In fact this study is just another one of those worthless blabbering re-interpretations of given sample data, that has no real value in population genetics, except for its political exploitation by anglophiles, English supremacists, celtocentrists and Irish nationalists.
When the next sample or the next interpretation contradicts it, someone else might exploit that, for their respective agenda.
But it seems to be getting old, to attempt to establish a Celtic-Germanic barrier through the Y-chromosome haplogroup distribution of the British Isles. Old, because its already been done by countless interpretations, and old, because its already been contradicted by countless samples and interpretations. An example of a contrasting interpretation can be read
here on Stirpes.
The fact remains, that the majority of sex-chromosome samples from Wales and England show a high proximity, similarly with England and Scotland, the greatest UP continuity typically being in Ireland. But the one trend, one cannot avoid to acknowledge, even in cases with 50 pages of worthless, destructive quarelling, is the fact that the majority of the Isles remain dominantly R1b in their Y-DNA haplogroup distribution, and the UP continuity is dominant, even wherever it is the least dominant. That England has more Anglo-Saxon input than any other area in the Isles is very likely, but England is also still subject to a heavily Western European sex chromosome make-up, more comparative to the immediate surrounding areas than any other areas.
Distribution of Y-DNA: (
1,
2)
Distribution of mtDNA: (
1,
2,
3)
Without looking at the full picture, such as taking into consideration the maternal perspective, mtDNA haplogroup distribution, bias is inevitable. The fact is that the mtDNA haplogroup H is the maternal parallel to R1b in terms of it being dominant in the vast majority of Western Europe.
The differences in details are typically exploited by people with an agenda. Details are subject to change with sample. The general trends, however, are not, and they speak for dominant positions of paternal R1b, maternal H in Western Europe, and especially in all of the British Isles at that.
Another perspective any serious person cannot avoid to come across are the autosomal, genetic realities, independent of the sex-chromosomes.
This specific study was brought up in another thread.
But reflecting on the people with political agendas in genetic and physical anthropology, I find it humorous that they so desperately attempt to prove a case which supports their views, as if anthropometrics and population genetics had any significance on the ethnic identity and cultures of the masses. When this is the case, it is a clear symbol of desperation to find a way to define one self, a clear sign of spiritural deprivation, when one has difficulties in defining ones own ethnic identity in terms of cultural and national context, and thus people resort to anthropology forums on the internet, where they can "prove their case". That also explains the demographics and nature of a majority of the people on such forums. Ethnicity should at best be defined in ethnology, the only anthropological science that has real merits in this respect. Population genetics can be an additional aid, but one must never define oneself based on such microbiological means. There is no doubt some will do anyway, but they are not taken seriously, because nation is exoteric, and microbiology is not.
Perhaps I should end this post with
this quote from Oppenheimer, that I think has been valid on numerous occasions - “Genetics have no bearing on cultural history.”