Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Anglo-Saxon , Norman, Viking, or Celt?

Anglo-Saxon, Norman, Viking, Celt? At this time, it is not possible to absolutely differentiate between the Anglo-Saxons and the Scandinavian and Norman Vikings through DNA analysis, although the following articles make a start in that direction using Haplogroups of selected markers.See,: Helgason, etc., "Estimating Scandinavian and Gaelic Ancestry in the Male Settlers of Iceland", Am. J. Hum. Genet., 67:697-717,(2000);and, this article:Wilson, J. F., Weiss, D. A., Richards, M., Thomas, M. G., Bradman, N., Goldstein, D. B. "Genetic evidence for different male and female roles during cultural transitions in the British Isles". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A., vol 98 (9) p5078 (2001)", contains evidence for the following preliminary table of Y DNA markers for Celtic/Basque, Anglo Saxon and Norwegian ancestry:

DYS19/ DYS388-DYS393-DYS392-DYS394-DYS390-DYS391

Celtic/Basque: 12------13-----13-----14-----24-----11

Anglo Saxon: 14------13-----11-----14-----22-----10

Norwegian: 12------13-----11-----16-----25-----11

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Other Y DNA marker sets:

DYS19/ DYS388-DYS393-DYS392-DYS394-DYS390-DYS391

Atlantic MH* 12 13 13 14 24 11

Cohen MH 16 12 11 14 23 10

*=Celtic/Basque MH=Modal Haplotype

Preliminary results from a more recent study are reported in this article from the BBC:Nicola Cook, "Viking Genetics Survey Results", reporting on a study done by Prof. David B. Goldstein at University College London. Once Dr Goldstein's results are published, a link will be made to the paper.