Free Republic

Half of Western European men are descended from one Bronze Age 'king' who sired a dynasty of elite nobles which spread throughout Europe, a new study has shown. The monarch, who lived around 4,000 years ago, is likely to have been one of the earliest chieftains to take power in the continent... It is likely his power stemmed from advances in technology such as metal working and wheeled transport which enabled organised warfare for the first time. Although it is not known who he was, or where he lived, scientists say he must have existed because of genetic variation in...

The first modern humans to arrive in Europe and Asia migrated north out of Egypt around 55,000 years ago, according to new genetic research. The study has answered a long standing question about the route early Homo sapiens took when spreading from the African continent. It shows most Europeans and Asians living today are more closely related genetically to people living in Egypt than in Ethiopia. The first modern humans to leave Africa and spread into Asia and Europe appear to have taken a northern route out of the continent by crossing the Sinai peninsula according to new genetic research....

A new study concludes that modern humans arrived in Europe much earlier than previously believed, and clarifies more specifically the long time period they overlapped with Neanderthals. The significant overlap bolsters a theory that the two species met, bred and possibly exchanged or copied vital toolmaking techniques. It represents another twist in an enduring puzzle about human origins: why we triumphed while the better adapted and similarly intelligent Neanderthals died out. The study was published Wednesday in the journal Nature. Neanderthals are our closest known extinct relatives, with about 99.5% of DNA in common with humans. They had a brain...

In recent years, DNA analysis has shed light on the parents of Egypt’s most famous pharaoh, the boy king Tutankhamun, known to the world as King Tut. Genetic investigation identified his father as Akhenaten and his mother as Akhenaten’s sister, whose name was unknown. French Egyptologist Marc Gabolde offered a different interpretation of the DNA evidence on Thursday. Speaking at Harvard’s Science Center, Gabolde said he’s convinced that Tut’s mother was not his father’s sister, but rather his father’s first cousin, Nefertiti. Nefertiti was already known to be Akhenaten’s wife and in fact the two had six daughters. Gabolde believes...

CAIRO — Radar scans of King Tut's tomb have revealed two spaces on the north and east chambers of the pharaonic mausoleum that could contain the "discovery of the century," Egypt's antiquities ministry said Thursday. Antiquities Minister Mamdouh al-Damaty told a press conference that metal and organic masses were revealed by the scans, signaling that the rooms could possibly contain funerary objects. "It could be the discovery of the century. It's very important for Egyptian history and the history of the world," he said, adding that the chambers may well have belonged to a king or queen. Further tests will...

Ancient and Modern Europeans Have Surprising Genetic Connection by Charles Q. Choi, Live Science Contributor | November 06, 2014 There is a surprising genetic unity between the earliest known Europeans and contemporary Europeans, ancient DNA reveals. This finding suggests that a complex network of sexual exchange may have existed across Europe over the past 50,000 years, and also helps to pinpoint when modern humans interbred with Neanderthals, the closest extinct relatives of modern humans, the researchers said. The origin of contemporary Europeans continues to be debated. The modern human ancestors of contemporary Eurasians are believed to have left Africa about...

According to a group of geneticists in Switzerland from iGENEA, the DNA genealogy center, as many as half of all European men and 70 percent of British men share the same DNA as the Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun, or King Tut. For a film created for the Discovery Channel, scientists worked to reconstruct the DNA of the young male King, his father Akhenaten and his grandfather Amenhotep III. They discovered that King Tut had a DNA profile that belongs to a group called haplogroup R1b1a2. This group can be found in over 50 percent of European men and shows the researchers...

Up to 70 percent of British men and half of all Western European men are related to the Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun, geneticists in Switzerland said. Scientists at Zurich-based DNA genealogy centre, iGENEA, reconstructed the DNA profile of the boy Pharaoh, who ascended the throne at the age of nine, his father Akhenaten and grandfather Amenhotep III, based on a film that was made for the Discovery Channel. The results showed that King Tut belonged to a genetic profile group, known as haplogroup R1b1a2, to which more than 50 percent of all men in Western Europe belong, indicating that they share...

Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was recently arrested for disorderly conduct. (Snip) Several officers arrived at the scene and sought to question the professor, who promptly accused the investigating officer of being a racist. (Snip) Monday on CNN’s Situation Room, Blitzer interviewed Democratic Socialist Michael Eric Dyson about Gates’ arrest. Dyson played precisely the song one would expect of him: America is a fundamentally racist nation and Gates was an innocent victim of racial profiling.

An archaeological bid to discover more about the hilltop where Ulster chieftains were crowned 700 years ago has uncovered artefacts dating back more than 7,000 years. Tullaghoge Fort in rural Co Tyrone was the place leaders of the dominant O'Neill clan came to be crowned from around the 14th Century to just before the arrival of the planters at the start of the 17th Century. Targeted excavation work around the picturesque tree encircled earthen mound ahead of the planned development of new visitor facilities hoped to find and preserve buried artefacts from that period -- but it ended up unearthing...

In addition to Genghis Khan and his male descendants, researchers have previously identified the founders of two other highly successful Y-chromosome lineages: one that began in China with Giocangga, a Qinq Dynasty ruler who died in 15823, and another belonging to the medieval Uí Néill dynasty in Ireland. Jobling's team made a systematic search for genetic founders by analysing the Y chromosomes of more than 5,000 men from 127 populations spanning Asia... because lots of data were available and there was already evidence of such lineages. The team identified 11 Y-chromosome sequences that were each shared by more than 20...

Irish and Irish-Americans alike tend to be immensely proud of their surnames. Many a Irish family proudly declare their Irish roots by displaying the crest of their clan in their homes. But which last names win in the battle of Irishness? IrishCentral took a look at the list of the most common surnames in Ireland in order to come up with a top 10 list. Smith and Murray are two of the most common, but one is of British origins and the other’s Scottish, so they didn’t make the cut. Here are the 10 most Irish last names: 1....

Paso Robles, CA -- Their political party lines maybe different but one thing United States presidents could share is their family line. A young girl in California has put together a Presidential Family Tree. Twelve-year-old BridgeAnne d'Avignon found that all the presidents but one are related to King John of England through a common ancestor. "They are all cousins and all grandsons of John Lackland," BridgeAnne told KCOY News. The girl searched more than a half million names for months. She started with George Washington, then traced both the male and female family lines to make the connection. KCOY reports...

DNA shows Celtic hero Somerled's Viking roots IAN JOHNSTON SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT A HISTORIC Celtic hero credited with driving the Vikings out of western Scotland was actually descended from a Norseman, according to research by a leading DNA expert. According to traditional genealogies, Somerled, who is said to have died in 1164 after ousting the Vikings from Argyll, Kintyre and the Western Isles, was descended from an ancient royal line going back to when the Scots were living in Ireland. But Bryan Sykes, an Oxford University professor of human genetics who set up a company called Oxford Ancestors to research people’s...

Up to three million men around the world could be descended from a prolific medieval Irish king, according to a new genetic study.It suggests that the 5th-century warlord known as "Niall of the Nine Hostages" may be the ancestor of about one in 12 Irishmen, say researchers at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. Niall established a dynasty of powerful chieftains that dominated the island for six centuries.In a study of the Y chromosome - which is only passed down through the male line - scientists found a hotspot in northwest Ireland where 21.5% carry Niall’s genetic fingerprint, says Brian McEvoy,...

DUBLIN (AFP) - Up to three million men around the world could be descended from a prolific medieval Irish king, according to researchers at Trinity College Dublin. A genetics study suggests that the fifth-century warlord known as "Niall of the Nine Hostages" may be the ancestor of about one in 12 Irishmen. He established a dynasty of powerful chieftains that dominated the island for six centuries. In a study of the Y chromosomes -- which are only passed down through the male line -- scientists found there is a genetic fingerprint hot-spot in northwest Ireland where 21.5 percent carry it,...

1st PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 1789-97 FAMILY ESSAY "Washington came of very good blood - aw, quite good - I b'lieve." Attributed by his classmates to Amory Blaine in F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise. The Washingtons are of unusual antiquity in European terms, let alone American ones. A direct male ancestry has been traced back to William de Wessington or Wessyngton (i.e., Washington, a town in Tyne and Wear, formerly County Durham, in northern England), who was living in the late 12th century. The remoter ancestry is not absolutely certain but a detailed argument has...

Dublin: Scientists in Ireland may have found the country's most fertile male, with more than 3 million men worldwide among his offspring. The scientists, from Trinity College Dublin, have discovered that as many as one in twelve Irish men could be descended from Niall of the Nine Hostages, a 5th-century warlord who was head of the most powerful dynasty in ancient Ireland. His genetic legacy is almost as impressive as Genghis Khan, the Mongol emperor who conquered most of Asia in the 13th century and has nearly 16 million descendants, said Dan Bradley, who supervised the research. "It's another link...

Harvard Prof Gates Is Half-Irish, Related to Cop Who Arrested Him Two Men at Center of Controversy Linked by Irish Heritage By NIALL O'DOWD IrishCentral.com Publisher July 28, 2009— Henry Louis Gates Jr., the black professor at the center of the racial story involving his arrest outside his Harvard University-owned house, has spoken proudly of his Irish roots. Strangely enough, he and the Cambridge, Mass., police officer who arrested him, Sgt. James Crowley, both trace their ancestry back to the legendary Niall of the Nine Hostages. In a PBS series on African-American ancestry that he hosted in 2008, Gates discovered...

IrishCentral.com Publisher Henry Louis Gates Jr., the black professor at the center of the racial story involving his arrest outside his Harvard University-owned house, has spoken proudly of his Irish roots. Strangely enough, he and the Cambridge, Mass., police officer who arrested him, Sgt. James Crowley, both trace their ancestry back to the legendary Niall of the Nine Hostages. In a PBS series on African-American ancestry that he hosted in 2008, Gates discovered his Irish roots when he found he was descended from an Irish immigrant and a slave girl. He went to Trinity College in Dublin to have his...