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."
Yup. Read 2-3 of his books on the San. Do you have any links to the San skeletons around the Bay Of Biscay?
When it came time to invade what had become England, William took with him an army composed mostly of men from the Norman and Bretagne coasts, and down to Anjou. That is, his army was made up of folks who were primarily descendants of the old Briton refugees who came to Brezh in the 6th century. His very first "Norman" town was called Vauxhal, which is simply the way a French speaker (William) would spell the Gallo name of the county seat of Normandy at the time, which is, itself, a short form for "Carvajal".
This is undoubtedly the source of the Briton input among the Danish and Dutch populations that nowadays dominate so much of the life of the British Isles.
No doubt the Anglo-Saxon heathens put as many Britons to the sword and spit as they could. We should all be happy William put a stop to that nonsense.
Sorry, can't answer your question. However, I saw an article (DNA study) that stated the Welsh and the Basque are closely related...also the Irish too.
Click on the link in post #19.
Good books associated with these people are: The mummies of Urumchi, Elizabeth Barber and The Tarim Mummies, Victor Mair.
It looks like French, but it's not!
With the Welsh speaking two different Gaelic languages (one cognate to Irish and the other cognate to Breton), and the Normans speaking Gallo and French, they would be mutually unintelligible.
Bretons and Welshmen, however, do, at least in part, speak the same language!
Genes link Celts to Basques
The Welsh and Irish Celts have been found to be the genetic blood-brothers of Basques, scientists have revealed. The gene patterns of the three races passed down through the male line are all "strikingly similar", researchers concluded.
Basques can trace their roots back to the Stone Age and are one of Europe's most distinct people, fiercely proud of their ancestry and traditions.
The research adds to previous studies which have suggested a possible link between the Celts and Basques, dating back tens of thousands of years.
"The project started with our trying to assess whether the Vikings made an important genetic contribution to the population of Orkney," Professor David Goldstein of University College London (UCL) told BBC News.
'Statistically indistinguishable'
He and his colleagues looked at Y-chromosomes, passed from father to son, of Celtic and Norwegian populations. They found them to be quite different.
"But we also noticed that there's something quite striking about the Celtic populations, and that is that there's not a lot of genetic variation on the Y-chromosome," he said.
To try to work out where the Celtic population originally came from, the team from UCL, the University of Oxford and the University of California at Davis also looked at Basques.
"On the Y-chromosome the Celtic populations turn out to be statistically indistinguishable from the Basques," Professor Goldstein said.
Pre-farming Europe
The comparison was made because Basques are thought by most experts to be very similar to the people who lived in Europe before the advent of farming.
Genetic tests have identified key gene groups
"We conclude that both of these populations are reflecting pre-farming Europe," he said.
Professor Goldstein's team looked at the genetic profiles of 88 individuals from Anglesey, North Wales, 146 from Ireland with Irish Gaelic surnames, and 50 Basques.
"We know of no other study that provides direct evidence of a close relationship in the paternal heritage of the Basque- and the Celtic-speaking populations of Britain," the team write in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Viking TV
But it is still unclear whether the link is specific to the Celts and the Basques, or whether they are both simply the closest surviving relatives of the early population of Europe.
What is clear is that the Neolithic Celts took women from outside their community. When the scientists looked at female genetic patterns as well, they found evidence of genetic material from northern Europe.
This influence helped even out some of the genetic differences between the Celts and their Northern European neighbours.
The work was carried out in connection with a BBC television programme on the Vikings.
The Welsh are a lovely group of people with very long memories.
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