Posted on 07/04/2002 5:27:12 PM PDT by blam
Sunday, 30 June, 2002, 15:31 GMT 16:31 UK
English and Welsh are races apart
Gene scientists claim to have found proof that the Welsh are the "true" Britons.
The research supports the idea that Celtic Britain underwent a form of ethnic cleansing by Anglo-Saxons invaders following the Roman withdrawal in the fifth century.
Genetic tests show clear differences between the Welsh and English
It suggests that between 50% and 100% of the indigenous population of what was to become England was wiped out, with Offa's Dyke acting as a "genetic barrier" protecting those on the Welsh side.
And the upheaval can be traced to this day through genetic differences between the English and the Welsh.
Academics at University College in London comparing a sample of men from the UK with those from an area of the Netherlands where the Anglo-Saxons are thought to have originated found the English subjects had genes that were almost identical.
But there were clear differences between the genetic make-up of Welsh people studied.
The research team studied the Y-chromosome, which is passed almost unchanged from father to son, and looked for certain genetic markers.
Ethnic links: Many races share common bonds
They chose seven market towns mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 and studied 313 male volunteers whose paternal grandfather had also lived in the area.
They then compared this with samples from Norway and with Friesland, now a northern province of the Netherlands.
The English and Frisians studied had almost identical genetic make-up but the English and Welsh were very different.
The researchers concluded the most likely explanation for this was a large-scale Anglo-Saxon invasion, which devastated the Celtic population of England, but did not reach Wales.
Dr Mark Thomas, of the Centre for Genetic Anthropology at UCL, said their findings suggested that a migration occurred within the last 2,500 years.
Genetic links
It reinforced the idea that the Welsh were the true indigenous Britons.
In April last year, research for a BBC programme on the Vikings revealed strong genetic links between the Welsh and Irish Celts and the Basques of northern Spain and south France.
It suggested a possible link between the Celts and Basques, dating back tens of thousands of years.
The UCL research into the more recent Anglo-Saxon period suggested a migration on a huge scale.
"It appears England is made up of an ethnic cleansing event from people coming across from the continent after the Romans left," he said.
Celtic Britons
Archaeologists after the Second World War rejected the traditionally held view that an Anglo-Saxon invasion pushed the indigenous Celtic Britons to the fringes of Britain.
Instead, they said the arrival of Anglo-Saxon culture could have come from trade or a small ruling elite.
But the latest research by the UCL team, "using genetics as a history book", appears to support the original view of a large-scale invasion of England.
It suggests that the Welsh border was more of a genetic barrier to the Anglo-Saxon Y chromosome gene flow than the North Sea.
Dr Thomas added: "Our findings completely overturn the modern view of the origins of the English."
Have you seen bagpipes played in the presence of a cat? Suddenly there is no cat, nothing but hints of fur blown about by the air rushing into a small vaccum hole.
Cats don't react well to machanical profanity played in their own language. 
In all fairness to Thor, I think we should note that those who disagreed with Thor never proved anything conclusively either. They simply had the weight of "tradition", that anchor to progress which incorporates unsubstantiated speculation in the absence of other answers, and over time becomes known as "settled fact".
The true history of the Lost Tribes of Israel also has to challenge wholly unsubstantiated and agenda-driven "traditional" views of history. And that is now happening.
As it turns out no Celtic language has been incorporated into either.
Gallo, as a language derives primarily from Latin.
Important Note - it is likely none of the Angevenian royalty who lived in Brittany ever bothered to learn any part of English.
The current language used in Galicia IS NOT GAELIC!
The Spanish and Portuguese brutally suppressed the speaking of Galician in the 1500s, whereupon it died out. Currently there is a dispute raging in the area over whether they should use the Spanish or the Portuguese version of the Gallegos language - .
Eventually this will all be resolved in favor of English.
Do you deny Europe had a Dark Age? Do you deny the pipe to be the most sublime instrument ever developed for the making of music?
They’ll be opening casinos throughout the UK.
No. Most of us were taught that the Dark Ages were (more or less) exclusively an European thing. I was just stating that whatever (comet into the Celtic Sea?) caused the Dark Ages had a worldwide impact.
"Do you deny the pipe to be the most sublime instrument ever developed for the making of music?"
I have zero knowledge about pipes
The Chinese experience extended to several hundred years. Writing and Buddhism was taken to Japan shortly after their start in 538AD, so we must assume Japan was much better off than the Chinese Mainland or Korea!
Mohammad and his Disciples were off to a running start to roll back the Dark Ages in the 600s while Northern and Western Europe became virtually depopulated. Something besides bad food drove the Angels and Saxons off the continent and into the Isles.
American Indian civilizations suffered mightily in that period.
Still, the bagpipes received their most salubrious development in the 600 to 1700 period, and that was in the hands of the Gaelic speaking people in the Celtic Fringe!
(NOTE - everybody knows what is meant by pipe or pipes except, perhaps, hash smokers.)
And plumbers. Cats have a genetic understanding.
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Works for me. Without getting too picky, the only caveat is the German connection. The geography we today call Germany was named after the Celtic tribe named The Germani. But these Germani Celts were driven west and north by non-Celtic tribes called Huns who then occupied the territory. However it was not renamed "Hunsville" or the like after them.
Todays Germany is a mix of Slavic Huns ("roundheads") and Celts ("fish heads"). Some of northern Germany is Celtic (like Denmark), but so are many parts of the rest of the country. Most of East Germany is Slavic, as well as much of the south. But trying to determine it closer than that is beyond my ability or interest. That's a real can of worms.
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