On the British...Descended from Invaders?

[nordicyouth]

According to the BBC website under pre-Roman British history, the people that inhabited England, Wales, and Scotland, originated from hunter-gatherers: a sizable and mixed group that landed on the island and whose phenotype still reigns supreme despite successive invasions. Note that Dienekes has displayed several posts on the subject.

Apparently, the red heads in Scotland, short dark-haired dwellers of Wales, and the 'lanky' blondes of England were already there before the Romans landed. Additionally, these are no longer believed to be Celts...nomenclature that arose in the 18th century.

The Romans, Teutons (Angles, Saxons, and Jutes), and Normans, left negligible genetic stamps on the existing population. Rather the native population was changed socio-economically and politically, but not genetically by the invaders - much the same way pre-IE Europeans were not changed genetically by the migration of farmers.

So, the blondes, red heads, and Welsh are not derived from Teutons, Vikings, or Francified Vikings (Normans), Romans, or Iberians - rather they were already there. This clears up the age old Teuton-vs.-Celt debate, but it leaves many questions open i.e. who really were the pre-IE Europeans? who really were the pre-Roman Britons. I suppose the 'Celts' and 'Anglo-Saxons,' need to bury the hatchet as these terms are more political and cultural than anything else...

[Oldbrit]

I've brought up the 80% UP DNA a few times. How it came on foot when these islands were still a peninsula.

This I found rather enlightening
www.enter.net/~torve/trogholm/wonder/indoeuropean/indoeuropean1.html

It explains the triangular relationship between romance, celtic & germanic.
The celtic tongues lost IE P (IE Pater became athair) and retained Kw (Q) & K, romance retained all of them, Germanic seems to have lost Q.

P-celtic turned Q to P. Was this when it spread to former proto-germanic speakers? as it covers those areas. Old English & Welsh have certain sounds in common (LL & short Southern U) not found in neighbouring languages.

Was the first german sound shift (pater to fater) when germanic spread to those areas where celtic had held sway for several thousand years?

There's a contributor to a somewhat rabid Irish Nationalist forum whose signature tells of civilisation spreading from the west eastwards, but if the above hypothesis is accurate, the protocelts were the late invaders and the iron age germanics were simply reclaiming what had previously been theirs.

[Glenlivet]

I have seen those statements before.

"We can, however, say that biologically they were part of the Caucasoid population of Europe. The regional physical stereotypes familiar to us today, a pattern widely thought to result from the post-Roman Anglo-Saxon and Viking invasions - red-headed people in Scotland, small, dark-haired folk in Wales and lanky blondes in southern England - already existed in Roman times. Insofar as they represent reality, they perhaps attest the post-Ice Age peopling of Britain, or the first farmers of 6,000 years ago."

www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/prehistory/peoples_02.shtml

I think the author has an agenda.

[nordicyouth]

Everyone has an agenda, but it's making sense that these so-called 'invaders' in Europe left huge civilizational changes but little genetic ones. Recent evidence is proving that the old notions of Teuton and Celt are irrelevant.

[buddy]

I always see conflicting genetic studies on the Brits. Several studies indicate that modern Englishmen are closest to the Danes (which suggests that Anglo-Saxons and Vikings did have a strong impact), whereas the Irish, Scots, and Welsh tend to cluster more closely with one another as their "Celtic" or at least shall we say, pre-Anglo-Saxon, ancestors were already living in the British Isles.

I don't doubt that the old UP DNA exists in all of the different British groups, but I also don't think we can deny that they do differ somewhat in ancestry. This brings me to my next question: Who's lying?!?!?

[nordicyouth]

Apparently the UP group was ethnically mixed. It could be that UP groups from Europe crossed at about the same time: 1 in Scotland, 1 in England, and 1 in Wales. The English and Scots are not that dissimilar. Perhaps as the groups that would comprise the Scandinavians were arcing northwards, some made for the coast and then crossed over, explaining the Nordid components, especially as red-heads are found quite often in Scotland but also Germany, and the English have phenotypical connections to the Dutch and Danish.

As for the Welsh I'm not sure.

[Cerdic]

"We can, however, say that biologically they were part of the Caucasoid population of Europe. The regional physical stereotypes familiar to us today, a pattern widely thought to result from the post-Roman Anglo-Saxon and Viking invasions - red-headed people in Scotland, small, dark-haired folk in Wales and lanky blondes in southern England."

A very old-fashioned view, based largely on what people expect to see rather than what is actually found. In fact Northern England has higher statures than Southern England and Southern England has the second highest incidence of dark coloured eyes (after Wales) in the British Isles.

The fact is that all the regional populations of Britain are phenotypically very mixed. Stereotyping results in the tall blond Welshman and the short swarthy East Anglian being ignored, whilst the opposite case results in pre-conceptions being reinforced.

[nordicyouth]

Evidently...however the main thrust is that this group has been largely unchanged since its arrival some time ago.

[tripleog]

The British commonly refered to themselves as a mutt race, descendeded from waves of immigrants over the last 2000 years or more (Romans, Normons, Vikings, Celts, modern day Irish, Africans, Caribbeans, Asians etc.). But this is hardly unique in Europe. As this article mentions...

It is currently estimated that 40 percent of the French population descends from these different waves of migrations, making France the most ethnically diverse country in Europe. Nevertheless, the immigrants from other European countries have had an easier time blending in (race and religion being key), while the "non-European" groups have tended to assimilate at a slower pace.

(refering to modern 20th century migration to France)

I would imagine many other European countries (e.g. Benelux, Ireland, Switzerland) have similar stories of heavy foreign influences (mostly European ofcourse), reducing the strength of crystalization along current national borders.

[Glenlivet]

Introduction to the Scientific Method:

teacher.nsrl.rochester.edu/phy_labs/AppendixE/AppendixE.html

Northern England has a higher number of blondes than Southern England. It is a simple observation and you can see that in various anthropology maps. He is disproven by recent population genetic studies. He is a Historian (arts subject) and not a Natural Scientist.

nordicyouth said:

Everyone has an agenda, but it's making sense that these so-called 'invaders' in Europe left huge civilizational changes but little genetic ones. Recent evidence is proving that the old notions of Teuton and Celt are irrelevant.