[snowsislander]

But the English still derive most of their current gene pool from the same early Basque source as the Irish, Welsh and Scots. These figures are at odds with the modern perceptions of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon ethnicity based on more recent invasions.

There are just too "surprising" results from these type of historical/genetic investigations for me to put much credence in these type of results. If it were occasionally a surprising result, it would be one thing. But there seem to be just too many counter-intuitive results for me to credit them. Britain is largely of *Basque* ancestry? At least it wasn't Finnish, Korean, or Mayan, I guess, but it still doesn't strike me as likely.

[squarebarb]

I have both of Oppenheimer’s books and find them very enjoyable. Also Syke’s book.

I think when they say ‘Basque’ all they mean is that the British ancestors came out of the ‘Ice Age refuge’ in northwestern Spain, where they had lived for millenia when the British Isles were covered in ice. The area that is *now* Basque.

And Oppenheimer has theorized that English was always there in the British Isles, that it was an indigenous language from the time when Britain and the continent were joined.

That the eastern side of England always spoke some form of English, and the north and northwestern parts were always ‘Celtic’ of some sort.