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.
I had never heard of a connection between the Uralic languages (Finnish and Magyar), and the Basques. We Finns arrived in Europe at the end of the period before Christ, and our Magyar cousins arrived about 1000 years later (slothful, right). I had thought that there was evidence that the Basques had been around in their vicinity so long that some people think that they might actually be Cro-Magnon man!!
This is a fascinating subject, since the whole question of ethnic relationships and decent had become quite un-PC due to the bad uses it had been put to by those who confounded the linguistic term 'Indo-European', with the ethnic term 'Aryan'. For decades after the Nazis, any mention of ethnic, or blood, relationships were a very strict no-no, so that you could say that linguistic affinity, say between Germans and Hindus, was not evidence of a blood relationship. This genetic evidence is forcing this question to become again discussible in polite society. Expect BIG TROUBLE about this from the same people who think that genetics have no effect on behavior. (They think it isn't important, but that you must not talk about it.)
These two sentences were obviously from two differnet sources.
It has long been my contention that the Basque were indigenous to all of europe before the Celtic invasions.
Could the Basque be desendents of the neolithic beaker people?
When the Celts attacked the Romans they were frequently buck naked. The Celts were in the six foot range while the Romans were closer to the five foot range, 5'2" if I remember correctly.
You are correct. Two different studies.
"Could the Basque be desendents of the neolithic beaker people?"
I don't know any thing about the beaker people. I expect the Basque did have a larger area under their control at one time. They probably survived all attacks by withdrawing to the mountains between Spain/France where they live to this day.
And the Celts had those long slashing swords, while the Romans had the short, stabbing Gladius. The early form of the Roman legion, based on the 50 man maniple could not stand up to the Gauls, while the later legion, based on the 360 man cohort was able to do a better job.
Whew, blam, it is a very good thing that you didn't say this on one of the Albanian -Serbian threads. As I have found out by doing so, some folks get really, really sore at you if you do!!
The Beaker People, partially credited with the building with the second stage of Stonehenge, are late Stone Age people who are thought to have emerged around 2200 BC. They were so named by archaeologists because of the brightly colored, geometrically patterned earthenware drinking vessels often found in their graves. It is thought they made these vessels for over five centuries.
They might have been immigrants who crossed the North Sea, or local people who had developed new ideas and ways of doing things.
It is speculated that these people were farmers, living in huts grouped in small villages.
The Beaker People radically changed Stonehenge by constructing two concentric but incomplete circles at its center. The blue stones which composed these circles where once thought to have been transported from the Preseli mountains in southern Wales, over 200 miles away. But upon the discovery of a similar stone in a nearby earthen barrow the theory emerged that the huge stones might have been deposited by glaciers in the area.
The changes which the Beaker People made at Stonehenge suggest that they were sun worshippers. It appears they made the monument into a temple of the sun, rather than the moon. In their burial mounds, or barrows, were found thin gold discs incised with simple sun-like motifs.
Another suggestion that the Beaker People worshipped the sun is that they changed the main axis of the henge by throwing 25 feet of the bank back into the ditch. This widened the northeast entrance to the right. This caused an adjustment in the axis from 46 degrees to 50 degrees from the north/south line. Then the middle of the wider entrance was now in alignment with the sunrise of the summer solstice.
The Beaker People also included a rectangle around the original standing Four Stations, which are thought to have been erected during the building of the first stage of Stonehenge, with the stones marking its corners. Lines drawn through the short sides of the rectangle seem to indicate the midsummer sunrise, while lines through the long side point to the most northerly position of the setting of the moon.
A diagonal running from east-southeast to west-northwest pointed to the sunset on May Day, the Celtic festival of Beltine, the "Shining One." (See Druidism.)
I just copied it from another site. Besides, I've learned (learning) not to get into arguments about such things. lol.
THAT'S why I seem to 'lose it' when I fight. It's in the blood.
That would make sense. Most of the men in my family is between 6'2 and 6'5.(I'm the shortest at 5'10) My Grandfather(full blooded Irish) was also 6'2.
I didn't think the Romans were that short.
I don't know. Probably there is none. Probably the one who told me this is no linguist either.
This is especially interesting since it is at the same place, and perhaps the same time the 5 MILLION members of the Lost Tribes of Israel penetrated the Causasus Mountains, NE of the Black Sea, and where the CELTS suddenly appeared in history. Sounds like there is a great language story to be discovered here somewhere.
I went to your site and read this. I don't believe this and just did not want to confront you with that information. lol
It is nice to see this again confirmed. The Vikings have long suffered at the hands of Roman historians who didn't much like them. They called the Vikings "bloodthirsty", and other historians just repeated what they read. How did those Roman historians describe their own activities at the Coliseum?
Oh, tut tut! You've been reading too many histories based on Roman rumour. That is really OLD and OUTDATED stuff.
Read more recent research which shows that most Vikings were farmers in search of additional land for their families as the weather warmed and the Scandinavian population grew but the arable land did not increase. Look how they civilized Ireland, well, at least compared to what it was. And, they were tremendous explorers and adventurers.
Just as they did the 'dumb brute', Neanderthals. (I think we are the Neanderthals, so there!)
I think your interest in tree rings is fascinating but I don't believe all of that either, thinking some of it is still a stretch. However I'm willing to learn, and hope it becomes a real valuable tool.
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