Scientists have discovered that Irish DNA originateD in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. The DNA of ancient occupants of Ireland has given researchers a breakthrough clue into the history of the Celtic population. The study was led by Queens University Belfast and Trinity College Dublin where scientists sequenced the first ancient human genomes from Ireland, shedding light on the genesis of Celtic populations. Details of the work, by geneticists from Trinity College Dublin and archaeologists from Queen’s University Belfast are published in the journal PNAS. The Guardian reports: Scientists from Dublin and Belfast have looked deep into Ireland’s early history to discover a still-familiar pattern of migration: of stone age settlers with origins in the Fertile Crescent, and bronze age economic migrants who began a journey somewhere in eastern Europe. The evidence has lain for more than 5,000 years in the bones of a woman farmer unearthed from a tomb in Ballynahatty, near Belfast, and in the remains of three men who lived between 3,000 and 4,000 years ago and were buried on Rathlin Island in County Antrim. Scientists at Trinity College Dublin used a technique called whole-genome analysis to “read” not the unique characteristics of each individual, but [...]