Celtic Migration to Ireland:

Evolution of Haplogroup R & the Indo-European Language

I. Forward

In 2006, I contributed a yDNA sample. My test matched two other persons. And, we are Haplogroup R. Later, I came to understand that my 37 marker test identified me as R-M269, and another cousin's 67 marker test identified our family as R-DF27.

National Geographic began the Genographic Project to identify genetic "footprints" among the ethnic populations on Earth. For a nominal fee, I contributed my yDNA information to their database. And, one benefit was a personalized homepage at Nat Geo which includes DNA and migration information.

Nat Geo provided a map of the migration of haplogroups around the world, And, I found an arrow, labeled R1b, which started north of the Black Sea and went west across Europe , ending in the vicinity of France . But, I wanted to know the specific route. Since then, I collected notes and graphics on the topic of pre-historic migrations. But, the notes did not connect. I was missing several pieces of information. So, I had to wait.

In the interim, Nat Geo compiled samples from the many ethnic populations around the world and released their findings to the public. With the new information, which has only been available for the last few years, the pieces of research I had previously accumulated began the fall into place. And as with a jigsaw puzzle, the more pieces that fit together, the faster the remaining pieces fell into place. With renewed interest, I focused on the original questions:

1. What is the sequence of genetic markers, per the new lexicon, from A to R1b and its descendants?
2. What route did our ancestors take from southwest Asia into western Europe?
3. When were the individual migration segments during the extended period of migration from southwest Asia to western Europe?
4. Did anything of historical importance happen along the way?
5. How did my ethnic group get to Wales?
6. And, why doesn't my yDNA results match the Atlantic Modal and the other folks from Wales?

So, the investigation began anew. The following report consists of five articles which address individual sections of this research. There are many duplications; as all the articles are interrelated.

Topics:
1. DNA Results: Evolution of Marker R-DF27
2. Evolution of the Indo-European Language
3. Early Irish Migration
4. The Kingdoms of the British Isles (6th to 9th c. CE)
5. The Milesians: A History of the Gascon-Iberian Celts

CE Lewis
Davenport IA
8/2015

I. DNA Results: Evolution of Marker R-DF27

Research Note: I am not a linguist nor a geneticist nor even a mathematician. So, how can I even begin to approach a conversation on the origins and evolution of markers down the human genome? Pretty simple. I can read and write, add and subtract, and I have the faculty of reason.

Who am I? In truth, I am a combination of all the generations of persons whose histories are compiled herein. Unique to every male descendant is the Y-chromosome which is effectively a copy of his father's DNA. As a result, surname research can be confirmed through DNA testing. And, I am the donor for the Walden Lewis DNA test listed on the Lewis Surname DNA Project.

What does DNA analysis tell us? DNA is the definitive answer for personal genealogical research. But, it also tells the history of the migration of entire peoples. National Geographic's Genographic Project is an effort to map the migrations of ethnic groups through man's pre-history. [Research]

1. Evolution of Haplogroup R1b1a1a2a1a2a/ R-DF27 (Updated 5/3/2016)

In the last decade, great strides have been made identifying new SNPs down the human genome. And, anthropologists have been able to match these mutations to specific places on the timeline of human history. With this information, we can affix our forefathers to specific times and places in the migration of modern man.

Back when, anthropologists investigated whether R1b1a1a2 [M269], who emerged during the Neolithic Period, was connected to Cro-Magnon Man and the cave paintings of the refugium in southern France. Subsequently, M269 could have been the group who followed the retreating ice shield north across the land bridge to Britain and Ireland. With new information gained more recently, those possibilities have been put to rest.

[I]n articles published around 2000 it was proposed that this clade [M269] had been in Europe before the last Ice Age. But by 2010, more recent periods such as the European Neolithic have become the focus of proposals. A range of newer estimates for R1b1b2, or at least its dominant parts in Europe, are from 4,000 to a maximum of about 10,000 years ago, and looking in more detail is seen as suggesting a migration from Western Asia via southeastern Europe.

    "Haplogroup R1b" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_R1b> 25 July 2015.

The following is updated as of 7/2015:

The yDNA sequence for our Lewis family has been traced down to DF27. And, the evolution of SNP DF27 is cited by the International Society of Genetic Genealogy.

Research Note: The nomenclature of genetic genealogy is continually changing. Previously, subclades were identified with phylogenetic letters and numbers as in R1b. However with the continuing identification of additional markers down the genome, it is apparent that use of individual marker names is preferred as in R-M343.

Root (Y-Adam) • A0-T   AF3, L1085 • • • • BT   M91 • • • • • CT   M168/PF1416 • • • • • • CF   P143/PF2587 • • • • • • • F   L132.1, M89/PF2746 • • • • • • • • GHIJK   F1329/M3658/PF2622/YSC0001299 • • • • • • • • • HIJK   F929/M578/PF3494/S6397 • • • • • • • • • • IJK   L15/M523/PF3492/S137 • • • • • • • • • • • • K   M9, P128/PF5504 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • P   P295/PF5866/S8 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • R   M207/UTY2     "Y-DNA Haplogroup Tree 2015," ISOGG yDNA page <http://www.isogg.org/tree/ISOGG_YDNATreeTrunk.html> 5 July 2015.

R   M207/UTY2 • R1   M173/P241 • • R1b   M343/PF6242 • • • R1b1   L278 • • • • R1b1a   L754/PF6269 • • • • • R1b1a1   L388/PF6468 • • • • • • R1b1a1a   P297/PF6398 • • • • • • • R1b1a1a2   M269 • • • • • • • • R1b1a1a2a   L23/PF6534/S141 • • • • • • • • • R1b1a1a2a1   L51/M412/PF6536/S167 • • • • • • • • • • R1b1a1a2a1a   L151/PF6542, P310, L11 • • • • • • • • • • • R1b1a1a2a1a2   P312/PF6547/S116 • • • • • • • • • • • • R1b1a1a2a1a2a   DF27/S250     "Y-DNA Haplogroup R and it's Subclades 2015," ISOGG yDNA page <http://www.isogg.org/tree/ISOGG_HapgrpR.html> 3 May 2016.

2. Archaeological Periods

We measure mankind's progress toward our modern world and divide his achievements into periods by his manufacture and use of tools and the development of technology. These Archaeological Periods are given names for the materials from which those tools were made: the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, etc. And, the dates for the many periods of man's development vary depending on where man lived in the ancient world.

Archaeological Periods by Continent and Region: Near East
Paleolithic	Lower Paleolithic	2,600,000 – 300,000 BCE
	Middle Paleolithic	300,000 – 40,000 BCE
	Upper Paleolithic	40,000 – 19,000 BCE
Mesolithic	Stage 1	18,800 – 12,150 BCE
	Stage 2	11,140 – 9,500 BCE
Neolithic	Early Neolithic	10,000 – 8,500 BCE
	Middle Neolithic	8,500 – 6,500 BCE
	Late Neolithic	6,500 – 4,500 BCE
Copper/ Eneolithic Age		4,500 – 3,300 BCE
Bronze Age		3,300 – 1,200 BCE
Archaeological Periods by Continent and Region: Western Europe
Iron Age		1,100 – 1 CE
Roman		1 – 400 CE
Early medieval period		400 – 800 CE
Medieval period		800 – 1,500 CE
Post-medieval period		1,500 – 1,800 CE
Industrial/Modern		1,800 CE to present
"List of Archeological Periods," Wikipedia  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_archaeological_periods> 10 June 2015.

3. Locating pre-historic Man: The Genographic Project

The Genographic Project was created by the National Geographic Society as "an ambitious attempt to answer fundamental questions about where we originated and how we came to populate the Earth."

I became aware of the Genographic Project in about 2006 after I submitted my first yDNA test. FTDNA provided a link where you could contribute your test results to the Genographic Project for a minimal contribution ($25).

When humans first ventured out of Africa some 60,000 years ago, they left genetic footprints still visible today. By mapping the appearance and frequency of genetic markers in modern peoples, we create a picture of when and where ancient humans moved around the world. These great migrations eventually led the descendants of a small group of Africans to occupy even the farthest reaches of the Earth.

    "The Human Journey," National Geographic Genographic Project <https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/human-journey/> 12 July 2015.

4. The History of the Indo-European Languages

Today, we speak English. It is evident from everyday speech that English evolved from German. So if everyone can trace English back to German, can anyone trace German back through the many changes to its mother language?

This is when:

Linguists and philologists have traced the English language to it's origin:
-to early German
-to a split with Baltic-Slav c. 2,740 BCE
-to an earlier split with Celt-Italic c. 3,280 BCE
-to the first split of the Indo-European language c. 4,000 BCE
-to the Indo-European language which emerged perhaps about 5,000 BCE

Samara culture was a Neolithic culture of the late 6th and early 5th millennium BC at the Samara bend region of the middle Volga, discovered during archaeological excavations in 1973 near the village of Syezzheye in Russia. The valley of the Samara river contains sites from subsequent cultures as well, which are descriptively termed "Samara cultures" or "Samara valley cultures". Some of these sites are currently under excavation. "The Samara culture" as a proper name, however, is reserved for the early Eneolithic [Copper Age, c. 4,500 BCE] of the region. . .

    "Samara Culture" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samara_culture> 16 July 2015.

This is where:

These three cultures (the Samara, and successors the Khvalynsk and early Yamna) have roughly the same range. Marija Gimbutas was the first to regard it as the Urheimat (homeland) of the Proto-Indo-European language and to hypothesize that the Eneolithic culture of the region was in fact Proto-Indo-European. If this model is true, then the Samara culture becomes overwhelmingly important for Indo-European studies.

    "Samara Culture" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samara_culture> 16 July 2015.

And,

Linguistically proved contacts between earliest stages of Indo-European and Uralian strongly suggest a homeland in the forest steppes north of the Black Sea ('Pontus', cf. e.g. Anthony 2007).

    "A Possible Homeland of the Indo-European Languages" <http://www.hjholm.de> 15 July 2015.

I wonder, "Who lived north of the Black Sea in about 4,000 BCE?"

Having worked backwards to the Proto-Indo-European language, we can work forward to the languages spoken by the forefathers of DF27.

-from the Northwest branch of the Indo-European language which emerged c. 4,000 BCE
-to the Celt-Italic branch of NW Indo-European c. 3,280 BCE
-to the Proto-Celtic language c. 2,380 BCE
-to Q-Celt/ Goidelic/ Gaelic of NW Spain and Ireland

5. Synthesis

-Take the evolutionary history of a genetic marker (SNP DF27) from ISOGG.
-Overlay the archaeological time periods.
-Overlay the physical locations determined by the Genographic Project.
-Overlay the dates for the emergence of the Indo-European language and its daughter languages.
-And, we begin to see the migration history of our ancient ancestors.

Marker		Haplogroup	When	Where
A000		Root Y-Adam	200,000 BCE	Middle Paleolithic Period. Modern man emerges in Central Africa.
	P305	A0-T drop A	100,000 BCE	Lived vicinity Lake Victoria in Central Africa.
	M42	B-T drop B	80,000 BCE	Migrated from Central Africa to East Africa.
	M168	C-T drop DE	70,000 BCE	Migrated from East Africa to the southern Arabian Peninsula.
	P143	C-F drop C	60,000 BCE	Migrated north on the Arabian Peninsula.
M89		*F drop G	55,000 BCE	Settled in the Arabian Peninsula.
	M578	H-K drop H	50,000 BCE	Migrated from the Arabian Peninsula to the Tigris/ Euphrates River Valley.
	L15 P128	I-K drop IJ	45,000 BCE	Migrated from the Tigris/ Euphrates River Valley through Persia to the Steppes  of Uzbekistan. Concurrently, Cro-Magnon Man settled in Europe.
M9 M526		**K drop LT, NO, S from O, & M	42,000 BCE	Settled on the Steppes in what would become Uzbekistan vicinity the Aral Sea.
M45		P drop Q from P	35,000 BCE	Upper Paleolithic Period. This location is described as Point PQR. Q migrated east toward Lake Baikal and the Bering Land Bridge.
M207		R drop R2	30,000 BCE	Haplogroup R split while on the Steppes. Base R migrated north to the Russian steppes. (R2 migrated to India and Pakistan.)
M173 P231		R1 drop R1a	25,000 BCE	Haplogroup R1 also split on the Steppes. (R1a migrated northwest, eventually reaching eastern Europe and the Baltic Sea.)
M343		R1b	22,000-17,000 BCE	Mesolithic Period. Migration south and west to Persia.
L278		R1b1	17,000-10,000 BCE	Early Neolithic Period. Settled in the Tigris River Valley ***Refugium. Began farming in the Tigris River Valley.
L754		R1b1a	before 10,000 BCE	Tigris River Valley
L388		R1b1a1	c. 10,000 BCE	Tigris River Valley
P297		R1b1a1a	c. 8,800 BCE	Middle Neolithic Period. Migrated north to the Caucasus Mtns.
M269		R1b1a1a2	c. 4,900 BCE	Late Neolithic Period. pre 4,000 BCE Spoke Proto-Indo-European. Lived on the Pontic-Caspian Steppe north of the Black Sea.
L23		R1b1a1a2a	4,200-2,800 BCE	Copper/ Bronze Age c. 4,000 Spoke a language of the Northwest branch of the Indo-European language. c. 3.280 the Northwest branch of the Indo-European language splits into the Celt-Italic language. Migrated west to the Danube Valley.
L51		R1b1a1a2a1	2,800-2,500 BCE	Lived vicinity of the northern Alps of Austria.
L151 P310 L11		R1b1a1a2a1a drop U106	c. 2,500 BCE	Lived in southern Germany. U106 who spoke Proto-German migrated north to Saxony in Germany, the Netherlands, and across the Baltic Sea to what would become Norway.
P312		R1b1a1a2a1a2	c. 2,300 BCE	Proto Celtic culture. Proto-Celt split from the Celt-Italic subclade. Lived in Gaul (France), western Europe.
DF27 S250		R1b1a1a2a1a2a	c. 2,250 BCE	Lives in Gascony/ Pyrenees-Atlantiques (France) and Gallaecia/ Asturias (Spain). Spoke Q-Celt/ Goidelic/Gaelic. The Milesian(s) Invasion of Ireland post 1,000 BCE. Having populated Ireland, their descendants, the Scoti, went on to populate Scotland and Wales.
* Haplogroup F also contains G, H, I, J & K. ** Haplogroup K also contains LT, NO, M & P. O contains S, and P contains Q. ***A refugium is a protected place of refuge, perhaps a sheltered valley where early man survived the hardships of the last Ice Age. A well researched refugium is the Loire Valley of France going south to the Pyrenees and northern Spain as evidenced by the cave paintings at Lascaux, France. This information is in part from the National Geographic Genographic Project where I am a contributor. The marker numbers in the preceding chart are the distinctive markers characteristic of the new Haplogroup which prove the mutation. The markers in bold are unique to the Genographic Project and do not correlate to ISOGG.
Other Lewis Haplogroups
U106		R1b1a1a2a1a1	Proto German. Spoke early German. Forefathers of the Saxon Invaders to England c. 500 CE
M253		I1a	Viking Europe. The Danish Invaders of York, England c. 886 CE

6. Developing a History

A Pre-History of Haplogroup R When humans first ventured out of Africa some 60,000 years ago, they left genetic footprints still visible today. By mapping the appearance and frequency of genetic markers in modern peoples, we create a picture of when and where ancient humans moved around the world. These great migrations eventually led the descendants of a small group of Africans to occupy even the farthest reaches of the Earth.     "The Human Journey," National Geographic <https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/human-journey/> 12 July 2015.

Root (Y-Adam) • A0-T   AF3, L1085 • • • • BT   M91 • • • • • CT   M168/PF1416 • • • • • • CF   P143/PF2587 • • • • • • • F   L132.1, M89/PF2746 • • • • • • • • GHIJK   F1329/M3658/PF2622/YSC0001299 • • • • • • • • • HIJK   F929/M578/PF3494/S6397 • • • • • • • • • • IJK   L15/M523/PF3492/S137 • • • • • • • • • • • • K   M9, P128/PF5504 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • P   P295/PF5866/S8 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • R   M207/UTY2     "Y-DNA Haplogroup Tree 2015," ISOGG yDNA page <http://www.isogg.org/tree/ISOGG_YDNATreeTrunk.html> 3 May 2016.

1. As previously stated, the progress of modern man toward our modern world is measured by his manufacture and use of tools and the development of technology and is characterized by the materials he used. Anthropologists posit that modern man, Homo Sapiens Sapiens [A000], emerged in Africa in about 200,000 BCE during the Middle Paleolithic Period.

2. Modern human's first family, Haplogroup A, began mutating back when our forefathers were still in Africa. Other haplogroups went off on their own. But, we the folks who descend from Haplogroups F then K then P then R were not the first out of Africa.

3. Haplogroup F [M89] left out of Africa in  about 55,000 BCE behind some of the other haplogroups. They migrated from eastern Africa to the northern Arabian Peninsula. Why did Haplogroup F leave Africa? Many posit that the coming Ice Age changed the climate and restricted resources. They left Africa for their own survival.

4. Haplogroup K [M9] followed other haplogroups through the Tigris/ Euphrates River Valley then east through Persia then north into what is now Uzbekistan. They settled on the Steppes in the vicinity of the Aral Sea in about 42,000 BCE. This locale has been described as Point PQR, the birthplace of those three haplogroups. Note: Concurrently, Cro-Magnon Man settled in Europe.     "Haplo R Migration Theory Map," <https://www.google.com/maps> 10 July 2015.

5. In about 35,000 BCE, Haplogroup P [M45] split from K and inhabited the Steppes at the advent of the Upper Paleolithic Period. Haplogroup Q [M242] split from P. They and their descendants went all the way across Siberia then across the Bering land bridge to North America and are the forefathers of the American Indians. Stone Age Amerindians took their Stone Age technology, but not the domestication of the horse, and not the Indo-European language to the Americas where they were eventually confronted by modern technology in the form of the Conquistadors.

R   M207/UTY2 • R1   M173/P241 • • R1b   M343/PF6242 • • • R1b1   L278 • • • • R1b1a   L754/PF6269 • • • • • R1b1a1   L388/PF6468 • • • • • • R1b1a1a   P297/PF6398 • • • • • • • R1b1a1a2   M269 • • • • • • • • R1b1a1a2a   L23/PF6534/S141 • • • • • • • • • R1b1a1a2a1   L51/M412/PF6536/S167 • • • • • • • • • • R1b1a1a2a1a   L151/PF6542, P310, L11 • • • • • • • • • • • R1b1a1a2a1a2   P312/PF6547/S116 • • • • • • • • • • • • R1b1a1a2a1a2a   DF27/S250     "Y-DNA Haplogroup R and it's Subclades 2015," ISOGG yDNA page <http://www.isogg.org/tree/ISOGG_HapgrpR.html> 3 May 2016.

6. In about 30,000 BCE, Haplogroup R [M207] also split from P while on the Steppes. Base R [M207] migrated north to the Russian steppes. R2 [M479] went to India and Pakistan.

7. In about 25,000 BCE, Haplogroup R1 [M173] emerged on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea. Where they went is unknown. Haplogroup R1 also split on the Steppes. In about 22,000 R1a [L146] split from R1. Later, they migrated northwest to the Baltic coast in eastern Europe.

8. In about 22,000 BCE, Haplogroup R1b [M343] migrated south then west to Persia. Why did M343 return to Persia from whence they had come so many years before? Was their path blocked by the European Ice Sheet?

9. Somewhere between 22,000 BCE and 17,000 BCE, modern man began again to migrate. Why did our forefathers sojourn on the Uzbek Steppes for almost 25,000 years? Was it the coming and finally the going of the last Ice Age? In about 17,000 BCE, the North European Ice Sheet finally reached its maximum extent. And as the ice melted, modern man followed it north into new lands. Note: The previously reported migrations of M242, M207, M479, and L146 were most probably delayed until the European Ice Sheet began to retreat northward. From 17,000 BCE to about 10,000 BCE during the Early Neolithic Period, Haplogroup R1b1 [L278] survived the Younger Dryas stadial (the Big Freeze) at the end of the last Ice Age in the vicinity of the Tigris River Valley, enjoying their own version of the Ice Age refugium. While in the Tigris River Valley, R1b1a [L754] emerged from L278. And before 10,000 BCE R1b1a1 [L388] emerged from L754.

10. In about 8,800 BCE just before the Middle Neolithic Period, R1b1a1a [P297] emerged from the valleys and caves of the Tigris River Valley refugium and migrated north, following the retreating ice through the Gates of the Caucasus and the Greater Caucasus Mountains.

11. R1b1a1a2 [M269] lived through the Late Neolithic Period c. 4,900 BCE on the Pontic-Caspian Steppe north of the Black Sea. Pre 4,000 BCE, this location is believed to be the Urheimat (ancient homeland) of the Proto-Indo-European language. And, they are the possible forefathers of the Kurgan culture. Late Neolithic Period. pre 4,000 BCE Spoke Proto-Indo-European. Lived on the Pontic-Caspian Steppe north of the Black Sea.

12. From about 4,200 to 2,800 BCE, R1b1a1a2a [L23] migrated west into the Danube River Valley during the the Copper/ Bronze Age. And as modern men still do today, they headed up the valley. They spoke a language of the Northwest branch of the Indo-European language. Around 3.280 BCE the Northwest branch of the Indo-European language splits into the Celt-Italic language.

13. From 2,800 to 2,500 BCE, R1b1a1a2a1 [L51] migrated up the Danube River Valley to the vicinity of the Hungarian Plain and the Austrian Alps where they settled. This was the early Bronze Age where they developed new technologies. Here, they spoke a Proto-Celt-Italic language. The peoples of L51 are cited as factors of the Unetice Culture (2,300 to 1,700 BCE) of Central Europe. It is absolutely reasonable to conclude that the descendents of L51, who did not continue the mass migration west, were part of that culture. Anthropologists have suggested that the descendants of M269 were the factors of the subsequent Hallstatt Culture (1,200 to 500 BCE) of Austria. But this branch of M269 passed through Austria almost 2,000 years before the estimated time of the Hallstatt Culture.

14. In about 2,500 BCE, R1b1a1a2a1a [L11] migrated north and settled in the Black Forest from the headwaters of the Danube River (vic Regensburg) west toward Freiberg in what is now southern Germany. At this point there was a major split in not only the subclades of L11 but also in culture and language. Whether or not L11 was part of the the Hallstatt Culture of Bronze Age Austria, we the descendants of L11 possessed some Hallstatt influence and Bronze Age technology. From southern Germany and France, we took these skills and new branches of the Indo-European language to dispersed locations in western Europe.

15a. R1b1a1a2a1a1 [U106]: The Germanic branch are the forefathers of the Saxon Invaders to England. They emerged from L11 in about 2,300 BCE and spread north and northwest from southern Germany to Saxony, the Netherlands, and across the Baltic Sea to what would become Norway. They spoke proto-German. 15b. R1b1a1a2a1a2 [P312]: The Gauls aka the Proto Celts migrated west across the Rhine River Valley and settled in Gaul (France) in about 2,300 BCE. They are the forefathers of all Gaelic peoples. They spoke the proto-Celtic language which had just split from Celt-Italic. Their descendants split into at least six individual branches, migrating to Gallaecia on the Iberian Peninsula, over the Alps into northern Italy, from Calais to Britain and across the Irish Sea to Ireland, and up the Jutland Peninsula and across the Baltic Sea to Scandinavia.

Descendants of P312 • • • • • • • • • • R1b1a1a2a1a2a   DF27/S250 • • • • • • • • • • R1b1a1a2a1a2b   PF6570/S28/U152 • • • • • • • • • • R1b1a1a2a1a2c   L21/M529/S145 • • • • • • • • • • R1b1a1a2a1a2d   L238/S182 • • • • • • • • • • R1b1a1a2a1a2e   DF19/S232 • • • • • • • • • • R1b1a1a2a1a2f   DF99/S11987     "Y-DNA Haplogroup R and it's Subclades 2015," ISOGG yDNA page <http://www.isogg.org/tree/ISOGG_HapgrpR.html> 5 July 2015.

16a. R1b1a1a2a1a2a [DF27/S250]: The Gascon/ Iberian Celts migrated southwest to the Iberian Peninsula in about 2,250 BCE. Their migration route took them through Gascony/ Pyrenees-Atlantiques (France). Perhaps some settled there. They left their DNA and their blood type and their technology; but not their language amongst the Basque peoples. The Iberian/ Gaelic Celts continued their migration southwest into the Douro Valley and then south to the region of Beira Alta and its capitol Guarda in what is now Portugal. Here, the Lusitanians settled. They spoke the proto-Celtic Lusitanian language. The Gaelic Celts continued their migration, this time north to the northwest coast of the Iberian Peninsula and the regions of Gallaecia and Asturias in what is now Spain. They spoke q-Celt/ Goidelic/ Gaelic. The Bronze Age did not appear in Iberia until 1800 BCE, and was mostly confined to the cultures of El Argar and Los Millares in south-east Spain, with sporadic sites showing up in Castile by 1700 BCE and in Extremadura and southern Portugal by 1500 BCE. These Early Bronze Age sites typically did not have more than some bronze daggers or axes and cannot be considered proper Bronze Age societies, but rather Copper Age societies with occasional bronze artefacts (perhaps imported). These cultures might have been founded by small groups of R1b adventurers looking for easy conquests in parts of Europe that did not yet have bronze weapons. They would have become a small ruling elite, would have had children with local women, and within a few generations their Indo-European language would have been lost, absorbed by the indigenous languages. Iberia did not become a fully-fledged Bronze Age society until the 13th century BCE, when the Urnfield culture (1300-1200 BCE) expanded from Germany to Catalonia via southern France, then the ensuing Hallstatt culture (1200-750 BCE) spread throughout most of the peninsula (especially the western half). This period belongs to the wider Atlantic Bronze Age (1300-700 BCE), when Iberia was connected to the rest of Western Europe through a complex trade network. . . The Atlantic Bronze Age could correspond to the period when DF27 radiated more evenly around Iberia and ended up, following Atlantic trade routes, all the way to the British Isles, the Netherlands and western Norway (where M153 and SRY2728 make up about 1% of the population).     "Haplogroup R1b" <http://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_R1b_Y-DNA.shtml> 26 July 2015. Our people are the Milesians of Irish Mythology. They settled in Gallaecia on the northwest coast of the Iberian Peninsula where they became a trading nation along the Atlantic coast. Our people eventually worked their way up the coast in their little round boats, most probably landing in Armorica (Brittany, France). From Armorica, they crossed the Celtic Sea to Ireland. In the Lebor Gabála Érenn, a medieval Christian pseudo-history of Ireland, the Milesians are the Gaels who came from Iberia and settled in Ireland. They represent the Irish people. They are named after the character Míl Espáine, which is the Irish form of the Latin Miles Hispaniae ("Soldier of Hispania").     "Milesians (Irish)" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milesians_(Irish)> 17 July 2015. According to Lebor Gabála Érenn, the "Book of the Taking of Ireland," in about 1,000 BCE, the Milesians sailed across the Celtic Sea and became the Over Kings of  Ireland. Having populated Ireland, their descendants, the Scoti, went on to populate Scotland and Wales. The descendants of DF27 (post 1,000 BCE) who remained in Iberia spoke Gallaecian. Their cousins, the Celtiberians of eastern Spain, arrived later and spoke, not a different dialect, but a different q-Celt language. Further reading: -"Milesians, the Myth" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milesians_(Irish)> 17 July 2015. -"The Story of the Irish Race" <http://homepage.eircom.net/~kthomas/history.htm> 17 July 2015.

16b. R1b1a1a2a1a2b [U152/S28]: The Italo-Alpine Celts spoke p-Celt/ Gaulish. In about 1,200 BCE, they migrated to the upper Rhein River Valley and into the Hinterrhein in what is now Switzerland. And from there, they migrated over the Alps and down into what is now Italy. They most probably were the speakers of the Lepontic language, a proto-Cisalpine Gaulish language of Switzerland and southern Germany.

16c. R1b1a1a2a1a2c [L21/S145/M529]: The Atlantic Celts have been described as the quintessential Gaelic paternal lineage. In 2,100 BCE, L21 crossed the English Channel to settle in England, Wales, and then Ireland. Coincidently, the Bronze Age began in Ireland about 2,100 BCE. Is this possibly because these Celts took Bronze Age technology to to the distant corners of Europe? Originally, all the descendants of L21 spoke p-Celt; as L21 spread their language throughout the British Isles. However, the descendants of DF27 brought q-Celt/ Gaelic to Ireland. And their descendants, the Scoti took q-Celt/ Gaelic to Scotland. Today, the Irish and Scot Celts speak q-Celt/ Goidelic/ Gaelic. The Welsh Celts speak p-Celt/ Gallo-Brittonic. Of note, 45% of men in Wales are projected to be S145.

16d. R1b1a1a2a1a2d [L238/S182]: The Nordic Celts spoke p-Celt/ Gallo-Brittonic. They migrated most probably through the Jutland Peninsula to Scandinavia. Descendants of L238 who settled on the Jutland Peninsula are potentially the forefathers of the Jutes.

16e. R1b1a1a2a1a2e [DF19/S232]: The Angle Celts spoke p-Celt/ Gallo-Brittonic. They settled on the lower Jutland Peninsula where their neighbors were L238 (the Jutes) to the north and U106 (the Saxons) to the south.

16f. R1b1a1a2a1a2f [DF99/S11987] spoke P-Celt/ Gallo-Brittonic. Currently, persons who test positive for DF99 have their lineage from many locations. However, there appears to be a pattern from P312 in Gaul through the Netherlands and Belgium to Britain.

My Map of Haplogroup R Migrations on Google Maps. Start at the red marker and follow the descendants of Haplogroup R along the green markers from the Aral Sea to Southwest Wales.

7. Conclusions

Through the appearance of individual markers on the human genome, our ancestor's path out of Africa, into Asia, and back across to Western Europe has been proven. It's actually a simple process: a) match the locations of the donors to the SNP markers found b) play connect the dots. With the addition of dates from ancient archaeological periods and the evolution of the Indo-European language, we can approximate where our ancestors were during specific times along the timeline of human history.

Tracing the evolution of SNP DF27, we learn that we, the families who descend from the Lewis family of Virginia, carry the genes of the Milesians, the Celtic Invaders of Ireland post 1.000 BCE. Our Celtic cousins, L21, were some of the original settlers of Ireland c. 2,100 BCE. And, their DNA is the dominant strain in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Cornwall; not ours. We are the pirates and raiders as described in the Welsh language. We are the interlopers who draped Britain with an overlay of Celtic language, art and culture before the Roman Invasion.

8. The Milesians

Who were the Milesians? According to Irish mythology, the Milesians originally came from the Greek city of Milieus in Asia Minor. There is a history/ myth which states that the Milesians sailed south in their little round boats and sojourned in Egypt during the time of the Israelites. Departing Egypt, they sailed west to the shores of Spain. And from the northwest corner of Spain, they sailed north to Ireland. Perhaps one day, there will be a detailed study of the elusive Milesians and their overarching Celtic culture.

The Book of Invasions ends with the Milesians, or Sons of Míl Espáine, the first Gaelic speakers and probably the earliest “Celtic” people.  They are thought to have brought iron to Ireland, representing the beginning of the Iron Age.  During their invasion, the wives of the Irish High Kings, and matron Goddesses of Ireland, Banba, Fodla and Ériu, asked that the new land be named in their honour.  The name Éire remains a poetic name for Ireland today.  The Tuatha Dé Danann were exiled underground, where they represent the sidhe, or faery folk, of Ireland.

    "The Celtic Journey," <https://thecelticjourney.wordpress.com/tag/milesians/> 17 July 2015.

Research Note: The Iron Age began as early as 1,200 BCE in Galatia in Anatolia (modern Turkey). Did our Celtic ancestors trade with their Galatian cousins of Asia Minor? We know that the Celts of farthest southern Spain, the Celtici, traded with the Phoenicians and their descendants the Carthaginians who traded with the Greek cities of Asia Minor. Did our Gallaecian ancestors learn about working iron from their Galtaian cousins in Asia Minor?

 

        II. Evolution of the Indo-European Language

Research Note: I am not a linguist nor a geneticist nor even a mathematician. So, how can I even begin to approach a conversation on the origins and evolution of the Indo-European language? Pretty simple. I can read and write, add and subtract, and I have the faculty of reason.

Today, we speak English. It is evident from everyday speech that English evolved from German. Going back through English literature, most folks can read the works of Shakespeare who wrote in early Modern English which shows Romance influences. Some of us can read Chaucer who wrote in late Middle English with its Germanic words and spellings. And although you almost have to be an English language scholar, some folks can read Beowulf in the original Old English if they have an understanding of German.

So if everyone can trace English back to German, can anyone trace German back through the many changes to its mother tongue? And, can anyone trace Haplogroup R to show the evolution of the language spoken by DF27?

1. What to look for?

[When researching the Indo-European Language], the resulting phylogeny should completely and without contradiction be transformable into real geography, starting from a staging area (Urheimat), reconstructing the paths of migrations or expansion into the recent or oldest known seats. In fact, there are dozens, if not hundreds of views on Indo-European origin and subgrouping (cf. e.g. Day, 2001). So far, there have been only fragmentary visualizations ⁶¹. Languages should then be checked for borrowings in the neighbors encountered along these routes.

^61. Thorough attempts on the Internet can be found under <www.hjholm.de>  or the URL <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_languages>.

    Holm, J.J.G., "The New Arboretum of Indo-European Trees," no date <http://www.hjholm.de/Holm%20Arbo%20old.pdf> 15 July 2015.

Research Note: Urheimat is German for ancient home.

The task is to work backwards through the ages of man to find the ancient home of the Indo-European language.

We need to:
a. locate the ancient home (Urheimat) of the Indo-European language in time (when)
b. locate the ancient home (Urheimat) of the Indo-European language in place (where)
c. reconstruct the migration path of Indo-European language
d. place the results into a "real" geographical context

2. Locating the ancient home (Urheimat) of the Indo-European language in time (when):

When researching migration history, we want to find when first and then where. The first task is to determine which historical period we want to look at, narrowing the range where possible.

Linguists and philologists have traced the English language to it's origin:
-to early German
-to a split with Baltic-Slav
-to an earlier split with Celt-Italic
-to the Northwest branch of the Indo-European language

Then, we need to go back to the root language, proto-Indo-European [PIE].

Hans J. Holm of the previous citation presents a detailed mathematical formula to determine when the branches of the Indo-European language split. Previous studies listed common words from the many branches of the Indo-European language. And, Holm used math--the arithmetic mean--to determine how closely the many languages agree with each other.

This chart was copied from "Indo-European Sub-grouping by SLRD2, Holm (2007)" <http://de.slideshare.net/HJJHolm/> 25 July 2015.

Holm determined the percentage distance from the root Indo-European language [PIE] and its individual daughter languages to the many subsequent splits. And, he created a chart to display his results. 

This chart was copied from "Indo-European Sub-grouping by SLRD2, Holm (2007)" <http://de.slideshare.net/HJJHolm/> 25 July 2015.

Holm places the oldest split of the Indo-European language where it splits into the Northwestern branch and the Southeastern branch at 1.00.

a. From German toward the root language:

1. Modern English is a derivative language of the German language family.

This chart was clipped from the original "Classification of Indo-European Languages" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_languages> 25 July 2015.

2. From Holm's calculations, we learn that proto-German split from the Northern branch of the Northwestern branch of the Indo-European language at marker .79 since the first split of the root language.

Research Note: I postulate that the first split of the root language happened 6,000 years ago c. 4,000 BCE. How can I make such an outlandish claim? It's simple Algebra.

3. The Northern branch split from the Northwestern branch of the Indo-European language at marker .88 since the first split of the root language.

4. We do not have to go back to the root language; as both the German language family and the Celtic language family are members of the Northwestern branch.

b. From Northwest Indo-European toward the language of the proto-Celts

1. The Northwest branch split from the Indo-European language at marker 1.00 c. 4,000 BCE.

2. The Celt-Italic branch split from the Northwest branch of the Indo-European language at marker .88 since the first split of the root language.

3. Proto-Celt split from the Celt-Italic branch at marker .73 since the first split of the root language.

And, the non-extant Gallaecian language split sometime later from proto-Celt.

Research Note: In this schema, Gaulish is classified as a derivative language of Continental Celt. And, Gallaecian is classified as a derivative language of Celtiberian. This chart was clipped from the original "Classification of Indo-European Languages" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_languages> 25 July 2015.

4. Here, my research differs from the excellent classification chart above.

The relationship between Gaulish and the other Celtic languages is also subject to debate. Most scholars today agree that Celtiberian was the first to branch off from the remaining Celtic languages. Gaulish, situated in the centre of the Celtic language area, shares with the neighbouring Brythonic of Great Britain the change of the Indo-European labio-velar consonant /k^w/ > /p/, whereas both Celtiberian in the south and Goidelic in Ireland retain /k^w/. Taking this as the primary genealogical isogloss [linguistic boundary], some scholars see the Celtic languages to be divided into a "q-Celtic" and a "p-Celtic" group, in which the p-Celtic languages Gaulish and Brythonic form a common "Gallo-Brittonic" branch. Other scholars place more emphasis on shared innovations between Brythonic and Goidelic, and group these together as an Insular Celtic. Sims-Williams (2007) discusses a composite model, in which the Continental and Insular varieties are seen as part of a dialect continuum, with genealogical splits and areal [sp] innovations intersecting.

    "Gaulish Language" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaulish_language> 25 July 2015.

My argument is this:

-If two languages have more in common than they have differences, they are more closely related.
-The convergence of two languages from different roots can be measured by their commonality. Shared innovations are subsequent observations after the two languages have been classified as separate entities.
-Therefore, the two languages were different before they shared the new innovations which happened over an extended time.
-The divergence of two languages from the same root can be measured by their differences; not shared innovations.

If Continental p-Celt and Insular Brythonic form a common Gallo-Brittonic branch, why wouldn't Continental q-Celt and Insular Irish Gaelic form a common Iberian-Gaelic branch? And from the Iberian-Gaelic branch, Gallaecian and Celtiberian would evolve in Spain, and Gaelic would evolve in Ireland:

-The Gaels are the forefathers of the Gallaecians/ Galicians of Northwest Spain.
-Ireland was settled by descendants of L21 (c. 2,100 BCE) who spread Brythonic throughout the British Isles.

Research Note: If the people of Celtic Iberia were called Gaels, what would you call the language they spoke? Gaelic, perhaps?

-The Gaels took the Gaelic language to Ireland (post 1,000 BCE). And, their descendants the Scoti took the Gaelic language to Scotland.
-This is why Welsh, which is derivative of Brythonic, is spoken in Wales, and Gaelic is spoken in Ireland and Scotland.

The names used in the [Goidelic] languages themselves (Gaeilge/Gaolainn/Gaelic in Irish, Gaelg/Gailck in Manx, and Gàidhlig in Scottish Gaelic) are derived from Old Irish Goídelc, which comes from Old Welsh Guoidel meaning "pirate, raider." The medieval mythology of the Lebor Gabála Érenn places its origin in an eponymous ancestor of the Gaels, and inventor of the language, Goídel Glas.

    "Goidelic Languages" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goidelic_languages> 25 July 2015.

-Gallaecian is not Celtiberian. Gallaecian split from proto-Celt (Lusitanian perhaps?) and was in Iberia long before the Celtiberians.

From the chart, the Gallaeci and the Lucitani were speaking a proto-Celt language older than Celtiberian.     "Languages of Iberia" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Iberia> 26 July 2015.

The area now called Galicia was first inhabited by humans during the Middle Paleolithic period, and it takes its name from the Gallaeci, the Celtic peoples living north of the Douro river during the last millennium BC, in a region largely coincidental with that of the Iron Age Castro culture.

    "Galicia (Spain)" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galicia_(Spain)> 25 July 2015.

Celtiberian or Northeastern Hispano-Celtic is an extinct Indo-European language of the Celtic branch spoken by the Celtiberians in an area of the Iberian Peninsula lying between the headwaters of the Duero, Tajo, Júcar, Turia rivers and the Ebro river. This language is directly attested in nearly 200 inscriptions dated in the 2nd century BC and the 1st century BC, mainly in Celtiberian script, a direct adaptation of the Northeastern Iberian script, but also in the Latin alphabet.

    "Celtiberian Language" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtiberian_language> 25 July 2015.

3. Locating the ancient home (Urheimat) of the Indo-European language in place (where):

Linguistically proved contacts between earliest stages of Indo-European and Uralian strongly suggest a homeland in the forest steppes north of the Black Sea ('Pontus', cf. e.g. Anthony 2007).

    "A Possible Homeland of the Indo-European Languages" <http://www.hjholm.de> 15 July 2015.

And,

Samara culture was a Neolithic culture of the late 6th and early 5th millennium BC at the Samara bend region of the middle Volga, discovered during archaeological excavations in 1973 near the village of Syezzheye in Russia. The valley of the Samara river contains sites from subsequent cultures as well, which are descriptively termed "Samara cultures" or "Samara valley cultures". Some of these sites are currently under excavation. "The Samara culture" as a proper name, however, is reserved for the early Eneolithic [Copper Age, c. 4,500 BCE] of the region. . .

These three cultures (the Samara, and successors the Khvalynsk and early Yamna) have roughly the same range. Marija Gimbutas was the first to regard it as the Urheimat (homeland) of the Proto-Indo-European language and to hypothesize that the Eneolithic culture of the region was in fact Proto-Indo-European. If this model is true, then the Samara culture becomes overwhelmingly important for Indo-European studies.

    "Samara Culture" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samara_culture> 16 July 2015.

From yDNA testing, the migratory path of DF27 has been proven. Previously, I queried, "Who lived north of the Black Sea in about 4,000 BCE?" And, yDNA proves that the descendants of Haplogroup R sojourned north of the Black Sea.

Modern linguists have placed the Proto-Indo-European homeland in the Pontic-Caspian Steppe, a distinct geographic and archeological region extending from the Danube estuary to the Ural mountains to the east and North Caucasus to the south. The Neolithic, Eneolithic and early Bronze Age cultures in Pontic-Caspian steppe has been called the Kurgan culture (4200-2200 BCE) by Marija Gimbutas, due to the lasting practice of burying the deads under mounds ("kurgan") among the succession of cultures in that region. It is now known that kurgan-type burials only date from the 4th millenium BCE and almost certainly originated south of the Caucasus [along with P297 & P25]. The genetic diversity of R1b being greater around eastern Anatolia, it is hard to deny that R1b evolved there before entering the steppe world. . .

The first clearly Proto-Indo-European culture was Sredny Stog (4600-3900 BCE), when small kurgan burials begin to appear, with the distinctive posturing of the dead on the back with knees raised and oriented toward the northeast, which would be found in later steppe cultures as well. There is evidence of population blending from the variety of skull shapes. Towards the end of the 5th millennium, an elite starts to develop with cattle, horses and copper used as status symbols.

Another migration across the Caucasus happened shortly before 3700 BCE, when the Maykop culture, the world's first Bronze Age society, suddenly materialized in the north-west Caucasus, apparently out of nowhere. [They were the descendants of M269.] The origins of Maykop are still uncertain, but archeologists have linked it to contemporary Chalcolithic cultures in Assyria and western Iran. [Follow the migration of M343 in western Iran to L278 in the Tigris River Valley vicinity what would become Assyria.] Archeology also shows a clear diffusion of bronze working and kurgan-type burials from the Maykop culture to the Pontic Steppe, where the Yamna culture developed soon afterwards (from 3500 BCE). Kurgan (a.k.a. tumulus) burials would become a dominant feature of ancient Indo-European societies and were widely used by the Celts, Romans, Germanic tribes, and Scythians, among others.

The Yamna period (3500-2500 BCE) is the most important one in the creation of Indo-European culture and society. Middle Eastern R1b people had been living and blending to some extent with the local R1a foragers and herders for over a millennium, perhaps even two or three. The close cultural contact and interactions between R1a and R1b people all over the Pontic-Caspian Steppe resulted in the creation of a common vernacular, a new lingua franca, which linguists have called Proto-Indo-European (PIE). It is pointless to try to assign another region of origin to the PIE language. Linguistic similarities exist between PIE and Caucasian and Hurrian languages in the Middle East on the one hand, and Uralic languages in the Volga-Ural region on the other hand, which makes the Pontic Steppe the perfect intermediary region. . .

Iberia did not become a fully-fledged Bronze Age society until the 13th century BCE, when the Urnfield culture (1300-1200 BCE) expanded from Germany to Catalonia via southern France, then the ensuing Hallstatt culture (1200-750 BCE) spread throughout most of the peninsula (especially the western half). This period belongs to the wider Atlantic Bronze Age (1300-700 BCE), when Iberia was connected to the rest of Western Europe through a complex trade network.

It is hard to say when exactly DF27 entered Iberia. Considering its overwhelming presence in the peninsula and in south-west France, it is likely that DF27 arrived early, during the 1800 to 1300 BCE period, and perhaps even earlier, if R1b adventurers penetrated the Bell Beaker culture, as they appear to have done all over Western Europe from 2300 BCE to 1800 BCE. The Atlantic Bronze Age could correspond to the period when DF27 radiated more evenly around Iberia and ended up, following Atlantic trade routes, all the way to the British Isles, the Netherlands and western Norway (where M153 and SRY2728 make up about 1% of the population).

    "Haplogroup R1b" <http://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_R1b_Y-DNA.shtml> 26 July 2015.

4. Reconstructing the migration path of the Indo-European language:

Using the same principles previously discussed, we can trace the migratory path of Haplogroup R and descendants from the Urheimat through its history and determine where our forefathers were when the next branch of the Indo-European language morphed into a new daughter language.

To follow the migration path, we need to know who, where, when and what happened.

a. M269, the descendants of R1b settled on the Pontic-Caspian Steppe north of the Black Sea during the Late Neolithic Period. Sometime before 4,000 BCE, PIE [the proto-Indo-European language] emerged due to interaction between the descendants R1b and R1a foragers and herders. This resulted in a new lingua Franca.

b. L23 migrated west then south to the Danube Valley during the Copper/ Eneolithic Age. In about 4,000 BCE, the Northwest branch of the Indo-European language split from PIE.

c. L51 migrated up the Danube Valley to the Hungarian Plain in the vicinity of the Austrian Alps at the beginning of the Bronze Age. In about 3,280 BCE, the Northern branch split from the Northwest branch of the Indo-European language.

d. Concurrently in about 3,280 BCE, the Celt-Italic language split from the Northwest branch of the Indo-European language.

e. L11 settled in southern Germany vicinity Regensburg. In about 2,740 BCE, the proto-German language split from the Northern branch of the Indo-European language. Their descendants, U106, spread the new German language to the lands which would become Germany, the Jutland Peninsula and Scandinavia.

f. P312 migrated west to Gaul (France). In about 2,380 BCE, the proto-Celt language split from the Celt-Italic language.

g. Sometime after 2,380 BCE, DF27 migrated southwest to the Iberian Peninsula where Gaelic split from the proto-Celt language. Later, Gaelic would migrate to the Isle of Man, Scotland, Britain, and Wales. Over time, Gaelic would become the dominant language in Ireland, the Isle of Man and Scotland.

h. Concurrently, Brittonic split from the proto-Celt language to form Gallo-Brittonic. Gaulic stayed on the continent. In about 2,100 BCE, L21 took the Brittonic language to Britain and Ireland where L21 would become the dominant ethnicity and Brittonic would become the common language until the arrival of Gaelic and the Milesians.

5. Placing the results into a "real" geographical context:

Hans J. Holm's stated task was to place the evolution of the Indo-European language into geographical context. By using the results from the many previous works, we can trace the Indo-European language from the Urheimat up the Danube River into Western Europe. And from this central location, the derivative languages spread to the Atlantic Fringe of pre-historic Europe.

a. The emergence of the proto-Indo-European language.

Beginning in about 30,000 BCE and lasting for 20,000 plus years, the descendants of Haplogroups P and Q and R cohabited the Pontic-Caspian Steppes vic. Point PQR. During this extensive period, the many tribes would have shared a common language. And as the eons passed and the language morphed, the languages of the Steppe tribes would have shared common characteristics.

The first date fixed by Holm's calculations is the first split of the proto-Indo-European language about 6,000 years ago or c. 4,000 BCE. Working backwards, the proto-Indo-European language emerged on the Pontic-Caspian Steppe c. 5,000 BCE. This date coincides with the arrival of M269 on the Pontic-Caspian Steppe c. 4,900 BCE.

b. The first split: from one to two.

From Holms' calculations, we learn that the Indian language family has the highest percentage of agreements of the twelve languages listed. This fact indicates that the root Indo-European language went with the southeastern branch and its derivative languages to India. And, our northwest branch is their distant cousin. From this first fact, we can begin to map the migrations of the main branches of the Indo-European language.

1. Perhaps, some tribes of the proto-Indo-European group sat stationary on the Pontic-Caspian Steppe. The majority of the tribes migrated west then south around the Black Sea to the Danube River Delta.

2. [Marker 1.0 c. 4,000 BCE] In the vicinity of the Danube River Delta, the proto-Indo-European group spit:
-The Northwest branch migrated west up the Danube River and the climb into Western Europe.
-The Southeast branch migrated south to the Bosporus Strait.

c. The second split: from two to four.

1. [Marker .88] [c. 3280 BCE] In the vicinity of the Hungarian Plain, the Northwest branch split:
-The Celt-Italic branch migrated up the Danube River into Western Europe.
-The Northern branch sat stationary.

2. [Marker .87] [c. 3220 BCE] In the vicinity of the Bosporus Strait, the Southeast branch split:
-The South-southeast branch (my term) migrated east across the Bosporus into the Anatolian Peninsula and Asia Minor.
-The Balkan branch sat stationary.

d. The third split: from four to nine.

1. [Marker .86] [c. 3160 BCE] Almost immediately, in the vicinity of the Bosporus Strait, the South-southeast branch split:
-The Iranian-Indian branch continued their migration east through the Anatolian Peninsula and Asia Minor en route to Persia.
-The Anatolian-Tocharian branch continued east, further into the Anatolian Peninsula.

2. [Marker .79] [c. 2740 BCE] In the vicinity of the Hungarian Plain, the Northern branch split:
-The German branch followed the Celt-Italic branch up the Danube River north of the Austrian Alps and into southern Germany.
-The Baltic-Slav branch sat stationary.

*[Marker .76] The Anatolian-Tocharian branch fits here chronologically.

3. [Marker .73] [c. 2380 BCE] In the vicinity of eastern Gaul, the Celt-Italic branch split:
-The Italic branch went south (up) the Rhein River Valley into the Hinterrhein (now Switzerland) and then over an Alpine pass then down to the Italian Peninsula and the Po River Valley.
-The Celtic branch continued west into Gaul.

4. [Marker .72] [c. 2330 BCE] Having sojourned in the vicinity of the Bosporus Strait, the Balkan branch split:
-Albanian went west to Albania.
-Greek went south to Greece.
-Armenian followed the Iranian-Indian branch east across the Bosporus into the Anatolian Peninsula and Asia Minor en route to Armenia.

e. The fourth split: from nine to twelve.

1. Proto-German had arrived in southern Germany and began the migration to northern Germany and the Scandinavian Peninsula.

2. Proto-Celtic had arrived in Gaul and would later spit into q-Celt/ Goidelic/ Gaelic and p-Celt/ Brythonic/ Brittonic.

3. Italic had arrived on the Italian Peninsula and would later split into the Romance languages.

4. Albanian had arrived in the southwest Balkans.

5. Armenian had arrived in the Trans-Caucasus.

6. Greek had arrived in Greece.

7 - 8. [Marker .76] [c. 2560] Having migrated east to the Anatolian Peninsula, the Anatolian-Tocharian branch split:
-The Tocharian branch continued to migrate east through Persia to the Tarim Basin of far western China.
-The Anatolian branch had arrived on the Anatolian Peninsula.

9 - 10. [Marker .61] [c. 1660 BCE] Having sojourned in Persia, the Iranian-Indian branch split.
-The Indian branch migrated southeast to the Indian subcontinent.
-The Iranian branch had arrived in Persia.

11 - 12. [Marker .57] [c. 1420 BCE] Having sojourned in the vicinity of the Hungarian Plain, the Baltic-Slav branch split:
-The Baltic branch migrated north to the Baltic region.
-The Slavic branch had arrived in their homeland. To the south, the Yugo (Southern) Slavs would emerge. To the east, the eastern Slavs would emerge. To the north, the Czechs and the Poles would emerge.

6. Conclusions:

My contention is that the evolution of the Indo-European language parallels the migration of the descendants of Haplogroup R.

The Geography of the Evolution of the Indo-European Language
	PIE: the Proto-Indo-European Language	Descendants of R1b [M343]
1.	c. 5,000 BCE PIE emerged as a result of R1b descendants intermingling with R1a foragers and herders, resulting in a new lingua Franca.	Who: M269 When: Late Neolithic Period (6,500 to 4,500 BCE) Where: the Pontic-Caspian Steppe north of the Black Sea.
2.	c. 4,000 BCE (marker 1.00) The Northwest branch of the Indo-European language split from PIE.	Who: L23 When: Copper/ Eneolithic Age (4,500 to 3,300 BCE) Where: Migrated west to the Danube Valley.
3a.	c. 3,280 BCE (marker .88) The Northern branch split from the Northwest branch of the Indo-European language.	Who: L51 When: Bronze Age (3,300 to 1,200 BCE) Where: The Danube Valley into the Hungarian Plain and the Austrian Alps.
3b.	c. 3,280 BCE (marker .88) The Celt-Italic branch split from the Northwest branch of the Indo-European language.	Who: L51 When: Bronze Age (3,300 to 1,200 BCE) Where: The Danube Valley into the Hungarian Plain and the Austrian Alps.
4a.	c. 2,740 BCE (marker .79) The proto-German language split from the Northern branch of the Indo-European language.	Who: L11/ U106 When: Bronze Age (3,300 to 1,200 BCE) Where: Southern Germany
4b.	c. 2,380 BCE (marker .73) The proto-Celt language split from the Celt-Italic language.	Who: P312 When: Bronze Age (3,300 to 1,200 BCE) Where: Gaul (France)
5b.	Post 2,380 BCE Gaelic split from the proto-Celt language.	Who: DF27 When: Bronze Age (3,300 to 1,200 BCE) Where: Gallaecia/ Asturias (Spain)
My Map of the Evolution of the Indo-European Language on Google Maps. Yellow Stars = the direct lineage of the q-Celtic language to southwestern Wales Red Marker = Point PQR Red Stars = Indo-European derivative languages before proto-Celtic Rose Stars = p-Celtic, proto-Celtic derivative languages Blue Stars = q-Celtic, proto-Celtic derivative languages to Britain Click on the link and start with the red marker. Follow the green markers to the first yellow star. Then, follow the yellow stars from the Pontic-Caspian Steppe to southwestern Wales.

Holm provides calculations back to the time when the Northwest and the Southeast branches split from the proto-Indo-European root language; but not the time when PIE emerged as the language of Haplogroup R.

Obviously, Holm's methodology depends on measuring agreements. And, having no contemporaneous language family to compare, Holm's methodology comes up short. This leaves an opening for others to discover root words from perhaps Uralic with which to start the entire process over from the beginning.
-Analysis of agreements between proto-Indo-European and the proto-Uralic languages.
-Applying the methodology to determine the first split of the Indo-Uralic language family.
-Comparing dates to determine the emergence date for whichever language is the root language of the Indo-European/ Uralic-Whatever language family.
-And, continuing the analysis of the parallel paths of Haplogroup R and the emergence of languages on the Pontic-Caspian Steppe. Evidence from this investigation indicates that P297 took the Uralic language to the Ural Mtns. c. 8,800 BCE.

III. Early Irish Migration

1. Ancient Ireland.

Some of the tribes who were the predecessors of the modern-day Irish have been in Ireland since the end of the last Ice Age c. 10,000 BCE. How did they get there? The earliest ones simply walked there; as sea levels were about 400 ft. below current levels. And over the subsequent eons, other tribes came to Ireland by boat from Britain and the European continent.

According to the medieval mythology of the Lebor Gabála Érenn (the Book of the Taking of Ireland, c. 1,100 CE), there were five races of people who came to Ireland in antiquity:

    "Lebor Gabála Érenn"  <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebor_Gabála_Érenn> 12 July 2015.

a. The Cessairians were descendants of Noah and the first people to arrive in Ireland before the flood. When the flood came, only one person survived to tell the history.
b. The Partholonians were also descendants of Noah. They arrived 300 years after the Cessairians and introduced agriculture to Ireland. They died from plague and only one person survived to tell the history.
c-1. The Nemedians were also descendants of Noah. They arrived 30 years after the Partholonians. Except for one ship of 30 men, they were exterminated first by plague and second by a tidal wave. Some of the Nemedians were the ancestors of all Britons.
c-2. The Fir Bolg were descendants of the Nemedians who returned to Ireland hundreds of years later. They divided Ireland into five provinces and ruled as the High-Kings.
d. The Tuath Dé were supernaturally-gifted super humans of the Titan class. As this is a work of mythology, each race represented a time in the ancient history of the Irish. And, the Tuath Dé represented the pagan gods and the pagan religion of Ireland. They also ruled as High-Kings.
e. The Milesians were regular men who possessed the most modern weapons and technology. They came to Ireland by sea from Spain and defeated the Tuath Dé. And to conclude the mythology, this represents the victory of Christianity over paganism. The Milesians became the last Over-Kings of Ireland.

The story of the Milesians brings Ireland out of the darkness of mythology and into the light of the world of writing and history. Of course, the actual story is mythology. But as with most myths, there is a strain of truth entwined with the mysterious. The task is to separate out a) who were the actual people, b) where they went, c) and what they accomplished.

2. The Rise of the Celts.

When humans first ventured out of Africa some 60,000 years ago, they left genetic footprints still visible today. By mapping the appearance and frequency of genetic markers in modern peoples, we create a picture of when and where ancient humans moved around the world. These great migrations eventually led the descendants of a small group of Africans to occupy even the farthest reaches of the Earth.

    "The Human Journey," National Geographic Genographic Project <https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/human-journey/> 12 July 2015.

The tribes who would become the Celts (Haplogroup R-M269) migrated with other tribes from the Pontic-Caspian Steppe in southwest Asia up the Danube Valley and into central Europe by about 2,300 BCE. Although the name Celt refers to a group of individual tribes, their common language and common culture held the disparate tribes together as one Celtic people.

In the distant past, modern man migrated out of Africa. The ancestors of the Celts (Haplogroup R) wound up on the Pontic-Caspian Steppe of southwest Asia by 30,000 BCE. From the Steppe, a disparate group of tribes migrated together south of the Caspian Sea and west across to the Tigris River where they sojourned during the Younger Dryas, the Big Freeze. With the final thaw of the last Ice Age, some of the tribes migrated up through the Gates of the Caucasus in the Caucasus Mtns. where they again sojourned on the Pontic-Caspian Steppes. And there, the proto-Indo-European language emerged c. 5,000 BCE.

From north of the Black Sea, the Celtic tribes migrated en group amongst their distant cousins, the other tribes, up the Danube River Valley into central Europe. And all along the way, many of the disparate tribes dropped off to settle or go their own way.

In about 2,500 BCE, the remaining group of tribes (Haplogroup R-L11) reached the Black Forest of southern Germany at the headwaters of the Danube River. This was a truly disparate group of loosely aligned tribes who spoke different languages and had different lineages. Amongst the tribes were the Germans who spoke proto-German (Haplogroup R-U106) and the Celts who spoke proto-Celtic (Haplogroup R-P312).

At this point, there was a major split in not only the groups of tribes (Haplogroup R-L11) but also in culture and language. Whether or not our direct ancestors were part of the Hallstatt Culture of Bronze Age Austria, their descendants possessed some Hallstatt influence and Bronze Age technology. From southern Germany and Gaul, we took those skills and new branches of the Indo-European language to dispersed locations in western Europe. From there, our cousins who spoke proto-German (Haplogroup R-U106), migrated north to Saxony in Germany, the Netherlands, and across the Baltic Sea to Scandinavia.

In about 2,300 BCE, the Gauls, aka the proto-Celts (Haplogroup R-P312), migrated west across the Rhein River Valley and settled in Gaul (France). They are the forefathers of all Gaelic peoples. They spoke the proto-Celtic language. Their descendants split into at least six individual branches, migrating to Gallaecia on the Iberian Peninsula, over the Alps into northern Italy, up the Jutland Peninsula and across the Baltic Sea to Scandinavia, and from Calais to Britain and across the Irish Sea to Ireland.

3. The Atlantic Celts [R-L21]

The Atlantic Celts have been described as the quintessential Gaelic paternal lineage. In about 2,100 BCE, they crossed the English Channel to settle in England, Wales, and then Ireland. Coincidently, the Bronze Age began in Ireland about 2,100 BCE. Is this possibly because these Celts took Bronze Age technology to the distant corners of Europe?

Originally, all the descendants of R-L21 spoke p-Celt/ Brittonic; as L21 spread their native Brittonic language throughout the British Isles. At the time,  L21 was the dominant ethnicity and Brittonic was the common language in Britain and Ireland. A thousand plus years later, the Gaels (R-DF27) brought q-Celt/ Gaelic to Ireland. And their descendants, the Scoti took q-Celt/ Gaelic to Scotland.

Today, most people of Ireland and Britain carry Atlantic Celt (R-L21) genes. And, the Welsh Celts speak p-Celt/ Brittonic/ Welsh, a remnant of the original Brittonic language. The Irish and Scot Celts also carry Atlantic Celt (R-L21) genes; but, they speak q-Celt/ Goidelic/ Gaelic. 

4. The Gascon-Iberian Celts, the Celtici & the Gaels [R-DF27]

a. The Gascon-Iberian Celts migrated southwest to the Iberian Peninsula in about 2,250 BCE. Their migration route took them through Gascony/ Pyrenees-Atlantiques (France). Perhaps, some settled there. They left their DNA, their blood type, and their technology; but not their language amongst the Basque peoples.

b. The Iberian Celts, aka the Celtici, continued their migration southwest into the Douro Valley and then south to the region of Beira Alta and its capitol Guarda in what is now Portugal. Here, the Lusitanians settled. They spoke proto-Celtic Lusitanian, a q-Celt/ Goidelic language.

c. The Gaelic Celts, aka the Gaels, continued their migration, this time north to the northwest coast of the Iberian Peninsula and the regions of Gallaecia and Asturias in what is now Spain. They spoke q-Celt/ Goidelic/ Gaelic.

In his work, "Geography", the classical geographer Strabo suggests a change had occurred in the use of the name "Lusitanian". He mentions a group who had once been called "Lusitanians" living north of the Douro river but were called in his day "Callacans".

    "Lusitania" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lusitania> 13 August 2015.

5. The Castro Culture.

The Castro (Castle) Culture is the name applied to the Celts and their society along the Atlantic-Gallaecian Coast of the northwestern Iberian Peninsula from the Atlantic Bronze Age (c. 1,300 BCE) to the Roman occupation (c. 100 BCE) where our forefathers lived in hill forts and oppida, their fortified hamlets.

Historically, we have looked at the Celts as an ethnic group with an intrinsic culture. And in pre-Roman France, Belgium and Germany, they were as attested by Julius Caesar in his Commentarii de Bello Gallico. Let us leave Celtic Gaul, Belgica, and Germanica aside. Throughout the rest of Iron Age Europe, there was a different story.

There are many discussions which describe the elusive Celts of the Atlantic Fringe (as differentiated from the Celts of Gaul, Belgica, and Germanica) not as an ethnic group but as a social elite who brought art, weapons, technology, and trade wherever they went. But, there was a tradeoff: Our Celtic forefathers fed off the land and produce of others.

The Gaels were a society of elites, a military aristocracy, whose wealth came from tithes paid by the indigenous peoples. They lived in fortified farmsteads surrounded by their "bands" of fellow invaders who were bent on plundering the countryside. And all the while, they were fervently distributing their DNA and blood type amongst the females of the indigenous population.

6. The Myth of the Milesians

Our people are the Milesians of Irish Mythology. The story of the Milesians is a created myth found in Lebor Gabála Érenn (The Book of the Taking of Ireland), a medieval pseudo-history written by Irish Monks which dates from about 1,100 CE. This wondrous work of imagination, history and geography does an amazing job linking the prehistoric Irish race to the Old Testament of the Bible from Adam to the time of the Israelites in Egypt. And along the way, it explains the invasion of Ireland by a new people with new technology and how they came to be the Over-Kings, the elitist military aristocracy of Ireland.

According to Irish mythology, the Milesians traveled the known world in the style of Odysseus, sojourning in many locations over hundreds of years. The Milesians were the people of the city of Miletus, an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia. Reportedly, Miletus was settled by Cretans during the Minoan Period and continued to thrive during the Mycenaean Period.

Miletus would have a second incarnation as an Ionian Greek city. But, we want to focus on the destruction of Miletus in the 12th century BCE. Anthropologists have written about the Bronze Age Collapse where many civilizations of the eastern Mediterranean simply ceased to exist. And the destruction and subsequent abandonment of Miletus was a contemporaneous event.

The myth states that the Milesians sailed from the Greek city of Miletus on the coast of Anatolia south and sojourned in Egypt during the time of the Israelites (c. 1,250 to 1,150 BCE). Departing Egypt, they sailed north to Scythia on the Black Sea where they sojourned for hundreds of years. From Scythia, the Milesians began their epic journey west, passing through the Pillars of Hercules, and landing on the Atlantic Shore of the Iberian Peninsula.

From antiquity, the Greeks and the Phoenicians traded in the Mare Internum. And, both the Greeks and the Carthaginians (heirs of the Phoenicians) sailed beyond the Pillars of Hercules into the Mare Gallaecum. And thus, our Celtic ancestors of Iberia would have know of the Emerald Isle just over the northern horizon.

"Cassiterides" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassiterides> 16 August 2015.

The myth tells how the Milesian King Breogan built a tower in Brigantium in Gallaecia from which his son Ith spied the green Isle of Ireland. The sons of Mile Espaine and the sons of Ith sailed to Ireland where they defeated the three over-kings and divided Ireland amongst themselves.

According to Irish history/ mythology, the Milesians invaded Ireland c. 1,000 BCE. Launching from the Celtic Promontory (Promunturium Celticum), our people came down to the shore of the Mare Gallaecum with their where-with-all and put their families and probably livestock in the boats. They eventually worked their way up the coast in their flotilla of currachs and coracles, probably landing in Armorica (Brittany, France). From Armorica, they crossed the Celtic Sea to Ireland where they became the Over-Kings of Ireland.

In the Lebor Gabála Érenn, a medieval Christian pseudo-history of Ireland, the Milesians are the Gaels who came from Iberia and settled in Ireland. They represent the Irish people. They are named after the character Míl Espáine, which is the Irish form of the Latin Miles Hispaniae ("Soldier of Hispania").

    "Milesians (Irish)" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milesians_(Irish)> 17 July 2015.

Those who do not wish to be associated with a mythological people may choose to disavow descent from the Milesians. However, we are still the descendants of the Gascon-Iberian Celts who migrated to Iberia then Ireland and then Scotland and Wales. I, for one, choose to be a son of the Milesians.

The Book of Invasions ends with the Milesians, or Sons of Míl Espáine, the first Gaelic speakers and probably the earliest “Celtic” people.  They are thought to have brought iron to Ireland, representing the beginning of the Iron Age.  During their invasion, the wives of the Irish High Kings, and matron Goddesses of Ireland, Banba, Fodla and Ériu, asked that the new land be named in their honour.  The name Éire remains a poetic name for Ireland today.  The Tuatha Dé Danann were exiled underground, where they represent the sidhe, or faery folk, of Ireland.

    "The Celtic Journey," <https://thecelticjourney.wordpress.com/tag/milesians/> 17 July 2015.

 

IV. Kingdoms of the British Isles (6th to 9th c. CE)

1. Ireland

AilechUí Néill, Ulster	Grianán Ailigh	Kingdom	450 – 1283 AD
Airgíalla Ulster	Clogher	Tribal Federation/ Kingdom	331 – 1590 AD
Kingdom of Breifne Ulster	Croghan	Kingdom	700 – 1256 AD
Connacht		Tribal chiefdom/ kingdom	c. 10th century BC – 1474 AD
Leinster		Kingdom	436 – 1632 AD
Meath	Dublin	Kingdom	1st century – 1173 AD
Osraige	Kilkenny	Kingdom	150 – 1185 AD
Tyrconnell Donegal, Ulster	Dun na nGall	Kingdom	464 – 1607 AD
Uí Failghe Kings Co, Leinster	Rathangan, Daingean	Kingdom	507 – 1550 AD
Ulaid, Ulster		Kingdom	465 – 1177 AD
"Kingdom of Meath" <https://en.wikipedia.org> 9 August 2015

 

2. Wales (Gaelic invaders/ settlers in Wales)

Ceredigion		Kingdom	475 – 680 AD
Dyfed - Gaelic		Kingdom	410 – 910 AD
Brycheiniog - Gaelic	Talgarth	Kingdom	450 – 1045 AD
Glywysing, Glamorgan	Cardiff	Kingdom	490 – 1063 AD
Gwent	Caerwent, Porth-is-Coed	Kingdom	420 – 1081 AD
Gwynedd - Gaelic	Various	Kingdom	420 – 1261 AD
Powys	Various	Kingdom	488 – 1160 AD
"Wales in the Middle Ages" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/> 9 August 2015

 

3. Scotland

Cai Pictland		Tribal kingdom	25 – 871 AD
Ce Pictland		Tribal kingdom	1st century – 900 AD
Dál Riata	Dunadd	Kingdom	501 – 878 AD
Fortriu Pictland		Tribal kingdom	1 – 850 AD
Kingdom of the Isles Hebrides		Kingdom	848 – 1266 AD
Pictland		Kingdom	250 BC – 850 AD
Scotland	Stirling, Edinburgh	Kingdom	843 – 1707 AD
"Kingdom of Cat" <https://en.wikipedia.org/> 9 August 2015		"Map of Scotland Counties" <http://maproom.net/> 9 August 2015

 

4. England

Bernicia now Northumbria	Bamburgh	Kingdom	420 – 634 AD
Deira now Northumbria	York	Kingdom	559 – 664 AD
Dumnonia (West Wales) Cornwall	Isca Dumnoniorum	Dukedom/ principality	290 – 875 AD
Kingdom of East Anglia	Rendlesham, Dommoc	Kingdom	6th C – 918 AD
Gododdin now Northumbria		Kingdom	5th – 8th century AD
Haestingas now Sussex	Hastings	Tribal kingdom	6th century – 771 AD
Kent	Durovernum	Kingdom	455 – 871 AD
Lindsey now Northumbria	Lindum	Kingdom/Client	410 – 775 AD
Mercia	Tamworth	Kingdom	527 – 918 AD
Kingdom of Northumbria	Bamburgh	Kingdom	653 – 954 AD
Rheged now Strathclyde		Kingdom	550 – 650 AD
Strathclyde	Dumbarton, Govan	Kingdom	450 – 1093 AD
Sussex	Selsey	Kingdom	477 – 860 AD
Wessex	Winchester	Kingdom	519 – 1018 AD
"Kingdom of East Anglia" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/> 9 August 2015.

        V. The Milesians: A History of the Gascon-Iberian Celts

1. Evolution of Haplogroup R1b1a2a1a2a/ R-DF27

In the last decade, great strides have been made identifying new SNPs down the human genome. And, anthropologists have been able to match these mutations to specific places on the timeline of human history. With this information, we can affix our forefathers to specific times and places in the migration of modern man.

Back when, anthropologists investigated whether R1b1a1a2 [M269], who emerged during the Neolithic Period, was connected to Cro-Magnon Man and the cave paintings of the refugium in southern France. Subsequently, M269 could have been the group who followed the retreating ice shield north across the land bridge to Britain and Ireland. With new information gained more recently, those possibilities have been put to rest.

[I]n articles published around 2000 it was proposed that this clade [M269] had been in Europe before the last Ice Age. But by 2010, more recent periods such as the European Neolithic have become the focus of proposals. A range of newer estimates for R1b1b2, [now R1b1a1a2] or at least its dominant parts in Europe, are from 4,000 to a maximum of about 10,000 years ago, and looking in more detail is seen as suggesting a migration from Western Asia via southeastern Europe.

    "Haplogroup R1b" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_R1b> 25 July 2015.

The yDNA sequence for our Lewis family has been traced down to DF27. The evolution of SNP DF27 is cited by the International Society of Genetic Genealogy [ISOGG]. And, DF27 has acquired the moniker the Gascon-Iberian Celts.

2. When and where and how the ancestors of the proto-Celts lived

When humans first ventured out of Africa some 60,000 years ago, they left genetic footprints still visible today. By mapping the appearance and frequency of genetic markers in modern peoples, we create a picture of when and where ancient humans moved around the world. These great migrations eventually led the descendants of a small group of Africans to occupy even the farthest reaches of the Earth.

    "The Human Journey," National Geographic Genographic Project <https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/human-journey/> 12 July 2015.

a. The evolution of Haplogroup R has been well cited:
-R [M207] emerged from K at Point PQR near the Aral Sea.
-R1 [M173] emerged on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea.
-R1b [M343] emerged south of the Caspian Sea in Persia.
-R1b1 [L278] emerged in the Tigris River Valley. They and R1b1a [L754] and R1b1a1 [L388] survived the Younger Dryas stadial (the Big Freeze) at the end of the last Ice Age in the Tigris River Valley, enjoying their own version of the the Ice Age regugium.
-R1b1a1a [P297] migrated north through the Caucasus Mtns.
-Then, we encounter the emergence of the proto-Indo-European language.

b. We locate M269 beginning in about 4,900 BCE living on the Pontic-Caspian Steppe north of the Black Sea during the Late Neolithic Period. Pre 4,000 BCE, this location is believed to be the Urheimat (ancient homeland) of the proto-Indo-European language. M269 is believed to be the forefathers of the Kurgan culture.

Modern linguists have placed the Proto-Indo-European homeland in the Pontic-Caspian Steppe, a distinct geographic and archeological region extending from the Danube estuary to the Ural mountains to the east and North Caucasus to the south. The Neolithic, Eneolithic and early Bronze Age cultures in Pontic-Caspian steppe has been called the Kurgan culture ( 4200-2200 BCE). . . 

    "Haplogroup R1b" <http://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_R1b_Y-DNA.shtml> 26 July 2015.

Horses were first domesticated around 4600 BCE in the Caspian Steppe, perhaps somewhere around the Don or the lower Volga, and soon became a defining element of steppe culture. . .

This might have happened with the appearance of the Dnieper-Donets culture (c. 5100-4300 BCE). This was the first truly Neolithic society in the Pontic-Caspian Steppe. Domesticated animals (cattle, sheep and goats) were herded throughout the steppes and funeral rituals were elaborate. Sheep wool would play an important role in Indo-European society, notably in the Celtic and Germanic (R1b branches of the Indo-Europeans) clothing traditions up to this day. . . Towards the end of the 5th millennium, an elite starts to develop with cattle, horses and copper used as status symbols.

    "Haplogroup R1b" <http://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_R1b_Y-DNA.shtml> 26 July 2015.

c. We locate L23 from about 4,200 to 2,800 BCE migrating west, and then south around the Black Sea, and then west again up the Danube Valley. And as people still do today, they headed up the valley. This was the Copper/ Bronze Age. By 4,000 BCE, L23 spoke a language of the Northwest branch of the Indo-European language.

Another migration across the Caucasus happened shortly before 3700 BCE, when the Maykop culture the world's first Bronze Age society, suddenly materialized in the north-west Caucasus, apparently out of nowhere. The origins of Maykop are still uncertain, but archeologists have linked it to contemporary Chalcolithic cultures in Assyria and western Iran. Archeology also shows a clear diffusion of bronze working and kurgan-type burials from the Maykop culture to the Pontic Steppe, where the Yamna culture developed soon afterwards (from 3500 BCE). Kurgan (a.k.a. tumulus) burials would become a dominant feature of ancient Indo-European societies and were widely used by the Celts, Romans, Germanic tribes, and Scythians, among others.

    "Haplogroup R1b" <http://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_R1b_Y-DNA.shtml> 26 July 2015.

d. We locate L51 from about 2,800 to 2,500 BCE. They migrated up the Danube River Valley to the vicinity of the Hungarian Plain and the Austrian Alps. This was the early Bronze Age where they developed new technologies. Here, they continued to speak a language of the Northwest branch of the Indo-European language.

Anthropologists have suggested that the peoples of L51 were the factors of the Hallstatt Culture of Austria. Perhaps their descendants were. But this ethnic group passed through Austria almost 2,000 years before the estimated time of the Hallstatt Culture.

The Yamna period (3500-2500 BCE) is the most important one in the creation of Indo-European culture and society. Middle Eastern R1b people had been living and blending to some extent with the local R1a foragers and herders for over a millennium, perhaps even two or three. The close cultural contact and interactions between R1a and R1b people all over the Pontic-Caspian Steppe resulted in the creation of a common vernacular, a new lingua franca, which linguists have called Proto-Indo-European (PIE). It is pointless to try to assign another region of origin to the PIE language. Linguistic similarities exist between PIE and Caucasian and Hurrian languages in the Middle East on the one hand, and Uralic languages in the Volga-Ural region on the other hand, which makes the Pontic Steppe the perfect intermediary region.

During the Yamna period cattle and sheep herders adopted wagons to transport their food and tents, which allowed them to move deeper into the steppe, giving rise to a new mobile lifestyle that would eventually lead to the great Indo-European migrations. This type of mass migration in which whole tribes moved with the help of wagons was still common in Gaul at the time of Julius Caesar, and among Germanic peoples in the late Antiquity.

    "Haplogroup R1b" <http://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_R1b_Y-DNA.shtml> 26 July 2015.

e. We locate L11 from about 2,500 BCE. They migrated north and settled in the Black Forest from the headwaters of the Danube River (vic Regensburg) west toward Freiberg in what is now southern Germany. By 2,380 BCE, they spoke the Celt-Italic language which split from the Northwest branch of the Indo-European language.

At this point there was a major split in not only the subclades of L11 but also in culture and language. Whether or not L11 was part of the the Hallstatt Culture of Bronze Age Austria, the descendants of L11 possessed some Hallstatt influence and Bronze Age technology. From southern Germany and Gaul, we took these skills and new branches of the Indo-European language to dispersed locations in western Europe.

U106, descendants of L11, spoke proto-German. They migrated north to Saxony in Germany, the Netherlands, and across the Baltic Sea to Scandinavia.

f. We locate P312 from about 2,300 BCE. The Gauls, aka the proto-Celts, migrated west across the Rhein River Valley and settled in Gaul (France). They are the forefathers of all Gaelic peoples. They spoke the proto-Celtic language which had just split from Celt-Italic. Their descendants split into at least six individual branches, migrating to Gallaecia on the Iberian Peninsula, over the Alps into northern Italy, up the Jutland Peninsula and across the Baltic Sea to Scandinavia, and from Calais to Britain and across the Irish Sea to Ireland.

3. The Gascon-Iberian Celts, the Celtici & the Gaels [DF27]

a. The Gascon-Iberian Celts migrated southwest to the Iberian Peninsula in about 2,250 BCE. Their migration route took them through Gascony/ Pyrenees-Atlantiques (France). Perhaps, some settled there. They left their DNA, their blood type, and their technology; but not their language amongst the Basque peoples.

The Bronze Age did not appear in Iberia until 1800 BCE, and was mostly confined to the cultures of El Argar and Los Millares in south-east Spain, with sporadic sites showing up in Castile by 1700 BCE and in Extremadura and southern Portugal by 1500 BCE. These Early Bronze Age sites typically did not have more than some bronze daggers or axes and cannot be considered proper Bronze Age societies, but rather Copper Age societies with occasional bronze artefacts (perhaps imported). These cultures might have been founded by small groups of R1b adventurers looking for easy conquests in parts of Europe that did not yet have bronze weapons. They would have become a small ruling elite, would have had children with local women, and within a few generations their Indo-European language would have been lost, absorbed by the indigenous languages.

    "Haplogroup R1b" <http://www.eupedia.com> 26 July 2015.

b. The Iberian-Gaelic Celts, aka the Celtici, continued their migration southwest into the Douro Valley and then south to the region of Beira Alta and its capitol Guarda in what is now Portugal. Here, the Lusitanians settled. They spoke proto-Celtic Lusitanian, a Celtic language of the Indo-European language family.

The Celtici (in Portuguese, Spanish, and Galician Célticos) were a Celtic tribe or group of tribes of the Iberian peninsula, inhabiting three definite areas: [a] in what today are the regions of Alentejo and the Algarve Portugal; [b] in the Province of Badajoz and north of the Province of Huelva Spain, in the ancient Baeturia; [c] and along the coastal areas of Galici. . .

The Celtici were not considered a barbarian people. On the contrary, they were what the Greeks considered a civilized people, almost in the same degree as the Turdetani. . .

The origin of the Baeturian Celts was, according to Pliny, from the Celtici of Lusitania and were also kin to the Gallaeci:

The Celtici from Guadiana had blood links with the Galician Celts, since there had been large-scale migration to the northwest of these Celts along with the Turduli (Str., 3, 3, 5)...

[Pliny considers the Celtici who extend into Baetica] to have migrated from Lusitania which he appears to regard as the original seat of the whole Celtic population of the Iberian peninsula including the Celtiberians, on the ground of an identity of sacred rites, language, and names of cities.

These migratory patterns have persisted on the same axis until modern times, supporting a centuries old traditional and seasonal farming and animal husbandry transhumance along the ancient Roman or Carthaginian Silver road that served for its rich mines production transport, and for the Astorga region peddlars and wagoneers, the Maragatos. . . .

    "Celtici" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtici> 13 August 2015.

c. The Gaelic Celts, aka the Gaels, continued their migration, this time north to the northwest coast of the Iberian Peninsula and the regions of Gallaecia and Asturias in what is now Spain. They spoke q-Celt/ Goidelic/ Gaelic.

In his work, "Geography", the classical geographer Strabo suggests a change had occurred in the use of the name "Lusitanian". He mentions a group who had once been called "Lusitanians" living north of the Douro river but were called in his day "Callacans".

    "Lusitania" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lusitania> 13 August 2015.

In the North, in Gallaecia, another group of Celtici dwelt the coastal areas. They comprised several populi, including the Celtici proper: [a] the Praestamarci south of the Tambre river (Tamaris), [b] the Supertamarci north of it, [c] and the Neri by the Celtic promontory (Promunturium Celticum) [vic. Foz, Spain], whom Strabo considered related to the Celtici of Lusitania, settled in Gallaecia after a military campaign held jointly with the Turduli.

Pomponius Mela affirmed that all the inhabitants of the coastal regions, from the bays of southern Gallaecia and up to the Astures, were also Celtici:

"All (this coast) is inhabited by the Celtici, except from the Douro river to the bays, where the Grovi dwelt… In the north coast first there are the Artabri, still of the Celtic people (Celticae gentis ) and after them the Astures."

He also mentioned the fabulous isles of tin, the Cassiterides, as situated among these Celtici.

    "Celtici" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtici> 13 August 2015.

Research Note: Translated from the Greek, the Tin Isles are the mythical land of resources--tin, gold, amber--beyond the Pillars of Hercules in the Mare Gallaecum.

"Cassiterides" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassiterides> 16 August 2015.

To state that the Cassiterides were "situated among these Celtici" is not necessarily a stretch. The mythology states that our Celtic ancestors, the Milesians, invaded Hibernia (Ireland) sometime after 1,000 BCE. This gives history 500 plus years to catch up to the fact that our Celtic ancestors accessed those resources and traded them throughout the Atlantic Fringe. Although not geographically close, the Tin Isles were within the sphere of the Celtici before contact with the Greeks.

Of course, this research could lead to a never ending hunt for additional information about the Tin Isles of Herodotus (c. 430 BC) and Pytheas of Massalia (c. 320 BCE).

We measure mankind's progress toward our modern world and divide his achievements into periods by his manufacture and use of tools and the development of technology.

Iberia did not become a fully-fledged Bronze Age society until the 13th century BCE, when the Urnfield culture (1300-1200 BCE) expanded from Germany to Catalonia via southern France, then the ensuing Hallstatt culture (1200-750 BCE) spread throughout most of the peninsula (especially the western half). This period belongs to the wider Atlantic Bronze Age (1300-700 BCE), when Iberia was connected to the rest of Western Europe through a complex trade network. . .

The Atlantic Bronze Age could correspond to the period when DF27 radiated more evenly around Iberia and ended up, following Atlantic trade routes, all the way to the British Isles, the Netherlands and western Norway (where M153 and SRY2728 make up about 1% of the population).

    "Haplogroup R1b" <http://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_R1b_Y-DNA.shtml> 26 July 2015.

The descendants of DF27 (post 1,000 BCE) who remained in Iberia spoke Gallaecian. Their cousins, the Celtiberians of eastern Spain, arrived later and spoke, not a different dialect, but a different q-Celt language.

Further reading:
-"Milesians, the Myth" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milesians_(Irish)> 17 July 2015.
-"The Story of the Irish Race" <http://homepage.eircom.net/~kthomas/history.htm> 17 July 2015.

4. The Castro Culture

Historically, we have looked at the Celts as an ethnic group with an intrinsic culture. And in pre-Roman France, Belgium and Germany, they were; as attested by Julius Caesar in his Commentarii de Bello Gallico. Let us leave Celtic Gaul, Belgica, and Germanica aside. Throughout the rest of Iron Age Europe, there was a different story.

There are many discussions which describe the elusive Celts of the Atlantic Fringe (as differentiated from the Celts of Gaul, Belgica, and Germanica) not as an ethnic group but as a social elite who brought art, weapons, technology, and trade wherever they went. But there was a tradeoff. Our Celtic forefathers fed off the land and produce of others.

The Galatians [of Anatolia] were in their origin a part of the great Celtic migration which invaded Macedon. . .[T]he migration led to the establishment of a long-lived Celtic territory in central Anatolia, which included the eastern part of ancient Phrygia, a territory that became known as Galatia. There they ultimately settled. . .[and] supported themselves by plundering neighbouring countries. . .The local population of Cappadocians were left in control of the towns and most of the land, paying tithes to their new overlords, who formed a military aristocracy and kept aloof in fortified farmsteads, surrounded by their bands.

    "Galatia" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galatia> 27 July 2015.

Research Note: Why did Alexander the Great of Macedon and Helen of Troy have red hair? They were the descendants of the Celtic invaders of Macedon and Anatolia.

So, our Celtic forefathers were a society of elites, a military aristocracy, whose wealth came from tithes paid by the indigenous peoples. They lived in fortified farmsteads surrounded by their "bands" of fellow invaders who were bent on plundering the countryside. And, all the while they were fervently distributing their DNA and blood type amongst the females of the indigenous population. This description also rings true of the Normans of Medieval Britain. Therefore, could we describe these "fortified farmsteads" as hill-forts or castles?

The Castro (Castle) Culture is the name applied to the Celts and their society along the Atlantic-Gallaecum Coast of the northwestern Iberian Peninsula from the Atlantic Bronze Age (c. 1,300 BCE) to the Roman occupation (c. 100 BCE) where our forefathers lived in hill forts and oppida, their fortified hamlets.

Hill forts were built on prominent geographic features to provide a naturally strong defensive position from which the elites, the military aristocracy, could project their power over the indigenous population. And, the remains of hill forts are common in the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula. More modern research has shifted the focus from the mechanisms of defenses to the functionality of the hill fort. The current concept is that the hill fort was not just a defensive position but a functional community unto itself. Of note, a Spanish term for the larger hill fort is cidás which is Spanish for city.

Oppidum is a Latin word meaning the main settlement. . . They were important economic sites, places where goods were produced, stored and traded, where sometimes Roman merchants had settled and where the Roman legions could obtain supplies. They were also political centres, the seat of authorities taking decisions that affected large numbers of people. . . 

The main features of the oppida are the walls and gates, the spacious layout, and usually a commanding view of the surrounding area. The major difference with earlier structures was their much larger size.

    "Opiddum" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppidum> 30 July 2015.

Whereas the earliest hill forts were just defensive positions, the oppida was an open space inside a defensible position with well defined avenues and structures from which the elitist military aristocracy projected their wealth and power. And, our Celtic forefathers, who dominated the indigenous populations of the Iberian Peninsula from their hill forts, took their elitist, military aristocracy to Ireland and later Scotland where they set up the exact same system which existed over the millennia until the unification of Great Britain in the early modern age. Yes, the subsequent Norman invaders of Britain and Ireland built their own version of castles when they were the elitist, military aristocracy. But, who built the castles of Ireland, Scotland and Wales before the coming of the Normans.

5. The Myth of the Milesians

Our people are the Milesians of Irish Mythology. The story of the Milesians is a created myth found in Lebor Gabála Érenn (The Book of the Taking of Ireland), a medieval pseudo-history written by Irish Monks which dates from about 1,100 CE. This wondrous work of imagination, history and geography does an amazing job linking the prehistoric Irish race to the Old Testament of the Bible from Adam to the time of the Israelites in Egypt. And along the way, it explains the invasion of Ireland by a new people with new technology and how they came to be the Over-Kings, the elitist, military aristocracy of Ireland.

According to Irish mythology, the Milesians traveled the known world in the style of Odysseus, sojourning in many locations over hundreds of years. The Milesians were the people of Miletus, an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia. Reportedly, Miletus was settled by Cretans during the Minoan Period and continued to thrive during the Mycenaean Period. Miletus would have a second incarnation as an Ionian Greek city. But, we want to focus on the destruction of Miletus in the 12th century BCE.

Anthropologists have written about the Bronze Age collapse where many civilizations of the eastern Mediterranean simply ceased to exist. And the destruction and subsequent abandonment of Miletus was a contemporaneous event.

The fact that several civilizations collapsed around 1175 BCE, has led suggestion that the Sea Peoples may have been involved in the end of the Hittite, Mycenaean, and Mitanni kingdoms. The American Hittitologist Gary Beckman writes, on page 23 of Akkadica 120 (2000):

A terminus ante quem for the destruction of the Hittite empire has been recognised in an inscription carved at Medinet Habu in Egypt in the eighth year of Ramesses III (1175 BCE). This text narrates a contemporary great movement of peoples in the eastern Mediterranean, as a result of which "the lands were removed and scattered to the fray. No land could stand before their arms, from Hatti, Kode, Carchemish, Arzawa, Alashiya, on being cut off. [ie: cut down]"

    "Sea Peoples" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Peoples> 5 August 2015.

The myth states that the Milesians sailed from the Greek city of Miletus on the coast of Anatolia south and sojourned in Egypt during the time of the Israelites (c. 1,250 to 1,150 BCE). Departing Egypt, they sailed north to Scythia on the Black Sea where they sojourned for hundreds of years. From Scythia, the Milesians began their epic journey west, passing through the Pillars of Hercules, and landing on the Atlantic Shore of the Iberian Peninsula.

Research Note: The coracle is a small oval boat built by stretching a hide over a woven willow frame which is waterproofed with tar. These traditional Celtic boats are still in use today in Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. The use of coracles in pre-Roman Britain was attested to by Julius Caesar during his mid-First Century BCE invasion of that isle. But more importantly, the use of the exact same boats was also attested to by Caesar during his subsequent invasion of Iberia.

The currach is a traditional Celtic boat considerably larger than the coracle which is found today in Ireland, Scotland and Wales. It's not feasible that an entire ethnic race could traverse the Mediterranean Sea from Egypt to Spain in so small a vessel as the traditional Celtic coracle even though they had hundreds of years to make the voyage. However, if there is any truth to the myth of Milesians in Egypt, they would have been exposed to the Egyptian felucca which plies the waters of the Nile to this day. And, with that technology, the Milesians may have crafted a vessel which was the prototype of the larger Celtic currach of today. 

The myth tells how the Milesian King Breogan built a tower in Brigantium in Gallaecia from which his son Ith spied the green Isle of Ireland. The sons of Mile Espaine and the sons of Ith sailed to Ireland where they defeated the three over-kings and divided Ireland amongst themselves.

Anthropology, archaeology, and linguistic research indicate that the Milesians migrated c. 2,250 BCE from Gaul and settled in Gascony and Pyrenees-Atlantiques in modern France and Gallaecia and Asturias in modern Spain where they became a trading nation along the Atlantic coast. From the ports of Lapurdum in Gascony and Xixon in Asturias and Brigantium in Gallaecia, the Milesians sailed into the Mare Gallaecum and across the Celtic Sea to spread their Celtic language and culture and technology to the peoples of the Atlantic Fringe.

A number of authors have postulated that there still is a cultural continuum in Atlantic Europe, forming a cultural unit which has its roots in prehistoric times but remained until today mostly thanks to sea trade. Geographers also mention the influence of the natural environment in the construction of a similar cultural landscape along the western European coasts. . . 

Atlantic Europe is a cultural reality that stretches along the coastal fringe of Europe, from Norway to South-Central Portugal (roughly down to the Santarém area), and including Britain and Ireland. Bob Quinn in his documentary series Atlantean speculates that western European Celtic culture is actually an earlier, pre-Celtic, Atlantic culture that included Atlantic Europe and people of the Maghreb such as Berbers and that it continues today.

   "Atlantic Europe" < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Europe> 27 July 2015.

According to Irish history/ mythology, the Milesians invaded Ireland c. 1,000 BCE. Launching from the Celtic Promontory (Promunturium Celticum), our people came down to the shore of the Mare Gallaecum with their where-with-all and put their families and probably livestock in the boats. They eventually worked their way up the coast in their flotilla of currachs and coracles, most probably landing in Armorica (Brittany, France). From Armorica, they crossed the Celtic Sea to Ireland where they became the Over-Kings of Ireland. Having populated Ireland, their descendants, the Scoti, went on to populate Scotland and parts of Wales.

In the Lebor Gabála Érenn, a medieval Christian pseudo-history of Ireland, the Milesians are the Gaels who came from Iberia and settled in Ireland. They represent the Irish people. They are named after the character Míl Espáine, which is the Irish form of the Latin Miles Hispaniae ("Soldier of Hispania").

    "Milesians (Irish)" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milesians_(Irish)> 17 July 2015.

And, the bards sang of the Milesians over the many generations,

They came from a land beyond the sea,
And now o'er the western main
Set sail, in their good ships, gallantly,
From the sunny land of Spain.
'Oh, where's the Isle we've seen in dreams,
Our destin'd home or grave?'
Thus sung they as, by the morning's beams,
They swept the Atlantic wave.

And, lo, where afar o'er ocean shines
A sparkle of radiant green,
As though in that deep lay emerald mines,
Whose light through the wave was seen.
''Tis Innisfail—'tis Innisfail!'
Rings o'er the echoing sea;
While, bending to heav'n, the warriors hail
That home of the brave and free.

Then turn'd they unto the Eastern wave,
Where now their Day-God's eye
A look of such sunny omen gave
As lighted up sea and sky.
Nor frown was seen through sky or sea,
Nor tear o'er leaf or sod,
When first on their Isle of Destiny
Our great forefathers trod.

    "Moore's Melodies," Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland, 1900 <http://www.libraryireland.com/Atlas/Home.php> 12 July 2015.

Those who do not wish to be associated with a mythological people may choose to disavow descent from the Milesians. However, we are still the descendants of the Gascon-Iberian Celts who migrated to Iberia then Ireland and then Scotland and Wales. I, for one, choose to be a son of the Milesians.

6. Locating the Descendants of the Gascon-Iberian Celts: Genotype vs. Phenotype

Research Note: This is not a thesis, merely an observation.

There are descendants of the Gascon-Iberian Celts along the entire Atlantic Fringe from Scandinavia through the British Isles to the Iberian Peninsula. But, we are a hidden minority. So, how do we identify the Gascon-Iberian Celts in the modern world?

Interestingly, the descendants of DF27 are not highly represented in the population of modern Galicia from which the legends say they departed for Ireland. Instead, the highest population density with the yDNA markers for DF27 and the highest population density with blood type O and Rh negative is found in the Basque region of France north of the Pyrenees. Why? Before they left for Ireland, our Celtic ancestors left their DNA and blood type amongst the Basque peoples but not necessarily their language.

I am not the first person to identify certain (genotype) anomalies among the Basque people of France.
-They have the highest population density of Type O and Rh Neg in the world. And, Type A has a consistently high distribution in Western Europe.
    "Rh Blood Group System" <https://en.wikipedia.org/> 31 July 2015.
-They have the highest population density of yDNA marker DF27 in the world.

"Haplogroup R1b," Europedia GenWeb page <http://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_R1b_Y-DNA.shtml#DF27> 31 July 2015.

-The Basques live in an insular society even to this day.
    "History of the Basques" <https://en.wikipedia.org/> 31 July 2015.
-I am simply putting those observations together.

The argument is that there is a high propensity for phenotype X among population Y. This is due to the presence or absence of recessive genes.
-Some descendants of DF27 have a higher propensity for blue/ violet eyes.
-Some descendants of DF27 have blond/ red hair, freckles, and pale skin.
-The average folks of Wales have dark hair, frequently dark eyes, and a pale complexion.
-The average folks of western Ireland have dark hair, dark eyes, and a pale to olive complexion.
-The average folks of Basque France have dark hair, dark eyes, and an olive complexion.

My observation is that, the descendants of DF27 should have a significantly higher presence of Type O and A and Rh Neg blood. And many descendants of DF27 can be differentiated from the general population by the light eyed, blond/ red haired, freckled, pale skinned phenotype.

Scientifically, why is this important. It isn't. This is just an observation.
-The Scot/ Irish phenotype with a pale complexion, red-hair, and freckles make up 10% of the population of Ireland. I'd bet they are descendants of DF27.
-Therefore, descendants of DF27 in Ireland, Scotland and Wales should stick out like a "red-headed stepchild."

7. The Descendants of the Gascon-Iberian Celts (the Gaels) in Wales

One reason for the start of this investigation was to answer a few outstanding questions:

a. Why doesn't our Lewis yDNA test results match the typical test results from people in Wales?
-Family oral history states emphatically that we "was from Wales."
-yDNA results prove that our ancestors were Gascon-Iberian Celts, probably from pre-historic Gallaecia, who ex-migrated to Ireland.

b. Who were our Lewis ancestors who emigrated to Ireland?
-When the island of Britain--England and Wales--and subsequently the island of Ireland were populated c. 2,100 BCE, the settlers were the same ethnic group, the Atlantic Celts [L21], and they spoke the same Brythonic [p-Celtic] language.
-Sometime after 1,000 BCE, something changed the language of Ireland from Brythonic [p-Celt] to Gaelic [q-Celt]. Irish mythology states the something was the Milesian Invasion.
-And after the Roman evacuation in the 5th century CE, the Gaelic language was taken to Britain.

c. Who were the ethnic Irish who populated Scotland after the Roman evacuation?
-The Gaelic kingdoms of Scotland began in about 485 CE when ethnic Gaels from Ulster (now County Antrim, Ireland) put ashore on the Argyll Peninsula. There, they established the Gaelic Kingdom of Dál Riata which spanned from Antrim across the Irish Sea to Argyll. In Argyll, the Gaels, now Romanized to Scoti, competed with the Kingdom of Caledonia and the kingdoms of the Picts.
-In about 730 CE, the erstwhile Kingdom of Dál Riata was subsumed by the Kingdom of the Picts. But, the Gaelic legacy continued on through the ethnicity of the people and the Gaelic language which they spoke.
-In 900 CE, the Kingdom of Alba (Gaelic/ Pictish Scotland) grew from the disparate petty kingdoms of Gaels and Picts in Scotland. Even after the Norman Invasion, the Pictish-Gaels and Scoto-Normans preserved the kingdom until the Scottish Wars of Independence.

[c. 485] The Scotti of Irish Dál Riata begin to colonise Argyll at Cantyre [Kintyre]. Apparently, Drust [Over-king of the Picts] does nothing to stop them, and may not even know about them at first. He has to deal with pagan rebellions in the north, reason enough to be distracted from the west.

[573] Brudei hands the invading Dál Riatan Scotti a heavy defeat at Lora (or Delgu/Telocho), and lays waste to their territory in the west.

[603] Aedan mac Gabrán of Dál Riata invades the Anglian kingdom of Bernicia and attacks King Æthelfrith at the Battle of Degsastan. By fighting and defeating Dál Riata, Æthelfrith secures the alliance of Dál Riata's enemies, the southern Picts.

    "The Kingdom of Caledonia" <http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsBritain/GaelsPictland.htm> 9 August 2015.

Dál Riata was a Gaelic kingdom that included parts of western Scotland and northeastern Ulster Ireland, across the North Channel. In the late 6th–early 7th century it encompassed roughly what is now Argyll and Lochaber in Scotland and also County Antrim in Ulster. To its east and north was Pictland. . .

[Bede's account states that] Dál Riata was conquered by Irish Gaels led by a certain Reuda. Old Gaelic means "portion" or "share" and is usually followed by the name of an eponymous founder. Bede's tale may come from the same root as the Irish tales of Cairpre Riata and his brothers, the Síl Conairi (sons/descendants of Conaire Mór, Conaire Cóem). . .

The presence of Gaelic in Scotland was seen as the result of either a large-scale migration from Ireland, or a takeover by Irish Gaelic elites (like the Norman conquest of England). However, this theory is no longer universally accepted. In his academic paper Were the Scots Irish?, archeologist Dr Ewan Campbell says that there is no archeological or place-name evidence of a migration or takeover. This lack of archeological evidence was previously noted by Professor Leslie Alcock. Archeological evidence shows that Argyll was different from Ireland, before and after the supposed migration, but that it also formed part of the Irish Sea province with Ireland, being easily distinguished from the rest of Scotland. Campbell suggests that Argyll and Antrim formed a "maritime province", united by the sea and isolated from the rest of Scotland by the mountainous ridge called the Druim Alban. This allowed a shared language to be maintained through the centuries; Argyll remained Gaelic-speaking while the rest of Scotland became Brittonic speaking. . . 

Research Note: The original modern language of Britain and Ireland was Brittonic which was brought to those islands by the Atlantic Celts [L21]. Gaelic was brought to Ireland and later Britain by the Gaels [DF27] of Iberia. The Picts, who populated the Scottish Highlands, spoke Pictish which is believed to also be a Brittonic language.

The kingdom of Dál Riata reached its greatest extent in the reign of Áedán mac Gabráin. It is said that Áedán was consecrated as king by Columba. If true, this was one of the first such consecrations known. As noted, Columba brokered the alliance between Dál Riata and the Northern Uí Néill. This pact was successful, first in defeating Báetan mac Cairill, then in allowing Áedán to campaign widely against his neighbours, as far afield as Orkney and lands of the Maeatae, on the River Forth. Áedán appears to have been very successful in extending his power, until he faced the Bernician king Æthelfrith at Degsastan c. 603. . . for as late as the 730s, armies and fleets from Dál Riata fought alongside the Uí Néill. . .

Since it has been thought that Dál Riata swallowed Pictland to create the Kingdom of Alba, the later history of Dál Riata has tended to be seen as a prelude to future triumphs. The annals make it clear that the Cenél Gabraín lost any earlier monopoly of royal power in the late 7th century and in the 8th, when Cenél Loairn kings such as Ferchar Fota, his son Selbach, and grandsons Dúngal Muiredach are found contesting for the kingship of Dál Riata. The long period of instability in Dál Riata was only ended by the conquest of the kingdom by Óengus mac Fergusa, king of the Picts, in the 730s. After a third campaign by Óengus in 741, Dál Riata then disappears from the Irish records for a generation.

    "Dál Riata" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dal_Riata> 6 August 2015.

The Kingdom of Alba refers to the Kingdom of Scotland between the deaths of Donald II (Domnall mac Causantin) in 900, and of Alexander III in 1286 which then led indirectly to the Scottish Wars of Independence. The name is one of convenience, as throughout this period the elite and populace of the Kingdom were predominantly Pictish-Gaels or later Pictish-Gaels and Scoto-Norman, and differs markedly from the period of the Stuarts, in which the elite of the kingdom were (for the most part) speakers of Middle English, which later evolved and came to be called Lowland Scots.

    "Kingdom of Alba" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Alba> 6 August 2015.

d. Were there ethnic Irish communities in Wales?
-The following articles prove that much of Wales--Dyfed, Brycheiniog and Gwynedd--was occupied by Gaelic speaking Irish sometime between 150 and 1045 CE.

This era [the 6th century CE] was also marked by a Gaelic presence in Great Britain, in what is today Wales, the Déisi founded Dyfed and the Uí Liatháin founded Brycheiniog, to the north, the Dál Riata are held to have established a territory in Argyll and the Hebrides. The Romans called these Gaels "Scoti".

    "The Gaels" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaels> 2 August 2015.

1. The Kingdom of Dyfed (410 to 910 CE)

The Kingdom of Dyfed is one of several Welsh petty kingdoms that emerged in 5th-century post-Roman Britain in south-west Wales based on the former tribal lands of the Déisi from c 350 until it was subsumed into Deheubarth in 920. . .

In the latter days of the Roman Empire through to the early post-Roman period, the Déisi Muman peoples, a name which originates in Irish as meaning "vassal", migrated to the region between 350 and 400 AD. Their migration may have been with the support of Magnus Maximus, who contracted with them to become vassals and seafaring defenders of Britain from Wales to Cornwall, following standard Roman policies. Gaelic became, or remained, the predominant language of the region, as evidenced by twenty stones dated to this periode with Irish inscriptions. . .

Dyfed may have originally occupied the area that bordered the rivers Teifi [vic. Cardigan], Gwili, Tywi, and included contemporary Pembrokeshire, the western part of contemporary Carmarthenshire, and with the town of Carmarthen. Dyfed eventually comprised at least seven cantrefi: Cemais, Deugleddyf, Emlyn, Cantref Gwarthaf, Pebidlog, Penfro and Rhos, with an approximate area of about 2284 km². During times of strength, the kingdom expanded to additionally cover the Ystrad Tywi Valley of the [river] Tywi, including Cydweli Gwyr, and even bordered Brycheiniog. Dyfed lost the Ystrad Tywi region to Ceredigion, another petty kingdom, in the late 7th century. . .

Dyfed was subject to extensive raids during the Viking Age between the 8th and 11th centuries, causing social and political instability, and with the Vikings establishing settlements in southern Dyfed. By the latter part of the 9th century, the rulers of Dyfed had grown cautious of the influence of the sons of Rhodri the Great [King of Gwynedd], and sought out an alliance and the patronage of Alfred the Great of England. The precise nature of the relationship between King Alfred and the rulers in Wales remains unclear, whether a transitory alliance or a formal mediatization of the Welsh rulers to the king of England. . .

In about 904, Dyfed's ruler, Llywarch ap Hyfaidd, died, leaving his daughter Elen as his heiress. Elen was married to Hywel, ruler of neighbnoring Seisyllwg [Ceredigion,] and grandson of Rhodri the Great through his second son Cadell. Through his marriage to Elen, Hywel incorporated Dyfed into an enlarged realm to be known as Deheubarth, meaning the "south part", and later went on to conquer Powys and Gwynedd.

    "Kingdom of Dyfed," <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Dyfed> 2 August 2015.

2. The Kingdom of Brycheiniog (450 to 1045 CE)

The kingdom of Brycheiniog was probably founded by Irish raiders in the late fifth century. . .Traditionally, it was founded by (and named after) a Hiberno-Welsh prince named Brychan out of the old Welsh kingdom of Garth Madrun (believed to have been centered on Talgarth in the mid 5th century, though this event is shrouded in Legend. Brychan was a son of Anlach, an Irish settler who had peacefully taken control of the area by marrying Marchel, the heiress of Garth Madrun. . . 

In the 7th century, the inheritance of a woman, Ceindrych, brought the kingdom into the hands of Cloten of Dyfed and Brycheiniog. The union with Dyfed lasted for about a century, though parts of Brycheiniog may have been granted out as lordships for younger sons. The invasion of Seisyll of the Kingdom of Ceredigion in the mid 8th century separated the kingdoms. During the year 848 the men of Brycheiniog slew King Iudhail of Gwen.

In the 880s, King Elisedd of Brycheiniog was forced by the depredations of Anarawd of Gwynedd and the sons of Rhodri the Great to pledge homage to Alfred the Great and make his kingdom a vassal of Wessex. Such an alliance may well have been due to Viking pressure, for in the spring of 896 Brycheiniog, Gwent and Gwynllwg were devastated by the Norsemen who had wintered at Quatford near Bridgnorth that year. . . 

The land of Brycheiniog was conquered between 1070 and 1093. In 1070 William FitzOsbern, 1st Earl of Hereford invaded the kingdom and defeated three kings of South Wales, but no king of Brycheiniog. King Bleddyn of Brycheiniog, who was alleged to be ruling at the time of the Norman conquest and was said to have been defeated by Bernard de Neufmarché, appears in no historical source before the fifteenth century. . .In other words the Normans were already living there and the kingdom had already been destroyed. The kingdom was subsumed within the Lordship of Brecknock, ruled by Bernard's descendants.

    "Brycheiniog" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brycheiniog> 2 August 2015.

3. The Gaelic Kingdom of Gwynedd (150 to 470 CE)

As early as the 2nd century AD there may have been an Irish presence in the region as Ptolemy marks the Llyn Peninsula as the Promontory of the Gangani which is also a name he recorded in Ireland. In the late and post-Roman eras, Irish from Leinster are said to have arrived in Ynys Môn (Anglesey) and elsewhere in Northwest Wales, with the name derived from Laigin, or Leinster. The region became known as Venedotia in Latin. The name was initially attributed to a specific Irish colony on Môn, but broadened to refer to Irish settlers as a whole in north Wales by the 5th century. According to 9th century monk and chronicler Nennius, North Wales was left defenceless by the Roman withdrawal and subject to increasing raids by mauraders from Man and Ireland, a situation which led Cunedda, his sons and their entourage, to migrate in the mid-5th century [c. 450 CE] from Manaw Gododdin (Lothian, in modern Scotland) to settle and defend north Wales against the raiders and bring the region within Romano-British control. . .

Undoubtedly a Brythonic leader of substance established himself in north Wales, and he and his descendants defeated any remaining Irish Gaelic presence and incorporated the settlements into their domain and reoriented the whole of Gwynedd into a Romano-British and "Welsh" outlook. The Welsh of Gwynedd remained conscious of their Romano-British heritage and an affinity with Rome survived long after the Empire retreated from Britain, particularly with the use of Latin in writing and sustaining the Christian religion. . .

Other evidence support Nennius' claim of a leader who came to north Wales and brought the region a measure of stability, though an Irish Gaelic element remained until the mid-5th century.

    "Kingdom of Gwynedd" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Gwynedd> 9 August 2015.

Though Manaw Gododdin was located within the territory of modern Scotland, as a part of Yr Hen Ogledd (English: The Old North) it is also an intrinsic part of Welsh history, as both the Welsh and the Men of the North (Welsh: Gwyr y Gogledd) were self-perceived as a single people, collectively referred to as Cymry. The arrival in Wales of Cunedda of Manaw Gododdin in c. 450 is traditionally considered to be the beginning of the history of modern Wales.

    "Manaw Gododdin" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manaw_Gododdin> 9 August 2015.

4. The Wirral Peninsula (c. 893 to 1200)

Wirral or the Wirral peninsula in North West England. It is bounded to the west by the River Dee, Wales, forming a boundary with Wales, to the east by the River Mersey and to the north by the Irish Sea. . . 

Before the time of the Romans, Wirral was inhabited by a Celtic tribe, the Cornovii. Artefacts discovered in Meols suggest it was an important port from at least 500 BC. Traders came from Gaul and the Mediterranean seeking minerals from North Wales and Cheshire. There are also remains of a small Iron Age fort at Burton, which takes its name (burh-tún) from it.

    "Wirral Peninsula" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirral_Peninsula> 6 August 2015.

Deva Victrix (now Chester) on the River Dee was a major Roman fortress on the west of England. And from this port, the Romans sent expeditions to Ireland.  After the Roman withdrawal c. 410 CE, the Irish used the Roman facilities to disembark in England.

The first Viking raids in the west were on islands off the Irish coast in AD 795, two years after the famous raid on Lindisfarne (Northumberland). Semi-permanent settlement in Ireland began in the late 830s in fortified camps at Dublin and elsewhere on the major river systems and coastal havens. In England, Danes had reached York by 867. They over-wintered in Mercia (at Repton, Derbyshire), in 873–4, before heading north and east again. Repton is only 60km from Cheshire, yet our first “confirmed sighting” of Scandinavians on the Dee or Mersey occurs at the surprisingly late date of 893. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that a group of Danes occupied a “deserted city in Wirral which is called Chester”. These included remnants of a force under Hástein which had recently been defeated by Alfred on the banks of the river Severn at Buttington, Montgomeryshire. They were chased off into Wales the following year by the Mercians; this may have been the occasion for the refortification of the derelict Roman defences, although Chester was not recorded as an official fortified burh until 907.

We know rather more about another Viking incident. In 902 the Irish expelled the Vikings from their base at Dublin. This caused political upheavals on both sides of the Irish Sea, and Hiberno-Norse immigration into the Isle of Man and north-west England. . .

Place names also indicate that many of the Norsemen came to Wirral from Ireland, and brought Irish people with them. Prominent Irish names include Liscard (Old Irish lios na carraige, hall at the rock) and Noctorum (cnocc-tírim, hill that’s dry). Irby is from the Old Norse Ira-byr, meaning settlement of the Irish or settlement of Norsemen coming from Ireland. This Irish influence also helps explain the name Dingesmere, the site of the Battle of Brunanburh described in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle entry for AD 937.

    "Vikings!" British Archaeology <http://www.archaeologyuk.org/ba/ba103/feat1.shtml> 9 August 2015.

8. Conclusions

Through the appearance of individual markers on the human genome, our ancestor's path out of Africa, into southwest Asia, and back across to Western Europe has been proven. It's actually a simple process: a) match the locations of the donors to the SNP markers found b) play connect the dots. With the addition of dates from ancient archaeological periods and the evolution of the Indo-European language, we can approximate when and where our ancestors were on the timeline of human history.

Tracing the evolution of SNP DF27, we learn that we, the families who descend from the Lewis family of Virginia, carry the genes of the Milesians, the Celtic Invaders of Ireland post 1,000 BCE. Our Celtic cousins, L21, were some of the original settlers of Ireland c. 2,100 BCE. And, their DNA is the dominant strain in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Cornwall; not ours.

We are the interlopers who draped Ireland and Britain with an overlay of Celtic language, art, and culture before and after the Roman Invasion. We are the pirates and raiders as described in the Brythonic Welsh language. As early as the 5th-century in post-Roman Britain, our Gascon-Iberian Celt ancestors living in Ireland migrated to or invaded southwestern Wales, England east of the River Dee, and the Argyll Peninsula of Scotland. And those migrants/ invaders carried their yDNA markers for DF27 with them.

One of my Lewis cousins will happily refute my findings. Back when, DF27 was identified as "Italo-Celtic" on the Lewis Surname DNA Project. And, it still is today. My cousin's reasoning is literally from the name. He postulates that our family descends from a Roman soldier, from either Italy or Iberia, who was posted to Britannia and left behind his DNA. Of note, there were Roman soldiers who retired in Britain and lived the Roman lifestyle in their country villas.

The invasion force in AD 43 was led by Aulus Plautius, but it is unclear how many legions were sent. The Legio II Augusta, commanded by future emperor Vespasian, was the only one directly attested to have taken part. The IX Hispana, the XIV Gemina (later styled Martia Victrix) and the XX (later styled Valeria Victrix) are known to have served during the Boudican Revolt of 60/61, and were probably there since the initial invasion. However this is not certain because the Roman army was flexible, with units being moved around whenever necessary. The Legio IX Hispana may have been permanently stationed with records showing it at Eboracum (York) in 71 and on a building inscription there dated 108, before being destroyed in the east of the Empire, possibly during the Bar Kokhba revolt.

    "Roman Britain" <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Britain> 24 August 2015.

Were this a formal argument, I would have a rebuttal. But, I don't. In fact, my cousin may be right. And, it doesn't really matter. No matter what, we the descendants of R-DF27 can stand amongst the current peoples of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales and claim our Celtic heritage.