etymological affinity of the name "Fe/ni" to the name of the Veneti, the tragic Gaulish tribe of Armorica, has long attracted attention. By the high middle ages, nearly every tribe and clan in Ireland claimed to be a branch of the Fe/ini. Understandable, given that only the Fe/ini had 'saor' (free/noble) status under Fe/ineachas (Fe/ini-Seanchas - the Law of the Fe/ini, called 'Brehon Law' in English). But if we go back earlier, we find in 8th century documents that a distinction was made between the original Fe/ini and all the other Fe/ini-come-latelies. It appears that the original Fe/ini, as far as we can tell from the earliest tales and law-texts, consisted solely of the Da/l Chuinn, i.e., the Connachta and the Ui/ Ne/ill. Now we can look at Ptolemy again, exactly where we would expect to find R:M222: http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~irlkik/ihm/ire150.htm Or, to quote the relevant section by Ptolemy: 1. The north coast of the British Island of Hibernia lies close to the Hyperborean Sea, it has an outline thus; §2. . Part of the Boreum Promontory 11° 0Ö61° 0 . Vennicium Promontory 12° 50Ö61° 20Ö . Vidus River mouth 13° 0Ö61° 0Ö . Argita River mouth 14° 30Ö61° 30Ö . Robogdium Promontory 16° 20Ö61° 30Ö§3. The Vennicni sojourn on the west coast, and then, in order, the Rhobogdi towards the east. Is there anything there that could possibly, etymologically, develop into Fe/ni over time? Wish I were expert at the development of Common Celtic into P-Celtic and Q-Celtic, but I think there's an inviting possibility right there which has been overlooked. As for the question of language, roughly two-thirds of the Iberian Peninsula's peoples were speaking Celtiberian (a Q-Celtic language) at the time of the Roman invasion. I understand that genetic markers are very similar for northwest Ireland and northwest Spain. Ireland's own legends talk about an Iberian origin. Maybe O'Rahilly was right that Ireland's Q-Celtic came from Gaul, but I think it's more likely that it came from Iberia. Le gach dea-ghui/ Best, Jerry Cló an Druaidh / The Druid Press www.druidpress.com ________________________________ From: "Lochlan@aol.com" <Lochlan@aol.com> To: dna-r1b1c7@rootsweb.com Sent: Sat, May 28, 2011 9:00:04 PM Subject: Re: [R-M222] Which Way Went R222? In a message dated 5/27/2011 9:21:13 A.M. Central Daylight Time, davidewing93@gmail.com writes: I am not sure what Bill's latest iteration of an estimate for years/RCC is, but I think it is on the order of 50, give or take 10. This suggests that these Ewings diverged from most of the rest of R:M222 on the order of 1500 years ago but the very most distant R:M222 haplotypes diverged more like 2500 years ago. These numbers are wildly approximate, and even so, I am not sure I believe the approach to calculating them, but I thought it might be helpful to offer them as a concrete target for criticism and comment. I have a copy of a chart Bill did recently as part of a draft paper on M222. In it he compares 9 surnames from the M222 project, Ewing, Doherty, McMonigal, Dunbar, McCord, McAdam, Cowan, Howle, Davidson. He describes the results as follows: The testees in each of these nine surname clusters have a MRCA who lived at approximately the time given in the table. In Figure 1, going upward from the bottom right toward the top, the Cowan surname cluster members had an earliest progenitor at RCC ~ 13 (1250-1300 AD) who shared the progenitor of the McCord and McAdam surname cluster members at RCC ~19 (about 940 AD). That progenitor who lived at RCC ~ 19 shared a progenitor at RCC~ 26 (575 AD) with the progenitor of the Howle and Davidson cluster at RCC ~ 18.5 (970 AD). The progenitor at RCC ~26 shared a progenitor of the Dunbar-Doherty-McGonigal group at RCC ~28 (470 AD) and finally, we reach the Ewing progenitor who was common to, and shared by them all at RCC ~ 38.5 (85 BC). The descendants of this Ewing progenitor formed different lines of descent because of mutations and those lines eventually became surnames in about 900-1100 AD, one of which was Ewing. What this shows is a common ancestor for the above 9 M222 surnames at 38 RCC or about 85 BC. The next common ancestor in the group occurs at 28 RCC or about 470 AD. This includes all other surnames named above. Among those with a common ancestor at 470 AD. are the Dohertys, McMonigals and Dunbars in one cluster. And Davidsons, Howles, McCords, McAdams and Cowans in another cluster with a another common ancestor slightly later, at 576 AD.. The Doherty-McMonigal cluster seems fairly accurate. Both are probably descendants of Nial (c. 450 AD) although we do not know for sure about the McMonigals. It is a common Donegal surname though. The inclusion of the M222 Dunbars in this cluster is confusing. The M222 Dunbars form a small percentage of the overall Dunbars tested. If nothing else this data would seem to imply the Ewings descend in a lone cluster from a common ancestor of all in about 85 BC. which would obviously make them pre-Nial. The picture is not so clear for the last two clusters composed of Cowans, Davidsons, Howles, McCords and McAdams. In the chart they too share a common ancestor with the known Nial descendants at about 470 AD. but have their own common ancestor slightly later, about 575 AD. Most of these surnames are Scottish with the exception of Howle, which is English. Or at least what is known of the samples is their common ancestor came to America from England. Some internet sources say the name could be Welsh (Howell). What is known of Irish history won't help much in this case mainly because nothing is known with certainty prior to the time of Nial. He certainly had ancestors in Ireland for at least some generations because the Connachta, said to descend from his half-brothers, are also M222. The Irish annals do not become truly historical until well after the time of Nial (perhaps 700-800 AD?). So if some kind of migration to Scotland occurred in the centuries immediately after his death we would never know it from Irish sources. Or Scottish sources which are virtually nonexistent. Bill's larger charts of M222 also paint a confusing picture of the Ewings and possible cluster members in Scotland. Clustered closely with the Ewings in one chart I've seen are the following samples: Doherty McLaughlin (2) Ferguson Guinn The two McLaughlin samples are part of our Donegal McLaughlin cluster. Both match 2 of 3 modal markers which define the cluster. One would expect them to be clustered with the Dohertys et al in this charts but they are not. It's possible they are not valid members of the McLaughlin of Donegal cluster. It's also possible the software simply misplaced them in the charts since both are outlyers in the McLaughlin cluster. I imagine the same type of scenario applies to the Doherty sample. As David mentioned, the larger chart does contain common ancestor junction points earlier than that of the Ewings. The earliest one appears to be about 68 Rcc or about ;1000 BC. The names in this portion of the chart are a jumble of Scottish and Irish surnames, many of which appear in solid clusters elsewhere in the chart. I am inclined to think these are more outlyers thrown out to the fringes of the chart. I do not think the fact that the Ewings are obviously pre-Nial means M222 originated in Scotland. They could have originated in Ireland and moved to Scotland at any time prior to 450 AD or even later. Nor do I think the fact that the Cowans, McCords, Davidsons et al appear to share a close ancestor at about the time of Nial means they were descendants of Nial. In fact I can't draw much of a conclusion from any of this material. It does tend to show earlier MRCA estimates for the cluster than most methods including ASD. which typically come in around 400 AD. or a century or two earlier. As everyone on this list knows it is now dogma that M222 originated in Ireland. That has been the case since the earliest days of M222 (McEwan, Nordtvedt). It was recently restated in the Moffat-Wilson book discussed recently on this list. I'll repost a few of their comments here: Wilson: This I think is a mark of a movement from Ireland to Scotland at some point in the past, rather long ago, because these are not men with Irish surnames. They have ordinary Scottish surnames that have been in Scotland for hundreds of years. Moffat: In other words were the Gaels either immigrants or were they a native people who spoke Gaelic anyway? Wilson: Well I think that the Gaels of Dal Riata originated in Ireland. And this is because we've discovered and characterized a marker, a DNA marker, so a piece of DNA that varies between individuals which we call M222. This is an incredible marker actually because about 20% of all Irish men carry this Y-chromsome marker. And when we look up into the north to Ulster it's over 40% - so it's extremely common and it shows all these people descend from one man at some point in the past. In this case we think know who the progenitor is. Moffat: Because Nial of the Nine hostages is a figure of some historical substance around 400,500 AD. that means people with his marker in Scotland have moved from Ireland and that's there's been a substantial migration. Wilson: I think that is the case. Wilson: I must say it's not entirely proven yet because we would need to see higher diversity in these lineages, more different subtypes in Ireland than we do in Scotland and that's not clear yet but I'm convinced with more data we will see that and the case will be closed. In spite of that I can't quite shake off the remarks of O'Rahilly that the Ui Neill (ie, M222) were late comers to Ireland, arriving between 300 and 30 BC. Much of his theory seemed to be based on the evidence of Ptolemy's map of Ireland in which he could find no trace of a tribal name similar to Dal Cuinn, the original tribal designation from which the Ui Neill sprang. I can't find one either. Can anyone? And his statement that they should be in evidence in Ptolemy's map cannot be lightly disregarded. O'Rahilly believed that the Dal Cuinn came to Ireland from Gaul (not from England). But much of his theory is tangled up in linguistics, P vs. Q-Celt, and that part is not accepted by most linguists. I think he assumed all of Britain was P-Celtic speaking and therefore the Dal Cuinn (Q-Celts) could not have come from Britain. He seems to have thought Scotland at the time was also P-Celtic and therefore looked to the backwaters of Celtic Gaul for possible origin locations, where Q-Celtic was known to have survived in a number of tribal designations. Yet there is at least one archeologist out there (Campbell, "Were the Scots Irish") who believes a Q-Celtic backwater could be found much closer to home, in western Scotland. That theory too is hotly debated as are most theories. I found one statement of Wilson's highly interesting: "Wilson: I must say it's not entirely proven yet because we would need to see higher diversity in these lineages, more different subtypes in Ireland than we do in Scotland and that's not clear yet but I'm convinced with more data we will see that and the case will be closed." I'm patiently waiting for closure. John R1b1c7 Research and Links: http://clanmaclochlainn.com/R1b1c7/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to DNA-R1B1C7-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message