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I think the Roman influence is quite small. Maybe some of the "elite" of that time mixed with the Italians but overall I think it's less than one percent of Britain's modern gene pool.
I think they are mostly descended from the Brythonic population that became Celticized 2500-3500 years ago or so, with some French, Norwegian, Dutch, German and Danish input over the centuries.
Norwegian input being highest in Scotland, Eastern Ireland and NW England, Danish input highest in Yorkshire and East Anglia, Dutch/German influence highest in the Northeast and Southeast of England, and French influence highest in Kent and Surrey. I'd say the Isles are maybe 2/3 original stock and 1/3 influence from Norse, Anglo-Saxon and Norman immigrants.
Just an interesting note: my aunt as far as I know is British-Irish stock like me, yet she did a DNA test which suggested she is mostly French and Scandinavian. So that suggests, I think, who the Brits are most related to!
Some of you may know about the Staffordshire Hoard discovered at Hammerwich (area of Merica). The finds were made up of broken gold and decorative fittings as from weapons. Such absoluting stunning treasure. It is probably one of the most significant recent find for Britsih arcaheology. I'd think analysis of teh find cojld possibly give great insight as to 'origins' of the Britis. Interestingly, there were 'eye' designs in the hoard never before seen. Perhaps the 'art' here can give some clues as to how Britain and its people developed.
The Britain's are, and always have been a mixture, the island has been subject to wave after wave of immigrants firstly from Europe and then more recently from further afield. For thousands of years these immigrants have fallen in love and reproduced with each other and their kids, grandkids, grandkids kids etc have done the same, hence Britain's are a mixed bunch.
I'am no English/British nationalist but this statement is left wing tosh after the Norman invasion [these left around 1% in todays gene pool]there was no large scale immigration until argueably "the Windrush"yes there are smaller examples such as the huegoneuts or even the Jewish but these in the scheme of things are negligable
There are a million and one articles out there, some true and some false, but from a genetic standpoint, who are the British? I hold true to the belief that the Roman, Norman, Viking and Saxon influences were minimal in terms of the genetic pool, yet significant in terms of forming your language, culture and government.
I am most inclined to believe that most of you are Iberians, ancestors of the Basques, mixed with Celtic blood. A simple way to prove this is to Google "Basque people" - the similarities are uncanny. I think this is even more apparent in Wales, the west country and Ireland, where so many people have Mediterranean features (short stocky build, jet black hair and brown eyes). Look at Colin Farrel, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Tom Jones. All of whom could pass as Spanish, despite having no Spanish ancestors in recent history.
Britain, Portugal and Spain also have similar colonial histories. I am beginning to wonder if this isn't just mere coincidence.
As for the Celtic thing, someone on here once pointed out that Celts migrated to Spain and Portugal too. That adds more fuel to the similarity fire.
In summary, although the British are quite unique, I think your closest matches are to be found on the Iberian peninsula (Spanish and Portugese) rather than the Germanic countries.
Thoughts anyone?
The darkness of the British Isles is a bit of a myth. The usual suspects are always quoted like Colin, Catherine and Tom Jones. I can post loads of pictures of GAA and Camogie players from places like Kerry, Cork and other Western counties to show what a good cross section of what Western Irish look like. Also genetic studies don't back up any Iberian connection with the British Isles. This has been discussed in other threads on the Europe and British Forums in much depth. The closest population to the British Isles are the Netherlands and Norway not Spain and Portugal.
Well who are you speaking about when you talk Celts? Their origin is in Germany/Switzerland area. The Celtic culture was in a large portion of Europe so the people would have been varied in looks. If you are talking specifically about Irish and British though the majority of these people are fair skinned, blue eyed and brown haired.
Agreed. My paternal line descends from them and our hair is dark brown, almost black. We have many characteristics associated with people of Celtic descent.
Hmm.. do not be so quick to piece the story together simply on DNA studies. In the mid 2000s the largest DNA study of its kind tracing the Y chromosome (which is only passed from fathers to sons, so only showing one pattern of inheritance) initially showed a connection to the Iberian peninsula. By 2010 more thorough studies have suggested a Balkan (and earlier, Middle Eastern) influence much like the rest of Europe.
The problem with MiDNA and YDNA tracing is that it only traces two lineages in very sexually-stratified cultures. It was more socially acceptable in slave-owning societies for a male slave-owner to impregnate a female slave. If they were to have a son, the YDNA would show no markers from the mitochondrial side. So things like war and asymmetrical relationships over another group skew the studies. That doesn't mean the genetic make-up of Britain is more one way than another - it means the father-to-son genetic patterns favor one marker over another, and likewise for the mother-to-daughter. There are thousands of other genetic lineages we haven't developed a good pattern of tracing back.
Our best guesses of British history is in the history, then the archaeology and finally the linguistic and genetic studies. There may be a very small lineage of Roman heritage in the Y-DNA studies, but that suggests 1550 years of unbroken father-to-son heritage - over time, that percentage is diluted from the whole, but father-son-son-daughter-son-daughter-etc. heritages are exponentially more common. So it's very likely to find only a fraction of Roman ancestry - it's 1600 years ago that the Romans formally left the island. Some surely stayed, at least enough to leave the genetic anomalies, but likely a large part of the local population could claim some Roman ancestry.
Linguistics is not a perfect tool for tying people's together. People adopt alphabets, and also languages. Very few Cherokees speak Cherokee today - English is far more prevalent. Were the one language to die out, we wouldn't assume that the Cherokees and English were a related people. It is much the same of Scythian language, and of Etruscan (which is also non Indo-European, yet we do not claim Etruscans and Brits were kin), and countless other languages which have died while a local language was instead adopted. We need only look around Africa, Asia, parts of Europe and the Americas to see this happening today. So language is a good indicator of a shared heritage. It is not to be solely relied upon.
In archeology we get a better picture of whether competing cultures traded and mixed with one another, or if one suddenly overtook the other. In the one pattern, there is a little more equality and probably a little more overall mixture of genetics between the two peoples. In the other, there still is mixture, but it's probably of one type more than another. We've had enough history to know war breeds many a bastard and husband-wife pairings with the invading armies settling in as husbands and the precursor group contributing much of the wives.
So.. who are the Brits? A bit of everyone to settle the island, and we simply cannot say how much of one people over another with any definitive certainty.
No, it doesn't matter, but I find the subject interesting nonetheless. The common belief that many share is that the British are predominantly Germanic people, which I do not believe they are. It's more from a historical and genetic standpoint that I'm interested in, rather than being about nationality. Studies have even shown that there were no mass graves of those allegedly slaughtered by the Saxons, so the indigenous population lived on.
Yes in fact the British are more similar to peoples living on the atlantic shores of europe, specially northern/western regions of france than they are to the continental germanics/scandinavians.
But of course the British islander ethnicities and the irish are much more similar to eachother and cluster apart from continental european/scandinavians.
British people are descendants of preceltic/pregermanic peoples who inhabitated the western shores of europe way before the modern germanics/nordics arrived to europe from central asia.
For example most british Islanders hardly have the germanic/nordic looks:
Typical english football fans:
How many of those people look really germanic? few to none, the vast majority have old european looks(neolithic european of pre celtic and pre germanic origin)
Now compare to a country (Denmark) of overwhelming modern germanic/nordic substrata of people, peoples who migrated later on time from central asia, when native british islanders already inhabitated the isles.
Danish fans:
The english are far from being germanic, It was just an agenda created by colonial white americans who tried to justify white supremacism in old colonial america, such as benjamin franklin.
Last edited by Traveler86; 08-09-2013 at 09:29 PM..
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