Split Between English and Scots Older Than Thought

[Vitor]

This might be old news, but I believe it's not for some of you.

According to Stephen Oppenheimer, genetic differences in Britain are older than even the romans...And there was no significant input from the anglo-saxon after the Roman collapse.

I really don't know How he came up with this conclusions, waiting for stirpeans input!

Split Between English and Scots Older Than Thought
By Louise Gray, Scottish Press Association
July 19, 2004

The ancient split between the English and Scots is older than previously thought, an Oxford don said today.

Traditionally the difference between the English and Scots, Welsh, Irish and Cornish was attributed to the foreign influence of invading forces such as the Anglo-Saxons, Celts and Vikings settling in different areas of Britain hundreds of years ago.

But Professor Stephen Oppenheimer of Oxford University, believes the difference originates much further back in history.

In a book tracing humankind from its origins in Africa 80,000 years ago, Prof Oppenheimer develops a theory of the original inhabitants of Britain.

The professor of clinical sociomedical sciences at Oxford University said the Celts of Western Scotland, Wales, Ireland and Cornwall are descended from an ancient people living on the Atlantic coast while Britain was still attached to mainland Europe, while the English are more closely related to the Germanic peoples of the interior.

As evidence he cites genetic data showing the Celts are more closely related to the Basque people of south west France and the Celts of Brittany and Spain, while the English are closer to the Germans descended from the Anglo Saxons.

In the past the split was attributed to "migration, invasion and replacement", but Prof Oppenheimer said the difference was established long before Britain was even an island.

He said: "The first line between England and the Celts was put down at a much earlier period, say 10,000 years ago."

The professor, who is speaking at the Edinburgh Science Festival tonight, said Britons are descended from the original settlers, rather than later invasions, and as such were already split by the western divide.

He said: "The English are the odd-ones-out because they are the ones more linked to continental Europe.

"The Scots, the Irish, the Welsh and the Cornish are all very similar in their genetic pattern to the Basque."

However, the professor did say later invasions will have influenced the developing cultures in different areas of Britain.

He said: "The people themselves may have been more conservative about their movement but accepted new cultures coming in at different dates."

The revelations are all part of Prof Oppenheimer's controversial theory, expanded in his book The Real Eve: Modern Man's Journey Out of Africa, that humans migrated from Africa and populated the planet.

The professor will speak about his theory in a talk entitled Out of Eden at the Apex International Hotel in the Grassmarket tonight.


Scotsman.com News - Scottish news direct from Scotland

[Milesian]

It's pretty vague actually.
I mean it says that the split goes back to when Britain was still attached to the European continent and then goes on to say that the English are closer to the Germanics of the interior. The problem is that the "Germanics" were not all over Europe at that point, in fact I don't think there were "Germanics" then.

How these conclusion were reached aren't specifically stated, but I think a clue is given when it talks about the Scots, Irish, Welsh, Cornish being closer related to the Basques. This suggests that the Y-Chromosome study is being used.

However, this is only part of the story and was discussed in further detail on Irish-Nationalism.com

The conclusions reached in this article are too vague and speculative IMO.
They also seem to be covertly suggesting that the difference between the English and the surrounding people is due to some primeval difference existing back tens of thousands of years ago, rather than due to Anglo-Saxon immigration which would be a much more likely cause of the similarity between English people and continetal Germanics.

[Arawn]

Eh, the absence of a heavy input of Anglo-Saxon genes isn't really news (the old newspaper links i have are dead though). Plus England is muddled up, so its kind of hard to generalise for the whole country, there are areas in the North that are relativly Danish, and areas in the South that have very much pre-Roman Briton. Over all, the traditional simplistic Anglo-Saxon displacing the existing population notion is pretty dead.

[Milesian]

Originally Posted by Arawn

Eh, the absence of a heavy input of Anglo-Saxon genes isn't really news (the old newspaper links i have are dead though).

What do you think of the Blood of the Vikings genetic survey that found Anglo-Saxon genes in England?
Is there a source for lack of Anglo-Saxon input?

Plus England is muddled up, so its kind of hard to generalise for the whole country, there are areas in the North that are relativly Danish, and areas in the South that have very much pre-Roman Briton.

This seems to be true, yes.

Over all, the traditional simplistic Anglo-Saxon displacing the existing population notion is pretty dead.

You mean the theory of simple cultural displacement, rather than actual physical migration? It's true, that the former tends to be fashionable at them moment, but do you believe it is true?

it seems the current mode of thinking is that everyone has basically stayed where they always were and no-one migrated anywhere.

Thus, Anglo-Saxons never invaded Britain. The Celts never left Central Europe. The Aryans never entered Europe. Instead, their culture, customs, languages, etc all travelled over continents with neighbouring people dropping their own culture to adopt their neighbours ad infiniteum, and the originators all just sat on their backsides and never left home.

It's an interesting and novel theory, but it would re-write history and in order to do so I think the evidence would have to be overwhelming and unquestionable, and I don't believe it is.

[Arawn]

What do you think of the Blood of the Vikings genetic survey that found Anglo-Saxon genes in England?
Is there a source for lack of Anglo-Saxon input?

You mean the BBC programme that went looking for the 'viking gene' (in reality, simply a y chromosome comparison with Norwegians). That established that the Norwegian element was weak (they were raiders afterall), and that the Danish (both Angles, and later Danes) element was more noticable, which would make sense as the Danes who came here, came to stay.
Also, Northern England was traditionaly very sparsly populated, so a small imput would be more noticable



As for source, http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/000648.html
Gnxp used to be intresting, before it became a site for pompus Yanks to express theit supeiority over Europeans, havn't looked there in ages, but kept the link, meh. There are links to news articles towards the bottom, but they have expired

You mean the theory of simple cultural displacement, rather than actual physical migration? It's true, that the former tends to be fashionable at them moment, but do you believe it is true?

it seems the current mode of thinking is that everyone has basically stayed where they always were and no-one migrated anywhere.

Thus, Anglo-Saxons never invaded Britain. The Celts never left Central Europe. The Aryans never entered Europe. Instead, their culture, customs, languages, etc all travelled over continents with neighbouring people dropping their own culture to adopt their neighbours ad infiniteum, and the originators all just sat on their backsides and never left home.

It's an interesting and novel theory, but it would re-write history and in order to do so I think the evidence would have to be overwhelming and unquestionable, and I don't believe it is.

The old Anglo-Saxonist model going back to the 1800s or so, had it that the Angles and Saxons came to England, and physicly replaced the existing population. But various recent research has shown that this model doesn't really stand, but rather one of cultural displacement is more applicable.
I guess my initial comment wasn't very clear there


[quote]Do i believe its true? For many regions of England, yes, sure, i tend to shy away from a totalising one size fits all approach when dealing with England. Afterall, a single England was the best part of 600 years in the making, with numerous influences, and a cultural displacement model (which doesn't rule out localised ancestrial displacement, but more likley assimilation) seems to accomodate this best, so i guess its a matter of erring on the side of caution

[Milesian]

Arawn, my apologies. I edited your post instead of replying to it

I'll see if I can fix that

You mean the BBC programme that went looking for the 'viking gene' (in reality, simply a y chromosome comparison with Norwegians). That established that the Norwegian element was weak (they were raiders afterall), and that the Danish (both Angles, and later Danes) element was more noticable, which would make sense as the Danes who came here, came to stay.
Also, Northern England was traditionaly very sparsly populated, so a small imput would be more noticable.

In addition, the Angles and Saxons came from Denmark and Northern Germany, so we would expect their genetic components to be similar or even identical. Therefore the "Danish" markers could be indicative of Anglo-Saxon input as well?

As for source, http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/000648.html
Gnxp used to be intresting, before it became a site for pompus Yanks to express theit supeiority over Europeans, havn't looked there in ages, but kept the link, meh. There are links to news articles towards the bottom, but they have expired.

I've read some good articles there too, but I'm not a regular visitor

The old Anglo-Saxonist model going back to the 1800s or so, had it that the Angles and Saxons came to England, and physicly replaced the existing population. But various recent research has shown that this model doesn't really stand, but rather one of cultural displacement is more applicable.
I guess my initial comment wasn't very clear there.

Could you link me to that research?
It's just that Anglo-Saxon encroachment, and the subsequent retreat of the previous population is historically documented and if it happen then it means a lot of history doesn't make sense.

Of course, I don't think anyone seriously belives that the previous population were either wiped out or all migrated away in their entirety. I'm sure some degree of interbreeding did take place, and the Blood of the Vikings survey backs this up.
But I'm also dubious of arguments which attempt to downplay Anglo-Saxon input at the same time.

Do i believe its true? For many regions of England, yes, sure, i tend to shy away from a totalising one size fits all approach when dealing with England. Afterall, a single England was the best part of 600 years in the making, with numerous influences, and a cultural displacement model (which doesn't rule out localised ancestrial displacement, but more likley assimilation) seems to accomodate this best, so i guess its a matter of erring on the side of caution.

That's very true. Of course you cannot account for regional variation when dealing with national generalisations. But on the whole, I mean.

[Arawn]

You can make your own posts you know

Could you link me to that research?

Well namely, the above mentioned newspaper articles and such. They paint the picture as being more complex. For sure Angles, Saxons, and later Danes came over. But they didn't exactly replace the existing population completly like the Victorian fantasys of the 1800s.

[Milesian]

Originally Posted by Arawn

You can make your own posts you know


Well namely, the above mentioned newspaper articles and such. They paint the picture as being more complex. For sure Angles, Saxons, and later Danes came over. But they didn't exactly replace the existing population completly like the Victorian fantasys of the 1800s.

Certainly, they did. Agreed.
We also have Celts migrating away from Anglo-Saxon encroachment.
The migrated west into Wales and Cornwall, and north into southern Scotland where they formed the Kingdom of Strathclyde and eventually mixed with the Gaels and Picts to form Scotland.

The Arthurian legends, although elaborated later on during the Middle Ages, date from the Celts fighting the invading Anglo-Saxons, having been pushed back.

The Celts still call the English - Saxons in their own languages, and England is "Saxonland".

As mentioned, I concede that it's very likely that Celts did remain behind and interbreed with Anglo-Saxons. But there must have been large numbers of moving Celts to have affected the history and development of the lands which they finally ended up in.

Thus I think the majority of Celts were displaced, although some did stay behind and interbreed. This would account for a remnant "Celtic" genetic signature in some places in England, particularly the south (and I would expect Cornwall and surrounding areas to show the highest concentration), and also account for the fact that English genetics are significantly distinct from neighbouring countries and showing a "Danish" input (which could just as easily be an Anglo-Saxon input as well)

[Arawn]

And Brittany supposidly. And yes, its Sais/Saeson in Welsh, and Saesneg the language (but no mention of the Engles, did they stay on the East coast?)

[Milesian]

Originally Posted by Arawn

And Brittany supposidly.

That's right. Formerly called "Armorica" in those days.
Some of the Britons left (Mainly Cornwall I think) and settled there giving their name to it - Brittany

And yes, its Sais/Saeson in Welsh, and Saesneg the language

Sassanach in Irish and Scottish Gaelic, which means the same.

(but no mention of the Engles, did they stay on the East coast?)

Yes, north-east. Northumberland was the Angle Kingdom.
This was roughly the area of the Danelaw some centuries later, so we would expect North-East England to show the highest level of "Danish" input, coming from both Angle and later Danish migration

[Polak]

From all my reading on the topic, it seems that Anglo-Saxons did contribute quite a bit to the English gene pool.

Apparently what happend was that the men left continental Europe, displaced the native men in England, and intermarried with their women.

So England is very much a mix of old Briton, Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Danish, and even Norwegian.

[Milesian]

That's certainly plausible.

The problem we have is that it tends to be Y-Chromosome tests that are done. mtDNA results would help verify that theory.

[Biggles]

I watched that blood of the vikings thing mainly because it err told alot on the Vikings and what they did (mainly kill, pillage etc, similar to the Americans ).

One thing it didnt ever show, was major Viking settlements in England, both my dads parents are from Yorkshire and supposedly alot of Viking settlements were up in that area, Id be interested in any maps if anyone has em ?....

[Biggles]

btw has anyone ever been to York (or Jorvik) ???

I went there as a field trip in my last year of primary school fantastic place, that was 7 years ago but im sure its still a nice place to visit, the Jorvik Viking centre was good link here.

Found the BOTV site here.

[Gil]

Aren't the Welsh and some Irish phenotipically very similar to Mediterranid populations? I've read in various sources that the non-anglo-saxon tribes (and even pre-roman tribes) who to some degree mixed with celts had both skin and hair similar to mediterraneans.
Also, roman sources claim that Britons weren't that much different from Romans (exception made with their going around naked and painted with woad ) while the german tribes did showed remarkable difference (only the most northern ones though).