This article is a little dated at 1998. For a good up to date book on the subject, I recommend: Origins Of The British by Professor Stephen Oppenheimer.
BTW, before you finish reading this book, you'll want to have yor DNA analysed.
Britain has always absorbed invaders and been home to multiple peoples How many settlers actually crossed the North Sea to Britain is disputed, although it is clear that they eventually mixed with substantial surviving indigenous populations which, in many areas, apparently formed the majority.
As with the adoption of 'Celtic' cultural traits in the Iron Age, and then Greco-Roman civilisation, so the development of Anglo-Saxon England marks the adoption of a new politically ascendant culture; that of the 'Germanic barbarians'.
'Contrary to the traditional idea that Britain originally possessed a 'Celtic' uniformity which first Roman, then Saxon and other invaders disrupted, in reality Britain has always been home to multiple peoples...'
Perhaps the switch was more profound than the preceding cases, since the proportion of incomers was probably higher than in Iron Age or Roman times, and, crucially, Romano-British power structures and culture seem to have undergone catastrophic collapse - through isolation from Rome and the support of the imperial armies - some time before there was a substantial presence of 'Anglo-Saxons'.
In contrast to Gaul, where the Franks merged with an intact Gallo-Roman society to create Latin-based French culture, the new Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in Britain, although melded from indigenous and immigrant populations, represented no such cultural continuity; they drew their cultural inspiration, and their dominant language, almost entirely from across the North Sea. Mixed natives and immigrants became the English.
Contrary to the traditional idea that Britain originally possessed a 'Celtic' uniformity, which first Roman, then Saxon and other invaders disrupted, in reality Britain has always been home to multiple peoples. While its population has shown strong biological continuity over millennia, the identities the islanders have chosen to adopt have undergone some remarkable changes. Many of these have been due to contacts and conflicts across the seas, not least as the result of episodic, but often very modest, arrivals of newcomers.
This article is a little dated at 1998. For a good up to date book on the subject, I recommend: Origins Of The British by Professor Stephen Oppenheimer.
BTW, before you finish reading this book, you'll want to have yor DNA analysed.
My surname is considered quite English, and has been regarded as a “place” name, associated with the hill forts mentioned in the article, that are scattered across England and Wales. But, I’ve found that there actually are ancient, Irish beginnings, with the name arising from one of the territorial “warrior kings” of Ireland, named O’Tuathail, killed and buried at Glendalough, County Wicklow, in the ninth century. The name first showed up in England in the Templar Inquisition of 1185. Then, the surname turns back up in Ireland during the Cromwell era, and a fair number remain there to this day. I’ve yet to have my DNA done, to see what the genetics say about all this, though.