This book challenges some of our longest held assumptions about the differences between Anglo-Saxons and Celts – perceived differences that have informed our collective sense of identity.
Orthodox history has long taught that the Romans found a uniformly Celtic population throughout the British Isles, but that the peoples of the English heartland fell victim to genocide by the Anglo-Saxon hordes during the fifth and sixth centuries.
Now Stephen Oppenheimer’s groundbreaking genetic research has revealed that the ‘Anglo-Saxon invasion’ contributed only a tiny fraction to the English gene pool. In fact, three quarters of English people can trace an unbroken line of genetic descent through their parental genes from settlers arriving long before the introduction of farming.
Synthesizing the genetic evidence with linguistics, archaeology and the historical record, Oppenheimer shows how long-term Scandinavian trade and immigration contributed the remaining quarter – mostly before the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons. These migrations may have introduced the earliest forms of English.
And what of the Celts we know – the Irish, Scots and Welsh? Scholars have traditionally placed their origins in Iron Age Central Europe, but Oppenheimer’s new data clearly show that the Welsh, Irish and other Atlanticfringe peoples derive from Ice Age refuges in the Basque country and Spain.They came by an Atlantic coastal route many thousands of years ago, though the Celtic languages we know of today were brought in by later migrations, following the same route, during Neolithic times.
Stephen Oppenheimer shows us, in his meticulous analysis, that there is in truth a deep genetic line dividing the English from the rest of the British people but that, fascinatingly, the roots of that separate identity go back not 1500 years but 6,000.The real story of the British peoples is one of extraordinary continuity and enduring lineage that has survived all onslaughts.
Stephen Oppenheimer of University of Oxford is a leading expert in the use of DNA to track migrations. His last book Out of Eden rewrote the prehistory of man’s peopling of the world in a thesis that has since been confirmed in Science. He is also the author of Eden in the East:The Drowned Continent of Southeast Asia, which challenged the orthodox view of the origins of Polynesians as rice farmers from Taiwan.
"And what of the Celts we know – the Irish, Scots and Welsh? Scholars have traditionally placed their origins in Iron Age Central Europe, but Oppenheimer’s new data clearly show that the Welsh, Irish and other Atlanticfringe peoples derive from Ice Age refuges in the Basque country and Spain."
I had the DNA test a couple of years ago and I was puzzled that it indicated Irish/Scottish/Welsh and Basque.
My Celtic ancestors helped to clear out some of those Danish invaders residing in north west Scotland about 1,000 years ago. From what I understand, the Engle and Saxon Germans actually came from Jutland Germany which is the peninsula that extends from Germany up into the North Sea. Perhaps they had more similarities to Danes then the mainland Germans. Would like to see similar DNA work done on the early German tribes. Some of our legends come from them. The Unicorn. The Werewolf. Those early German tribes contained some incredible warriors. They conquered most of Western Europe after the Romans retreated. Perhaps the common incorrect assumptions that the Saxons and Engles basically exterminated the native Celtic peoples of England were based on the fierce warrior abilities these Germans possessed. Historically the first Germans were originally invited onto the island to work as mercenary/allies for specific warring Celtic tribes. Just as the Romans originally were. Hindsight would say those were two big errors by the Celts, but DNA seems to show that those errors did not last very long. Either that or perhaps Celtic women have some, um, desirable qualities.
If the population contracted by means other than conquest I would think that could make a case for catastrophism. The fifth-to-sixth century dating coincides with some evidence to that effect which you've previously posted.