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A man’s discovery of bones under his pub could forever change what we know about the Irish
The Washington Post ^ | 17 March 2016 | Peter Whoriskey

Posted on 03/21/2016 8:45:16 AM PDT by Theoria

Ten years ago, an Irish pub owner was clearing land for a driveway when his digging exposed an unusually large flat stone. The stone obscured a dark gap underneath. He grabbed a flashlight to peer in.

"I shot the torch in and saw the gentleman, well, his skull and bones," Bertie Currie, the pub owner, said this week.

The remains of three humans, in fact, were found behind McCuaig’s Bar in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. And though police were called, it was not, as it turned out, a crime scene.

Instead, what Currie had stumbled over was an ancient burial that, after a recent DNA analysis, challenges the traditional centuries-old account of Irish origins.

From as far back as the 16th century, historians taught that the Irish are the descendants of the Celts, an Iron Age people who originated in the middle of Europe and invaded Ireland somewhere between 1000 B.C. and 500 B.C.

That story has inspired innumerable references linking the Irish with Celtic culture. The Nobel-winning Irish poet William Butler Yeats titled a book “Celtic Twilight.” Irish songs are deemed “Celtic” music. Some nationalists embraced the Celtic distinction. And in Boston, arguably the most Irish city in the United States, the owners of the NBA franchise dress their players in green and call them the Celtics.

Yet the bones discovered behind McCuaig’s tell a different story of Irish origins, and it does not include the Celts.

“The DNA evidence based on those bones completely upends the traditional view,” said Barry Cunliffe, an emeritus professor of archaeology at Oxford who has written books on the origins of the people of Ireland.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: History
KEYWORDS: ancientautopsies; ancientnavigation; bookofconquests; bookofinvasions; bookofleinster; celts; cessair; countyantrim; districtofcolumbia; dna; eabhargabhalaeireann; fartyshadesofgreen; firbolg; gaels; genealogy; godsgravesglyphs; helixmakemineadouble; historiabrittonum; iberia; ireland; irish; leborgabalaerenn; milesians; nemed; nennius; partholon; peterwhoriskey; tuathadedanann; washingtoncompost; washingtonpost
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To: Theoria

The Irish come from Europe?

Impossible.

My wife assures me the Irish came straight from heaven.


21 posted on 03/21/2016 9:31:39 AM PDT by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: C19fan
The Vikings founded Dublin.

Gee, I didn't know it had been losted.

22 posted on 03/21/2016 9:41:57 AM PDT by tbpiper
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To: IronJack

>>>

Yet the bones discovered behind McCuaig’s tell a different story of Irish origins, and it does not include the Celts.

“The DNA evidence based on those bones completely upends the traditional view,” said Barry Cunliffe, an emeritus professor of archaeology at Oxford who has written books on the origins of the people of Ireland.

DNA research indicates that the three skeletons found behind McCuaig’s are the ancestors of the modern Irish and they predate the Celts and their purported arrival by 1,000 years or more. The genetic roots of today’s Irish, in other words, existed in Ireland before the Celts arrived.

“The most striking feature” of the bones, according to the research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science journal, is how much their DNA resembles that of contemporary Irish, Welsh and Scots. (By contrast, older bones found in Ireland were more like Mediterranean people, not the modern Irish.)

<<<


23 posted on 03/21/2016 9:47:26 AM PDT by AFreeBird
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To: mosesdapoet
"So what were they if not Celtic ?"

Numenorean.

24 posted on 03/21/2016 9:49:27 AM PDT by Flag_This (You can't spell "treason" without the "O".)
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To: Theoria

Bookmark


25 posted on 03/21/2016 9:57:58 AM PDT by aquila48
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To: Theoria; StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; decimon; 1010RD; 21twelve; 24Karet; ...
Thanks Theoria.

26 posted on 03/21/2016 10:36:49 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Here's to the day the forensics people scrape what's left of Putin off the ceiling of his limo.)
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To: Theoria

the bones were of ship wrecked Phoenicians and not native Irishmen


27 posted on 03/21/2016 10:39:50 AM PDT by bert ((K.E.; N.P.; GOPc;+12, 73, ....carson is the kinder gentler trump.)
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To: bert

Bookmark


28 posted on 03/21/2016 10:41:30 AM PDT by publius911 (IMPEACH HIM NOW evil, stupid, insane ignorant or just clueless, doesn't matter!)
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To: Theoria

The scientists have apparently never read about The Five Invasions of Ireland.


29 posted on 03/21/2016 10:41:55 AM PDT by Salamander (I made friends with a lot of people in the danger zone...)
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To: SunkenCiv

I worked in South Boston for a Quarter Century, they found human bones beneath the floor boards of the local gin mills weekly. Some were new, some were old, some were whole, some were not, most showed evidence of foul play.


30 posted on 03/21/2016 10:53:19 AM PDT by Little Bill (o)
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To: Little Bill

:’)


31 posted on 03/21/2016 11:00:33 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Here's to the day the forensics people scrape what's left of Putin off the ceiling of his limo.)
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To: Theoria

Wot? Wot do you mean? African bones or European bones?


32 posted on 03/21/2016 11:08:30 AM PDT by null and void (This is "They live", and most people would rather fight you than put on the glasses...)
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To: Theoria; SunkenCiv

“Quiet lads. As soon as the bar closes, we’ll finish our wee dig into the barrel room above.”


33 posted on 03/21/2016 11:12:59 AM PDT by wildbill (If you check behind the shower curtain for a slasher, and find one.... what's your plan?)
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To: GOP Poet

Iberian Peninsula? That’s where my husband’s DNA tracks from. Well that and Scandinavia to mention another. All-American with very strong Scot roots.


34 posted on 03/21/2016 11:13:07 AM PDT by madison10
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To: SunkenCiv

Bones of a dude found under a pub, in Ireland, and it’s supposed to change our view of Irish folk?


35 posted on 03/21/2016 11:57:53 AM PDT by Grimmy (equivocation is but the first step along the road to capitulation)
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To: sauropod

.


36 posted on 03/21/2016 12:15:41 PM PDT by sauropod (I am His and He is mine.)
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To: Theoria

Language and genetics are not identical. Just look at the people who speak English today. Or who spoke Latin in the 200’s. Check out YouTube about the Armenians and their genetics. These people represent the westernmost edge of Indo-European migrants OR perhaps they werepre-Info-European like the Basques. Besides,who knows what language they did speak?


37 posted on 03/21/2016 12:35:19 PM PDT by ZULU (Trump is the answer. The Establishment is the problem.)
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To: Slyfox

Paul’s letter to the Galatians is in Greek. It was addressed to Greek-speaking Christians in the Roman province of Galatia. Whether any of them also knew the Galatian (Celtic) language is unknown—the province included more territory than the area settled by the Galatoi.


38 posted on 03/21/2016 12:45:52 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: Verginius Rufus

All of the areas of Galatia were parts of the Roman empire originally settled by the Celts.


39 posted on 03/21/2016 1:11:52 PM PDT by Slyfox (Donald Trump's First Principle is the Art of the Deal)
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To: Slyfox
The Galatai settled in Asia Minor after 278/277 B.C.

According to Prof. Hans Volkmann's article on Galatia in Der Kleine Pauly (1975), under the Roman empire the Roman province (under a governor of praetorian rank) included a number of other districts besides that settled by the Celtic Galatai and the different meanings of "Galatia" make it hard to determine if the addressees of Paul's letter to the Galatians were in the entire Roman province or in the strictly Celtic Galatian area.

40 posted on 03/21/2016 3:49:29 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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