Reconstructed Migration Route of U5b1b

"Schematic reconstruction of possible entry routes of the predominant Saami maternal lineage to Fennoscandia. Broken lines indicate that the exact place of origin/route of spread of the haplogroup is unsolved/not indicated."

Given my own genomic links to southern (Spain, Tuscany, Sardinia) and western (Scotland, Wales, UK, Ireland) Europe, above shows a possible migration route of my motherline through or near these areas.

Source: The Western and Eastern Roots of the Saami—the Story of Genetic “Outliers” Told by Mitochondrial DNA and Y Chromosomes

Motherline Migration Map

While the previous two maps look back up to the past 500-1000 years and several thousand years respectively (and look at nuclear genes I have inherited from both of my parents), this map looks back up to the past 300-500 generations (6000-13,000 years) and looks at mitochondrial DNA I have inherited from my mothers down through the generations. Nuclear DNA and mitochondiral DNA mutation rates are very different - my motherline doesn't show up in Northwestern Europe as Scandinavian except in Iceland.

I have to digest this scientific paper while I wait for my full sequence mtDNA results to weigh in with information regarding which u5b subcluster I hail from.

The Peopling of Europe from the Mitochondrial Haplogroup U5 Perspective

Celtic Druid & Jewish Remnants and the Viking Raids

While the previous map looked back approximately 500 years (up to 1000 years even, landing in the Middle Ages and possibly covering some of the period of the Viking raids), this map looks at the world regions where my ancestors (both maternal and paternal) have roots for the last several thousands of years. The timing is important, because I have a hypothesis related to my ancestry and the history of Europe. In this map, it looks like I have strong more ancient roots in the Celtic lands of Wales, Scotland, UK, Ireland and to the Viking land of Finland. So, my more ancient ancestors are also significantly Celtic, as well as Finnish Vikings (with a splash from Spain and Eastern Europe, which could have been from people "acquired" by the Vikings during raids or who joined up with the Vikings and Celts against the Romanization of Europe - perhaps even refugees from ancient Israel as well following destruction of the Temple - as suggested by my motherline genetic map). Interestingly, both the Celts (think Boadicea and the Druids on Anglesey) and the Vikings famously fought Rome and/or the spread of Christianity during the period this map covers (as did my Jewish ancestors fight Rome in ancient Israel). It's not inconceivable then, that perhaps my Celtic Druid ancestors fled to Viking Sweden following defeat by Rome at Anglesey, and there, together, the remnant of Celtic Druids joined up with the Vikings, and together plotted the revolt against the Romanization of Northwestern Europe (the land of the Vikings and the haven for a Celtic Druid remnant) - resulting in the Viking raids. All of this is supported by my genetic ancestry results and my dream of being a half-blood Celtic Druid Jewess on the run from Roman soldiers. I bet I ended up in Sweden and joined up with the Vikings, who were after all, my relatives too (in Finland).

The Viking revolt against Romanized Europe spanned the late 8th to 11th centuries.

Swedish Scandinavian Ancestry

In follow-up to an earlier post, it makes perfect sense that Frau Holle, the great mother goddess of the Teutonic people, is revealed to be my patroness as a witch, and as a descendent of the Vikings. In the photo, are the results of the autosomal DNA test (by STR analysis) I had done which looks at the genes I inherited from all of my ancestors. According to these results (numbers also shown for my top six population matches), which look back approximately 500 years, Sweden is clearly the top land of my modern ancestors - no other land even comes to close it in terms of the raw Match Index number result, although my Norway Tribe Score (in parentheses) is equal to my Swedish Tribe Score, indicating a strong Viking ancestry and family blood ties to Norway as well. Wales, Scotland and the UK in general are also in my top five matches - lands where Vikings heavily settled during the Middles Ages. On top of all this, my motherline mtDNA haplogroup is U5b, called Clan Ursula among genealogists, and is a Northwestern European haplogroup. My motherline and autosomal DNA tests were both done through different labs in different countries. Even as I await my Family Finder results (to confirm and add more detail to my ancestral genetic research), I think it's pretty clear that my ancestors were heavily Viking.

Natufian Culture in Jericho & the Ancient Israelites

The ancient Israelites are commonly believed to have arisen from the epipaleolithic Natufian culture which ranged from Southern Turkey to Sinai.

The Natufian culture is the name given to the sedentary hunter-gatherers living in the Levant region of the near east between about 12,500 and 10,200 years ago. They were hunter-gatherers, foraging for food such as emmer wheat, barley and almonds, and hunting gazelle, deer, cattle, horse, and wild boar.

It is also known that Natufians were the first inhabitants of Jericho. Oh, wait! the Israelites famously conquered Jericho and its inhabitants, the first inhabitants of the Holy Land. Hmm, maybe the Israelites were not Natufians at all as commonly believed.

This scientific paper [Tracing European Founder Lineages in the Near Eastern mtDNA Pool] suggests mtDNA haplogroup U5 may have ultimately originated in the [semitic] Near [Middle] East about 50,000 YBP, migrated to Europe where it evolved, and then back-migrated to the Middle East (and North Africa, think sojourn to Egypt and Exodus) several times:

Recent back-migration can be estimated by an examination of the presence, in the Near East, of clusters that are most likely to have evolved within Europe. Haplogroup U5 is very ancient (∼50,000 years old) in both Europe and the Near East, but it occurs more sporadically in the Near East and is absent from Arabia. In the Near East, it is largely restricted to peripheral populations (Turks, Kurds, Armenians, Azeris, or Egyptians): only three individuals from the core Near Eastern regions (namely, the Fertile Crescent and Arabia) harbor U5 sequence types; of these, one is the root sequence type, whereas the other two are members of the highly derived subcluster U5a1a (for the nomenclature for U5, seetable 2). Overall, 8 of 22 Near Eastern U5 types are members of this highly derived subcluster, and an additional 6 are members of the next-most-derived subcluster, U5a1*. There are four members of U5b, one member of U5a*, and only three members of U5*. Moreover, these Near Eastern types are frequently derivatives of European intermediate types: one Egyptian type is derived from a Basque type, and many Armenian and Azeri types are derived from European and northern-Caucasian types. Therefore, whereas the U5 root sequence type (16270) could conceivably have originated in the Near East and have spread to Europe ∼50,000 YBP, with recurrent back-migration ever since, a European origin for the U5 cluster seems just as probable. In either case, the U5 cluster itself would have evolved essentially in Europe. U5 lineages, although rare elsewhere in the Near East, are especially concentrated in the Kurds, Armenians, and Azeris. This may be a hint of a partial European ancestry for these populations—not entirely unexpected on historical and linguistic grounds—but may simply reflect their proximity to the Caucasus and the steppes. Of the Near Eastern lineages, 1.8% (95% CR = .012–.027) are members of U5, in contrast to 9.1% (95% CR = .081–.103) in Europe; in the core region of Syria-Palestine through Iraq, the proportion falls to 0.5% (95% CR = .002–.015). Overall, this suggests the presence of as much as 20% of back-migrated mtDNA in the Near East but only ∼6% in the core region.

The point of all this is the possibility of a Middle Eastern origin for mtDNA haplogroup U5 (despite its larger evolutionary presence in Europe) with subsequent migration into Europe followed by recurrent back-migrations to the Middle East (and North Africa). Taken together with the fact that the ancient Israelities invaded an already present Natufian culture when they conquered Jericho suggests that the Israelites may not have been Natufian themselves as some believe they were. Consequently, in my mind, mtDNA haplogroup U5 cannot be excluded as a founder mtDNA haplogroup of the ancient Israelites based upon the evidence I've found so far. The many wandering travels of U5 seem quintessentially Jewish as well.

According to this blog, on the genetics of the Natufians:

There has been some bickering over their race, as they show a mix of features. Unfortunately there haven’t been that many burials found, so the sample sizes have been a bit too small to make definite conclusions about who they were. They seem to show a mix of racial features, and this varies in each era and site, so there was probably a fairly fluid population at that time. C Loring Brace’s paper that measured them said they were slightly closer to to the Eurasian Population, and all the Sub Saharan traits seem to vanish when the Natufian culture faded away.