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Doggerland


Sceptical believer

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Heh, Cormac, when you post stuff like this, I feel like a total moron; the last time I studied anything about genetics was in the 70's of the past century. Could you, please, spell it out for me??

Ah, damn, you mean in connection with the OLB thread, and what Alewyn had to say about it. I will read again what he writes about it in his book.

But... sigh.. you say people were 'already' diverse at the time.. and you show a chart that says people around Doggerland were somewhat apart/unique, genetically speaking, around the time the Doggerland submerged, from the peoples living around them. How much time does it take for that to happen?

Well, you're NOT a moron so don't let yourself think that.

What the above picture shows is that by the time of, and prior to, the disappearance of Doggerland that there were already diverse genetic groups in the area who likely would have had contact with each other to varying degrees. This is also true for the area discussed in the OLB thread, from much later. But there is nothing to show that any groups or sub-groups that could be attributed to a specific peoples existed during the time of Doggerland. By the earliest times of the OLB the Haplogroup I1 (originating in or around Denmark) would have been only one of many, MANY groups or subgroups in the area. By the end of Doggerland and geographically close to it you can see from the picture that there were peoples belonging to Y Chromosome haplogroups R1a1a7-M458, R1b1a2a1a1b4/R-L21 and I2b-M436, as well as mtDNA haplogroups U, U4 or U5. In none of these cases should peoples of these groups/subgroups be seen as limited to a particular geography, nor (even more importantly) to a specific ethnicity. From that I think you can see how the genetic claims made, particularly as regards the OLB, ultimately FAIL.

To answer your last question, changes in genetics happen over a period of several thousands to tens of thousands of years. Something that is not seen particularly between the end of Doggerland and, say, the earliest parts of the OLB story.

cormac

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And what about this:

"Caribbeans in Britain - A return to ancestral lands?"

http://www.bnvillage.co.uk/black-roots-village/105367-caribbeans-britain-return-ancestral-lands.html

Wetwang_true.jpg

Hahaha !!

Ahem.

The Fomorians were always described as being 'swarthy'.

Just kidding.

Lol, maybe they were those black people from the OLB "Lydia"??

.

From a genetic perspective, minus the "Caribbean" claim, the rest really presents no problem that I'm aware of.

cormac

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Yes, but maybe you know that some think those precious (and obviously unsued) stone axes were nothing but trade ware (? my english, sorry) that had fallen overboard to be found millennia later on the Brown Banks.

And they could well be right, of course. At the end of the day, a lot of this kind of stuff comes down to interpretation and best guesses. And, you know, usually the least complicated explanation is the true one. I think that you're right about the uncertainty of stories being able to survive over that period of time, but as you say an event as traumatic as the Storegga Slide tsunami likely made a big impression on those who witnessed it, so there almost certainly were stories, at some point. The only thing is, with the length of time involved all that would likely be left of those stories by the time the history of these peoples started to be written down would be the sort of vague allusions and associations that might just as easily be in the imagination of those "identifying" them, if you see what I mean. There is no way of ever pinning it down for sure and the only people who claim to know anything for certain about these things are people with publishing deals trying to sell us something...

Cormac - I don't pretend fully to understand the genetic data, but what you're saying is that any idea of a specific "Doggerlander" ethnic group who spread after the deluge is unsupported by the scientific evidence? That there were already various populations in and around the area both during and after the period when Doggerland was inhabited? Makes sense - I'm not sure if I really buy any of the alternative genetic and/or linguistic theories on the various sites linked to (not that I really know enough about that aspect to come to firm conclusions either way). Certainly, Oera Linda seems like a big load of bull (need to catch up on that thread too). :D

But I guess if we're talking about stories about the flood spreading and leaving some sort of vague, hard-to-interpret mark on the mythologies and cultures of the various peoples around the North Sea, then it would only take a relatively small number of refugees who wouldn't necessarily leave any genetic footprint on the tribes or societies they fetched up among?

EDIT: And indeed, regarding "swarthy" Formorians or people with "African" physical characteristics in Britain, that seems perfectly plausible to me given that Europe's modern human population had presumably come out of Africa originally and that Northern Europe had probably been repopulated by people from further south after the ice retreated.

Edited by JohnD
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Cormac - I don't pretend fully to understand the genetic data, but what you're saying is that any idea of a specific "Doggerlander" ethnic group who spread after the deluge is unsupported by the scientific evidence? That there were already various populations in and around the area both during and after the period when Doggerland was inhabited? Makes sense - I'm not sure if I really buy any of the alternative genetic and/or linguistic theories on the various sites linked to (not that I really know enough about that aspect to come to firm conclusions either way). Certainly, Oera Linda seems like a big load of bull (need to catch up on that thread too).

Hello JohnD,

Yes, you would be right in that. And as I mentioned to Abramelin, it extends past the timeframe for Doggerland and stands just as true for the Netherlands and the story in the OLB. Any genetic claims relating to the OLB are unsubstantiated and therefore meaningless.

But I guess if we're talking about stories about the flood spreading and leaving some sort of vague, hard-to-interpret mark on the mythologies and cultures of the various peoples around the North Sea, then it would only take a relatively small number of refugees who wouldn't necessarily leave any genetic footprint on the tribes or societies they fetched up among?

I think it really depends on what one is using as a reference, when talking about "The Flood". Is it the one concerning the end of Lake Agassiz-Ojibway c.6470 BC or the one related to the submergence of Doggerland c.6200 BC or the one related to the Black Sea c.7400 BC or the one related to the Mesopotamian and Hebrew stories c.3rd millenium BC? And how does one determine with any degree of accuracy which stories were passed down and which weren't? By whom? To whom? Gets rather complicated quickly, doesn't it?

cormac

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Well, you're NOT a moron so don't let yourself think that.

What the above picture shows is that by the time of, and prior to, the disappearance of Doggerland that there were already diverse genetic groups in the area who likely would have had contact with each other to varying degrees. This is also true for the area discussed in the OLB thread, from much later. But there is nothing to show that any groups or sub-groups that could be attributed to a specific peoples existed during the time of Doggerland. By the earliest times of the OLB the Haplogroup I1 (originating in or around Denmark) would have been only one of many, MANY groups or subgroups in the area. By the end of Doggerland and geographically close to it you can see from the picture that there were peoples belonging to Y Chromosome haplogroups R1a1a7-M458, R1b1a2a1a1b4/R-L21 and I2b-M436, as well as mtDNA haplogroups U, U4 or U5. In none of these cases should peoples of these groups/subgroups be seen as limited to a particular geography, nor (even more importantly) to a specific ethnicity. From that I think you can see how the genetic claims made, particularly as regards the OLB, ultimately FAIL.

To answer your last question, changes in genetics happen over a period of several thousands to tens of thousands of years. Something that is not seen particularly between the end of Doggerland and, say, the earliest parts of the OLB story.

cormac

OK, thanks for explaining, Cormac.

I think it's a tricky thing to prove some history on genetics alone (not saying that that is what Alewyn did, btw).

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(...)

I think it really depends on what one is using as a reference, when talking about "The Flood". Is it the one concerning the end of Lake Agassiz-Ojibway c.6470 BC or the one related to the submergence of Doggerland c.6200 BC or the one related to the Black Sea c.7400 BC or the one related to the Mesopotamian and Hebrew stories c.3rd millenium BC? And how does one determine with any degree of accuracy which stories were passed down and which weren't? By whom? To whom? Gets rather complicated quickly, doesn't it?

cormac

The emptying of Lake Agassiz, and a few centuries later the Storegga Slides will sure have had a dramatic impact on the psyche of the survivors of those floods/tsunamis that submerged Doggerland.

As you know I have been trying in this thread to grab at anything that might be some sort of remnant of a myth or myths about these events, and the only thing I could come up with are those stories about Avalon, Niflheim, Hell, Lyonesse, Ys, and of course, Lochlann.

But they were recorded so far later in time it's hard to imagine they have any connection with what must have happened many, many thousands of years before.

On the other hand, I read in another thread some North American tribes still knew of or had stories/myths about huge beasts ( = mammoths/mastodons) that roamed North America many thousands of years before Europeans set foot on American soil.

Maybe the fact that they lived in relative isolation helped them preserve these stories for a far longer time than people in Europe did?

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From a genetic perspective, minus the "Caribbean" claim, the rest really presents no problem that I'm aware of.

cormac

This may be only the most recent claim of there being African-like people living in the UK and/or Ireland, thousands of years ago.

I remember having read some 30 years ago in some book that skeletons of very ancient African people were found in caves near the coast of Ireland. Of course I have tried to find those stories/reports, but failed.

.

Edited by Abramelin
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I think it really depends on what one is using as a reference, when talking about "The Flood". Is it the one concerning the end of Lake Agassiz-Ojibway c.6470 BC or the one related to the submergence of Doggerland c.6200 BC or the one related to the Black Sea c.7400 BC or the one related to the Mesopotamian and Hebrew stories c.3rd millenium BC? And how does one determine with any degree of accuracy which stories were passed down and which weren't? By whom? To whom? Gets rather complicated quickly, doesn't it?

It certainly does...! And then there's the share length of time between the submergence of Doggerland and the later myths and cultures - I tend to share Abramelin's misgivings about the idea of things carrying over that length of time with so much change going on in the meantime.

Abramelin, relating to the diagram you've posted there, I found this while trying to make sense of it:

http://www.eupedia.com/forum/showthread.php?26211-The-founding-and-migration-of-I2a2b

Can't remember whether or not you referenced it upthread anywhere - it is a very big thread after all... I need to read through all of it and digest it. And this:

http://www.familytreedna.com/public/I2aHapGroup/default.aspx?section=news

The name that keeps getting mentioned is someone called Ken Nordtvedt - his research I assume. A couple of bits that jumped out at me (seems to be a fair bit of conjecture involved):

"As Doggerland submerged and the land divided, the I2a2b were split - a few

on the west side and a very few, perhaps as few as a single individual, on the east but the majority were trapped and slowly dying out on shrinking Doggerland islands where they were running out of firewood (as happened at Easter Island). They had neither the marine technology to escape the slowly rising water nor the wood to make boats. This was happening during the Younger Dryas glacial period so the population would have had a hard time maintaining themselves during this long time of land subsidence and bitter cold. A population collapse would seem very likely as a result.

-

Then, after the end of the Younger Dryas, there were four catastrophic events over the span of less than a couple hundred years. Lake Agassiz drained, raising the sea level 1 to 3 meters in a matter of only a few days time and causing the "8.2 kiloyear event", a cold period, perhaps 5˚ below normal, lasting about 3 centuries. This would have caused major habitat and resource destruction in the low flat islands and shorelines of Doggerland and severe disruption of the food supply resulting great loss of life.

-

Then the remnants of Doggerland were destroyed and the remaining I2a2b were nearly exterminated by the three devastating Storegga Tsunamis about 6,200 BC creating a major genetic "bottleneck" (e.g. N*=small). This "bottleneck" might go a long ways toward explaining the very long time between the founding of I2a2b about 13,000 ya and and the TMRCA only about 5,000 ya. It might also explain the relatively low numbers of I2a2b overall.

-

It is thought that the sea rise from Lake Agassiz and the Storegga tsunamis resulted in the opening of the English Channel, isolating those peoples who were on Britain. At first the channel opening may have been narrow enough and shallow enough to walk across at low tide, but the sea level continued rising at the rate of a meter a century, so the walking period did not last very long.

"

Makes post-glacial Doggerland sound like a fairly miserable place to live, which doesn't seem to agree with some of the evidence further up this thread. And the stuff about lack of wood/boats doesn't seem to tally either, considering how richly forested Doggerland seems to have been and that iirc there's evidence of boat-building from the Star Carr site, which predates the Storegga Slide by quite a long while...

"Over on the west bank - in a large area now under water off East Anglia - Isles C was founded and thrived. The continued rise of sea level drove them to the west where they dispersed throughout Britain.

Isles A split off from a remnant of Isles B about 3000 BC. Then Isles C2 and D

split off from C about 2000 BC in Ireland.

-

Some 6,000 years after the tsunamis, and 2,500 years after the split of C and D, the Anglo-Saxon and other "late" invasions started conceivably containing some B from those very few folks left on the continent 6,000 years before. Isles is a minuscule part of the continental gene pool and therefore any contribution to the gene pool of Isles B in Britain and Ireland would be minuscule and add none at all to groups A, C, and D.

"

"Is this up to date? (Ken's) conjecture that Clade C originated in the British Isles ...who may have been in the oldest Clade B...for what it is worth, Isles B folk entering the British Isles via Doggerland from what is now the German plain, going first to Scotland and then on to Ireland 'giving birth' to Isles Clades A,C and D.""

Anyway, I don't mean to spam your thread with copy-and-paste stuff, but I found it interesting and it appears to agree with the stuff in the diagram.

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No problem John, it's interesting stuff.

But you said: "Makes post-glacial Doggerland sound like a fairly miserable place to live, which doesn't seem to agree with some of the evidence further up this thread"

Right after the end of the last ice age, Doggerland would have been nothing but a frozen, barren tundra.

But from many finds (fi. bones, pollen) they concluded that all soon (- within 2000 years) changed for a lot better.

Maybe you have read in this thread that the avarage temperature in Doggerland at a later age was about 1-2 degrees Celsius higher than the avarage temperature in Brittain now.

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This may be only the most recent claim of there being African-like people living in the UK and/or Ireland, thousands of years ago.

Keep in mind Abramelin that the genetic evidence suggests that pale skin only developed in the area of the Caucasus c.4000 - 10000 BC. So anyone living before that time would of course been dark skinned.

European Skin Turned Pale Only Recently, Gene Suggests

Also that while subgroups of I2a and I2b would have existed in Europe at the time, I2a2b/L-161 appears to only date to c.5370 BP (3370 BC), which is well after the disappearance of Doggerland. As well as mentioning that, contrary to your picture, it's known that the end of Lake Agassiz-Ojibway and Doggerland did NOT happen at the same time but were in fact separate events.

Estimated TMRCAs for Y Haplogroup I Clades

cormac

Edited by cormac mac airt
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"Keep in mind Abramelin that the genetic evidence suggests that pale skin only developed in the area of the Caucasus c.4000 - 10000 BC. So anyone living before that time would of course been dark skinned."

This I got from your first link:

Now a new report on the evolution of a gene for skin color suggests that Europeans lightened up quite recently, perhaps only 6000 to 12,000 years ago.

(...)

The data suggest that the selective sweep occurred 5300 to 6000 years ago, but given the imprecision of method, the real date could be as far back as 12,000 years ago, Norton said. She added that other, unknown, genes probably also cause paling in Europeans.

So that means there could already have been white people living in Doggerland around 6200 BC.

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"Keep in mind Abramelin that the genetic evidence suggests that pale skin only developed in the area of the Caucasus c.4000 - 10000 BC. So anyone living before that time would of course been dark skinned."

This I got from your first link:

Now a new report on the evolution of a gene for skin color suggests that Europeans lightened up quite recently, perhaps only 6000 to 12,000 years ago.

(...)

The data suggest that the selective sweep occurred 5300 to 6000 years ago, but given the imprecision of method, the real date could be as far back as 12,000 years ago, Norton said. She added that other, unknown, genes probably also cause paling in Europeans.

So that means there could already have been white people living in Doggerland around 6200 BC.

Abe, 12,000 years ago IS 10,000 BC. :lol:

Yes there could have been, but how many/what percentage would be anybody's guess.

cormac

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Abe, 12,000 years ago IS 10,000 BC. :lol:

Yes there could have been, but how many/what percentage would be anybody's guess.

cormac

Hello, I know that...

Just saying that the date could have been 12,000 yrs bp. or like 4000 years to settle in Doggerland.

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Hello, I know that...

Just saying that the date could have been 12,000 yrs bp. or like 4000 years to settle in Doggerland.

That didn't come across in the way you wrote it, but okay. Yes it's possible. I'd say you're on much firmer ground concerning Doggerland than anyone in the other thread, concerning the OLB and ancient history. :tu:

cormac

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Btw, according to this pic you posted earlier, http://i325.photobucket.com/albums/k397/cormacmacairt/GeneticsinandaroundDoggerland.jpg , white as in blond-haired could have been present in Doggerland.

++

"That didn't come across in the way you wrote it, but okay. Yes it's possible. I'd say you're on much firmer ground concerning Doggerland than anyone in the other thread, concerning the OLB and ancient history"

Heh, ok. I just wanted to show that I actually read the pdf you linked to.

.

Edited by Abramelin
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Btw, according to this pic you posted earlier, http://i325.photobucket.com/albums/k397/cormacmacairt/GeneticsinandaroundDoggerland.jpg , white as in blond-haired could have been present in Doggerland.

++

"That didn't come across in the way you wrote it, but okay. Yes it's possible. I'd say you're on much firmer ground concerning Doggerland than anyone in the other thread, concerning the OLB and ancient history"

Heh, ok. I just wanted to show that I actually read the pdf you linked to.

.

Yes it could. Which tends to suggest, IMO, that Doggerland may have been a "melting-pot" of sorts of various peoples/ethnic groups/genetic lines. Although, for the time, it's likely that no one group was ever very large.

cormac

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Yes it could. Which tends to suggest, IMO, that Doggerland may have been a "melting-pot" of sorts of various peoples/ethnic groups/genetic lines. Although, for the time, it's likely that no one group was ever very large.

cormac

Population density back then may not have been anything near what we have now, but if I have to believe what some scientists suggested, Doggerland may have been the most popular place to be of all the places in Northern Europe/Asia, a few thousand years after the end of the last ice age.

Wouldn't it be damn interesting if they could find out, using DNA from skeletons dragged up from the bottom of the North Sea, who these people were?

That would be something: Africans and Nordics happily sharing some sort of paradise for thousands of years...

OK, ok, then they split up (Fomorians and Tuatha De Danann), and left their drowning world, but that was after they had started fighting eachother over their continuously shrinking homeland... :P

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Btw, I want to add that Cormac already showed me that the Tuatha De Danann in arrived in Ireland thousands of years after the submergence of Doggerland.

That's according to his (Irish) source, "The Annals of the Four Masters".

But the thing is this: it could be a myth created around a real ancient event.

And again... could that myth, in any form, have survived up to the day these 'masters' put it on paper?? Or just the core of it?

.

Edited by Abramelin
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Yes it would be interesting, although the use of the term "Africans" would be mis-applied in this case as none of the genetic groups/subgroups living in the area of Doggerland at that time would have originated in Africa.

cormac

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Yes it would be interesting, although the use of the term "Africans" would be mis-applied in this case as none of the genetic groups/subgroups living in the area of Doggerland at that time would have originated in Africa.

cormac

You base that on the DNA analysis of the skeletons found around the North Sea area.

What about those still on the bottom of the North Sea?

Maybe these 'Africans' doggedly stuck to Doggerland (that place was warmer than the UK is now - the surrounding countries were still cold enough to freeze one's balls off - , and these 'Africans may just have loved that land because of that), and when it got flooded fled to Ireland, and got whiped out before their genes got a chance to spread any further.

Ok, ok, just fantasizing now, lol. But you knew that already.

Edited by Abramelin
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You base that on the DNA analysis of the skeletons found around the North Sea area.

No, I base this on the lack of evidence showing specific African haplogroups/subgroups anywhere in Northern or Western Europe at the time of Doggerlands existance. And this from both Y Chromosome and Mitochondrial (mtDNA) studies.

What about those still on the bottom of the North Sea?

One can't base what we know on genetic evidence of remains that haven't been found. What we do have is fairly broad in scope already and none of it shows a specifically African origin.

Maybe these 'Africans' doggedly stuck to Doggerland, and when it got flooded fled to Ireland, and got whiped out before their genes got a chance to spread any further.

It's possible, but then again if it were true we'd never know about it, so there's nothing really to base any speculation on.

Edit to clarify first sentence by including the words "Northern or Western".

cormac

Edited by cormac mac airt
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You ignored the final sentence in my former post.

And that is all there is to it: FANTASY.

I admit: I love to fantasize about what could have been going on 8000 years ago.

But I am not an idiot, and some (no, many) of my fantasies are way off.

But some others could just be true, right?

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You ignored the final sentence in my former post.

Nope, but then I wasn't posting solely for your benefit, Abramelin, as we both know that there are others who like to fantasize as well. Only, as opposed to you, they believe their fantasies are reality. :yes:

cormac

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Nope, but then I wasn't posting solely for your benefit, Abramelin, as we both know that there are others who like to fantasize as well. Only, as opposed to you, they believe their fantasies are reality. :yes:

cormac

The reason I post what I post is because I was where these (other) morons are now, decades ago.

I was young, once (sigh), and I absolutely believed a Von Däniken, a Charroux, a Cayce, a Blavatsky, a Sitchin, a... whatever idiot lies through his/her teeth to get 15 or more 'minutes' of fame.

But then I woke up, I questioned things, I found out I had been lied to, I found out that all I wanted is to believe a fantasy history.

Why?

Coz I was bored with what scientists had to offer me.

They didn't tickle my imagination.

+++++

EDIT:

I know I have wasted a large part of my life believing in all that crap.

.

Edited by Abramelin
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