We are currently searching for a project to fund. The project must be looking to test the Y-DNA of Late Neolithic/Early Copper Age skeletal remains for areas most likely to contain haplogroup R1b. Specifically, we are looking to test the following:

Bell Beaker and pre-Bell Beaker remains from Iberia – to confirm or rule out Iberia as a launch point for Bell Beaker people [ref to Iberian model]

Bell Beaker and pre-Bell Beaker remains from the Netherlands – to confirm or rule out the Bell Beaker Dutch Model [ref to Dutch model]

Yamnaya Culture and other Steppe cultures – to confirm or rule out the Steppe Model [ref to Mallory]

Others : Balkan Copper Age, Alpine Copper Age Cultures, etc.

Did you ever think you’d see the day when the unheard voices of your ancestors tell you where they trekked into Europe?

DNA testing has come very far. We have started to answer some fundamental questions that have been

Haplogroup I for example, seems to be one of the most archaic in EUrope (does it?)

Haplogroup G for example seems to have brought farming into Europe during the Neolithic peroid. Still, there is much we don’t know about the genetics of western Europe. The mystery of how our ancestors got there is still unresolved.

We know for sure that the Bell Beaker folks probably played an important role in the dispersal of R1b and its sub-branches, but what about the pre-Beaker period? Did they come from the steppe as

Marija Gimbutas and later elaborated by James Mallory and David Anthony? Or are they the product of a Old Europe preceded by Colin Renfrew’s Neolithics?