Anglo - Saxon Britain?

[SwordandCompass]

I am posting this hear to hear people debate about this article i found.



The ancestry of the English people are not quite as clear cut as most people
, with the exceptions of a few relatively contemporary archaeologists ,
anthropologists , geneticists , historians , and linguists , assume it to be
. Most people seem to think that the English are mostly of Germanic Anglian
, Saxon , Jutish , Frisian , and Scandinavian ancestry . From 1940 , when
the Nazi Germans bombed Britain in the Battle of Britain and the Blitzkrieg
, this has understandably caused a great deal of embarrassment to the
descendants of English - speaking people living in Britain , Ireland , and
the former British colonies , including Canada , the U.S.A , Australia , and
New Zealand . Even after the American colonies , with the exception of the
Canadian ones , declared their independence in 1783 , English , Welsh ,
Scottish , and Irish immigrants continued to arrive in large numbers in the
U.S.A. in the years after 1783 , as they still do in current times . The
genetic , linguistic , and archaeological fact of the matter is that the
English are of mixed Germanic , Celtic , Roman , and Iberian stock since
ancient times . In 1997 in the West Midlands of England a male adult
skeleton dating from around 3000 B.C. was found , and subsequent D.N.A.
tests found a direct adult male descendant of the dead man living either 30
kilometers or 30 miles away in a town where he was either a teacher or the
head master at a local high school . This means that he has Iberian , Celtic
, Roman , and Germanic ancestry , as the Celts did not arrive in the two
post - Ice Age continental European islands of Britain and Ireland until
2000 B.C. onwards . The pre - Norman Conquest Old English language shows in
its surviving manuscripts and inscriptions many Germanic words influenced by
the Celtic Briton and Latin languages in terms of prefixes , suffixes ,
inflections , pronunciation , accent , syntax , spelling , and loan words ,
when compared with the various dialects of the continental Germans .

The people living within the borders of the modern day nation state of
Germany are not ethnically homogenous by ethnic ancestry , since the German
colonists who followed in the wake of the crusading order of knights called
the Teutonic Knights , accompanied by Christian missionaries of the
Cistercian order from 1150 A.D. onwards , ethnically mixed , intermarried ,
concubined , sexually intercoursed , and raped with the Slavic ethnic groups
known as the Wends , Pomeranians , Abodrites , and Sorbs [ Serbs ] , and the
Baltic Indo - European people called the Prussians , Lithuanians , and
Latvians who lived east of the Elbe and Saale Rivers . These people were
mostly pagans or polytheists , with the exception of the Roman Catholic
Slavic Poles , but were gradually converted to Christianity by force , and
soon became culturally assimilated with the German invaders , often adopting
the German language and customs over many generations , and losing or
heavily diluting their own in the process . South of the Main River and west
of the Rhine River lived many Celtic tribes who subsequently became first
Latinized by Roman invaders , and then by Germanic invaders . The Celts by
500 B.C. had extended their territory by conquest as far east as the Weser
River and as far north as the Thuringian Mountains , after which they were
gradually conquered by the Germanic tribes , losing their ethnic identity by
cultural assimilation in favour of their new Germanic masters , who also
spoke an Indo - European language as the Celts also did . Both the Slavs ,
Celts , and Germans were homestead , hamlet , village and small town farmers
and herders of domesticated animals , and both of them had a three - tiered
society with slaves , freemen , and warrior - nobles . The warrior
chieftains or warlords had their private armies of light cavalry and hall
bodyguards who lived with them in fortified homesteads , often located on a
hill or artificially created mound , protected by stake fences , ditches ,
moats , bogs , marshes , and swamps . This way of life was once common to
all Indo - European speaking peoples , even with the Greeks and Romans
before they became large town and city dwellers , in other words , before
they became civilised .

The reason why the former Roman colonies in Wales , Cornwall , and southern
Lowland Scotland remained largely Celtic rather than Latin speaking , unlike
the formerly Celtic Roman province of Transalpine Gaul now known as France
and Belgium , was because Wales and Cornwall were part of the far flung
frontier provinces of the Roman Empire which attracted relatively few
permanent Latin - speaking colonists , and Britain after all has been a
continental European island since the gradual melting of the last Ice Age
raised world sea levels . Cisalpine Gaul was located where what is now the
northern Italian plain of the Po River Valley , the region of Italy called
Lombardy . Cisalpine Gaul was invaded and settled in the 300's B.C. by the
Celts , followed by the Germanic Visigoths , Ostrogoths , Heruls , Sciri ,
and Gepidae in the 400's A.D. , and then by the Germanic Lombards in the
late 500's and early 600's A.D. The isolated nature of Ireland from Britain
, and even more from continental Europe , explains why remnants of Celtic
paganism in the form of superstitious beliefs in banshees , leprechauns ,
halloween , mistletoe , kelpies , and four - leaf clovers persisted among
the ordinary Irish peasantry side by side with Roman Catholic Christianity
for such a long time . Even by 407 A.D. , when the last Roman field troops
left Wales , Cornwall , southern Lowland Scotland and England , there were
still many poor peasant farmers and first - generation urban slum immigrants
of peasant background who believed in both Celtic and Greco - Roman paganism
, and who spoke Celtic dialects as their first language , for example the
semi - legendary Druid priest called Merlin , although Christians by this
time formed a sizeable proportion of the Romano - British middle and upper
classes , most of whom were fluent in both Celtic dialects and Latin .
Armorica or Brittany in northwest France turned out to be a Celtic enclave
because that part of Gaul has thin , rocky soils , and because many Celtic
refugees from Britain sought refuge there after the Germanic seaborne
invasions of Britain after 407 A.D. With the Roman field armies of Britain
gone , central authority soon collapsed as there was no more means to
enforce it , and the Romano - British Celtic tribes soon reverted to the
tribal civil warfare that had existed before the Roman conquest of Britain ,
making them thereby an easier prey for the Anglian , Saxon , Jutish , and
Frisian invaders . However , the Germanic conquest of post - Roman Britain
was held up for a while by certain Romano - Celtic British warlord
chieftains called Ambrosius Aurelianus , who may have been the real King
Arthur , and by Riothamus or Riothamnus , who may have been the real
Lancelot , in around 500 A.D. , although after their deaths the Celtic
tribes once more reverted to civil clan warfare , and the common resistance
offered to the Anglo - Saxon Germanic invaders subsequently collapsed . The
Germanic Frankish , Burgundian , Visigothic , and Ostrogothic peoples who
invaded France or Gaul after the Romans had exhausted themselves in imperial
dynastic civil wars that lasted from 383 - 388 , 392 - 394 , 406 - 432 A.D.
, and after the Gaulish Baugadae or vagabond peasant revolt of 435 - 437
A.D. , found it more valuable to learn Latin then Celtic , unlike their
fellow Germanic brethren who invaded Britain by sea . The Germanic invaders
of Gaul could invade in larger numbers by horseback on land , than the
Germanic invaders of Britain could do by sea , as they had no sea barrier
like the Strait of Dover , the English Channel , and the North Sea to cross
.

[SwordandCompass]

The reason why Romania in the Balkans , once part of the former Roman
province of Dacia [ 106 - 271 A.D. ] turned out to be a Latin enclave
surrounded by Slavic - speaking and Hungarian or Magyar - speaking peoples ,
was because the Roman province yielded valuable gold and silver mines for
the Roman colonists , although towards the end of the Roman rule of Dacia ,
the gold and silver mines were mainly exhausted , since the ancient deep -
shaft mining techniques were not as advanced as today . During the times of
various foreign invasions from other quarters that were to follow after 271
A.D. , when the Roman imperial authorities withdrew their last field troops
and civil servants from the province of Dacia , the Romanized and Latinized
Dacians were often able to retreat for safety into the many forested
mountains and hills of Romania , and with the less advanced farming and
transport techniques of the ancient world as compared with that of today ,
the forests of ancient Roman Europe covered a far larger area . Before the
Roman conquest , the Dacians spoke an Indo - European language related to
the Ilyrian-Thracian-Phrygian branch , of which only the Albanian dialect
remains today as a living language . The rest of the Balkan Albanians
sexually intermingled , ethnically mixed , or miscegenated , and culturally
and linguistically assimilated with the Slavic tribes that invaded the
Balkan peninsula in around 570 - 650 A.D. , followed by the Hungarians or
Magyar invaders in around 890 - 955 A.D. The Croats , Serbs , and the
ethnically Serbian akin Montenegrins , Slovenes , and Northern Slavic
Bulgarian - speaking Macedonians , as opposed to the Southern Greek -
speaking Macedonians , of whom Alexander the Great was a member , arrived in
the Balkans as ethnically and politically distinct but distantly related
Slavic - speaking tribespeople . The Slavs of Bulgaria , who arrived in the
region during the late 500's A.D. , were conquered in the early 600's A.D.
by the less numerous Turkic - speaking people called the Bulgars , a fierce
and well organised group of semi - nomadic warrior horsemen and herders .

However , although the Scandinavians basically speak the same Germanic
language and are nearly all Lutherans , they still form the separate
nation - states of Sweden , Norway , and Denmark right to this day . The
so - called "Yugoslavs" or Southern Slavs are not all members of the same
Christian denomination , and the differences in dialect are greater among
them then among that of the Scandinavians . The reason why the Slavic -
speaking Bosnians and Illyrian - speaking Albanians are mostly Muslim today
is because their ancestors were members of the Eastern Orthodox heretical
sect called the Bogomils , whose beliefs had many things in common with
those of the heretical Roman Catholic sects called the Patarenes and Cathars
or Albigensians of northern Italy , Switzerland , and southern France , and
who often found it politically and economically expedient to convert to
Islam during the Ottoman Turkish Conquest of the Balkans after the Greek -
speaking Byzantine capital of Constantinople fell in 1453 . The western
three - fifths of Bosnia - Hercegovina was part of The Kingdom of Croatia
that lasted from 925 - 1102 A.D. , while the eastern two - fifths of
Bosnia - Hercegovina was part of Serbia . During the Second World War the
ultra - nationalist and pro - Royalist Serbs known as the Chetniks and
Zborists [ after Zbor , a Serbian fascist political party of the early
1940's ] , often collaborated with the Germans and Italians against the
Communist - led pan - Yugoslav or Southern Slav Partisan resistance group ,
as did also the Croatian ultra - nationalist group known as the Ustasha .
Many Bosnian and Albanian Muslims also collaborated with the Germans and
Italians , and all the nations that were occupied by the Germans and
Italians had their pro - Axis collaborators . Before the rise of the 1800's
and 1900's nation - state , ethnic divisions were less rigid , providing a
greater deal of two - way mutual intermarriage , concubinage , and cultural
borrowing then today , although as many semi - nomadic , tribal hunter -
gatherer societies that remain today and of the relatively recent past show
, tribal and ethnic loyalty can command strong allegiances and feelings of
group and territorial solidarity .

The Romans in the early years of the Empire made several attempts to conquer
the Germanic lands as far as the Elbe River , but by the time that the
Romans were ready to conquer what is today part of the modern day nation -
state of Germany , the Roman armies were already overstretched in
maintaining their geographically vast and ethnically diverse empire .
Moreover , the Romans suffered a severe setback when the legions under the
command of the Roman general Quinctilius Varus were ambushed in several
guerrilla - style attrition attacks in the heavily forested and mountainous
Teutoburger Wald in A.D. 9 by the warriors of the Germanic chieftain called
Arminius , a former pro - Roman mercenary soldier . This defeat for the
Romans was soon enough avenged by the Roman armies led by the Roman general
called Germanicus Caesar who led a campaign into the lands of the Germanic
tribes living east of the Rhine River from 14 - 17 A.D. , inflicting several
defeats on the Germans , including wounding Arminius and recapturing the
stolen legionary colours of Varus in 16 A.D. However , Germanicus Caesar was
hampered by the loss of two Roman reinforcement transport fleets in North
Sea storms , and the then undrained and uncleared swamps , marshes , bogs ,
lakes , and forests of the North German Plain . Moreover , the Roman Emperor
Tiberius [ r. 14 - 37 A.D. ] was jealous and fearful of the success of
Germanicus Caesar , and ordered the abandonment of efforts to conquer the
Germanic lands as far east as the Elbe River , or maybe even further east to
the Oder - Western Niesse Rivers , to be distinguished from the Eastern
Neisse River . The Oder - Western Neisse River is the internationally
recognised border that exists between Poland and Germany today .

[SwordandCompass]

The reason why the Swedish Vikings were able to conquer the large Slavic -
speaking lands of the Russians , Belorussians , and Ukrainians was because
these Slavic peoples were disunited , forming mutually antagonistic tribes
who more or less constantly fought each other , and the Swedish Vikings took
advantage of this , recruiting into both their army rank and file , and
their officer or warlord - corps , Slavs in large numbers in order to fight
rival Slavic tribes , thereby subduing the individual Slavic tribes one by
one .The majority of the ordinary rank and file soldiers , as well as the
commanders , of Swedish - led Viking armies of Russia , were of Slavic
origin , and there were many offspring as the result of intermarriage ,
concubinage , polygamy , casual sexual relations , and rape between Swedish
males and Russian women . The many long rivers and lakes of Russia formed a
network of inland water routes that connected the Baltic Sea with the Black
Sea and the landlocked Caspian Sea , the latter really being a large salt
lake once connected in prehistoric times to the Seven Seas , and this formed
a natural " highway " for the Swedish Viking long ships , with many
relatively safe ports of call at fortified trading towns located at various
points on the watery network , and these forts provided some sort of unified
system of defense for both the Swedes and the Slavs against the marauding
tribes of Bashkir or Hungarian/Magyar and Turkic Bulgar , Petcheneg , and
Cuman semi - nomadic warrior horsemen and herders .

The Romans as they conquered their provinces recruited from among the
conquered people soldiers , and eventually officers , for both the Roman
legions and their usually trustworthy allied auxiliary forces , so that by
100 A.D. only about 20 % of the Roman soldiers came from the Italian
peninsula , and this rate fell to about 10 % by 200 A.D. Under the reign of
the Emperor Septimius Severus [ r. 193 - 211 A.D. ] , the Emperor's private
bodyguard called the Praetorians were opened up for the first time to
provincials , as previously only Italian - born Roman citizens were allowed
to join the Praetorian Guard . In 212 A.D. , the Roman Emperor Caracalla [
r. 211 - 217 A.D. ] , granted citizenship to all the free born subjects of
the Roman Empire , although many of the free subjects were actually tenant
or serf farmers and guild apprentices , thereby making these citizens liable
to pay taxes to the Imperial treasury , a case of " no representation
without taxation ." The non - free inhabitants of the Roman Empire were
slaves , as opposed to bonded tenant farmers or serfs and guild apprentices
, as opposed to journeymen and guild masters or workshop - owners . The main
reasons why the Western or Latin half of the Roman Empire fell can be summed
up as one of abandonment for the Eastern or Greek - speaking Byzantine half
of the Roman Empire , tax evasion , and draft dodging , and imperial
dynastic civil warfare at the same time as large scale and multiple
Barbarian invasions were occurring . From 383 - 388 A.D. , 392 - 394 A.D. ,
and 406 - 432 A.D. the Roman field armies wasted themselves in recurrent
imperial dynastic civil wars , made worse by the invasions of the Roman
provinces by such Germanic ethnic groups as the Visigoths , Ostrogoths ,
Burgundians , Franks , Vandals , Lombards , Sueves , Heruls , Sciri ,
Gepidae , Frisians , Jutes , Angles , and Saxons , the Celtic Scots of
northern Ireland and the Picts of Scotland , the Persian Iranians and their
cousins the Sarmatians ,the Turkic Alans , and the Berber Moors and Blemmyes
. Many of the Germanic ethnic groups were themselves fleeing the semi -
nomadic warrior horsemen and herders called the Huns , a Mongolian ethnic
group .

During the years after 250 A.D. , the Roman senatorial aristocracy of the
Western half of the Roman Empire acquired large landed estates and fortified
rural mansions and castles called villas , protected by armed retainers or
private bodyguards . With these fortified homes and private bodyguards , the
Roman senators could afford to chase off imperial tax collectors sent to
collect money for soldier's wages , and also imperial army recruitment
officers who wished to draw away some of their tenant farmers for a period
of military service that was supposed to last for 25 years . This tax and
draft evasion meant that the Roman Army recruiting officers were forced
increasingly to hire the services of the least Romanised ethnic groups
living within the Roman Empire , and the various ethnic groups living
outside the imperial frontiers . By the late 300's and early 400's A.D. ,
many people of Germanic ancestry not only formed the membership of the rank
and file of the Roman army , but even numbered among the officers of the
army , for example Merobaudes , Arbogast , Gainas , and Stilicho . The poor
pay of the Roman soldiers in the latter years of the Empire meant that they
were often attracted into supporting rival contenders for the throne in
imperial dynastic civil wars who promised them wage increases and war
plunder , and the survivors of the losing side in a battle often mutinied
and formed bands of deserters who terrorized and plundered the countryside ,
robbing rich , poor , and those somewhere in between alike as the
opportunity arose . During the great peasant revolt of the Bagaudae or
Vagabonds that broke out in Gaul from 435 - 437 A.D. , largely in protest
against the heavy rents exacted from them by their senatorial landlords and
their private armies , many deserting Roman legionaries joined the peasants
. The peasant revolt in Gaul was crushed by a mercenary army of Huns ,
called in by the West Roman imperial authorities . The bankruptcy of the
imperial treasury became more apparent when during the reign of the West
Roman Emperor Gratian from 367 - 383 A.D. , heavy body armour in the form of
overlapping metal plates or scales sewn into leather tunics , chain - link
mail armour , metal helmets , and oblong shields ceased to be issued to the
ordinary rank and file Roman legionary . They were still issued with pikes ,
lances , long - swords , round shields , and archery equipment though . Many
Roman army recruiting masters kept false muster rolls of non - existent ,
deserted , and killed soldiers , thereby pocketing their wages for
themselves .


The reason why the Roman Emperor Constantine decided to move the capital of
the Roman Empire from Rome to Byzantium , renamed Constantinople [ Greek for
" Constantine's City ," ] in 330 A.D. , were partly economic and strategic
in motivation . The Roman Emperor Constantine [ r. 306 -337 A.D. ] , was the
first Roman Emperor to grant religious toleration to the Christians , after
having suffered periodically for centuries persecution at the hands of the
pagans or polytheists . The eastern or officially Greek - speaking half of
the Roman Empire , which came to be known as the Byzantine Empire , had
larger , more prosperous , and more numerous cities and towns then the
officially Latin - speaking Western half of the Roman Empire , and therefore
a more easily extracted source for taxation revenue , from which soldiers
and mercenaries could be paid at a decent level . Also , the strategic and
economically valuable site of Byzantium , now renamed Constantinople , was
more easily defended with its strong fortifications which controlled trade
routes on both a North to South and East to West Axis . The Roman Empire was
officially divided into a Western and Eastern half in 395 A.D. , with the
last West Roman Emperor overthrown in 476 A.D. , and the last East Roman or
Byzantine Roman Emperor overthrown in 1453 A.D. The conquering Muslim
Ottoman Turks called Constantinople Istanbul , which is the Turkish
pronunciation and spelling for the name Constantinople .

[SwordandCompass]

The various branches of the Indo - European speaking family came originally
as semi - nomadic warrior horsemen and herders from the steppes and prairies
of the lands north of the Black and Caspian seas , from where they conquered
the other lands of Europe , the Middle East , and India from around 2500
B.C. onwards , gradually mixing with the previous inhabitants of those lands
, with the conquered people usually reduced to the status of slaves and
serfs . The remnants of the non - Indo - European speaking peoples include
such ethnic and linguistic groups as the Guanches of the Canary Islands
archipelago , the Basques of the Pyrenees , the Berbers or Hamites of the
Atlas Mountain ranges of North - West Africa and the oases of the Sahara
desert , and the Berbers are distant cousins of the Arabs , the Picts of the
Scottish Higlands , the Iberians of pre - 900 B.C. Spain and Portugal , the
Arabs , the Sumerians , the Georgians of the Caucasus Mountain range that
separates Turkey from Georgia , Armenia , and Azerbaijan , the Lapps , Finns
, Estonians , Hungarians , and Turks , the Burushaski of the Hunza Valley of
Pakistan , the Dravidians of the Punjab and of central and southern India ,
the Elamites of Iran before the coming of the Iranians in around 1500 B.C.
onwards , the Ligurians and Elymians of pre - 1000 B.C. Italy and Sicily ,
the Pelasgoi and Eteo - Cretans of pre - 2000 B.C. Greece and Crete , the
Lydians , of whom the Etruscans traced their ancestry from , Mysians ,
Carians , Pamphylians and Cappadocians of what is now the Turkish or
Anatolian peninsula before the conquests of Alexander the Great , and the
Ainu of Hokkaido , Sakhalin , the Pacific provinces of Russian Siberia , the
Kurile Islands , and the Kamchatka Peninsula .

The members of the Indo - European linguistic family include the Germans ,
Slavs , Celts , Latins , Greeks , Albanians , Armenians , and the Indo -
Iranians or Sanskrit Aryans , the latter branch including the Baltic Old
Prussians , Lithuanians , and Latvians as well as the Iranians or Sankrit
people of Iran , Afghanistan , Pakistan , and northern India . The word
Aryan comes from the Sanskrit word " Arya , " which means " nobles , " or "
owners of land . " When the Indo - European speaking Iranians invaded and
conquered from 1500 B.C. onwards the lands of what today make the nation -
states of Iran , Pakistan , Afghanistan , and India , they usually
intermarried with the natives or earlier invaders , usually in the form of a
master - slave relationship , where the conquered native women usually
became the concubines of their harem - keeping slave master . The offspring
of such relationships usually themselves became slaves , as the Colored or
mixed - race/miscegenated people of Apartheid South Africa . In India , such
so - called " half castes " formed the " Sudra " or " Labourer " caste , as
opposed to the " Dasa ," or " black " caste , that is , the racially unmixed
but enslaved dark - brown skinned Dravidian peoples of India . The words "
Sudra " and " Dasa " belong to the Sanskrit branch of the Indo - European
speaking people , as opposed to the non - Indo - European speaking Dravidian
people . It is interesting to note that as a percentage of the total number
of dark - brown skinned , Bantu - speaking African slaves transported to
North , Central , and South America , the U.S.A. in British colonial and
post - colonial times received about 5 % of the total number , explaining
why there is greater intermarriage between whites and blacks in Latin
America , where the advanced and highly populated slave and serf - owning
agricultural and urban civilizations of the Aztec , Maya , and Inca were
also located . Many of the Black Africans sold into slavery to the willing
European buyers were prisoners - of - war from the more or less continuous
intertribal warfare that raged on the African continent since time
immemorial . Most of the Black African ethnic or tribal groups were farmers
and herders who lived in villages and small towns . The Aztecs , Mayans ,
and Incas had many conquered American Indian tribes under their rule , and
many of their prisoners - of - war were sacraficed to their imperial
master's gods and goddesses , in part as a means of cowing the conquered
tribes into submission . The Dorian Spartans practiced similar tactics on
the Ionian helots , a society that resembled Apartheid South Africa in many
ways .

[SwordandCompass]

The Sahara , Arabian , and Central Asian deserts during the early and middle
stages of Inter - Glacial periods between major Ice Ages has been a tropical
savanna grassland and light scrub land and light woodland , with lakes ,
swamps , and rivers and large animal herds . This far more fertile then
present Sahara existed from 128,000 - 113,000 B.C. , 26,000 - 20,000 B.C. ,
and 8000 - 4000 B.C. During the dry desert intervals , the Berbers of North
Africa and the Arabs of the Middle East , both of whom are distant cousins
to each other , retreated to the desert oases and the Mediterranean forests
of the Atlas Mountains of what is now part of northern Morocco , Algeria ,
and Tunisia , and the Mediterranean forests of the coastal mountains , hills
, and plains of what is now part of Syria , Lebanon , Israel , and Palestine
. These forests have been mostly removed by centuries of overgrazing ,
overcultivation , and deforestation which has resulted in serious erosion .
At the height of the last Ice Age , in around 17,000 B.C. , when
temperatures were at their coldest , the Atlas Mountains and the Lebanon
Mountains had increased rainfall and higher levels of snowfall then today ,
with the highest peaks even having minor glaciers . Even today , the highest
peaks of the Atlas and Lebanon mountains have light to moderate winter snow
fall . During the height of the last Ice Age , when sea levels were 130
meters lower than today , before the gradual melting of the ice sheets and
glaciers gradually raised sea levels again to their current position , a
near land bridge existed in what is now the Strait of Gibraltar that
separates Morocco from Spain , as well as the sea between Sicily and Tunisia
, and there were complete land bridges where the Strait of Dover separates
France from England , where the Irish Sea separates Ireland from Britain ,
the Strait of Messina separates Sicily from Italy , the now shallow waters
of the northern Adriatic Sea , formerly an Ice Age plain , and the Straits
of Bosphorus [ Byzantium , Constantinople , or Istanbul ] and the Hellespont
[ the Dardanelles or Gallipoli and the Troad ] , separate Thracian or
European Turkey from Anatolian or Asian Turkey . Using these land bridges
and ancient wooden and reed rafts and the wooden frame , animal hide covered
boats , human populations travelled both to and from Europe , Asia , and
Africa , as did also the Melanesians and Negritos of South East Asia who
arrived by means of island hopping in New Guinea , Australia , and Tasmania
, which then formed one single continent during the Ice Age , and thereby
became the ancestors of the Australian Aborigines , and as the Mongoloid
Asians and Ainu crossed the prehistoric Ice Age land bridge called Beringia
that used to connect Siberia and North America , thereby becoming the
ancestors of the American Indians or Amerindians and their cousins the
Eskimos or Inuit . The reason why the Australian Aboriginal people of King
and Flinders Island , located in what is today Bass Strait , a stretch of
water that separates the Australian mainland from the island and Australian
state called Tasmania , became extinct when the sea levels gradually rose
after the gradual melting away of the Ice Age , and thereby cutting off the
Bassian Plain land bridge that used to connect Australia and Tasmania , was
because the islands were too small in area to sustain a semi - nomadic
tribal population of hunter - gatherers , not having enough animal and plant
life to sustain for the long - term a hunter - gatherer population . Also ,
there was a severe period of drought on King and Flinders island from 4000 -
2000 B.C. , and even to this day fresh water is hard to find on these
islands during summer . When the Europeans visited these islands for the
first time for themselves in the late 1700's and early 1800's , they found
them to be uninhabited of humans .

Heinrich Himmler , the leader of the Nazi Gestapo , once ridiculously tried
to prove that the Japanese are undercover Aryans , because they racially
mixed with the Ainu , who had some Caucasian physical features before they
extensively mixed with the Japanese , even though the Ainu language does not
belong to the Indo - European linguistic family , and because the Japanese
made the martial art of Judo a required subject in their schools in 1909 , a
subject that was banned in Japanese schools from 1945 - 1950 , being
reintroduced as a compulsory subject in Japanese schools from 1950 onwards .
Judo traces its origins from the samurai martial art of Jujitsu . Judo and
Jujitsu is still a required part of the training of the members of the
Japanese armed forces and the police , although 3 years of compulsory
military service in the Japanese armed forces was abolished after 1945 ,
service now being on an entirely voluntary basis . The three techniques of
judo are nagewaza [ throwing ] , katamewaza [ wrestling ] , and atemiwaza
[ striking with both the arms and legs ] . The atemiwaza techniques may only
be taught to judokas above the rank of white belt , and may only be used by
them in training and self - defence , but never in judo sporting contests .
The Katamewaza techniques may only be taught to judokas from early
adolescence upwards . During the Second World War , when low on bullets and
food , the Japanese soldiers often launched a banzai bayonet charge and
judo - atemiwaza attack . The ancient Spartans had a martial art called
Pankration or Pancratium , which was a combination of wrestling , boxing ,
kicking , and throwing , and Pankration was made a required subject for the
soldiers of the Greek - speaking southern Macedonian armies of King Phillip
and his son Alexander the Great . The Japanese language is actually part of
the Altaic linguistic family that also includes Korean , Manchurian , Tungus
, Inner Mongolian [ now a province of China ] , and Outer Mongolian [
militarily occupied by Russia from 1916 - 1991 ] . There is also a Malaysian
linguistic substratum to the Japanese language , as there is also in other
parts of southern China and South - East Asia , the Malaysian people living
there having been assimilated by conquering tribes that came from southern
China , from where the Malaysian people themselves once came from .

[SwordandCompass]

Author "Sajo Markecz "

[executiona9]

The only people that are almost ``pure`` Germanic in ancestry are the Scandinavians.

English, Dutch, Flemings, Germans, Austrians and German-Swiss may still speak a Germanic language, they are greatly mixed with Celts, Romans, Iberians and Slavs.
They are hybrid people.

I thought this was basic knowledge that everyone knew, but still a lot of dumb people want to claim that for example the English and Germans are as Germanic as the Scandinavians.

[Graeme]

How can the Scandinavians be so Germanic? All that contact with Saami, Finns, Russians, Lithuanians and Poles not to mention invited foreigners like Walloons. They are as mixed as any other European nationalities and ethnic groups. The only difference is that they intermix with people of similar colouring unlike the English, Germans etc. The English and Germans did a lot of converting other groups to being English and Germans.

[executiona9]

How can the Scandinavians be so Germanic?

Well, because the germanic people originated in Scandinavia. So we can expect Scandinavians to be the purest Germanic. Ofcourse Scandinavians have also mixed with other peoples, but if you want to search for the area that is the most Germanic than its certainly Scandinavia.

Germanic people are not native to England, Holland, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium and Southern-Germany. They just immigrated to these places and absorbed the aboriginal people there.

[Melnorme]

executiona9 said:

Well, because the germanic people originated in Scandinavia.

Hmmm, are you sure about this?

[buddyrydell]

Actually it is quite true that germanic tribes originated in Scandinavia. They migrated southward into northern Germany sometime during or before the early days of Rome when it was ruled by Etruscans (sorry I don't know the exact dates). English and Germans have darker elements in their populations because they definitely absorbed older elements into an immigrant Germanic population. While of course many Brits and Germans look Teutonic, many Germans, for example, are stockier, broader-headed, and darker-haired due to strong Alpine strains from both Celts and Slavs, also to some extent from Romans (who would've also contributed some Mediterranean blood). The English, on the other hand, have heavy Celtiberian admixture from the prehistoric Iberian Mediterranean populations combined with the later Celtic invaders/settlers, not to mention some Roman blood from the soldiers stationed in Britain. The Celts themselves were a mix of different peoples and varied in coloring, some were fair while others were darker. The Brits, however, appear to be primarily dolichocephalic with little Alpine mixed in. Germans are on average more brachycephalic.

I'm guessing the Keltic Nordic type so prevalent in Britain is a result of blending the Celtiberian elements with the later Anglo-Saxon Germanic invaders? Of course we can't forget about the later Viking and Norman invaders who also interbred with the already mixed population.

[AWAR]

Nothing originated in Scandinavia. Even the Nordic sub-race originated in central Europe.

Scandinavians also have mixed with eastern Europeans, namely Slavs, and with 'Uralic' Finns and Saamis.

You also can't connect any phenotype or genotype to just one 'people', be they Germanic, Slavic or whatever, because Europe was already a very mixed place when these identities started to emerge.

[buddyrydell]

Oh no I was only talking about broad generalizations that could be somewhat applied to various ethnic groups who share a similar ancestry. I certainly realize that there is considerable variation on phenotypes and/or genotypes in each population but there are usually appearances that could be regarded as typical for a certain population, even though of course not everyone in that population will display such traits, but many will. I'm just assuming that the typical traits are those that may have evolved with association to climate of a given area or even sexual selection within a population, whereas the traits deemed "atypical" for a certain area may be due to absorption of invading groups, adding new additions to a local gene pool. I know the traits I associated with each of the groups I listed seem stereotypical, but I have seen many members of those groups with many of those listed traits. So yes, Europeans and humans in general are definitely a blend of different groups, thus there are no "pure" races of course, but regional differences are noticeable to a certain extent. As for Germanic-speaking Indo-Europeans, I thought for certain that they migrated originally from Scandinavia. If they originated in central Europe, how long ago would this have been?

[executiona9]

Nothing originated in Scandinavia. Even the Nordic sub-race originated in central Europe.

im refering to the historic situation about 1000 years Before Christ. The situation back then was : germanics in Scandinavia and northern-Germany and Celts in Central-Europe (france, southern-Germany, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Austria).

counting further back than 1000 BC makes no sense, because if you count back far enough all humans originated in Africa (nobody originated in Europe)

[Aria88]

Scandinavians are just as mixed as Germans, English, etc. Agreed. And the Scandinavian Urheimat of the Germanic people is no longer a tenable theory. The proto-Germanic folk became as such in Central Europe, not Ultimathule.