OK, trying this one more time. > It won't surprise me if noone here can answer this question. It's rather > on > ancient history. I want to account for the sudden explosion of a > particular > M284 (Y DNA I2b1a) haplotype in Scotland around 300 AD. Not asking for > help with the genetics, only the history. > > M284 may be indigenous to Britain and certainly was in England at that > point. Its pattern suggests that it spread to Scotland from England. > THen > a single haplotype suddenly exploded there, allegedly 1700 years ago. I > don't think they can have that 300 AD date exactly pinned down. > > On the Internet I found a vague reference to a famine in Scotland > stretching > from 100 BC to 300 AD, followed by a sudden population explosion, which > certainly fits with the behavior of this subclade. But the only specific > information I can find is data collected by the Romans on the weather. > There were intermittent extreme weather and famines all over Eurasia, but > these did not focus on that time period or on Scotland. There were > atleast > two major volcanic eruptions someplace, one thinks most likely Iceland, > during that time, that caused red rain or red snow. These events did not > affect the weather for more time than you'd expect them to. (Major > volcanic events commonly disrupt agriculture badly but only for two to > fifteen years.) The north Atlantic may have been having a warm and wet > event. Which should have led to good crops, I would think. > > Beyond that, I need any information on what the population north of the > Scottish border was in that time, if the population was lower say in the > west than in the rest of southern Scotland, and if there were any influxes > of people from England or from Europe in that time - besides Romans. > However, major settlements of Rhineland German or Belgian (eg Frankish or > Saxon) soldiers might fit the bill if that had happened. Don't think it > did > in Scotland. Apparently under the Romans the Scottish border was pretty > much where it is now, though some Roman generals had bases established > farther north, like Hadrian's wall. > > Does anyone have any information, or any ideas where to look? > > Yours, > Villandra Thorsdottir > Austin, Texas > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without > the quotes in the subject and the body of the message