Otzi the Iceman is 5300 years old

[William Douglas]

No - I don't know who he is either, but apparently he is important to DNA researchers.

Andrew Mceachern and Anatole A. Klyosov are conducting research into 'Scotlands r1a1 Highland Clansmen', and have a particular focus on the Douglas family, amongst others.

I was interested in how this was progressing, in the light of an enquiry in the Douglas DNA Project group. My interest was aroused by a question relating to the  I1a group, which one of its members is tested to.  Now, if I understand this correctly, and there is a good chance I do not, then I1a is more likely to be of Hamilton stock than Douglas.

Andrew's responses to this question has thrown up some interesting points, the main one being that family lore as to our antecedents is not supported by evidence. 

He makes the point about two well known Clans. Clan Gordon and Clan Donald. One Clan being from the lowlands and the other from the highlands. Clan Gordon claim their CA was a knight who arrived in Scotland and helped Malcolm Canmore in the times around 1050AD. Clan Gordon readily admit that their progenitor comes from Clan Swinton and Clan Swinton agree with this. Clan Swinton however claim the first of them came from a man called Gospatric and the Anglo-Saxon royal House of Bamburgh, Kings of Northumbria from 547-867 AD. There is absolutely no DNA evidence to suggest this claim is correct.

And in the instance of Clan Donald they claim a patriarch called Somerled and to say the least his very existance is dubious. And all the known genealogies suggest that Somerled was from the Irish kings and had a father called Gillebride. Again there is no DNA evidence to support these claims. And unfortunately a very poor piece of research published about 12 years ago claimed Clan Donald were of Viking or Norse descent....again there is no evidence to suggest this.

There is some interesting stuff being discussed in the Douglas DNA Forum - it is worth taking a look at.

Apparently they have the yDNA haplogroup of Otzi the Iceman who is 5300 years old, so exhuming old tombs might be a way forward.

[john fortune]

Otzi was discovered high up in the Alps back in the 1991 when the receding snows on a high pass revealed the preserved body of a man who appears to have come from a high alpine valley on the Italian side of the Alps but met his end on the Austrian side. Arrow wounds suggest he died of his injuries attempting to escape his attackers but I believe there is now a theory he might have been placed there post mortem. Anyway, as the DNS story indicates, his body and his possessions proved to be a miraculous time capsule for archaeologists, geneticists etc. Lots of stuff on-line, as you may already have found.