ORIGINS: WHO WERE THE FIRST INHABITANTS OF BRITAIN FOLLOWING THE LAST ICE AGE?

This is important because they were hunter-gatherer ancestors who had come north, after the ending of the last Ice Age from refuges and habitats in the Mediterranean region. They were the first peoples to cross the land bridge into Britain.
DNA testing suggests that some were my close ancestors—viz. migrating hunter-gatherers.
On a 12,000 year time-scale my ancestors and many other European ancestors were related to one another. Those who have the same DNA haplogroups would be closely related.

DNA TESTING
I have had the haplogroups for my DNA tested for both lines of ancestors. The specialist DNA scientists were www.familygenetics.co.uk

There are two forms of deep ancestry – arising via the Y and the X chromosomes.
The Y chromosome is carried in the paternal male line (father to father; papa to papa).
The other is the mitochondrial DNA in the X chromosome – the maternal female line (mother to mother; mama to mama).
For both, DNA specialists provide information about the geographic locations and dispersals of the remote ancestors. As the science of DNA improves, the results are ever more informative as to where the ancestors may have lived.


CASE STUDY:
Haplogroup number I 1b2a which is carried on my personal Y-chromosome.

Group I 1b2a is uniquely European—largely found among the British, Iberians (Basque), Italians, and Sardinians.

The even finer Haplogroup I 1b2a1 is entirely British, and would have descended from British I1b2a.

PREHISTORY SUMMARY
Haplogroups A and B emerged in Africa.
About 130,000 years ago, these populations expanded throughout Africa. Palaeo-anthropological and archaeological evidence shows modern humans were in the Near East and Middle East about 70,000 years ago.
In the course of time, the human genome changed again and again. People who had left Africa derived a new primary haplogroup called group F.
Haplogroups from G to R are branches of F, which means that most people in Europe and the Middle East are descendants of the founder of group F.
Eventually settlement in the Balkans and the Mediterranean took place, but progress across Europe was halted by the increasing cold of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM).
About 20,000 years ago, the founder of Haplogroup I emerged in the Balkans. As the ice retreated, members of group I spread across Europe. A small population of group I who had settled in Iberia became ancestors of my haplo sub-group, I1b2, whose members would disperse across the west of Europe. My further sub-group I1b2a is found in Sardinia, Italy and the Basque country; and up the coast of France to England.
That so many I1b2a subgroup people are in Britain implies that the group carriers got there before the land-bridge was cut. They were ‘trapped’, being isolated. All later comers (like those bringing the seeds and animals associated with the Continental Neolithic) could only arrive by boat in later millennia.

MALE LINE CONCLUSION
DNA specialists infer that my male ancestors reached England as hunter-gatherers, and walked into before Britain became an island.

 FEMALE LINE Haplogroup U3: It is the same with my female line, viz. Group U3, which developed in the Ukraine and reached England via migrating hunter-gatherers moving north and west across Poland and northern Germany before the land-bridge to Britain was severed.

Group U is the group shared by both schoolteacher Adrian Targett of Cheddar (Somerset) and the 10,000 year old skeleton found in a cave in his village in Cheddar Gorge. They have identical DNA showing how settled some families have been throughout this long time period.

THE STORY OF HAPLOGROUP I12ba1

Group……..….Where………………..….........…When

I……….….Fertile Crescent..............…25 to 20,000 years ago
I1
I1b……….Balkans……………….…...........15,000 years ago
I1b2…....Italy...S. France…Spain......15,000-12,000 ya
I1b2a…..Migrants moving north......…12,000-10,000 ya
…………………..and reach Britain……c.10,000 ya
I1b2a1..Almost 100% are British….....10,000-8,000 ya


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