Julian Cope presents Head Heritage

Not at all, that was pretty clear, thanks. I was expecting Oppenheimer to be unashamedly slagged off, but Sykes still hasn't had enough time to reach that stage! After all, his results date from a couple of years back.

"This ignores the European dimension where there clearly was a movement of the R1b from the east much later than the immediate post ice age"

That sort of validates Renfrew's IE (post-ice age) theories then. I've heard lots of people in archaeology proudly using his name of late, some even directly affirming the r1b haplogroup are the Indoeuropeans moving into the continent from Anatolia with agriculture, which is, in broad terms, what he suggested some years ago, rebuffed by many.

Pretty exciting times, no doubt, and yet, while some of us try hard to keep (very roughly) up to date with it all, one tends to hear all sorts of racist nonsense. Not wanting to stir things up, but the latest was by a very good friend of mine who got quite worked up when I mentioned to them the celts were no racial entity as such in archaeology (unless a haplogroup is called 'celtic', 'helena' or 'X' or whatever, which is a different matter). The idea of 'celtic', to take two opposite extremes with opposing ideas, varies depending on whether you are from Wales or Italy for example. However, and it must be the legacy left by the Indogermanistik subjects I did, I am a sucker for proto-IE's as a genetic clan though!

Unfortunately, these things just tend to mess things up a bit and make them even more complex, and people in search of clear answers simply switch off and carry on as usual, ie preferring to believe what the media regurgitate.