SCI The Vikings left a lot more of their genetics in Ireland than previously thought

[Melodi]

I changed the headline because the one on this article didn't make sense but the basic information was much better than the other paper's headline "Norse Code" which was also confusing - Melodi

The native Irish population was in centuries of decline before the Vikings came along

Scientists from Queen’s University Belfast have analysed data from over 800 years


It's fair to say the Vikings brought trouble, but they also brought people. It's fair to say the Vikings brought trouble, but they also brought people.

Image: Rollingnews.ie
NEW RESEARCH HAS found that the population of Ireland was decline for 300 years before the Vikings came here.

Scientists from Queen’s University Belfast have analysed data from the years 400 to 1200 and found that human activity in Ireland varied greatly during the period.

The data comes from radiocarbon dating taken from archaeological objects found during the construction of motorways and other projects.

Published in the Journal of Agricultural Science, the research has formed along-term population model has been developed for Ireland and found that the arrival of Vikings came following three centuries of population decline.

This model challenges the previously held understanding that population in Ireland grew steadily until the Famine in the 1840s.

Speaking RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, one of the lead researchers Rowan McLaughlin of QUB’s School of Natural and Built Environment says the Irish population went into decline around the year 700 before the first Viking settlements came around the turn of the new millennium.

“What we do know is that the decline happened very gradually. It was a serious decline but it happened year-on-year and so there was no one cause. So it wasn’t like the potato famine or a catastrophic war or any one-off event,” he explains.

But rather there was a whole series of different things that worked in society that really reduced fertility rates and reduce the number of children that women were able to have and made society in general go into a kind of downturn that was gradual but nonetheless series and persistent.

McLaughlin outlines that Vikings built settlements and brought new technology to Ireland and that their population growth was both among themselves and with native people.

“When the native society was in recession, so to speak, the Vikings enabled a different kind of growth and steered society in a different society altogether,” he says.

There was definitely trouble with these new settlers but there was also a degree of cooperation. The Vikings were perhaps more successful than the native Irish in having children of their own but there’s also plenty of evidence to state that they intermarried with the native population and really caused quite a big splash over the next centuries.

Guarding against giving all the credit to Vikings, McLaughlin added the native Irish population was always “relatively healthy” and had survived other population declines previously.

He also noted that there are also Irish genes in Scandinavia due to the “dark history” of Irish slaves being brought back by Vikings.
https://www.thejournal.ie/vikings-ireland-4777237-Aug2019/

 

[texkat72]

What?! The Irish were slaves, too?! (sarc)

 

[night driver]

Ah, but one needs to see all of the round, Blue-eyed, light brown to sandy to blonde hair in the mountains of South Asia.

About the only good thing that ever derived from a mutiny.

There are some absolutely beautiful kids up to about 20 and then SLS* takes hold and by 35 they look an extremely hard-worn 70.


(*SLS==What Kieth Brown called "Shitty Life Syndrome")

 

[Melodi]

The Norse did keep Thralls (slaves) but they didn't need a whole lot of them so they tended to let them "earn" their Freedom in various ways especially in frontier areas like Iceland where one noble daughter whined at her Daddy "but you're marrying me to the son of a slave!" until she saw he was one of the most handsome men in Iceland (and rich too) and the slave's son bit was forgotten.

But there were also a lot of Irish, Scots and German artisans (Southern Europeans too, including Greeks) who migrated to Scandinavia or traded there from the Bronze Age on; and Nightwolf discovered jewelry made in Ireland and at the same time in Scandinavia that was either made by the same person or by one artisan and their students/apprentices.

The same thing happens in Ireland, Germany and probably Sweden (per a conversation with a Swedish Christian who I directed to various great ancient Christian sites in Ireland last week) when ONE, count them ONE "lost Leonardo" they call him probably made almost ALL the famous Celtic Stone Crosses probably assisted by a school of apprentices that kept it up for about 50 to 100 years in the same style.

Most of them (like the works in Leonardo's studio) show the cutting marks of ONE person (everyone carves a bit differently) at least a first with other hands (the students) filling in some of the details and simpler parts of the crosses.

The surprise in Irish archeology is that the Irish had a population crash for about 200 years before the Norse came over and that left a gap that the Norse could enter into; the Irish never really had cities before the Norse and they not only established Dublinia but the same "Celtic Tiger" excavations around 2008 found the largest Norse urban center ever found near Waterford.

The road construction people tried to convince the government to let them "pave it over" rather than move the freeway but instead they did have to move the road, sadly there is no money for excavations so a city larger even than Viking York in England remains there waiting for future archeologists to uncover from the farmer's field.

But the gradual population crash among the Native Irish BEFORE the Norse get it is really interesting, and you do have to wonder exactly what happened?

 

[Marthanoir]

What?! The Irish were slaves, too?! (sarc)

Nah just a myth according to the Left

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_slaves_myth

 

[dvo]

I changed the headline because the one on this article didn't make sense but the basic information was much better than the other paper's headline "Norse Code" which was also confusing - Melodi

The native Irish population was in centuries of decline before the Vikings came along

Scientists from Queen’s University Belfast have analysed data from over 800 years


It's fair to say the Vikings brought trouble, but they also brought people. It's fair to say the Vikings brought trouble, but they also brought people.

Image: Rollingnews.ie
NEW RESEARCH HAS found that the population of Ireland was decline for 300 years before the Vikings came here.

Scientists from Queen’s University Belfast have analysed data from the years 400 to 1200 and found that human activity in Ireland varied greatly during the period.

The data comes from radiocarbon dating taken from archaeological objects found during the construction of motorways and other projects.

Published in the Journal of Agricultural Science, the research has formed along-term population model has been developed for Ireland and found that the arrival of Vikings came following three centuries of population decline.

This model challenges the previously held understanding that population in Ireland grew steadily until the Famine in the 1840s.

Speaking RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, one of the lead researchers Rowan McLaughlin of QUB’s School of Natural and Built Environment says the Irish population went into decline around the year 700 before the first Viking settlements came around the turn of the new millennium.

“What we do know is that the decline happened very gradually. It was a serious decline but it happened year-on-year and so there was no one cause. So it wasn’t like the potato famine or a catastrophic war or any one-off event,” he explains.

But rather there was a whole series of different things that worked in society that really reduced fertility rates and reduce the number of children that women were able to have and made society in general go into a kind of downturn that was gradual but nonetheless series and persistent.

McLaughlin outlines that Vikings built settlements and brought new technology to Ireland and that their population growth was both among themselves and with native people.

“When the native society was in recession, so to speak, the Vikings enabled a different kind of growth and steered society in a different society altogether,” he says.

There was definitely trouble with these new settlers but there was also a degree of cooperation. The Vikings were perhaps more successful than the native Irish in having children of their own but there’s also plenty of evidence to state that they intermarried with the native population and really caused quite a big splash over the next centuries.

Guarding against giving all the credit to Vikings, McLaughlin added the native Irish population was always “relatively healthy” and had survived other population declines previously.

He also noted that there are also Irish genes in Scandinavia due to the “dark history” of Irish slaves being brought back by Vikings.
https://www.thejournal.ie/vikings-ireland-4777237-Aug2019/

A confirmation for me, of sorts. Did a DNA test along with my son. Came back that over 30% of my DNA had Scandinavian roots. Thought that was weird, as we know our family history back to about 1700 with certainty. No Scandinavian names there. But, my mom’s side was nearly all from Scotland and Ireland. Got confirmation from a cousin on my mom’s side too. We joked it was the Viking raiders. Perhaps so.

 

[Marthanoir]

The red hair that is associated with the Irish is supposedly a Viking trait not an Iberian Celt one.

 

[Plain Jane]

I am intrigued by that population decline. It may explain why Celtic Christian priests were permitted to marry long after Rome had stopped it.

 

[Melodi]

Nightwolf just told me that the Irish annals (record books) show repeated and nearly constant plagues coming in and sweeping through usually at least twice a generation from about Patrick's time until the time the Norse starting coming over in any real numbers.

Instead of one giant "slate wiper" like Sweden at the end of the late Stone Age or Europe/Asia in the 14th century, it seems to have been more than once Ireland opened up to seriously trading with England and Rome, a lot of the disease they had been protected against by what scientists call "The Island Effect," was no longer there and while the Brits and others in the UK (or Rome for that matter) had centuries to develop partial immunity there probably wasn't enough direct trade before the 500's or so for serious diseases to really get going.

Add to that massive climate change (the real kind it got colder, so cold that in Northern Ireland farmers went back to hunting and gathering for about 100 years) then warming again towards 700 - which is a bad thing if you've adapted your farming life to a colder climate and suddenly it gets warm again; meant there were also lots of famine and warfare.

Heck, one reason St. Patrick and friends were probably such a success as it was hoped that it would bring about an end to much of the warfare which it didn't but it did help over-come the nearly total control the Druids had over kings and chieftains.

Ireland is the only place in Europe I know of besides Iceland (and a lesser degree Greenland) that converted peacefully with many Druids (of all stripes, including judges) becoming Christians, which is one thing that made the Celtic Churches so very different from the Roman.

Married priests were allowed in all of Europe until about the year 1,000 they were discouraged and might hinder a man's prospects of being a Bishop or higher ranking clergy but they were allowed.

It was the "reforms" that happened around the time of the Norse invasions that prohibited married priests, which was primarily done supposedly to prevent sons inheriting property from the Church, instead it just meant they got called "nephews" and inherited anyway (at least on the upper levels of Church and the Nobility).

What was really different about the Celtic Church especially in Ireland and I believe somewhat in Scotland (which was partly settled by the Irish around 500) is the MONKS and NUNS were MARRIED, lived in small communities and encourage to have children for God.

That was what Rome REALLY hated and tried to stamp out since almost the start of things but it didn't really end until about the same time that married priests, in general, were order to "put away" their wives.

I note the current pope is looking at reversing the requirement for Priests to remain unmarried, not my circus and not my monkies but as he has pointed out, it was a matter changed around 1,000 and could be changed back again.

In the East, even the Roman Catholic Priests sometimes marry and for decades converted former Anglican Clergy have been allowed to keep their wives but not remarry if their spouse died.

 

[Plain Jane]

The 560's is when St. Columbo came from Ireland to Scotland to convert the Picts and other groups to Christianity. I am a descendant of one of the Irish wave that became a bishop there.

 

[Sacajawea]

This would seem to reconcile the family story that a grandad was Irish, although the surname is Norweigan. I haven't done any DNA testing; I just don't see the point really.

 

[night driver]

In the East, even the Roman Catholic Priests sometimes marry and for decades converted former Anglican Clergy have been allowed to keep their wives but not remarry if their spouse died.

Those folks were Eastern (or Russian) Orthodox, not Roman Catholic.

 

[Profit of Doom]

Nightwolf just told me that the Irish annals (record books) show repeated and nearly constant plagues coming in and sweeping through usually at least twice a generation from about Patrick's time until the time the Norse starting coming over in any real numbers.

Instead of one giant "slate wiper" like Sweden at the end of the late Stone Age or Europe/Asia in the 14th century, it seems to have been more than once Ireland opened up to seriously trading with England and Rome, a lot of the disease they had been protected against by what scientists call "The Island Effect," was no longer there and while the Brits and others in the UK (or Rome for that matter) had centuries to develop partial immunity there probably wasn't enough direct trade before the 500's or so for serious diseases to really get going.

Add to that massive climate change (the real kind it got colder, so cold that in Northern Ireland farmers went back to hunting and gathering for about 100 years) then warming again towards 700 - which is a bad thing if you've adapted your farming life to a colder climate and suddenly it gets warm again; meant there were also lots of famine and warfare.

Heck, one reason St. Patrick and friends were probably such a success as it was hoped that it would bring about an end to much of the warfare which it didn't but it did help over-come the nearly total control the Druids had over kings and chieftains.

Ireland is the only place in Europe I know of besides Iceland (and a lesser degree Greenland) that converted peacefully with many Druids (of all stripes, including judges) becoming Christians, which is one thing that made the Celtic Churches so very different from the Roman.

Married priests were allowed in all of Europe until about the year 1,000 they were discouraged and might hinder a man's prospects of being a Bishop or higher ranking clergy but they were allowed.

It was the "reforms" that happened around the time of the Norse invasions that prohibited married priests, which was primarily done supposedly to prevent sons inheriting property from the Church, instead it just meant they got called "nephews" and inherited anyway (at least on the upper levels of Church and the Nobility).

What was really different about the Celtic Church especially in Ireland and I believe somewhat in Scotland (which was partly settled by the Irish around 500) is the MONKS and NUNS were MARRIED, lived in small communities and encourage to have children for God.

That was what Rome REALLY hated and tried to stamp out since almost the start of things but it didn't really end until about the same time that married priests, in general, were order to "put away" their wives.

I note the current pope is looking at reversing the requirement for Priests to remain unmarried, not my circus and not my monkies but as he has pointed out, it was a matter changed around 1,000 and could be changed back again.

In the East, even the Roman Catholic Priests sometimes marry and for decades converted former Anglican Clergy have been allowed to keep their wives but not remarry if their spouse died.

Maybe if they let the priests have wives they will leave the little boys alone

 

[Melodi]

Those folks were Eastern (or Russian) Orthodox, not Roman Catholic.

No there are actually Roman (Western Rite) but Eastern Churches (I think they are called Marion or something) that are under the Church of Rome but have always had some married priests.

I was surprised too, but I saw them at Pope John Paul the II's funeral in all their Eastern Glory (no one does bling like the Easterners) and looked into it.

Not deeply but I was surprised as could be...

Here is a link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Catholic_Churches

 

[night driver]

AH!!!
Maronite and Melkite.
Father Mike was a Melkite.

And I once worked for a Maronite, who took GREAT PAINS to distance herself and church from the Marianists who venerate Mary aggressively.

 

[marsh]

Time Team has a few good episodes on early Irish and Scottish religious settlements and Vikings:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-KtbdEpdiM Downpatrick 48:01
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CF_hONYce0 23:44

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poty0xZXZO8 Isle of Mull , Inner Hebrides 48:03 I really liked this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXF1PR8mgUM Vikings in Orkney 47:53

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvQ64KWrd2I Vikings Fetlar, Shetland Islands 46:41

 

[intothatgoodnight]

Add to that massive climate change (the real kind it got colder, so cold that in Northern Ireland farmers went back to hunting and gathering for about 100 years) then warming again towards 700 - which is a bad thing if you've adapted your farming life to a colder climate and suddenly it gets warm again; meant there were also lots of famine and warfare.

Melodi - have variations in the Irish climate been specifically correlated against past events that occurred in nature, during those years - i.e., volcanic (distant or near, land or water) or sun cycle activity, or earthquakes?


intothegoodnight

 

[Hermantribe]

Maybe if they let the priests have wives they will leave the little boys alone

That doesn't explain all of the preachers, teachers, etc who are married or could get married but still diddle little kids.

 

[Melodi]

Melodi - have variations in the Irish climate been specifically correlated against past events that occurred in nature, during those years - i.e., volcanic (distant or near, land or water) or sun cycle activity, or earthquakes?


intothegoodnight

Some have, the Northern Irish collapse of agriculture (and severe stress in the rest of the Island) has been linked to a huge volcanic eruption I think in Indonesia that is reported to have "hidden" the sun for two years in Byzantium (great darkness even in the Summer) and was spooky enough for an Oriental Emperor (I think Japanese) to write a poem about it.

I just found an article that suggests there may have been TWO such eruptions in just a few years which makes sense given the near destruction of civilization due to cold and famine.

After two years the sun "came back" but by then people's health all over Europe was failing from moving inside tiny huts with burning peat or coal fires, their height had diminished due to malnutrition and the already started "Migration Age" went into full gear as wave after wave of people was forced out (and South or West) away from the rising sea levels (it got colder and the sea rose higher in many places, go figure) constant storms, severe cold and their lands literally washing away.

This is around the period of the Arthurian story cycles as Saxons flee their homeland and try to take parts of a Britan whose been deserted by Rome because their own situation is so bad they called their soldiers home.

This would also be about 100 years before the Irish population decline gets noticed but after there is a lot more direct trade between Ireland and what is now the UK mainland and even Rome as I mentioned before.

Also, lots of new animals come into Ireland new and often exotic breeds of sheep, cattle, dogs, and even the newly arrived housecat to keep down the mice bring both expanded flocks and lots of brand new diseases to spread among the other animals as well as humans.

There are a lot of things going on (most of them uncomfortable) for several hundred years.

Here is the link to one of the volcano articles https://www.smithsonianmag.com/scie...ied-not-one-two-volcanic-eruptions-180955858/

 

[WalknTrot]

Looking back into my maternal Grandma's ancestry, (so lucky that it is easily documented - of course disclaiming any woodpile encounters or messed up oral or written history ) there was a big Viking infusion of blood right around 1000AD in Scot and Irish marriages. The Irish blood...many Irish daughters marrying Norse names around 1000AD. Same time period for her English Amsberry line (Ormsbury from Orm the Viking), for sure old Viking names behind her Stewart and Brus (allegedly springing from Brusesson and a Russian countess) and of course the MacLeod story (stemming from Leod First chief of the clan - Leod being a Norseman) about 1200 AD.

Funny, but it's the Welsh connections that show hardly any Norse influence, and that's going back much farther. They may have resisted much contact or raiding and stayed relatively pure blood. At least the folks in my background.

 

[Freeholder]

Looking back into my maternal Grandma's ancestry, (so lucky that it is easily documented - of course disclaiming any woodpile encounters or messed up oral or written history ) there was a big Viking infusion of blood right around 1000AD in Scot and Irish marriages. The Irish blood...many Irish daughters marrying Norse names around 1000AD. Same time period for her Amsberry line (Ormsbury from Orm the Viking), for sure old Viking names behind her Stewart and Brus (allegedly springing from Brusesson and a Russian countess) and of course the MacLeod story (stemming from Leod First chief of the clan - Leod being a Norseman) about 1200 AD.

Funny, but it's the Welsh connections that show hardly any Norse influence, and that's going back much farther. They may have resisted much contact or raiding and stayed relatively pure blood. At least the folks in my background.

I don't know how trustworthy some of those genealogy sites really are. I was following my family tree back...and back...and back...and way back over a thousand years ago (maybe two thousand years ago -- I don't remember) there was a 'Sue Jane.' Seriously? I really think that's a much more modern name! It's fun to follow family lines back, some of them going before Christ! But I think you have to take it all with a huge grain of salt.

Kathleen

 

[WalknTrot]

I don't know how trustworthy some of those genealogy sites really are. I was following my family tree back...and back...and back...and way back over a thousand years ago (maybe two thousand years ago -- I don't remember) there was a 'Sue Jane.' Seriously? I really think that's a much more modern name! It's fun to follow family lines back, some of them going before Christ! But I think you have to take it all with a huge grain of salt.

Kathleen

Yes, a lot of the stuff on the sites are hoakum...you have to be really careful. My Grandma's anscestors happen to have been very well connected in the British Isles before, plus here in America since about 400 years ago - so much of her family history IS documented history from many sources.

 

[homecanner1]

fun thread Melodi, as always. Love ancient Celt history. I think this article was posted here in 2017, didn't check archives.

https://sciencevibe.com/2017/09/06/red-hair-and-light-skin-a-genetic-mutation-from-neanderthals/

Ancient DNA studied by researchers has found that a mutation resulted in red hair and light skin among Neanderthals, according to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. In the study two Neanderthals, one from Spain and one from Italy, had a mutation in the gene that controls hair and skin color. “The mutation changes an amino acid, making the resulting protein less efficient. Modern humans have other MCR1 variants that are also less active, resulting in red hair and pale skin. The less active Neanderthal mutation probably also resulted in red hair and pale skin, as in modern humans,” according to researcher Antonio Rosas. They have also concluded that Neanderthals also likely had the same distribution of hair color as modern Eurasian populations, including a spectrum of red hair from auburn to brilliant red to strawberry blond.

Between 2% and 6% of modern northwestern Europeans have red hair, compared with an average of around 0.6% of the world’s population as a whole. In the British Isles the numbers are much higher. In Scotland around 13% of the population have red hair, but over 30% are unknowing carriers of the redhead gene. In Ireland about 10% have red hair, but as many as 46% are carriers. Genetic red hair is rarer In Asia, but can be found in the Near and Middle East...."

Proud member of the r1b haplogroup!!! I waited a decade to do my DNA testing and what a waste of precious time. I resolved many brick walls, esp. doing maternal lines with only maiden surnames to go on previously. I think the Danes were much more mobile and nubile than we thought. There appears to have been intense interbreeding/conquest. My guess would be a quarter of living Irish today have some Viking genetics.

All that ginger gives them their feisty nature and we wouldn't want it any other way.

pic of Neanderthal child with red hair and blue eye genetics

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NY7ZxfitO...AAAIs/wlZN5qX6uIc/s1600/neanderthal+child.jpg

 

[von Koehler]

https://d33wjekvz3zs1a.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Global-Temperature-2500BC-2015.jpg

The era in question was a cold period.

von Koehler