Genetically speaking, Finns and Italians are the most atypical Europeans. There is a large degree of overlap between other European ethnicities, but not up to the point where they would be indistinguishable from each other. Which means that forensic scientists now can use DNA to predict the region of origin of otherwise unknown persons (provided they are of European heritage).
These are among the conclusions to be drawn from a genetic map of Europe, produced by the Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam (the Netherlands), published in Current Biology’s August 7 issue. In its Science section, the New York Times devotes an article to the study, and reproduces the genetic map.
The discovery that autosomal (i.e. non-gender-related) aspects of DNA may be used to predict regional European provenance of unkown individuals was made by prof. dr. Manfred Kayser’s team of forensic molecular biologists. In a press release, the Erasmus UMC stated that this might potentially be helpful in resolving so-called ‘cold cases’.
The genetic map of Europe was compiled by comparing DNA samples from 23 populations in Europe (pictured on the right-hand side map). Those populations were then placed on the ‘genetic’ map according to their similarity, with the vertical axis denoting differences from south to north, and the horizontal one from west to east. The larger the area assigned to a population, the larger the genetic variation within that population.
When compared to the actual map, the populations kinda sorta maintain their relative position to each other. Two observations spring to mind immediately: the fact that most populations overlap so intimately with their neighbours. And that Finland doesn’t. Some other observations:
- The extent of genetic variation is greater north to south than east to west. This may be a result of the way Europe was colonized by modern humans, i.e. from the south, in three successive waves of migration (45,000 years ago, where before there had only been Neanderthals; 17,000 years ago, after the last Ice Age; and 10,000 years ago, with the advent of farming techniques from the Middle East).
- The isolation of Finnish genetics can be explained by the fact that they were at one time a very small population, preserving its genetic idiosyncrasies as it expanded.
- The relative isolation of Italian genetics is probably due to the Alps, providing a geographic barrier to the free and unhindered flow of population to and from Italy… Although Hannibal, the Celtic and Germanic influence in Italy’s north and of course the expansion of the Roman Empire would seem to contradict this.
- Yugoslav genetic variation is quite large (hence the big pink blob), and overlaps with the Greek, Romanian, Hungarian, Czech and even the Italian ones.
- There is surprisingly little overlap between the northern and southern German populations, each of which has more in common with their other neighbours (Danish/Dutch/Swedish in the northern case, Austrian/Swiss/French in the other one).
- The Polish population is quite eccentric as well, only significantly overlapping with the Czech one (and only minimally with the northern German one).
- The Swiss population is entirely subsumed by the French one, similarly, the Irish population almost doesn’t show any characteristics that would distinguish it from the British one.
- British and Irish insularity probably explains why so much of their genetic area is not shared with their closest European cousins, i.c. the Norwegian/Danish/Dutch cluster.
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Pingback by Genetische Verwandtschaften ‹ dreitehabee — August 18, 2008 @ 9:14 am
I have not read the article (you sure it’s the 7 August issue of Curr. Biol.?) but the diagram is labelled with eigenvectors. I would assume that these are statistical (QSAR?) characteristics that make the various countries seem as different as possible. Other eigenvectors might show, for example, overlap between the Irish and the Spanish. Nice blog BTW.
Comment by Klaas Wynne — August 18, 2008 @ 9:52 am
The reason Polish population appears to be an outlier is that the Poles are Slavs and the Czechs are the only other northern Slav nation included in the map. Had the Slovaks, the Byelorussians, the Ukrainians or the Russians been included their populations would to some degree be contiguous with that of Poland but lying further right. Having said that it is very surprising for me to see how little commonality there is between Poles and Germans genetically. They have had over a thousand years to become intermingled. The lack of overlap must be explained, I think, by the ethnic cleansing during and after WWII through which the Nazis and Soviets turned Poland from one of the most ethnically diverse nations in Europe (’ethnic’ Poles represented only 60% of the population pre-WWII) into one of the most homogeneous (98% according to some recent estimates). The reason the result on this map remains surprising is that ethnic identities are highly fluid over generations so I had expected less connection between ethnic identity and genetics.
Comment by Konrad Talmont-Kaminski — August 18, 2008 @ 9:54 am
a cool map! It leaves off the Baltic nations however which would be really interesting to see how they relate to the rest of Europe. What their addition would definitely show is that it was the same group of people who moved up to the north of the baltics and then some went across the sea to Finland. Estonians are still a pretty racially undiverse bunch.
The Finnish language is related to Estonian somewhat closely and they are both distantly related to Hungarian, interesting to see there appears to be no connection between the Finnish and Hungarian genetics on this map.
Comment by Louis Zezeran — August 18, 2008 @ 10:47 am
Finns might not been that lonely, had they included Estonians. Other Baltic countries would have been nice also. And Russians. There is a steep cultural border between Finns (+Estonians) and Russians, does it show in genes?
Comment by Otto — August 18, 2008 @ 10:54 am
[...] Read it. [...]
Pingback by DYSPEPSIA GENERATION » Blog Archive » The Genetic Map of Europe — August 18, 2008 @ 11:49 am
One mistake: Spain consists of many distinct populations such as Basques, Catalunians etc. the UK consists of English, Scottish, Welsh. This was not taken into account
Comment by Marios — August 18, 2008 @ 12:12 pm
These are NATIONal maps. I believe that REGIONal maps would make more sense; especially in a country like France where there are large ethological differences (Celts, Franks, Saxons, Meditteraneans) There might be as much difference between someone from Northern France (Flanders) and someone from Marseille and someone from UK and Italy. Lyon does not represent the whole country.
Comment by Flupke — August 18, 2008 @ 12:16 pm
It is a pity that we cannot see the results for the Basque Country and Sardinia. They would be really interesting.
Comment by alfanje — August 18, 2008 @ 12:42 pm
I find the closeness of the Irish and British populations interesting (especially in regard to their isolation from Germany) since it implies that the Anglo-Saxon conquest was one of cultural assimilation, not force of numbers of settlers.
So that genetically, the English are Germanic speaking celts.
Comment by Richard Green — August 18, 2008 @ 12:59 pm
The North/South split in Germany isn’t all that surprising. In all likelihood it follows the Catholic/Protestant divide.
Comment by Sili — August 18, 2008 @ 1:51 pm
I was surprised that Sweden had no overlap with Denmark, Norway or Finland.
Are Swedish-speaking Finnlanders just ethnically Finnish people who speak Swedish? I always assumed that they were the remnants of the Swedes who went there when it became part of Sweden.
Comment by nr — August 18, 2008 @ 3:47 pm
[...] a Strange Maps parlen de l’article del New York Times que avança resultats del què publiquen els de [...]
Pingback by Lo mapa genètic d’Europa « Xarxes socials i llengües — August 18, 2008 @ 4:24 pm
Looking at the history of the British Isles from AD 500-1000 we can see many waves of immigration from Northern Europe.
If you sampled genes from NE England and Scotland, especially the Orkneys and Shetland, I imagine there would be a closer match to the Nordic block.
Comment by Chris — August 18, 2008 @ 7:22 pm
A big problem with this type of study is that they haven’t made it clear how diverse the regions are from which the data was drawn. As others have pointed out, a place like the UK will have a drastic shift from one region to another, and taking information from only urban areas will of course shift the results drastically. Within every county (municipality, or whatever it’s called in each language and government) there will be a genetic identity that could be plotted out on a map like this. It’s hard to suggest that this data could be reliable given the small sampling used.
Comment by Bill — August 18, 2008 @ 8:24 pm
Albanians are not Europeans?
Comment by jem — August 18, 2008 @ 8:36 pm
And the Slovaks get skunked again. Either lumped in with the Czechs or the Hungarians. Separate ethnicity folks.
Comment by Martin — August 18, 2008 @ 9:32 pm
[...] Strange Maps: The Genetic Map of Europe [...]
Pingback by Stralau-Blog — Schöner sterben am Wasser » Blog Archive » Links von Montag, 18. August 2008 — August 19, 2008 @ 12:31 am
KT-K,
The points represent sample locations, so it’s clear why Germany and Poland don’t overlap much: they didn’t sample the space in between them, but instead northern Germany, up by Scandinavia, and southern Germany, by Austria.
Italy 1 looks like Rome or maybe Naples, but Italy 2 is in the Marches, probably near Ancona, as that’s where the researcher is located. I wonder whether both areas aren’t atypical.
In any case, southern Italy was home to a significant Arab population in the medieval period and Rome’s population went through a bottleneck in the medieval to swell greatly into the 19th c. and then again in the 20th, mainly via immigration.
Similarly, the UK population is from London, another metropolis subject to large-scale immigration since Roman times. I suspect results from Scotland would look fairly different.
Finally the Irish samples looks to be from Dublin, another city with significant immigration and one that was in fact founded by Vikings, not Celts, and so may be expected to be an outlier compared with the rest of the Emerald Isle.
To my mind, the plot shows all of central Europe as one fairly big blob, with the European peninsulas standing out. I suspect if you threw in Turkey and the Slavic countries, it would start getting more interesting.
Comment by John — August 19, 2008 @ 12:39 am
Is very strange that vasque’s type do not appears…
Comment by Efrem — August 19, 2008 @ 12:41 am
Lumping Serbs/Croats/Macedonians/Albanians makes for a huge inconsistancy in results. Additionally, as a blogger mentioned in an earlier post, Russian nations need to be included in a genetic map like this one as their genetics play a significant role in creating an accurate representation of the intermingling of nations through the centuries.
Comment by ND — August 19, 2008 @ 2:15 am
Richard & Chris:
I read an article about a year ago about the genetics of the British Isles and it came to some interesting conclusions, the main one being that for the most part, the English and Irish populations were genetically highly similar and also NOT especially Germanic OR Celtic, but whatever stock was present on the islands before either Indo-European wave.
That is, not only was the Germanic invasion mostly cultural and linguistic rather than genetic, so was the previous Celtic invasion.
There was also some speculation (and avenues for future research) about whether this population was the same pre-IE stock whose last [linguistic] descendents are the Basques.
Comment by Pat — August 19, 2008 @ 2:38 am
So, all the Swedes from Finland have disappeared ?
Bucharest (the place where the Rumanian samples were takes) seems to be all over the place, which would be consistent to recorded immigration from the second half of the XIXth century.
Comment by Emil — August 19, 2008 @ 3:45 am
Italy, as I understand it has significant genetic variation, particularly from north to south, so 2 samples from central Italy can’t be considered representative. Other autosomal studies have shown that Italian populations do not cluster as tightly as most other European populations (which we see here as well, even in a small sample from one location.)
I think we should consider the possibility that protohistoric and historic migrations had some role in shaping the north-to-south variation, as Northern Italy had significant Celtic and Germanic settlements in pre- and post-Roman times, respectively. Southern Italy had major Greek settlements (both ancient Greek and Byzantine). Sicily had significant Arab/Berber settlement during the Middle Ages.
Recent Y-DNA and mtDNA evidence suggests that the Greek and (to a lesser extent) North African settlements in Sicily had genetic as well as cultural and linguistic effects.
Comment by patrick — August 19, 2008 @ 4:43 am
No Baltic states. :( and then they say that Finland is completely isolated and Lithuania is a city in Africa…
Comment by Bea — August 19, 2008 @ 6:50 am
Many commenters seem to notice that the selection of states they made is quite arbitrary from a generic point of view, only to suggest a different one, which would obviously suffer from the same problem. It would probably be more interesting (but harder to sell) if no prior selection of regions were made at all.
Comment by rp — August 19, 2008 @ 7:06 am
Where are the Belgians on this map? (Of the Flemish and the Walloons?) We must be stuck somewhere between the Netherlands and France!
Comment by Henk — August 19, 2008 @ 7:59 am
[...] produced by The Smiths and Morrissey // Virtual trannies wear their avatars in the real world // Genetic map of Europe, showing the clear distinctiveness of the Brits and Irish. Interestingly, the UK sampling point [...]
Pingback by D’log :: blogging since 2000 » Weekly links lucky-dip, No.11 — August 19, 2008 @ 9:03 am
The FR-CH-DE2-AT samples make an arc north of the alps, corresponding to the ancien celtic core of la Tène and Halstatt…
Comment by lp — August 19, 2008 @ 11:22 am
There is some overlap between the UK, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark….alll of which have been immigrant/invaders to the UK over the last 1000 years. The lack of French inflcunce in the UK is odd, but you have to remember that the Normans where origanlly from Norway.
Comment by EvilEuropean — August 19, 2008 @ 11:57 am
Quite interesting. We knew already that the Anglo-Saxon and Norman invasions brought almost no new genes to England (the invasions mainly replaced a small percentage of the ruling and priestly classes, which themselves made up only a small percentage of all English). This confirms that conquest in Europe was historically more cultural and political than genetic. People simply didn’t migrate in large numbers: they just invaded, killed the top 0.1%, and left a bureaucracy to administrate their new lands.
I’d like to see this done with respect to Turkey. The Turks say they are the descendants of Turkmen from Asia, but again it’s likely the ruling classes were replaced but the common people were for the most part left alone. There seem to be more natural blondes and redheads in Turkey (especially inland, away from the tourist centres) than anywhere else south of the 45th parallel. I suspect there’s a lot of Celtic blood among the Turks.
Comment by Charlene — August 19, 2008 @ 12:03 pm
It’s really unfortunate that the Basques weren’t included in the sampling.
Comment by Jay — August 19, 2008 @ 5:28 pm
To Charlene: before the arrival of the Central Asia’s Turks in Anatolia ( eleventh century ), this country was mainly populated by Greeks and Armenians. So modern Turks have surely a lot of common genes with them, but don’t say that in Turkey, it’s not politicaly correct…
About older anatolian roots, its true you can find a group of celtic tribes, the Galates, arrived near modern Konya city in the third century BC.
But you’ve got also Turks with caucasian backgrounds: hundred thousands of Circassians ( or Tcherkess ), Tchechen and others refused the russian rule other Caucasus and fled to Turkey around 1860. These people were often tall blue eyed, blond haired…Their descendants are now assimilated.
Comment by lp — August 19, 2008 @ 7:26 pm
What the study shows is that autosomal aspects of DNA can be used to discover ethnicity. The NYTimes article takes it a bit too far IMHO since the sample rate is quite low, so really discovering any other big trends and tying them to historical data is quite hard to do in a statistical significant way. I presume that wasn’t the point either.
Comment by wds — August 19, 2008 @ 7:29 pm
“the Irish population almost doesn’t show any characteristics that would distinguish it from the British one.”
…which is pretty funny, considering Britain’s past racism toward Ireland!
Comment by John — August 20, 2008 @ 1:38 am
What is with the Croatians, Bulgarians, Turks and eastern slavs?
Comment by Hun — August 20, 2008 @ 3:31 pm
“One mistake: Spain consists of many distinct populations such as Basques, Catalunians etc. the UK consists of English, Scottish, Welsh. This was not taken into account”
English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish to be precise.
Comment by Virgil Hart — August 20, 2008 @ 4:10 pm
““the Irish population almost doesn’t show any characteristics that would distinguish it from the British one.”
…which is pretty funny, considering Britain’s past racism toward Ireland!”
It’s not really, considering, 1., British is a term naming a collective group of countries, i.e, England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland.
Secondly, genetics have very little to do with that “racism,” the Irish-English issue is far more complicated than a race issue.
Thirdly, your comment really should have read:
““The Irish population almost doesn’t show any characteristics that would distinguish it from the British one.”
…which is pretty funny, considering England’s past racism toward Ireland!”
On a fourth point, there are stronger anti-English feelings here in Ireland, than there are anti-Irish feelings in England atm, so obviously your point is derived from some sad chip on your shoulder.
Fifthly, the quote itself is rendered invalid in a wider sense since if they took into consideration they would see that the genetic traits differ a lot more than they do when only a small number of European countries are taken into account.
I could go on, but I’m lazy.
Comment by Virgil Hart — August 20, 2008 @ 7:04 pm
I find it interesting that all the groups are denoted with their ISO 3166-1 alpha 2 letters for the countries (the XX1 and XX2s are of course counted only on the letters), except for Greece (normally GR, but on this “EL”, presumably for “Ellas”, the local name).
Yes, I’m a bit of a geek that I notice these things. I won’t say how much bigger of a geek it makes me by saying that I have all the codes memorized and use them frequently in my own geographical data collecting and sorting.
Comment by David Kendall — August 20, 2008 @ 11:02 pm
[...] 306 – The Genetic Map of Europe « Strange Maps "Genetically speaking, Finns and Italians are the most atypical Europeans. There is a large degree of overlap between other European ethnicities, but not up to the point where they would be indistinguishable from each other. Which means that forensic scientists now can use DNA to predict the region of origin of otherwise unknown persons (provided they are of European heritage)" (tags: genetics dna genealogy visualization) [...]
Pingback by links for 2008-08-21 at Ip’s. — August 21, 2008 @ 6:16 pm
From comment #4: “Estonians are still a pretty racially undiverse bunch.”
- Nothing could be further from the truth. Estonians themselves have told me how mixed they are due to their occupation over the centuries by Danes, Swedes, Russians and Germans. Even many Estonian surnames had been translated from the original language into Estonian during the 1920s-30s.
Comment by Chuck — August 22, 2008 @ 2:43 am
The Finns’ genetic exclusion is the reason they have so many genetic diseases. Generation after generation of the same genes interacting, and things start to go wrong.
Comment by Sallad — August 22, 2008 @ 3:02 am
“The Finns’ genetic exclusion is the reason they have so many genetic diseases. Generation after generation of the same genes interacting, and things start to go wrong.”
The Finns does not have many genetic diseases, they have different kind of genetic diseases when compared to other Euroepeans.
Comment by Ahas — August 22, 2008 @ 5:28 am
[...] how generic names for soft drinks vary by U.S. region, the 2004 Olympic medal breakdown by country, coverage areas for the genetic groups in Europe, and a tiny island kingdom just outside of Denmark called Elleore, which was created by Danish [...]
Pingback by Maponics Blog » Blog Archive » Best Cartographic Websites: Strange Maps — August 22, 2008 @ 3:56 pm
Another factor in Finnish separation is Finland’s physical isolation – water to west and south, and sub-arctic wilderness to the east.
While the UK does not overlap with DK or SE, it and IE do overlap heavily with NL. What is most interesting here, perhaps, is that UK’s “area” has two lobes – one which roughly covers the same “area” as IE and NL, and one stretching out to the “west”. I note that IE has a similar but much smaller lobe.
Also, what’s up with the “hole” in the middle of the chart? It’s between FR, AT, YU, RO, IT, and ES2.
Comment by Rich Rostrom — August 22, 2008 @ 7:33 pm
Also interesting to consider how this relates to the overlap (or not) of different languages – which also indicates to what degree nations have interacted with one another.
I understand that Finnish is one of the most distinct European languages since it does not have Latin at its root – mirrored perfectly by their genetic distinctness.
Other languages share more in common, for example English with German or Italian and Spanish – which seem to be also reflected in this map.
Comment by Amy — August 23, 2008 @ 8:10 pm
@46: You’ve got the right idea but got a detail wrong. There are lots of languages in Europe which are not rooted in Latin: German, Polish, Greek, Swedish, etc. What makes Finnish unlike most languages in Europe is that it is not one of the Indo-European languages, of which Romance languages (those descended from Latin) is but a small part.
Finnish comes from the Finno-Ugric languages of families. There are two other Finno-Ugric languages that are widely spoken in Europe: Estonian and Hungarian. The only other non-Indo-European language spoken widely in Europe is Basque, which is not known to be related to any other extant language and thus is not part of any family.
Comment by rhodent — August 24, 2008 @ 7:27 pm
and as always, the Baltics aren’t included…I have to agree, Estonians are quite mixed with Latvians, Germans, Swedes and Russians. Still, we should be right next to the Finns and together with Latvians and Lithuanians, we would make a “bridge” between the Finns and the Poles.
Comment by h2ppyme — August 25, 2008 @ 3:07 pm
[...] A genetic map of Europe. [...]
Pingback by The Third Bit » Blog Archive » A Pile o’ Links — August 26, 2008 @ 12:13 pm
[...] entrambi sono geneticamente isolati. E i svizzeri sono [...]
Pingback by Vogliaditerra » Blog Archive » Italiani come Finlandesi — August 28, 2008 @ 9:35 am
> The Swiss population is entirely subsumed by the French one [..]
Not surprising, given the fact that the genetic sample was taken from the french-speaking part of Switzerland! Switzerland has four languages, and thus possibly also four genetic pools. Certainly the German speaking Swiss would rather overlap with the south Germans, and the Italian speaking Swiss with the Italians.
Comment by Adrian Kuhn — August 28, 2008 @ 4:13 pm
It’s too bad that the Baltic countries are not included. I would imagine that Finns and Estonians are genetically close, given their very similar languages. I am curious about the relationship between Estonians and other Baltic peoples, who speak Indo-European languages (unlike the Estonians and Finns).
Comment by jm — August 29, 2008 @ 4:31 pm
By the way, the omission of Albania is unfortunate, as Albanians are thought (by some at least) to be descended from the ancient Illyrians, so it would be very interesting to see how related they are to other ethnic groups of the Balkans.
Comment by jm — August 29, 2008 @ 4:33 pm
[...] Strange Maps This entry was posted on Saturday, August 30th, 2008 at 1:41 am and is filed under Finlândia, [...]
Pingback by Tiago Luchini — August 29, 2008 @ 10:41 pm
Very interest map..
Comment by stilllway — August 30, 2008 @ 5:46 pm
38 – “there are stronger anti-English feelings here in Ireland, than there are anti-Irish feelings in England”
Some Irish people aren’t too fond of the English??? Hmm, I wonder why.
Comment by Séamus — September 1, 2008 @ 11:56 am
“Are Swedish-speaking Finnlanders just ethnically Finnish people who speak Swedish?”
That’s true. There is swedish speaking minority in Finland, but basically all of them are finns who started speaking swedish in 19th century. Hard to explain..
Comment by Janne — September 1, 2008 @ 5:34 pm
“56 – “there are stronger anti-English feelings here in Ireland, than there are anti-Irish feelings in England”
Some Irish people aren’t too fond of the English??? Hmm, I wonder why.”
Because they love living in the past and moaning about being ‘the most oppressed people’ on the planet?
Considering the amount of Irish people in England it could also be a weird form of self-loathing…
Comment by Eamon — September 2, 2008 @ 2:19 pm
@Virgil Hart: ““The Irish population almost doesn’t show any characteristics that would distinguish it from the British one.”
…which is pretty funny, considering England’s past racism toward Ireland!”
So, the Scots get away with it yet again. The blanket loathing for the english and love for our ‘cousins’ in scotland has to come crashing down sometime soon. Was it the english who took the land so happily from the native Ulstermen? No. The scottish lairds, albeit with the blessings of London, crossed over to ‘manage’ the land, and brought their brand of protestantism with them.
The scots were voracious grabbers of land during the british empire, but have managed to stay quiet while the english take all the bad press. I’m not defending the english during empire- far from it, but the scots should get their fair due too.
Comment by rob — September 3, 2008 @ 7:15 pm
58- “Because they love living in the past and moaning about being ‘the most oppressed people’ on the planet?”
Of course sensible, clever people like you have no time for the past and understanding why things are the way they are. You’re too busy watching Eastenders and reading the ‘Irish’ Daily Mail.
Comment by Séamus — September 4, 2008 @ 11:48 am
This result is not scientific, at all. The map shows “genetic” nations or races like hungarian one. Hungarians consist of slavic, german, turkish blood. There is no typical hungarian “blood” or DNA-pattern. We hungarians use a common language called hungarian, but our routes orginated from “abroad”. See the hungarian history, DNA-monitoring, customs, habits.
This map is just a joke. i am sorry…
Comment by Laszlo — September 4, 2008 @ 9:19 pm
“Hungarians consist of slavic, german, turkish blood. There is no typical hungarian “blood” or DNA-pattern.”
That’s exactly what this map shows. Compare size and shape of HU with size and shape of CZ, EL and others – all of the are round. Hungarian area is biggest in Europe, which means that Hungarians are most diverse nation genetically
Comment by L — September 5, 2008 @ 2:39 pm
[...] recent posting in the blog StrangeMaps provides a very interesting perspective on the whole idea of nation as an ethnic category. Notice [...]
Pingback by Nationalism in Eastern Europe » Blog Archive » East European Nations Decoded — September 6, 2008 @ 11:11 pm
A similar map with better sampling coverage is visible in New Scientist, 6 sept., p. 14. It covers better the Eastern and Northern Europe. (The original map is published in Nature. Works of John November, University of California.)
Both map are however very similar in the zones that they cover quite both. Major difference: Iberic peninsula more isolated of Europe in the new map.
Comment by E-Ma — September 7, 2008 @ 9:52 pm
It’s no surprise that the UK-Ireland overlap would raise some ire (Eire? no, bad pun). What would be interesting to see to what extent this overlap is caused by Irish Immigration to the UK in modern history (6m in the UK with at least 25% Irish ancestry) and to what it extent it is caused by common Celtic ancestry and British immigration to the current Republic of Ireland.
I’m also surprised by the amount of overlap of Ireland and the UK to the Netherlands and their smaller overlap to Germany and Denmark, home to Angles, Saxons, and Jutes.
Comment by TS — September 10, 2008 @ 4:18 am
Brilliant! Truly brilliant! :-)
Raf
http://uzar.wordpress.com/
Comment by Raf Uzar — September 10, 2008 @ 8:16 am
Not at all surprising that the Yugoslavs overlap with the Italians — they’re right across the Adriatic. There were a lot of Italians living in parts of Croatia and Slovenia.
I always heard there was more overlap between the Irish and the Spanish and Portuguese, at least the people living in the northwestern coastal parts.
Comment by Mira — September 12, 2008 @ 2:39 am
I think it’s fascinating to see how our current understanding of a nation is reflected in our genetics and presumably our national ancestry. The Finns have a distinct heritage as linguists have been saying for years.
But even more interestingly, the UKers and the Irish are indistinct! In fact, it looks like the Irish are closer to Franco-German genetic middle than the English. Are the English the real Celts? I know this is not the only study that has show the UK gene pool is inseparable from the Irish (though I can provide no ref off hand). The genetic overlap b/w Ireland and the UK cannot invalidate national identities that draw sharp contrasts b/w the two populations, but it can’t help but undercut such contrast. Any reality check that could suggests unity rather than historically blood and bloody conflict (as well as tiresome bickering on comments pages–see comment’s above) is a good thing in my view.
Comment by Steve — September 12, 2008 @ 2:33 pm
How do I get the picture next to my comment to look like a bunny rather than that weird snowflake thing?
Comment by Steve — September 12, 2008 @ 2:35 pm
This is an interesting map, it’s quite interesting to see genetics and ancestory mapped out like this!
Comment by lauren — September 13, 2008 @ 5:56 pm
do u think it’s fantastic or what. RGDS
Comment by Scalping the Forex Market — September 28, 2008 @ 10:56 pm
cool map
Comment by Saravanan — September 29, 2008 @ 11:16 am
The pattern of genetic differences among present day Europeans probably reflects the impact of these three ancient migrations
Comment by Saravanan — September 29, 2008 @ 11:31 am
3 Sep 2008 … Researchers create a picture of Europe by mapping genetic variation among Europeans.
Comment by Saravanan — September 29, 2008 @ 12:04 pm
This European ancestry map was probably taken to assess how much additional information would be gained by genotyping with African and Asian populations that still can be further assesed with other populations microRNA, and the choice of Roman numerals for numbers to data not shown that these data would support the out of Europe hypothesis alone to speculate on the source of #6’s
« Blueprint [to Regenerate Limbs] comment.
Comment by Mark — October 1, 2008 @ 10:50 pm
the thing here is the sum of the three main paleolithic lineages, R1b,R1a, and I, will make you closer to the plot zone, while less of the sum of the three will take you farther away(ex. italy, greece, finland).
Comment by apolo — October 2, 2008 @ 5:26 am
Get the mean percentage of R1b, R1a and I in europe counting this 23 populations, and you can make a map ver similar to this one, it will be something like 45% r1b, 20% I, and 20% R1a(europe-counting all this 23 populations) and you can make a graph very similar to this one.
Comment by apolo — October 2, 2008 @ 6:56 am
thats why germny is in the center of the plot, because it has more or less 50%r1b, 25% r1a 25% I. the mean of europe.
Comment by apolo — October 2, 2008 @ 7:18 am
Some * Haplogroups in green have been confirmed by SNP testing concerning these findings.
{{——-http://www.familytreedna.com/public/Englisberg/index.aspx?fixed_columns=on———}} taken together with ABI1 ( e3B1)ZUGs. If you are weighing one against the other. Here Determined from preferred direction of amphetamine-induced rotation of one to the other. Anyone may may consider ordering a SNP confirmation test to determine a precise lineage mouse or human a lot of times I think for comparison.
Comment by Mark — October 3, 2008 @ 1:19 am
the problem with this type of graphs is that its very highly manipulable, adding welsh, scottish and basque region would suppose a complete change in the left part of the graph, because spain and portugal would go left and up, and uk and ireland a litle south.
Comment by apolo — October 3, 2008 @ 6:45 am
RESULTS: (For example here from comment #79) together with ABI1 ( e3B1) would refine your map [3] not in the genetic heredititary aggregate but will reflect sequential overlapping steps in the processing of printed words of the right (L-types) or left (P-types) hemisphere of event-related potentials (ERPL). Would reflect some of your (ERPL).
Comment by Mark — October 4, 2008 @ 10:20 pm
cyd7idtufuitjkdekof
Comment by bnmcbn — October 6, 2008 @ 7:13 pm
Predispositions to haploinsufficiency is sometimes a disease of or from the environment to those who get a (mountain) sickness for instance to those that have a genetic disease, but the ‘disease’ is the normal for those of us who live at lower (altitudes) or in another environment or areas of lower incidence rates for instance the shot arm of a chromosome to the long arm of one or the same chromosome when one or the other is not implicated in the sickness related to unrelated families in any two related families.
Comment by Mark — October 6, 2008 @ 11:05 pm
I just do not undestand why Portugal is not in Africa, or in Asia… That’s surely not Europe !
Comment by polandguy — October 25, 2008 @ 11:04 pm
data on Balkans and Russia would provide more insights into genetic variety of Europe.
Comment by Bruno — October 30, 2008 @ 3:46 pm
Comment by Charlene — August 19, 2008 @
“I’d like to see this done with respect to Turkey. The Turks say they are the descendants of Turkmen from Asia, but again it’s likely the ruling classes were replaced but the common people were for the most part left alone. There seem to be more natural blondes and redheads in Turkey (especially inland, away from the tourist centres) than anywhere else south of the 45th parallel. I suspect there’s a lot of Celtic blood among the Turks.”
Yes I would love to see that too. Years of mating with different races will most likely make them even more geneticaly mixed race than hungarians, but most likely close relatives of the balkans.
Comment by KK — November 3, 2008 @ 3:46 pm
“The Polish population is quite eccentric as well, only significantly overlapping with the Czech one (and only minimally with the northern German one).”
One of many ignorant comments on this page. The Polish sample of course comes from Warsaw, not from all over Poland.
If enough samples are taken from all over Europe, there would be no gaps at all. The western Poles would blend into the eastern Germans, and eastern Poland into the Balts, who would in turn blend into the Finns.
Its interesting how one bit of info gets out into the world, isolated from the rest of the study, and suddenly has all these experts out in a rash coming up with new and more amazing theories.
Pfft…
Comment by Mr. Happy — November 11, 2008 @ 9:06 pm
[...] This diagram is fascinating. But the commentary is just as interesting, showing the degree to which all of us born in the last century, in the West especially, think of nation-states as actual geographical entities.* What I mean is, the comments mostly express surprise at genetic dissimilarities within the same state, or similarities between different states. But from a historical point of view, there’s no reason this should be surprising. [...]
Pingback by Beard Of Wisdom.com » Blog Archive » The Tyranny of the Nation State — November 19, 2008 @ 12:45 am
Genetic Geography Video of European Map
5,518 views since 2008-09-22
Researchers have created a genetic map of Europe.
{{–http://revver.com/video/1193834/genetic-geography/–}}
Comment by Mark — December 2, 2008 @ 11:19 pm
Genetic Geography Video of European Map
5,518 views since 2008-09-22
Researchers have created a genetic map of Europe.
thannnnnnnks
Comment by توب — December 16, 2008 @ 1:45 pm
Really interesting map! I think the sample it was built on it’s too small, but still significant. Regarding to Uk Ireland, i think the map shows the truth: in part they share genes with Netherland (remember the Frisian and the Yuthes) and with Norway (vikings invasions, in part they stand alone (the pre-existing celtic population!). Focusing on Italy, the big area it occupies testify its landing past of different people (from Celtic to Etruscans to Germanic tribes). Maybe the Roman invasions to western and north europe didn’t replace the local population but just the “elite”. The study could have taken better 2 samples from south and north of italy(where the differences are more marked) instead 2 almost from the center!
I agree to say that it could be interesting to see where they put the Baltic people (among them the Estonians aren’t Indo-European like the Finns); the Russian i guess would cover a too big area since their vast territory!!
Comment by gio — December 25, 2008 @ 3:36 am
It’s surprising to me the distance between Hungary and Finnland,and mainly the genetic community of middle-european nations, independently the spoken language, indoeuropean or finno-ugric languages.
The method of campioning could be interesting, if it was taken from the capitals only… or it could represent the whole population of a country…?
Unfortunately the small baltic nations, the smaller celtic and mediterrenian nations are missing. For example, it is probable that the sicilian population represents something norman (NO-DM), greek and spanish character. I miss the turks and albanians.
It can be a very nice starting point.
Comment by peloritanis — December 29, 2008 @ 12:04 pm
Excellent Post, thanx for sharing the same.. Will keep on reading the post :D Stumbled your post .. cheers
Comment by Saniya — January 1, 2009 @ 10:39 am
this report is fairly inaccurate, the irish the real irish that is are actualy geneticly related to the basque people,this would eplain why alot of irish people are actualy dark skinned and dark featured opposed to the myth that irish people have red hair and freckles. they share little similarity with the british geneticly.
Comment by IRISHtom — January 7, 2009 @ 1:29 am
Irish Tom, two things. One, as 19 points out, they sampled particular locales not whole countries. Two, when sampling they didn’t ask people if they were ‘real’ Irish, Polish or whatever. They, I gather, simply sampled a population living at a particular locale. So, for all we know, the Irish sample might have included some Pole who’d moved to that particular locale.
Comment by Konrad Talmont-Kaminski — January 7, 2009 @ 10:16 am
Turkey is not a European country and that country doesn’t even deserve the right to be added to the EU . They are Mongrels that do not deserve to be considered European. . Also There are slavic Countries -Czech Republic , Poland, Yugoslavia . Although the latter is no longer in existance and is now Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia , Macedonia , Slovenia and Montenegro. But i agree there should also be Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, Slovakia, Belarus and even Armenia isn’t in there either
Comment by Mark — January 16, 2009 @ 12:38 am
Mark, I rather think that part of the point of this ‘map’ is that we are all ‘mogrels’, including you and me. As for what it takes to ‘deserve’ being called a European, I would like to think that it takes a certain level of personal culture and a pluralist attitude.
Comment by Konrad Talmont-Kaminski — January 17, 2009 @ 8:45 am
” Really interesting map! I think the sample ”
thanks
Comment by top — January 23, 2009 @ 8:22 pm
Finland is not that alone.
Finland was under Swedish and Russian rule until last century so people mixed.
Besides there’s no Russia and Estonia that are closest neighbours to Finland.
Comment by Iron — February 17, 2009 @ 1:19 pm
These samples seem to have been taken from capitals and other major urban areas, which are already cosmoplitan and have a mixed population. I wonder how much this has influenced the results, and whether this leads to a biased sample in favor of integration.
Comment by Axeman89 — February 27, 2009 @ 11:19 pm
[...] http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2008/08/18/306-the-genetic-map-of-europe/ [...]
Pingback by harta genetica a europei « TIR — March 3, 2009 @ 9:36 pm
[...] http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2008/08/18/306-the-genetic-map-of-europe/References : [...]
Pingback by Where can I find a map that displays the genetic history of Spain? | Spain — April 5, 2009 @ 11:05 am
thank you
Comment by Tony — May 4, 2009 @ 3:47 am
thanks for this map
good
luck
….
Comment by Solomon — May 11, 2009 @ 9:02 am
Mark,
I hope I never have to meet you in real life, because if I do, I will have to punch you in the face. And if you are an EU citizen, I pray (to FSM) for our Union that it will never be ruled by idiots like you.
Comment by EU-citizen — May 12, 2009 @ 9:49 pm
[...] Finns are weird. At least their genes are really different. This morning, I stumbled across this post showing this genetic map of Europe: The Genetic Map of [...]
Pingback by Finnish Genes « Joseph Clymer Lawton — May 14, 2009 @ 10:16 pm
“The Swiss population is entirely subsumed by the French one”
made me laugh, where did you get samples from? french speaking family maybe??
i am not swiss, just pointing how unacurate is the study
Comment by Vladimir — May 19, 2009 @ 8:39 pm
I’m Sicilian – with these results below:
Percentages above 4% may be interpreted as highly significant
indicators of my family’s DNA origins:
Wales 5.4%
Scotland 4.5%
United Kingdom 4.0%
Northern Ireland 3.9%
France 3.9%
Comment by John Raciti — June 19, 2009 @ 1:16 pm
Really solomon. Turks are middle eastern. And as for the threat I doubt that would happen. I am just proud of my heritage. It is mainly German and French but really that is none of your concern. We Westerners need to stop being afraid of giving rights to people who don’t give two shits about us. What about the Armenian genocide committed by the Turks. And what the Turks did to Serbia also. I despise them for what they did there since I am 25% Serb myself. And No I am an American. You do not know me so before you say anything stupid again just shut up. Muslims as far as I have noticed don’t care about freedom of religion. But as for me I don’t give two shits what religion someone believes as long as they do not force it onto me. Liberals are destroying our damn Western world when you think you are saving and advancing it.
Comment by Mark — June 19, 2009 @ 9:33 pm
I Apologize Solomon. It was the coward that was afraid of using his name which commented after you. Go ahead and ruin Europe. Your childrens children may end up cursing you later. But obviously you care more about pleasing others. Point taken Konrad. I am glad you were respectful of my beliefs at least as I am of yours.
Comment by Mark — June 19, 2009 @ 9:37 pm
Note that the Norwegian sample was taken from the Sogn og Fjordane district which is in the western part.
I would not be suprised if a sample from the eastern parts would overlap more with Sweden.
Comment by Ola Dunk — June 20, 2009 @ 11:59 pm
Note that recent study in Finland has revealed, that the genetic differences between eastern and western populations inside Finland are much greater than that of between several European nations.
Comment by Oskari — June 24, 2009 @ 11:21 am
[...] Finns are weird. At least their genes are really different. This morning, I stumbled across this post showing this genetic map of [...]
Pingback by Finnish Genes « Chaos Central — June 30, 2009 @ 12:16 pm
IT1 & IT2 in the map – don’t do R1b members justice: DNA Ethnicity: Wales-5.4%,Scotland-4.5%,United Kingdom-4.0%,Northern Ireland-3.9%,France-3.9% are highly significant indicators of my family’s origins. I’m Italian/Sicilian with more specific matches with France & the UK. Not with Spain or Portugal.
Comment by John Raciti — July 1, 2009 @ 12:21 pm
Vielen Dank
Comment by moon — July 3, 2009 @ 5:20 am
Muchas gracias
Comment by sun — July 4, 2009 @ 7:43 am