Unexpected secret of famous mausoleum in Ireland

A royal dynasty but separate themselves with incestuous marriages.

A new study shows that the genetic material of human bones found in Ireland's famous Newgrange mausoleum is of a man who lived in the Neolithic period. This may be a king whose parents are siblings.

Newgrange's tomb (New Thai Hamlet).

Ireland in the Neolithic period about 5,000 years ago was ruled by a glorious dynasty but there was a tradition of inbreeding marriage to isolate itself from the common people, like the pharaohs of ancient Egypt and some Incas royals in Central America.

The new research has just been published in the journal Nature, USA, on June 17. The researchers examined the genetic material of 42 people buried in a stone site in Ireland, dating from 5,800 to 4,500 years ago, and 2 people who lived in the middle stone age in an old burial site. roughly 6,100 to 6,700 years ago. 

They discovered that one of them was buried in the ornate stone cavity of the Newgrange mausoleum, one of the earliest Stone Age monuments in Europe. This is an adult man whose parents are first class relatives, i.e. they can be siblings or father - son, mother - child, although this has been extremely rare throughout history. human.

The lead author of the study, geneticist Lara Cassidy of the Trinity College of Dublin, said that each of us inherited a mother's genome and a father and team genome that compared the two genomes. This is in the bone of the aforementioned man. Basically, these two genomes are extremely similar. When the researchers calculated the inbreeding coefficient based on the amount of DNA that both parents had, they found the two genes were similar to 25%. 'This is a sign of mating among first-class relatives, who have 50% of the same DNA,' said Cassidy, a geneticist.

Collective tombs in Newgrange were built in the Stone Age.

The Newgrange mausoleum is round in a misty morning in the Boyne Valley, Ireland. Scientists say the bone of a man is most likely a king whose parents are siblings.

Inside the tomb of Newgrange.

The skeleton was found in a stone cavity at the end of the grave, illuminated every year for just a few days in the middle of winter.

Night star tracks above the Newgrange tomb.

Ancient dynasty

Incest marriage between siblings is an almost taboo of the entire human world, both for cultural and biological reasons. The only social acceptability is in the elite class, typically among royal families considered as gods, such as the Egyptian pharaohs. This is the way that those who call themselves nobility apply to distance themselves from the common people, they have broken the taboo, broke the social customs that others have to follow.

As a result, marriages between siblings are limited to royal families considered holy. And although the solemn burial of the man found in Newgrange shows social acceptance of his parents' union, there is no trace of the same marriage relationship in any Anywhere else in the Stone Age sites in Ireland.

This finding also coincides with a local legend about the special phenomenon of solar illumination in Newgrange . The legend says that there was an elaborate tomb in the Brú na Bouinne stone cemetery in northern Dublin, where the dawn of winter shone a bright light deep in the depths of the rock niche where a person was buried. especially.

According to the legend, a king tried to build a high tower near Dowth in just one day (Dowth about 1.6 km from Newgrange) thanks to his sister's magic to keep the sun from setting. until the tower was built. But the king broke the spell because he had an affair with his younger sister. Perhaps that is why this place is called Fertae Chuile , which means 'Hill of Sin' or 'Incest Hill'.

This is where the mid-winter dawn shines a bright light deep in the depths of the cave to bury a special person.

Stone Age Ireland

Studying the genomes of ancient Irish people also revealed that this man buried in the tomb of Newgrange is a distant relative of the man buried in the stone tomb in Carrowmore in Sligo county, about 140km from Newgrange. in the West.

People buried in these two tombs also have closer blood ties than others in the community. Their skeletal analytical chemistry also showed that they ate more meat than other people of their time. It seems to be a group of relatives enjoying burial rituals for the noble. This custom has been used in many other places in Ireland for centuries.

The researchers also compared the similarities and differences between the Stone Age inhabitants of Ireland and the indigenous groups before that time, through two representatives of the two Middle Stone Age skeletons mentioned. on. The results confirm the view that Ireland was inhabited by Stone Age plantation owners about 5,800 years ago, who were from the Iberian Peninsula and occupied the land of indigenous peoples. live by hunter-gatherer.

But there was a stone age man from Western Ireland who carried the hunter-gatherer gene. This shows that the natives were assimilated rather than exterminated. 

The researchers also found genetic evidence for a first case of down syndrome. This is a newborn baby boy buried in the tomb of Poulnabrone in Clare County, dating back more than 5,500 years. Analysis of some chemical isotopes shows that this baby is breastfed and is buried in an elaborate ritual, so it is possible that she is a member of a noble family.