Irish DNA Has Roots In Middle East And Russia, Study Shows
Irish DNA originates in the Middle East and and southern Russia, scientists have discovered.
A whole-genome analysis by researchers in Dublin and Belfast shows that Stone Age farmers from the Middle East brought cereal, ceramics and cattle to Ireland, along with the tendency for dark hair and dark eyes.
These were later followed by settlers from southern Russian, who brought copper working skills, and also added an adulthood tolerance for milk to the gene pool.
The Bronze Age migrants are also thought to have brought the genetic tendency for blue eyes as well as the inherited blood disorder haemochromatosis, which is particularly prevalent in people with Irish ancestry.
The genetic evidence for the findings was gathered from the bones of a woman former who lived around 5,000 years ago in Ballynahatty, close to Belfast, along with the remains of two men who lived 3,000 to 4,000 years ago in Country Antrim.
“There was a great wave of genome change that swept into Europe from above the Black Sea into Bronze Age Europe and we now know it washed all the way to the shores of its most westerly island,” Dan Bradley, professor of population genetics at Trinity College Dublin told The Guardian.
The new study appears to confirm theories based on previous archeological finds, showing that rather than competing with the original Irish, the migrants actually became the Irish.
Image credit: Trinity College Dublin
