The Great Orme - The World's Largest Bronze Age Copper Mine was in Cymru

THE ANCIENT CELTIC BRONZE AGE CIVILISATION

The catalyst to publish this article came from the following BBC News story:

DNA test to prove Bronze Age link

Well some of the DNA evidence is in already:

1. The following table using data from the paper "Geographic Patterns of Haplogroup R1b in the British Isles" shows a Y-Haplogroup comparison between Cymry and England:

Please notince in the above table the following regarding Y-Haplogroup prevalence in Cymru compared to England percentage-wise:

a. G - 3 times more prevalent in Cymru.

b. E3b - 50% more prevalent in Cymru.

c. R1b - 22% more prevalent in Cymru.

Lets look at each of these in turn:

R1b Y-haplogroup:

Regarding our 82% majority R1b Y-haplogroup, the Wikipedia article on R1b states:

"However, more recently it has become more widely accepted that R1b entered Europe from Asia more recently, perhaps in the Neolithic.[6][7]"

Citation [6] is the paper "The distribution of this lineage, the diversity within it, and estimates of its age all suggest that it spread with farming from the Near East...Previous studies suggested a Paleolithic origin, but here we show that the geographical distribution of its microsatellite diversity is best explained by spread from a single source in the Near East via Anatolia during the Neolithic", Balaresque et al. 2010,A Predominantly Neolithic Origin for European Paternal Lineages

Diagrams from above Citation [6] article show this idea well:

Diagram A: dates of early Neolithic sites in Europe in thousands of years before present.

Diagram B: frequency of R-M269 (R1b1b2).

Diagram C: variance within R-M269 (R1b1b2).

Notice the earliest agriculture dates, higher regional M269 frequency and overall M269 variance in Anatolia as the area of origin in the very earliest Neolithic for a majority of Celtic-Western Europe's population. Beth Nesaf alerted readers to the likelihood of this conclusion ebing reached from population genetics research last year from May 2009 in our articles where we noted Chris Tyler-Smith's critique of Dr Oppenheimer's argument for a predominantly Paleaolithic origin (editing out his Palaeolithic references when quoting him). Note that the passages we did quote from Dr. Oppenhiemer's article, we thoroughly agree with and thank him for outlining the Mediterranean-Atlantic Sea-borne migration and settlement of the Celts in accord with our epic poems as recorded by early Christian monks:

'...another geneticist, Christopher Tyler-Smith of the Sanger Centre near Cambridge...As to the identity of the first postglacial settlers, Dr. Tyler-Smith said he “would favor a Neolithic origin for the Y chromosomes, although the evidence is still quite sketchy.”'. The Celtic community thanks Dr. Tyler-Smith and his collaborators for clearing this up in this ground-breaking paper.

The Healing Stones of Cymru THE ANCIENT CELTIC MEGALITHIC CIVILISATION

Professor Steve Jones "Y: The Descent of Men" Genes, Celtic Origins and Relationships

These previous articles are being updated due to the rapid advance in human population genetics and archaeology over the past 10 months as reported by our Wikipedia friends. Please note the correspondence of early Neolithic sites, high relative R-M269 regional frequency and high R-M269 diversity in the region of the Byblos Culture we noted before.

The spread of these Celtic and Basque speaking fishing-agricultural-pastoral people to Europe also carried the gene for lactose tolerance - lactase as shown by the lowest percentage of lactose-intolerance of any population being the Basque people (which have had in isolation the smallest admixture with lactose intolerant -lactase lacking peoples arriving after the pastoral Neotlithic Celtic-Basque base population of Europe). Notice on the bottom map above that the Basque area (both ancient and modern) has a very low variance within R-M269 (R1b1b2).indicating that this area was not an origin area but rather more recent settlement area of people from the Celtic-Basque millieaux (who retained the Basque superstrate language rather than the pre-proto-Celtic lingua-franca - refer to Starostin's and Foster and Toth's glottochronology referred to in my earlier articles that puts the origin of both at around 8,000 BC and in the same area of Eastern Anatolia on other evidence).

Now on to the Copper and Bronze Ages where the same scientific processes are unravelling the story of another phase in Celtic Civilisation:

G Y-haplogroup - G213b1 subclade:

Regarding our G Y-haplogroup that is 3 times that of the English percentage, theWikipedia article on G states:

"In Wales, a distinctive G2a3b1 type (DYS388=13 and DYS592=12) dominates there and pushes the G percentage of the population higher than in England."

"The G2a3b1 definable subgroups are heavily concentrated throughout Europe west of the Black Sea and Russia where G2a3b1 is often in the majority among G persons."

In theWikipedia article on G2a3b1 it states:

"The percentage of haplogroup G among available samples from Wales is overwhelmingly G2a3b1. Such a high percentage is not found in nearby England, Scotland or Ireland."

So where did these distinctive people come from ? Indicating the probable area of origin of G2a3b1, this Wikipedia article states:

"This haplogroup represents the majority of haplogroup G men in most areas of Europe west of Russia and the Black Sea. To the east, G2a3b1 -- except in the northwestern Caucasus Mountains area--is just a large or small minority among G persons in such locales as Turkey, the Middle East, Iran, the southern Caucasus area, China and India."

In other words, it is only in the North-Westerm Caucasus area, that G2a3b1 forms the majority of G persons East of Europe where it also forms such a majority of G persons.

"..in Russia along the north slope of the Caucasus where G2a3b1 is common among the Kabardinians" and: "...the north Caucasus type of G2a3b1* seen especially among the Kabardinians"

G2a3b1* is the ancestral type of G2a3b1 without subsequent major mutations.

When did these people orginate ? This Wikipedia article says:

"Based on the number of mutations seen in 67-marker STR values, this P303 mutation perhaps occurred about 5,000 years ago, and the major subgroups developed their mutations about 4,000 years ago. "

So we are looking for a source culture of age around 3,000 BC or so, and entering Europe, spreading and developing local mutations in each region of its spread around 2,000 BC or so.

The NW Caucasian Kabardinians are the Eastern Refuge area branch of the Adyghe (Circassian) people who were decimated further West, but today there is a small remnant in their own small fragmented area in Russia whose capital is Maykop. The Shapsug branch of the Adyghe are located on the Black Sea near Tuapse, NW of Sochi (site of the next Winter Olympics) towards the Crimea have 81.1% G Y-haplogroup: "The reported high G concentration among the Shapsugs of the far northwestern Caucasus represents the highest percentage of G among any group worldwide.".

Read the Wikipedia article on the Maykop Culture from which I have extracted the picture below of the amazing Golden Ox figurine made by the expert metal workers of theis culture. Starting in 3,700 BC they alloyed Copper with Arsenic purposefully to produce Arsenic Bronze hard-edged daggers. Arsenic Bronze became the dominant type of Bronze later in early Bronze Age Europe. This culture seems the ideal source culture and population source for our Copper Age G2a3b1 Y-DNA.

Golden ox figurine. Middle of 3rd millennium BC. Found in Maykop kurgan. Hermitage Museum exhibition.

So how did people from this culture get to Europe and what culture in Europe corresponds in age and characteristics to our Adyghe-Circassian Maykop skilled prospectors and copper metallurgists - the original "smithies" ?

Well, there is such a culture and there is a defined intermediate precursor culture and there is a ready means of transport into Europe. This culture is the Beaker Culture with its precursors in the Carpathian Basin. The Wikipedia article on the Celtic Beaker Culture explains:

"Possible pottery precursors
A type of Chalcolithic cord-impressed ware was produced by the Usatovo culture, bordering the Black Sea. This is generally classed as a Tripolye C2 culture, but appeared in the steppe zone and has steppe elements, and so should be considered a composite culture of steppe herders and arable farmers.[7]"

Citation [7]: D.W. Anthony, The Horse, The Wheel and Language (2007), pp. 351-3.

In the Wikipedia article on the Beaker precursor Usatovo Culture it is explained:

"Usatovo culture, 3500—3000 BC, an archaeological culture facing the Black sea between the mouths of the Bug River and the Danube in present-day Romania, Moldavia, and southern Ukraine.
It is seen as a hybrid, with roots in both the Cernavoda and the Tripolye cultures, overlain by an intrusive steppe-derived element of the Indo-European-speaking Kurgan culture. Metal artefacts are connected to contacts with the distant Caucasus."

In the Wikipedia article Haplogroup G (Y-DNA) Country-by-Country there is a population

"Moldova, Republic of
In 89 samples taken among the Turkic-speaking Gagauzes of southern Moldova 13.5% were G.[72]"

Citation [72]: Varzari A, Kharkov V, Stephan W, et al. (2009). "Searching for the origin of Gagauzes: inferences from Y-chromosome analysis". American Journal of Human Biology 21 (3): 326–36. doi:10.1002/ajhb.20863. PMID 19107901

From the combined genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence we can now say that the Maykop Adyghe (aka Circassian, Kabardin or Shapsug) people migrated as "economic-business-oriented" migrants to take advantage of the opportunities to exploit the resources, develop and generate businesses of a largely rural Europe at the time. There, they were managed and integrated into the local Celtic population by our leaders by dispersal and giving them positions of local influence as is recorded in the story of Llassar "The Flame" in the Mabinogion ("Welsh Book of Magic"). We recorded their coming in our epic poems because they so enriched Celtic society in ways such as:

1. Lovely, portable yet elegant beaker-shaped pottery for storing food or the remains of loved ones or more...

2. Prospecting and smelting of copper ore in these beakers - the original "smithies". From the Wikipedia article on Celtic Beaker culture:

"it is now common to see the Beaker culture as a 'package' of knowledge (including religious beliefs and copper, bronze and gold working) and artefacts (including copper daggers, v-perforated buttons and stone wrist-guards) adopted and adapted by the indigenous peoples of Europe to varying degrees."

3. Beekeeping - the Shapsugs are renowned even today for this.

4. Increased cultivation of Barley and probbaly other agricultural improvements too: From the Wkipedia article on Celtic Beaker culture:

"..the beakers and other new artefacts and practices found across Europe at the time that are attributed to the Beaker people are indicative of the development of particular manufacturing skills. This new knowledge may have come about by any combination of population movements and cultural contact. An example might be as part of a prestige cult related to the production and consumption of beer, or trading links such as those demonstrated by finds made along the seaways of Atlantic Europe. Palynological studies of pollen analysis conducted, associated with the spread of beakers certainly suggests increased growing of barley, which may be associated "

4. Brewing of aloholic beverages - the Celtic famous drink Mead from fermenting honey and Beer from fermenting malted barley in the beakers. From the Wikipedia article on Beaker culture:

"It has been suggested that the beakers were designed for the consumption of alcohol and that the introduction of the substance to Europe may have fuelled the beakers' spread.[3] Beer and mead content have been identified from certain examples. However, not all Beakers were drinking cups. Some were used as reduction pots to smelt copper ores, others have some organic residues associated with food, and still others were employed as funerary urns. Beakers may have been a special form of pottery with a ritual character."

5. Increased commerce with impoved communication and transportation utilising the "Celtic Waterways Network" established in the Early Neolithic by the Celtic Megalithic Civilisation and building on it with sturdier and bigger wooden boats. From the Wikpedia article on the Celtic Beaker culture:

"Bell Beaker people took advantage of transport by sea and rivers to create a cultural spread from Ireland to the Carpathian Basin and south along the Atlantic coast and following the Rhone valley until Portugal, North Africa and Sicily, even penetrating northern and central Italy.[20] Its remains have been found in what is now Portugal, Spain, France (excluding the central massif), Great Britain and Ireland, the Low Countries, and Germany between the Elbe and Rhine, with an extension along the upper Danube into the Vienna basin (Austria), Hungary and Czech Republic, with Mediterranean outposts on Sardinia and Sicily; there is less certain evidence for direct penetration in the east. Beaker-type vessels remained in use longest in the British Isles, late beakers in other areas are classified as early Bronze Age (barbed wire Beakers in the Netherlands, Giant Beakers (Riesenbecher)). The new international trade routes opened by the Beaker people were there to remain and the culture was succeeded by a number of Bronze Age cultures, among them the Úne(tice culture (Central Europe), ca. 2300 BC, and by the Nordic Bronze Age, a culture of Scandinavia and northernmost Germany-Poland, ca. 1800 BC."

The spread down to the Mediterranean of the people of the Celtic Beaker culture and over to Britain is noted in spectroscopic studies:

"A recent Strontium isotope analysis of 86 people from Bell Beaker graves in Bavaria suggests that between 18-25% of all graves were occupied by people who came from a considerable distance outside the area. This was true of children as well as adults, indicative of some significant migration wave. Given the similarities with readings from people living on loess soils, the general direction of the local movement according to Price et al., is from the northeast to the southwest.[16]"

The versatile beakers have been found with smelted copper ore on one hand and barley on the other by archaeologists. Each dispersed local population of these Maykop people thus developed into the major European Celtic subgroups of G2a3b1 Y-DNA haplogroup subclades that we detect today as a people highly integrated into each Celtic Society into which they were welcomed. We look forward to future genetic and archaeological research into the exact details of this process in the different areas of Celtic Europe.

The approximate extent of Beaker usage is shown on the Wikipedia map below:

E1b1b (E-M215) previously known as E3b Y-haplogroup - E1b1b1a2 (E-V13) subclade:

From the Wikipedia article on Haplogroup E1b1b1a (Y-DNA)

"Significant frequencies of E-V13 have also been observed in towns in Wales, England and Scotland. The old trading town of Abergele on the northern coast of Wales in particular showed 7 out of 18 local people tested were in this lineage (approximately 40%), as reported in Weale et al. (2002)...

Bird [2007] proposes a connection to the modern region encompassing Kosovo, southern Serbia, northern Macedonia and extreme northwestern Bulgaria ..., which was identified by Peric(ic et al. (2005) as harboring the highest frequency worldwide of this sub-clade[Note 11]"

Note the very uneven distribution (particularly Cymru, The Pennines and Norfolk, but also Kernow, Stonehenge area, Cumbria, Dal Riata, Pictland and London area) shown on the following map from Bird's article corresponding strongly with:

1. Copper and Tin deposit/old mining areas .

2. Later Megalithic Architecture sites between around 3,000 and 1,200 BC (many of these have Wood or Stone Henges and Circles often with astronomical alignments) as shown in yellow on the following 2 maps from the Wikipedia article (overlay the second enlarged map of Britain over the third following map from Bird's article showing E3b distribution.

3. Coastal areas in Britain of trading importance.

To quote from the Wikipedia article on Haplogroup E1b1b1a (Y-DNA):

"Haplogroup E1b1b1a (M78)
Time of origin approx 18,600 years BP[1]
Place of origin Northeastern Africa: the region of Egypt and Libya[1] or northern Sudan[2]...

...the majority of E-M78 lineages found in Europe belong to the E-V13 sub-clade which appears to have entered Europe from the Near East, where it apparently originated, via the Balkans (see below)...

The European distribution, dominated by E1b1b1a2 (E-V13) except in Iberia, has a frequency peak centered in parts of the Balkans (up to almost 50%[6][7]) and Italy and declining frequencies evident toward western, central, and northeastern Europe. This is discussed in more detail below...

E-V13 and Ancient Migrations

The apparent movement of E-M78 lineages from the Near East to Europe, and their subsequent rapid expansion, make its E-V13 sub-clade a particularly interesting subject for speculation about ancient human migrations.

Early Migration from the Middle East to Europe

The haplogroup J2b (J-M12) has also frequently been discussed in connection with V13, as a haplogroup with a seemingly very similar distribution and pre-history[2][3][6]...

Cruciani et al. (2007) says there were ... demographic events which have been envisioned for this geographic area:

* The "development of Bronze technology (about 5kya)"

...Battaglia et al. (2008), for example, propose that the E-M78* lineage ancestral to all modern E-V13 men moved rapidly out of a Southern Egyptian homeland...

E-V13 is in any case often described in population genetics as one of the components of the European genetic composition which shows a relatively recent link of populations from the Middle East, entering Europe and presumably associated with bringing new technologies.[17][18][19] As such, it is also sometimes remarked that it is a relatively recent genetic movement out of Africa into Eurasia...

After its initial entry in Europe, there was then a dispersal from the Balkans into the rest of Europe...Cruciani et al. (2007) suggest that the movement out of the Balkans may have been more recent than 5300 years ago. The authors suggest that this might have been associated with an in situ population increase in the Balkans associated with the Balkan Bronze age, rather than an actual migratory movement of peoples from western Asia. They consider that "the dispersion of the E-V13 and J-M12 haplogroups seems to have mainly followed the river waterways connecting the southern Balkans to north-central Europe". Peric(ic et al. (2005) propose the Vardar-Morava-Danube rivers as a possible route of Neolithic dispersal into central Europe."

The map below from the Wikipedia article shows the distibution frequency of E-V13 with highest frequency in the southern Balkan-Albanian-Greek area but with a coastal "trail' of high frequency via Crete, Adana region of Anatolia, Cyprus and down the Palestine coast to Egypt (click on map to enlarge):

Interestingly, the Wikipedia article on Megalithic Architecture talks about Stonehenge-like Megaliths (but much ealier than Stonehenge) in the Southern Egyptian source area mentioned by Battaglia et al. (2008) that the E-M78* lineage ancestral to all modern E-V13 men moved rapidly out of:

Nabta Playa

Nabta megalith

Nabta Playa at the southwest corner of the western Egyptian desert was once a large lake in the Nubian Desert, located 500 miles south of modern-day Cairo.[9] By the 5th millennium BC, the peoples in Nabta Playa had fashioned the world's earliest known astronomical device, 1000 years older than, but comparable to, Stonehenge.[10] Research shows it to be a prehistoric calendar that accurately marks the summer solstice.[10] Findings indicate that the region was occupied only seasonally, likely only in the summer when the local lake filled with water for grazing cattle.[10][11]. There are other megalithic stone circles in the southwestern desert.

In the Wikipedia article on Nabta Playa it says:

"One of the world's earliest known examples of archeoastronomy

By the 5th millennium BC these peoples had fashioned one of the world's earliest known archeoastronomical devices (roughly contemporary to the Goseck circle in Germany and the Mnajdra megalithic temple complex in Malta), about 1000 years older than but comparable to Stonehenge[2] (see sketch at right). Research suggests that it may have been a prehistoric calendar which accurately marks the summer solstice.[3]

The research done by the astrophysicist Thomas G. Brophy suggests that these monoliths might tell much more. The calendar circle itself is made up of one doorway that runs north-south, a second that runs northeast-southwest marking the summer solstice, and six center stones (see sketch above). Brophy's hypothesis proposes first that the southerly line of three stones inside the calendar circle represented the three stars of Orion’s Belt and the other three stones inside the calendar circle represented the shoulders and head stars of Orion as they appeared in the sky. These correspondences were for two dates -- circa 4,800 BC and at precessional opposition -- representing how the sky "moves" long term. Brophy proposes that the circle was constructed and used circa the later date, and the dual date representation was a conceptual representation of the motion of the sky over a precession cycle.

Near by the calendar circle, which is made of smaller stones, there are alignments of large megalithic stones. The southerly lines of these megaliths, Brophy shows, aligned to the same stars as represented in the calendar circle, all at the same epoch, circa 6270 BC. The calendar circle correlation with Orion's belt occurred between 6400 BC and 4900 BC, matching the radio-carbon dating of campfires around the circle.[4]

Brophy found that the lines made to these megaliths match the spots in the sky where the various stars rose in vernal equinox heliacal rising. In analyzing the varying distances, mulling through assumptions such as that they represented the brightness of the stars, he inadvertently found that they matched the distance of the stars from Earth on a scale of roughly 1 meter = .8 light years within the margin of error for astronomical distances calculated today.[5]."

Nabta Playa calendar in Aswan Nubia museum (click to enlarge):

Bob Jones December 2009 - March 2010. You are free to use any of the above information with the following restrictions:

1. You must not use it as the basis for any discriminatory comments or actions against any people or group.

2. You must use the material for the promotion of the interests of the people or group and not for any other purpose whether it be commercial or otherwise. Such use must not be against the interests of other people or group.

3. Send Beth Nesaf an email with the link to the web page or reference to the publication or document where such use is made of the information.