Posted on 12/06/2001 6:35:33 AM PST by blam
SUNDAY DECEMBER 02 2001
Genetic survey reveals hidden Celts of England
JOHN ELLIOTT AND TOM ROBBINS
THE Celts of Scotland and Wales are not as unique as some of them like to think. New research has revealed that the majority of Britons living in the south of England share the same DNA as their Celtic counterparts.
The findings, based on the DNA analysis of more than 2,000 people, poses the strongest challenge yet to the conventional historical view that the ancient Britons were forced out of most of England by hordes of Anglo-Saxon invaders.
It suggests that far from being purged and forced to retreat into Wales, Cornwall and Scotland when the AngloSaxons invaded in the 5th century, many ancient Britons remained in England.
The study, conducted by geneticists at University College London, found that as many as three-quarters of the men tested in some parts of the south of England have the same Y-chromosome as the ancient Britons or Celts, rather than that of the Anglo-Saxons.
Overall, the scientists found that between 50% and 75% of those tested in parts of southern England were directly descended from Celts, implying that they had survived the Anglo-Saxon invasion. In Scotland the proportion of those with Celtic ancestry was found to be little different from the population of southern England.
"The evidence is quite strong that there is a substantial indigenous component remaining in England," said Professor David Goldstein, who led the study. "Genetics has opened up a powerful window on the past. We can now trace the movements of peoples and address questions that have proved difficult to answer through history and archeology alone."
The study, commissioned by BBC2 for its current Blood of the Vikings series, was designed to assess the impact of Norwegian and Danish Vikings, as well as Anglo-Saxons, on the British population.
Researchers took swabs of saliva from 2,000 people in 30 locations around Britain, and from 400 people in Norway, Denmark and Schleswig- Holstein, the area in northern Germany identified by the team as a homeland of the AngloSaxons. Those taking part had to have lived in the area for at least two generations.
Scientists then examined the Y-chromosome, which is passed unchanged down the male line of a family and is thus not altered by intermarriage.
The analysis showed that 60% of the men tested on Orkney were descended from Norwegian Vikings, as well as 30% of those in the Hebrides. While the Viking influence in these areas has been well known, it had been suggested that they were simply a ruling elite who did little interbreeding with the local population.
On the mainland, the survey found that 70% of those tested in York were from the continental European groups rather than the indigenous population, suggesting that the Anglo-Saxons made more of an impact on the Celts in northern England.
Only 10% of those tested in Wales were of Anglo-Saxon origin, confirming that it has retained an almost exclusively Celtic population.
In recent years the fate of the Celts in England has become hotly debated. Many historians have come to doubt the traditional story about the flight of the Celts from southern England, which was based largely on the account of Gildas, the 6th-century historian.
"There are various schools of thought ranging from near genocide (of the Celts) to almost total survival," said Patrick Sims-Williams, professor of Celtic studies at the University of Wales. "There could have been mass flight as well — it’s partly a matter of scholarly fashion, coming and going from generation to generation."
The genetic data will be eagerly received by scholars. Many of the place names in southern England have Celtic origins. Among them are Leatherhead, in Surrey, which meant "the grey ford".
"If you believe Gildas, the Anglo-Saxons would have been chasing the ancient Britons, catching up with one who wasn’t fast enough and saying, ‘Look here, before I cut off your head, just tell me the name of this place’," said Dr Margaret Gelling, a leading authority on place names.
Updated 12:40 PM ET September 8, 2000
LONDON (Reuters) - Something catastrophic occurred on Earth 1,500 years ago that may have led to the Dark Ages and coincided with the end of the Roman Empire and the death of King Arthur, a Northern Ireland scientist said Friday. It could have been a bombardment of cometary debris or the eruption of a super volcano.
But whatever it was, it is clearly etched in the chronology of tree rings from around the world, according to Professor Mike Baillie, of Queen's University in Belfast.
The global environmental event that occurred around 540 AD is not recorded in any history books. But the tree ring chronologies compiled from samples of trees, some preserved in bogs, which date back thousands of years, single out something that was quite extraordinary.
"It was a catastrophic environmental downturn that shows up in trees all over the world," Baillie told a news conference at the British Association for the Advancement of Science conference. "This event is clear in the tree ring records."
(The 540AD event is not recorded, dust/acid layer, in the ice core samples. That's the source of the comet speculation)
Makes sense to me. What do you have around the year 722 BC, in the Eastern Med?
Nothing. I have major 'tree ring events' at 1628BC, 1159BC and 540AD. There are two minor events at 207BC and 44BC. These are all worldwide events. I will check the tree ring charts and see if I can see anything 'localized' around 722BC. What about that date (722BC) interests you?
Lost Tribes, an Encarta Encyclopedia Article Titled "Lost Tribes"
Lost Tribes , in Jewish history, ten tribes that inhabited the kingdom of Israel and many of whose members were exiled by Sargon II, king of Assyria (reigned 722-705 BC), after the Assyrian conquest (722 BC) of http://encarta.msn.com/index/conciseindex/4B/04B22000.htm?z=1&pg=2&br=1
I have for some time. Enjoy.
Keep in mind that it is a low-budget operation and they print whatever is sent in over the transom.
It has been my supposition that the Highland Scots were mostly Pictish survivors, while the lowland Scots were principally from the Scotia tribe that came over from Ireland in the 5th and 6th centuries and first settled in Argyle.
This remindes me of one of my pet peeves. "By" was a suffix or prefix meaning town in the Danelaw.
Byways are therefore roads or ways through town. Their center was depressed, serving as a gutter.
Highways are roads or ways between towns with a raised center for drainage.
Why are rual senic roads called "byways"? Ignorance!
The expression "By and large" refers to what is true or revalent in both town and country. "At large" refers to someone at loose in the countryside.
Nobody is quite certain where the Basques originated from. Some think that they are the descendents of the original Iberians.
When the Celts first invaded Iberia, they conquered the northern half of the peninsula from present day France to Portugal. As time passed, the Basques reconquered their present territory cutting off the nortrhwestern Celts in Spain from their cousins in France.
The Celts in central Spain intermarried with the Iberians to form the Celt-Iberians encountered by the Romans. The Galician and the Asturian tribes, however, retained a purer Celtic character protected by the Cantabrian Mountains to the south and the sea to the north.
The name "Galicia" is derived from the Roman name for the region Caellecia which means "Lands of the Celts". The archeology of the period yields Celtic hill forts (Castros) and the Celtic torques common to the Celts.
Galicia was the last Celtic stronghold on the European Continent conquered by the Romans. They were not defeated until the Cantabrian War in 25 B.C. and were not fully subdued until the campaign of Augustus' general Agrippa in 19 B.C.
"Not many of the Cantabri were taken prisoner, for when they saw they had lost all hope of freedom, they lost all desire to preserve their lives either. Some set fire to their forts and cut their own throats, others willingly remained with their companions and died in the flames, while others took poison in the sight of all. In this way the great majority and the fiercest among the tribesmen were wiped out."......Cassius Dio, Roman History (XLIV.5)
"...Spain by the nature of the country and the character of its people, was better adapted than any other place in the world to making loses good for a renewal of hostilities. This is the reason why Spain, though it was the first mainland province to be entered by the Romans, was the last to be completely subdued, and held out till our own times, when it was finally conquered under the leadership and auspices of Augustus Caesar.".....The History of Rome (XXVIII.12)
Today, the national musical instrument of Galicia is the bagpipe and the dancing resembles the Irish dance.
My Y chromosome comes from Galicia. It would be interesting to see DNA studies comparing all the Celtic homelands in Europe.
Who invented ale/beer?
Beer has been with us at least 4-5000 years. It was known to Summarians and Egyptians.
Do you know anything about the Fomorians? They were black and supposedly attacked and captured part of Ireland? Further, I have read one anthropologist speculate about Leprechauns, he said that the Bushmen were the original Irish and the source of the legends of the Leprechauns. I went off and read a lot about the Bushmen, they do fit the bill.
The African Bushmen are in fact Asians and their young have the tell-tell Mongoloid spots on their backs. They are small, have pointed ears and could be described as impish. There are no more pure Bushmen, they have intermingled with the Bantu (blacks) of Africa.
(your thoughts on this?)
I don't know who invented beer. My hubby thinks he did.:)
That is the approximate date the Northern Kingdom was taken into captivity by the Assyrians. Actually, the captivity took place in waves and was spread over a number of years, but that single date is most often cited as a reference point. How that evacuation of millions of people might tie in with tree rings seems obscure to me at this point.
I would speculate that 610 BC, when they escaped bondage and 5 Million headed north through the Caucasus Mountains to soon be discovered by history as The Celts might have a better chance at having a tie to a catyclism. Sort of like being sprung from prison following an earthquake???
You may be suprised. 2-3 Chinese dynasties collapsed concident with the tree ring 'event' dates. Okay, I don't see anything in the tree ring data for 722BC or 600BC. I will keep the dates in my mind and alert you if I come across anything centered around those dates.
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