Papers Ancient DNA and Genetic History of the Mongolian Steppe The Mongolian Steppe as a Great Human Crossroads The Mongolian steppe stretches like an inland sea of grass—vast, wind-cut, and deceptively open. For thousands of years it hummed with movement: herders driving animals across seasonal pasture, traders carrying goods, warriors crossing vast distances, communities meeting, mixing, or avoiding one By Caterina • 5 min read
Papers Ancient DNA, Diet and Mobility of Iron Age Umbrians at Spoleto Piazza d'Armi: A Window onto Early Umbrian Society High above the valleys of central Italy, the necropolis of Piazza d'Armi near Spoleto opens a remarkable window onto a wealthy, ambitious community connected to the wider world. Used between roughly 720 and 580 BC during the Orientalising By Caterina • 3 min read
Haplogroups and Noble Lines The House of Lygon House of Lygon The House of Lygon was one of those distinctly English landed families whose story is rooted not in sudden conquest or romantic legend, but in something in many ways more revealing: land, office, marriage, memory, and staying power. The Lygons were closely associated with Worcestershire, above all By Caterina • 2 min read
Haplogroups and Noble Lines Clan Fleming Clan Fleming Clan Fleming was one of those families who tell a very Scottish story through distinctly continental roots. As the name plainly suggests, the family came from Flanders, part of the wider medieval movement of Flemish settlers, knights, merchants, and landholders into Britain and especially into Scotland. Over time, By Caterina • 2 min read
Haplogroups and Noble Lines The House of Curiel The House of Curiel The House of Curiel was an Iberian noble and Sephardic-origin family house linked above all with Portugal and Spain, but never confined to one place alone. This was a lineage shaped by diplomacy, commerce, scholarship, and public service, part of that wide Sephardic and Iberian world By Caterina • 3 min read
Haplogroups and Noble Lines The Noble House of Bohun The Noble House of Bohun Origins and family background The House of Bohun was one of the great Anglo-Norman noble families of medieval Britain: a dynasty of landholders, soldiers, royal servants, and power-brokers whose story runs through England, the Welsh Marches, and the upper reaches of aristocratic politics. Their linked By Caterina • 3 min read
Haplogroups and Noble Lines The House of Sully House of Sully The House of Sully was a French noble family rooted in the old feudal landscape of central France, closely associated with lordship, castle power, landed authority, and aristocratic service. In historical terms, it fits the classic pattern of a regional French noble house: a family defined by By Caterina • 3 min read
Haplogroups and Noble Lines Clan MacRae Clan MacRae Who they were, where they came from, and their linked haplogroup Clan MacRae was one of the best-known service clans of the northern Highlands, rooted in Gaelic tradition and closely tied to Kintail in Ross-shire. Their name is usually understood as meaning "son of Rae" or By Caterina • 2 min read
Haplogroups and Noble Lines Clan MacNicol Clan MacNicol DNA and family history Clan MacNicol was one of the old island families of the Scottish Highlands, rooted above all in Skye, Lewis, and the wider Gaelic-Norse world of the Hebrides. Their story belongs to that sea-bound Scotland where travel went by boat more easily than by road, By Caterina • 2 min read
Haplogroups and Noble Lines Clan MacLellan Clan MacLellan Clan MacLellan was a Scottish family of the southwest, rooted above all in Galloway and the wider Lowland world of regional lordship, service, and strong local identity. Their story is not quite the misty Highland clan tale of later romance, but something in many ways more revealing: a By Caterina • 2 min read
Haplogroups and Noble Lines Clan MacGillivray Clan MacGillivray Clan MacGillivray was a Highland Scottish family of the Gaelic world, rooted in northern Scotland and long associated with the Clan Chattan confederation. In historical terms, they belong to that very recognisable Highland pattern in which kinship, military service, local authority, and alliance all worked together: not an By Caterina • 3 min read
Haplogroups and Noble Lines Clan MacEwan Clan MacEwan Who the family was, where they came from, and their linked haplogroup Clan MacEwan was a Gaelic kindred of the western Highlands, most closely associated with Argyll and the wider kin-based world of Scotland's Atlantic seaboard. Their story belongs to that recognisable Highland pattern in which By Caterina • 2 min read
Haplogroups and Noble Lines Clan Durie Clan Durie Clan Durie was a Lowland Scottish family tradition rooted above all in Fife, shaped by landholding, local authority, and the long memory of place. The name is territorial in character, coming from Durie in Fife, and that matters, because in Scotland this was often how identity worked: not By Caterina • 2 min read
Haplogroups and Noble Lines Clan Cotter Clan Cotter Clan Cotter was an Irish family of Munster, rooted in the social and historical world of southern Ireland, where kinship, local service, seafaring links, landholding, and reputation in the community all helped shape a surname across generations. In broad heritage terms, the Cotters belong to that very recognisable By Caterina • 2 min read
Haplogroups and Noble Lines Clan Thomson Clan Thomson Clan Thomson was not a clan in the narrow Highland sense of one chief, one glen, and one fixed block of territory. It was a wide Scottish surname tradition built from the patronymic meaning "son of Thomas", and it took shape across several regions through kinship, By Caterina • 3 min read
Haplogroups and Noble Lines Clan Sutherland Clan Sutherland Who they were, where they came from, and their haplogroup Clan Sutherland was one of the great noble kindreds of the far north of Scotland, rooted in the county of Sutherland and long associated with chiefship, earldom, territorial command, and aristocratic prestige. In Highland terms, they were not By Caterina • 3 min read
Haplogroups and Noble Lines Clan Spalding Clan Spalding Clan Spalding belongs to the long-lived Scottish tradition of place-based families: people whose identity grew from a locality, a surname, and the memory of service across generations. The name is territorial in character, most often linked with the town of Spalding in Lincolnshire, England, before becoming established in By Caterina • 3 min read
Haplogroups and Noble Lines Clan Shaw Clan Shaw Clan Shaw was a Highland Scottish family of the Clan Chattan confederation, rooted above all in Rothiemurchus in Badenoch and closely tied to the wider kin-based world of the central Highlands. Their story is one of Gaelic family identity, military service, alliance, and local authority, shaped in a By Caterina • 2 min read
Haplogroups and Noble Lines Clan Rollo Clan Rollo Clan Rollo was a Scottish landed family rooted above all in Perthshire, part of that Lowland world where power often rested not on tartan romance alone, but on estates, legal standing, service, and continuity. The Rollos belong to the pattern of Scottish noble and landholding families whose identity By Caterina • 2 min read
Haplogroups and Noble Lines Clan Pollock Clan Pollock Origins and family background Clan Pollock was one of the old territorial families of Lowland Scotland, rooted in Renfrewshire and closely tied to the lands from which the name itself was taken. In that very Scottish Lowland way, the family identity grew not from the later romantic Highland By Caterina • 2 min read
Haplogroups and Noble Lines Clan Middleton Clan Middleton Clan Middleton is best understood as a Scottish and wider British surname tradition rooted in place, service, and continuity. The name itself is territorial: it comes from settlements called Middleton, literally the "middle town" or central farmstead within a district. Over time, families bearing the name By Caterina • 2 min read
Haplogroups and Noble Lines Clan McQueen Clan McQueen Highland kin, northern roots, and Haplogroup R1b1a1b1a1a2c1a2b2b1 Clan McQueen was a Highland Scottish family shaped by Gaelic roots, northern Scotland, and its place within the wider Clan Chattan confederation. In the old Highland world, a clan was not simply a surname list. It was a network of kinship, By Caterina • 3 min read
Haplogroups and Noble Lines Clan MacColl Clan MacColl Highland kin, western seas, and haplogroup R1b1a1b1a1a2c1a1e Clan MacColl was one of the small but deeply rooted Highland kindreds of western Scotland, associated above all with Argyll, the sea-lanes of the west coast, and the older Gaelic way of reckoning family through descent and loyalty. The name itself By Caterina • 3 min read
Haplogroups and Noble Lines Clan MacCarthy Clan MacCarthy Who they were, where they came from, and their linked haplogroup Clan MacCarthy was one of the great Gaelic Irish dynasties of Munster, rooted above all in the south-west of Ireland, especially in what are now Counties Cork and Kerry. The name belongs to the wider world of By Caterina • 2 min read
