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.
It will be interesting to see if DNA plays a wider role in the future as a tool for tracing ancestry.
Apologies -- Finno-Uralic, not Finno-Ugaritic!!! Dumb dumb! Ugaritic is Sumerian, n'est-ce pas?
I know more Albanian than of any of those languages, which is not much. Maybe I will learn something this semester in Linguistics.
Glad to see further comments on this subject. My thinking over the last 3 years on this general topic is that often when ancient chronicles say that a people were forced out, what they mean is that the LEADERS of the former group left, and that the lower classes just remained and were ruled by the new leadership.
I have a theory that this is how the Samaritans came into existence, statements in the Old Testament notwithstanding. (No offense meant!!)
This is pretty interesting..
"Finnish is part of the Finno-Ugaritic family of languages while Magyar I thought was a Mongoloid language brought across by the Huns (not sure about this)"
Both are members of the Finno-Ugric language family, but the relationship is extremely distant to say the least.
These languages are (starting with Finnish, and in order of closeness to Finnish) Finnish, Estonian, Sámi languages, Karelian, Vepsian, Ludian, Votian, Livotian, Mordvin, Mari, Komi, Udmurt, Hanti, Mansi, Hungarian/Magyar.
It is said that Hungarian is about as close to Finnish as English or German are to Persian, which seems to me a good way of putting it.
Interesting -- do you study linguistics too?
They seem to be much closer than Scots and Irish, and the highland Scots came from Ireland.
In that case, would you be a BUMBLEBEE? ;-)
"Interesting -- do you study linguistics too?"
Only as a hobby. I'm a linquist, but not a linguistician.
Don't know. What's a BUMBLEBEE?
Same here -- it's a hobby for me. I find the confluence of language, history, culture, race, religion etc. fascinating
" I find the confluence of language, history, culture, race, religion etc. fascinating"
It is indeed. It would be good if this thread could work up steam again, because it is a really interesting subject area.
I just had a DNA test done and the exact matches came back, 6 Irish, 4 Scot, 3 English, 1 Welsh, and 1 "Anglo/Celt". I found myself wondering what the hell an "Anglo/Celt" was.
"I found myself wondering what the hell an "Anglo/Celt" was."
Why don't you email them and ask, dlj?
I'm sure many people would like to know.
Thanks for the kind remarks (which I missed until just now, as I was trying a Google search for something I know I posted, and is mostly unrelated to this topic).
ah, found it in my links page. Should have looked there first.
New Dating For Wat's Dyke
History Today | August 1999 | Keith Nurse
Posted on 07/30/2004 7:13:00 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1181689/posts
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