"Welshmen never yield!"
Could Welsh star Stanley Baker's ancestors be Bronze Age copper miners from Spain?The researchers believe Wales became home to an influx of migrant workers from the Iberian Peninsula and the Balkans 4,000 years ago that helped shape the biological construction of modern Wales.
Darren Devine, Western Mail
April 21 2009
Academics at Sheffield University want to show the genetic traces of migrants who came to work in Bronze Age copper mines on Llandudno's Great Orme and at Parys Mountain, on Anglesey, can still be found.
They are hoping men whose families have lived near the mines for generations will help them establish a genetic link back to the migrants.
They are looking only at male DNA, because men's Y chromosomes carry their genetic heritage from father to son.
The research builds on previous work which showed a sample of people in Abergele, North Wales, had a genetic signature found in the Balkans and on the Iberian Peninsula.
"Welshmen never yield!"
