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.
Methodists come from the desacralized Catholic Church AKA the Church of England. Although it rejected papal authority as did the Protestant movements headed by Luther and Calvin, it retained much of the creed of the Catholic church, not leaping into heterodoxy as did John Calvin. It had to wait about 400 years before starting its slide into apostasy.
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The invasion of Britain from northern Europe may well be like the Roman and the much later Norman invasion. A small but powerful invading forces established domination over the people already settled there. However, the English managed to impose their language over the conquered as they did over the Celtsof Scotland and Ireland.
With gritted teeth and bristling hair I said "You take that BACK!"
....LOL!
There's not a Dime's worth of difference between the Vikings and the Anglo - Saxons. They are both Germanic "Tribes".
"Methodists aren't Protestant".
Methodists today aren't much anything anymore. The same is true of my old church - The Episcopal Church - From which the Methodists are derived.
BTW, how are the Methodists not Protestant as they evolved from the Protestant Church of England?
"So, we actually ARE all Irish on St. Paddy's Day."
The Irish were just one tribe of the Celts, as were the Scots and the Britons.
"The area where Proto-Indo-European was originally spoken"
Was a "plain in the land of Shinar" (Mesopotamia).
"Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language,
that they may not understand one another's speech.
11:8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face
of all the earth" (Genesis 11:)
Unless Indo-European was a branch split off from that original language of the Tower of Babel, in which case it might have begun in the Caucasus Mountains.
"Jesus said in Matthew 10:6 But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He was talking about Galatia and the other Celtic strongholds where Paul went."
I don't know about that - - the Jews in their own land were lost sheep. That's why Jesus came to them.
I see Him sending his disciples into the towns of Israel proper, not out of the country. They came back to him within a relatively short time, if you consider how short His ministry there was (3-1/2 years).
">The comet that plunged into the Celtic Sea in 540AD and brought on the Dark Ages
Did that comet have a name?"
That's not what brought on the dark ages. It was the collapse of Roman civilisation and the growing darkness of superstition and paganism of the ruling Catholic Church.
"PROBLEM 1:
Highland Scots and Lowland Scots have very different ethnic backgrounds. Did this study distinguish between the two? Highland Scots are mainly Celtic with some Norman and Scandinavian blood. Lowland Scots supposedly had more Saxon, Flemish, and other northeastern European genes."
And the Picts are in there, too. The Scots migrated from ireland.
BOOKMARK
" to assert that a LOT of Romans were Celts seems a stretch???
"
Not at all. The "Barbarians" intermingled in Rome more and more over time, until there were actually Emperors of Rome from their tribes.
While the Church of England retained many trappings of it's Catholic past such as Liturgies, Vestments and Apostolic Succession, it's Theology was wholly Protestant. Go back and read the words of the early Reformers in England.
The pressure for the Reformation was building in England well before Henry VIII decided to overthrow the tyranny of Rome. He knew he had the majority of the people behind him when he acted.
There would have been a Reformation in England with or without Henry eventually.
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