Newgrange, County Meath
This afternoon.
Via Mail Online:
Little had been known, however, about the prehistoric society that assembled this monument and other — prompting archaeologists and geneticists to analyse the genomes of 44 neolithic individuals from sites across Ireland.
Among these was the inbred individual that had been found buried in the most ornate recess of the Newgrange tomb — and likely belonged to a dynastic elite.
‘I’d never seen anything like it. We all inherit two copies of the genome, one from our mother and one from our father,’ said paper author and geneticist Lara Cassidy of Trinity College Dublin.
‘Well, this individual’s copies were extremely similar, a tell-tale sign of close inbreeding.’
‘In fact, our analyses allowed us to confirm that his parents were first-degree relatives.’
Ah here.
Genetics study shines light on early periods of Ireland’s human history (RTÉ)
Pic: Getty
Thanks Charger Salmon
Co. Kildare. Is Broadsheet Towers a geography-free zone,?
What I was about to write. You can tell they don’t get out of Dublin much.
Good Lord, Bodger…
Sorry!
An amusingly self-destructive habit of royalty throughout history.
sure they are still at it,
quick Google says
Numerous British royals have even married their first cousins, including Queen Victoria and her beloved husband Prince Albert.
FFG voters so.
Ah here. Send in the bulldozers!
Seriously though, this new insight is quite the thing to digest. Newgrange is firmly established in the Irish psyche. An iconic structure linking us back to a mystical, idealised past.
I have to recommend the Candlelit Tales podcast for anyone wanting a listen to some very good retellings of our ancient myths and folklore. They usually set it to some music and have a very interesting discussion afterwards. Highly recommended.
thanks Mills
I knew you’d be mystical and intriguing Millser.
* wistful sigh *
can’t find that on acast :( any link please
If you ever want a good laugh look up Cleopatra’s family tree.
Meath
Nothing’s changed
hahaha, V :)
Ah, it eventually did in ‘89.
they got back at us in ’99
and stopped another double
knackers and tramps
every single one’ah them
Maybe not Trevor Giles
Class Act, like Maurice Fitzgerald,
And like Maurice, I’d say he’s a foreign adoption
Too classy and decent, both of them, to be from Meath and Kerry respectively
” Other ruling dynasties from the archaeological world include the Inca god-kings and Egyptian pharaohs, though the Irish Neolithic period is much earlier than those civilizations.
Such unions are a near-universal taboo for biological and cultural reasons, though given his privileged burial within the chamber of the Newgrange monument, the researchers suggest his parentage was very likely to have been socially sanctioned.
The Trinity College Dublin research group notes that socially sanctioned mating of this nature is very rare, and in global scientific studies has been documented almost exclusively among politico-religious elites—specifically within royal families that are headed by god-kings. In globally documented cases of this, such as in Hawaii, the Inca empire and in ancient Egypt, such behaviour is typically limited to ruling families whose perceived divinity exempts them from social convention. Researchers have generally viewed such close unions as a means of intensifying hierarchy and legitimizing power. The evidence from this study suggests a similar dynamic may have existed here in Ireland during the Neolithic period which heralded the introduction of farming and saw the construction of large megalithic burial and ritual monuments.
and ” The 12th century Book of Leinster records the tale of a union between a sister and a brother which lent itself to the ancient name for Dowth.
The team of scientists also revealed a web of distant familial relations between the man buried at Newgrange and other individuals buried at other Neolithic passage tombs across the country, namely the cemeteries of Carrowmore and Carrowkeel in Co. Sligo, and the tomb at Millin Bay in Co. Down.
The genome survey led by Trinity College Dublin stretched over two millennia and unearthed other unexpected results. Within the oldest known burial structure on the island built around 3,800BC, Poulnabrone portal tomb in the Burren, the earliest yet diagnosed case of Down Syndrome was discovered in a male infant buried there. The remains were excavated by Dr Ann Lynch of the National Monuments Service in the 1980’s as part of urgent conservation work at the burial monument. Isotope analyses of this infant by TCD showed a dietary signature of breastfeeding. In combination with being afforded burial in the chamber, an honour afforded to very few, the researchers suggest this provides an indication of care and that visible difference was no barrier to prestige burial.
Additionally, the genetic analyses showed that the monument builders were early farmers who migrated to Ireland and replaced the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers who preceded them. The scientific evidence suggests that there was a ‘swamping’ of the earlier population rather than any forced displacement or extermination. ”
https://www.tcd.ie/news_events/articles/first-degree-incest-in-early-ireland-ancient-genomes-uncover-a-dynastic-elite-in-irish-passage-tomb-societies/
for full article…pretty cool
Excellent post Janet Everyday is a school day,
especially at the moment with the home schooling malarkey ;)
I can’t wait for my new teaching contract to end!
Very illuminating
Fascinating, and lovely photograph. Thanks Broadsheet – and Janet!
:) I’m an archeology geek since I was a kid
gets all the cylinders firing, this is super exciting, I wonder will similar results show up for similar structures in France and England too, will the same family DNA pop up there too ?
Good for you J…and you make no bones about it.
I just want to talk transects and grab a few lithics, :)
Now yer talkin’
Be warned, archaeologists are fickle. They’re always dating other people. hahahaha
Let’s talk debitage!
there will be no rejects with those kinda come backs
Firm, mid brown silty clay with moderate charcoal and burnt bone inclusions…….
layer (1069 ) was a light sandy reddish brown loam forming, perfect for a sudden need for a lie down and a cool off,
Tara Ra Boom-De-Ay!
I’m my own grandpa
Now we know where charger came from
I wouldn’t honour him with this, he sent this post in trying to ridicule our rich heritage, these equate to Egypt’s pyramids and are in fact older, well be just showed his own ignorance as per usual and he can fupp right off
But shur’ isn’t his own Monarch out of a Royal house that practice ‘close breeding’ with their relatives in other European Royal Families
It’s not just Game of Thrones stuff, this Keeping the Crown within the same family
Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
hurriedly changed to Windsor by deed poll due to a l’il conflict of interest called World War I
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Windsor
Ah here- I know of one town in Ireland where most of the people actually look the same- genuinely, they look alike. Inbreeding was not just limited to a particular class or creed- its still going on- sure how else would the Dáil be in the state it is in?
I am gobsmacked that dna was retrieved from bones placed in these very ancient mounds. I was under the impression that the bodies were cremated and the bones retrieved to placed in the mounds.
my guess is if indeed they extracted this from cremated remains it survives because it is inside the bone and teeth which protect it. All the bone and teeth don’t disintegrate during the cremation process and sometimes the pieces that survive are crushed after the process so where there’s bone—there’s a chance it contains DNA.
Janet knows her stuff. Teeth especially survive the cremation process and the larger joints and longbones.
I used to be able to draw kerbstone 52 with my eyes closed :)
https://www.newgrange.com/newgrange-k52.htm
Always thought it’d be a cool name for a band K52, or Kerbstone 52… playing Irish mythic metal hahahaha :)
Knowth has one third of all the megalithic rock art in Western Europe. One site.
That I didn’t know Papi, well cool :)
This discovery isn’t new regarding DNA in osteoblasts, osteoclasts or osteocytes; it has been retrieved from human bones since the early 80s in China from 2,000 yr-old mummified bodies. The DNA [usually mitochondrial] which hasn’t been contaminated can establish genetic relationships among settlements of people, particularly those of high-status who have been through a burial process – each type of burial process displays the various aspects of ancient tradition, culture and class and can determine where the remains were/ are discovered due to Geology, climate etc., which play a crucial role in the preservation and destruction of every organic and non-organic material on this small planet within which we all live.
correct it’s the information about these Irish sites that is new and in particular what they tell us about the ruling family