You won't believe what this new discovery reveals about Irish ancestors' DNA

'It was a surprise to see several genetic elements typical of the modern Irish genome, both of interesting genes but also of more anonymous DNA fragments, appearing in the Bronze Age specimens.'

New DNA evidence indicates a mass immigration in Ireland during the Bronze Age, effectively changing the native population from having black hair and brown eyes to modern-day red hair and light-colored eyes.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - In a study released in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), geneticists from Trinity College Dublin and archaeologists from Queen's University Belfast used a reconstructed woman's remains to extract DNA in an attempt to better understand the woman's origins.

Ireland is an interesting location for geneticists as many ancient people are believed to have passed through, teaching the natives how to transition from hunting and gathering to farming, as well as evolving from simple stone tools to metal working in a relatively short period of time.

Another point of interest is the fact that Ireland contains some of the highest levels of specific genetic mutations, including one allowing adult humans to tolerate dairy, cystic fibrosis and haemochromatosis, which is the excessive retention of iron in the blood.

Dan Bradley, study author and professor of population genetics at Trinity College Dublin, explained how modern technology and methodological advances in ancient DNA analysis helped his team discover full genomes for the four skeletons they studied.

Surprisingly, the woman who was discovered in Belfast in 1855 and lived over 5,000 years ago, was strikingly different from the three male skeletons, which were discovered off Rathlin Island in 2006.

One thousand years separated the males from the female, but the genomes were shockingly different, which suggests major migration occurred.

In reference to the males, Bradley said, "It was a surprise to see several genetic elements typical of the modern Irish genome, both of interesting genes but also of more anonymous DNA fragments, appearing in the Bronze Age specimens.

"These genomes when taken as a whole are more like modern Irish, Scottish and Welsh - insular Celtic populations. This suggested some large degree of establishment of the genetics of these populations 4,000 years ago."

Each of the Bronze Age men had haemochromatosis, which is so common in Irish peoples that it is also called a Celtic disease.

Bradley believes the men had ancestors originating from what is now known as the Ukraine. Their ancestors would have migrated between 4 and 5,000 years ago, though scientists are unable to confirm this without sequencing the genomes of several more skeletal remains from before, during and after that period.

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