Whitney Family DNA Project/Haplogroup R1b
Miscellaneous > Whitney Family DNA Project > Whitney Family DNA Project/Haplogroup R1b
Notes on Y-Chromosome Haplogroup R1b
R1b (previously known as Hg1 and Eu18) is the most prolific haplogroup in Europe and its frequency changes in a cline from west (where it reaches a saturation point of almost 100% in areas of Western Ireland) to east (where it becomes uncommon in parts of Eastern Europe and virtually disappears beyond the Middle East). A R1b haplotype (a set of marker scores indicative of the haplogroup) is very difficult to interpret in that they are found at relatively high frequency in the areas where the Anglo - Saxon and Danish "invaders" originally called home (e.g., 55% in Friesland), and even up to 30% in Norway. Thus a R1b haplotype makes it very challenging to determine the origin of a family with this DNA signature.
During the Last Glacial Maximum, about 18,000 years ago, the people bearing the R1b haplogroup over wintered in Northern Spain (see map1). After the glacial retreat about 12,000 years before present, R1b began a migration to the north in large numbers (see map 2), and to the east in declining numbers.
R1b probably arrived in Spain from the east 30,000 years ago among the paleolithic or "old stone age" peoples considered to be aboriginal to Europe). It is believed that everyone who is R1b is a descendant in the male line from an individual known as "the patriarch" since his descendants account for over 40% of all the chromosomes of Europe. This haplogroup is characteristic of the Basques whose language is probably that of the first R1b, and who are genetically the closest to the original R1b population (which probably amounted to only a few thousand individuals). Source: Dr. David Faux http://www.davidkfaux.org/shetlandhaplogroupR1b
The members of R1b3 (or R-M269, formerly known as R1b) are believed to be the descendants of the first modern humans who entered Europe about 35,000-40,000 years ago (Aurignacian culture). Those R1b3 forebearers were the people who painted the beautiful art in the caves in Spain and France. They were the modern humans who were the contemporaries - and perhaps exterminators - of the European Neanderthals. Source: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~dgarvey/DNA/RelGen/Underhill_2003_R1b3.html
Hg R was the dominant lineage in Western Europe and then, pushed south by the descending Ice Age, to southwestern France and northwestern Spain to evolve into lineage Hg R1b. This area became a refuge for humans in Europe during the coldest millennia of the last Ice Age. As the climate warmed, the scattered clan Hg R1b followed the migration of game to the north and some of them reached what is now the British Isles about 15,000 years ago which at this time was connected to mainland Europe. It is believed they changed from hunter-gatherers to farmers in southeastern Europe about 8,000 years ago and in Britain about 4,000 years ago. As hunter-gathers became farmer's permanent settlements ended this great migration period and over time Hg R1b settled predominately in what is known today as Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium, Denmark, England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Source http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~staplessurname/before_surnames.htm
During the Last Glacial Maximum, R1b produced finely knapped stone 'leaf points' which define the <a href="http://www.beloit.edu/~museum/logan/paleoexhibit/solutrian.htm">Solutrean culture</a> and were culturally distinct from the people in other European Ice Age refuges who are described more generally as Epi-Gravettian. Source: Oppenheimer, Stephen. The Real Eve, pp 249-50.
The mates for R1b, about the time of the Last Glacial Maximum, were mtDNA haplogroups H and V. (Haplogroup V was born in the Basque area of the Pyrenees shortly after the Last Glacial Maximum. Source: Oppenheimer, Stephen. The Real Eve, p 251.)
R1b Subclade Analysis by Ken Nordtvedt
