Neolithic and Bronze Age migration to Ireland

I have recently been researching some of my Irish ancestry and when I read the following paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, I thought I should do something that could be of interest to other Irish ancestry researchers.  And so I investigated the DNA from the four individuals in this paper:

Lara M. Cassidy, Rui Martiniano, Eileen M. Murphy, Matthew D. Teasdale, James Mallory, Barrie Hartwell and Daniel G. Bradley (2016) Neolithic and Bronze Age migration to Ireland and establishment of the insular Atlantic genome. PNAS, 113(2) pp 368-373.  http://www.pnas.org/content/113/2/368

The original DNA data can be found at PRJEB11995

The processed files are available and can be downloaded from Google Drive.

Ballynahatty

 

The Ballynahatty individual was a Neolithic woman from an early megalithic passage-like grave in Ballynahatty, County Down, Ireland, whose remains have been dated to between 3343-3020 years cal BC. DNA was extracted from the petrous portion of the temporal bone.  The authors state that she had a genome of predominantly near-eastern origin and that she also had some hunter gatherer ancestry.  The data is uploaded to GEDmatch as kit F999805.  A one-to-many search reveals a surprising number of matches with living people.

Rathlin 

 

The Rathlin individuals were Early Bronze Age men from a cist burial on Rathlin Island, County Antrim, Ireland, whose remains have been dated to 2026-1534 years cal BC.  DNA was extracted from the petrous portion of the temporal bones.  The authors state that they had a Steppe genetic heritage, an indication of large European population upheavals over this period.

Rathlin1

 

Dated to between 2026-1885 years cal BC. The data is uploaded to GEDmatch as kit F999800.  A one to many search again reveals a surprising number of matches with living people, one of whom is my uncle.

Rathlin2

 

Dated to between 2024-1741 years cal BC. The data is uploaded to GEDmatch as kit F999802.  A one to many search  reveals four matches with living people.

Rathlin3

 

Dated to between 1736-1534 years cal BC. The data is uploaded to GEDmatch as kit F999801.  A one to many search reveals no current matches with living people, I hope that this encourages Irish DNA researchers who have yet to upload Irish DNA data to do so.

Introduction

I have been intrigued by the recent publication of many DNA sequences extracted from ancient human and other hominim remains unearthed and preserved by archaeologists.  I am particularly taken by the fact that there appear to be small amounts of  Neandertal and Denisovan DNA in many living people, and I am even more impressed that small bits of DNA in skeletal remains from many thousands of years ago can still be identified in living individuals today.

Last year I discovered that it is possible to download and convert these published sequences to the forms used by many genealogy testing companies.  Following the lead of Felix Immanuel, I have uploaded a number of these to GEDmatch.com, where they are available for comparison with the kits of today's genealogy testing individuals.  They will not appear in a one-to-many match, but can be used for a one-to-many match.