[Milesian]

Originally Posted by Awar

The only explanation for a faster mutation-rate would be ... more generations within a smaller time-frame...
I doubt that happened really.

It could be indicative of enviromental pressures being exerted on the population group. some reason causes mortality to rise, life expectancies to fall, reproduction occurs earlier to survive, a higher turnover of generations. It could be caused by famine, drought, disease, war, etc

Just a theory.

I just think R1b originated in Central Asia/Eastern Europe,
then spread into W.Europe where it got stuck due to the ice-age.

That would be interesting. That would propose a new model. Namely, that the first Western Europeans didn't enter the continent from North Africa or travel from the near east, but rather came from Central Asia.

As for R1b being clealry 'Celtic', I doubt that too...
The original Celts were from central Europe, where they could easily have been ANY of the hg's.

I dislike the comparison between something I see as primarly a cultural term on one hand, an specific genetics on the other. I generally don't regard the Celtic culture as being comprised of a single homogenous people, considering an area from the Atlantic to the Black Sea, the Mediterranian to the North Sea has been Celtic at some point.

It is undoubtedly Celtic in so far as it is overwhelmingly common in people with a Celtic culture today. Whether it was the sole Y-Chromosome marker in the people of the Northern Urnfield culture who went on to be known as the Celts is, as you say, questionable.

With W.Europe being a less turmoilous area than Central and Eastern Europe,
the natives of W.Europe could've easily adopted the Celtic languages and identities,
and continued to spread them further to the west, with no change to Y-lineages of the area.

That is one possibility. Personally though, I dislike the idea of static, stationery peoples who apparently don't migrate yet their culture spreads through entire continents with neighbouring peoples suddenly abandoning their own to embrace new foreign ones. I think it possibly happened to some degree, but not without population movement as well to some degree.

In the words of Dean R. Snow,professor of anthropology at the Pennsylvania State University, - "There are so many good examples of change associated with the migration of whole societies or dominant subsets of them, that any major change over time that can be observed archaeologically is likely to have involved migration in one of its many forms, however minor. We should be assuming population movement as a first principle rather than denying it."

As for no change in Y-Chromosome frequency, it could merely mean that the early Celts had same genetic marker frequencies as the people they spread out and encountered in the west.

If, for example, the populations situated on both sides of the English Channel had broadly similar Y chromosome haplotype frequencies immediately before the neolithic transition, it is perfectly possible in theory that a very substantial population movement could have taken place across the Channel without significantly changing the haplotype frequencies...............


..........As noted above, very significant gene flow could have occurred at that time without notable impact on haplotype frequencies if the donor and receptor populations were themselves not distinguishable in that respect. Such may well have been the case.

http://irish-nationalism.net/forum/s...58&postcount=4