Celts descended from Spanish fishermen, study finds

[Ferran]

Celts descended from Spanish fishermen, study finds

By Guy Adams

Published: 20 September 2006

Don't tell the locals, but the hordes of British holidaymakers who visited Spain this summer were, in fact, returning to their ancestral home.

A team from Oxford University has discovered that the Celts, our country's indigenous people, are descended from a tribe of Iberian fishermen who crossed the Bay of Biscay 6,000 years ago. DNA analysis reveals they have an almost identical genetic "fingerprint" to inhabitants of coastal regions of Spain, whose own ancestors migrated north between 4,000 and 5,000 BC.

The discovery, by Bryan Sykes, professor of human genetics at Oxford University, will herald a change in scientific understanding of Britishness. Previously, people of Celtic ancestry were believed to have descended from warrior tribes of central Europe.

Professor Sykes, who is soon to publish the first DNA map of the British Isles, said: "What seems to have happened, looking at archaeological evidence, is about 6,000 years ago Iberians developed ocean-going boats that enabled them to push up the Channel. Before they arrived, there were some human inhabitants of Britain but only a few thousand in number. These people were later subsumed into a larger Celtic tribe. In effect, that means the majority of people in the British Isles are actually descended from the Spanish."

Professor Sykes spent five years taking DNA samples from 10,000 volunteers in Britain and Ireland, in an effort to produce a map of our genetic roots.

Research on their "Y" chromosome, which subjects inherit from their fathers, revealed that all but a tiny percentage of the volunteers were originally descended from one of six clans who arrived in the UK in several waves of immigration prior to the Norman conquest.

The most common genetic fingerprint belongs to the Celtic clan, which Professor Sykes has called "Oisin". After that, the next most widespread originally belonged to tribes of Danish and Norse vikings. Small numbers of today's Britons are also descended from north African, Middle Eastern and Roman clans.

By linking DNA "fingerprints" to the birthplace of the paternal grandfathers of his subjects, Professor Sykes created the first genetic maps of the British Isles, which are analysed in Blood of the lsles, a book published this week.

The maps show that Celts are most dominant in areas of Ireland, Scotland and Wales. But, contrary to popular myth, the Celtic clan is also strongly represented in other parts of the British Isles.

"Although Celtic countries have previously thought of themselves as being genetically different from the English, this is emphatically not the case," Professor Sykes said. "This is significant, because the idea of a separate Celtic race is deeply ingrained in our political structure, and has historically been very divisive. Culturally, the view of a separate race holds water. But from a genetic point of view, Britain is emphatically not a divided nation."

Professor Sykes, one of Britain's most prominent geneticists, has previously used DNA to trace important events in human evolution. His last book, The Seven Daughters of Eve, suggested that the majority of modern Europeans were descended from one of seven women.

Origins of Britons

OISIN

The Celtic people, descended from Iberian fishermen who migrated to the British Isles between 4,000 and 5,000 BC, are now considered the UK's indigenous inhabitants. Named after an Irish mythical hero.

WODAN

Britain's second most common clan arrived from Denmark during a wave of Viking invasions in the 9th century. The clan's name is an adaptation of Odin, the Norse god of war and the Wodan's ancestors fought a series of battles against the armies of Alfred the Great.

SIGURD

Descended from Viking invaders who settled in the British Isles from AD 793. They became one of the most common clans in the Shetland Isles, and areas of north and west Scotland, and colonised Iceland. Today, their offspring are most prominent in the Western Isles, but some arrived in later military campaigns.

ESHU

The wave of Oisin immigration between 4,000 and 5,000 BC was joined by a smattering of arrivals from the Eshu clan, which has its roots in Africa, particularly the north. Eshu descendants are primarily found around coastal areas.

RE

After the Oisin and Eshu, a second wave of arrivals came from the Middle East. The Re were farmers who - unlike the other clans - spread westwards across Europe, explaining both their rarity, and the fact that it took them several hundred years longer to get here.

ROMAN

Although the Romans ruled from AD 43 until 410, they left a relatively tiny genetic footprint. For the first 200 years occupying forces were forbidden from marrying locally. After the invasion, many of the Roman garrisons were manned by troops from other parts of the empire.

Copyright 2006 Independent Newspapers UK Limited



Source: http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/thi...cle1621766.ece