Pech8 sample

[tamcevoy]

Posted on the FB Dal Cuinn page:
I'm curious to folks thoughts on this:

https://haplotree.info/maps/ancient_dna ... for=R-M222


Pech8 is the oldest R1b-M222 sample available. It's from a burial in a Celtic trading post along the coast of southern France. The individual doesn't show any noticeable Irish ancestry. So the implication would be that R1b-M222 arrived in Ireland from the mainland (probably with the La Tene culture?) and that Conn was just a vector of its spread.

Thoughts?

[Webmaster]

I agree 100%!!! That is what I have been saying for the last 2 or 3 years.

Laud 610's description of Conn's ancestor as a second Milesius invading somewhere in the northwest of Ireland in combination with the Doon Of Drumsna's La Tène construction techniques have pointed to that conclusion for me. The Dál Cuinn were never Milesian. I speculate that the invading ancestor MAY have been Crimthann Nia Nár, given the confluence of events surrounding him.

IF the Milesian origin story has any basis in fact, then the Milesians would most likely be R1b-DF27+, which is the primary clade among the Iberian Gaels. But the Dál Cuinn are not. However! The Niall Ruad and Clandeboy Ó Néills ARE R1b-DF27+, apparently. That leads to some interesting speculation as to when and where that was introduced into the R1b-DF104+ Dál Cuinn.

[Geoff Melloy]

This is all very intriguing, but also confusing for someone like me who has little background knowledge.

If I might ask a probably stupid question - Does any of this relate to the theory of the movement of a group of the Dumnonii to Ireland to become the Fir Domnann and later the Connachta?? - or is that a completely different story?

[Webmaster]

Geoff,

TBH, I have no idea. Claudius Ptolemy's ~140 AD map of Ireland and its identification of tribes and locations has always been suspect to me. I really have no idea if the Dumnonii or any of those named tribes are accurate, or just sailors's tales. But the Laud 610 genealogy for the Dál Cuinn certainly can fit with a La Tène origin.

Laud 610:

1. Co fessaid bunad Dáil Chuind & a n-imthechta.
2. Trí maic Búain maic Loegairi Birnd ótá Ossirge, .i. Ailill, Óengus, Fíacc, ciatarochlannsat cletha hi Temuir.
3. Is hí amser indatánic in Míl Espáne tánaise ind-hÉirind, trí cóicit fer a llín.
4. Gabais Trácht Delossath & doforbertatar hi tír & adrartatar inreth már & gabsit tír and ar chlaideb.
5. Is amlaid rogabsat flaith ar chiumd & bid samlaid dogrés, tria hécin gabait flaith.
6. Is hí a chland Dál Cuind & Dál Fíachach. Asberat alaili bed di lucht na luinge forácabsat hi tír Amazonum .i. lasna cíchloiscthi in tEugan Táidlech.
7. In Míl Espáne dedenach immurgu, ba dóich lind bid din lucht forácaibset som hi cathir Breogaint.
8. Ocus is íarum dollotar dochum hÉirenn co nhúraib cathrach Themis leó.
9. Itt é side húra doléicthe hi Temair íar tóchil hÉirenn, conid Temair a hainm ind aird sin .i. theme .i. úr dind húir a Themis alacheill in sin.
10. Is hé in bith deédenach diand ebrath bith síl Chuind & Muman ind fhlaith co bráth.
11. Cruithnig conasensat in flaith friu. Is de dogéni Fínán mac Fíachrach di Dál Aride:
    Manud báig ar Thipraite
    báithum arber do suidiu,
    secht cathae at chetharchait
    ar secht cétaib is huilliu.
12. Conarnic cenél Cuinn, mebdatar an-nói díib, ar ba la Cruithniu ind fhlaith, conidtánic ind longes dedenach forsin lith tuaiscertaig sin.
13. Adroat doib dano cach la flaith conidtánic Conn Cétchathach.
14. Rofich trá Cond Cétchathach cét catha & cét n-imairec immon flaith sin frí Dál nAraide.

Translation:

1. So that ye may know the origin of Dál C. and their exploits.
2. Three sons of Búan mac Lóegaire Birn, from whom are [descended] the Osraige; i.e. Ailill, Óengus [and] Fíacc, who first planted house-posts in Tara.
3. It is the time in which the second Míl Espáine in Ireland came to them. Three fifties of men their number.
4. He reached Delossath Beach and advanced inland and wreaked great devastation and captured land there by the sword. {Alternate -- He seized the shore by fury etc. }
5. Thus they took lordship from then on, and thus it will be always, (that it is) by force they take lordship.
6. His progeny is this: Dál Cuind and Dál Fíachach. Some say that the Shining Éogan is [one] of the mariners that they left in the land of the Amazons, i.e. among the breast-cauterised ones.
7. The last Míl Espâne, however, it seems to us that he was of the people whom they left in (the) city of Breogan.
8. And it is after that [i.e. after they left the land of the Amazones] that they came to Ireland, with the clays of the city of Themis in their possession.
9. It is those clays which were thrown down in Tara after reaching Ireland, so that Tara is the name of that high place, i.e. theme [? = Latin thema 'that which is set down'?].
10. It is [now] the final era, of which it was said: the sovereignty will be Síl Cuinn's and Mumu's forever.
11. Cruithni contested the sovereignty with them. It is for that reason Fînán mac Fîachrach composed [the following] concerning the Dál nAraidi:
    Provided he didn't fight for Tipraite
    I raised an army for the latter.
    Seven battles and forty
    and seven hundred more.
12. Cenél Cuinn gave battle, they broke upon them in a ship. For sovereignty had belonged to the Cruithni, and the final invasion fell to it [i.e. to Cenél Cuinn] on that northern shore (northern side?).
13. However, sovereignty was conceded to them alternately until it came to him, namely Conn Cétchathach.
14. Indeed Conn Cétchathach fought a hundred battles and a hundred conflicts concerning that sovereignty against the Dál nAraidi.

Some of that does still seem to have some mythology mixed in, but it clearly gives the origin of the Dál Cuinn as being NOT Milesian and thus NOT descendants of Éremón. This is at complete odds with pretty much every other recorded genealogy for the Dál Cuinn. But it DOES seem to fit the Y-DNA record.

And here is a more detailed look at the Doon Of Drumsna, which has long been associated with Queen Medb. So there was a nexus of events circa the second and first centuries BC that appear to have been woven into a tapestry of myths and legends, that nonetheless appear to have had a basis in fact - the invasion of the proto-Dál Cuinn. I personally think that the legends of the Tuatha Dé Danaan are distortions of this invasion.

[Webmaster]

To clarify, despite what is posted at Ancient DNA, Pech8 is NOT R1b-M222+. As analyzed by YSEQ, Pech8 is R1b-DF27+.

The genome coverage is very low, but PECH8 is certainly not M222. The Y chromosome haplogroup is inconclusive. The most likely option is R1b-FT300250. Other Alternatives include R1b-FGC79491 and R1b-Z2568.

The complete path on the YFull tree is:
A0-T > A1 > A1b > BT > CT > CF > F > GHIJK > HIJK > IJK > K > K2 > K2b > P > P-V1651 > P-M1254 > P-P337 > P-P284 > P-P226 > R > R-Y482 > R1 > R1b > R-L754 > R-L389 > R-P297 > R-M269 > R-L23 > R-L51 > R-L52 > R-PF6538 > R-L151 > R-P312 > R-DF27 > R-Z37492 > R-PH2047 > R-PH579

It just goes to show we must be very careful about what is posted online.

Further, all the buzz about the new T2T CP086569.2 Y chromosome reference needs to be clarified as well. This is a sample from NA24385, an Ashkenazi male belonging to Y-DNA haplogroup J1-M267.
[ https://isogg.org/wiki/FTT_SNP_index ]
[ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/assembly/GCA_020881995.1/ ]
[ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/CP086569.1 ]
[ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/CP086569 ]

It is CM034974.1 that is a sample from an R1b-DF27+ Puerto Rican man.
[ https://ydna-warehouse.org/t2t-experiments ]
[ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/assembly/GCA_018873775.2 ]

So CP086569.2 is not really of much use to us. CM034974.1, however, is much closer to us and running Pech8 against CM034974.1 is what would be interesting. As an FYI, R1b-ZZ87 (_1), which is an important mutation for us as the primary Uí Néill clade, is still quite different in CM034974.1 than the current GCRCh38/hg38 reference Y chromosome. From the CM034974.1 VCF provided by James Kane:

CM034974.1 24688776 ZZ87_1 C T . PASS ReverseComplementedAlleles

while the hg38 version of YBrowse has:

"chrY","point","snp","24192403","24192403",".","+",".","ZZ87_1","ZZ87_1","G","A","R1b-DF105","R1b","G to A","0","0","Alex Williamson (2019)","palindromic"

So changes are coming. It is hoped that rather than a single "one-size-fits-all" human genome reference, multiple references based on different populations will be released that will better fit each population segment.