Scottish people's DNA study could 'rewrite nation's history'

The Guardian (UK) ^ | 8-14-2012 | Charlotte Higgins

[Renfield]

Evidence of African, Arabian, south-east Asian and Siberian ancestry in Scotland, says author of book tracing genetic journey

A large scale study of Scottish people's DNA is threatening to "rewrite the nation's history", according to author Alistair Moffat.

Scotland, he told the Edinburgh international book festival, despite a long-held belief that its ethnic make-up was largely Scots, Celtic, Viking and Irish, was in fact "one of the most diverse nations on earth".

"The explanation is simple. We are a people on the edge of beyond; on the end of a massive continent. Peoples were migrating northwest; and they couldn't get any further. We have collected them."....

[Renfield]

Until recently, he said, it had been believed that farming arrived incrementally in Scotland, around 3,000 years ago, by a process of slow and gradual adoption, by women, of new techniques. But their recent DNA research suggests something quite different, he said: that it arrived quickly via young male immigrants from what is now Germany.

These young men, he said, brought brand-new techniques with them, planting grass-derived crops that could be turned into porridge and fed to young children. This new improved food production reduced the period, argued Moffat, that the hunter-gatherer mothers had to devote to breast-feeding, and thus increased their fertility. This led to a population explosion, he said, laying the seeds of a recognisable society in northern Britain. "It is a revelation. Porridge, and I'm not joking about this, is absolutely crucial to our history."

[Renfield]

Ping

[DManA]

Is this science or a multi-culti fantasy?

Probably science under a big media veneer of multi-culti spin.

[BenLurkin]

Peoples were migrating northwest; and they couldn't get any further. We have collected them." = "We are proud to be genetic thrift store of Europe!"

[DManA]

Mutts are the healthiest and be nicest creatures.

[muir_redwoods]

I’m willing to credit DNA analysis as accurate unless you have something more credible to offer.

[Dysart]

dogear

[dfwgator]

Maybe Idi Amin Dada was right after all

[DManA]

Let’s go with my second sentence.

[Adder]

WHAT INSANE HERESEY IS THIS???? Everyone, simply EVERYONE, knows it was women sitting around in their menses huts, shooing flies, who conceived of the idea of planting food and staying in one place and creating shopping centers. Men just did their bidding./s

[Lowell1775]

Story says 1% has Berber ancestry and the African comes from the 18th century slave trade......and Moffat, a Borderer’s name is English......shocking!

Still overwhelmingly Pict, Celt, and Norse with a leavening of English usurpers it seems.

Wow. What a non news event. This is diversity in uniformity from the looks of it.

[dfwgator]

Newsvendor’s Voice: Read all about it! Read all about it! Man turns into Scotsman!

(Mix through to Potter’s front gate. His with is being interviewed by obvious plainclothes man.)

Inspector: Mrs Potter - you knew Harold Potter quite well I believe?

Wife: Oh yes quite well.

Inspector: Yes.

Wife: He was my husband.

Inspector: Yes. And, er, he never showed any inclination towards being a Scotsman before this happened?

Wife: (shocked) No, no, not at all. He was not that sort of person...

Inspector: He didn’t wear a kilt or play the bagpipes?

Wife: No, no.

Inspector: He never got drunk at night or bought home black puddings?

Wife: No, no. Not at all.

Inspector: He didn’t have an inadequate brain capacity?

Wife: No, no, not at all.

Inspector: I see. So by your account Harold Potter was a perfectly ordinary Englishman without any tendency towards being a Scotsman whatsoever?

Wife: Absolutely, yes. (suddenly remembering) Mind you he did always watch Dr Finlay on television.

Inspector: Ah-hah! ... Well that’s it, you see. That’s how it starts.

Wife: I beg your pardon?

Inspector: Well you see Scottishness staffs with little things like that, and works up. You see, people don’t just turn into a Scotsman for no reason at all... (goes rigid with Scots accent.) No further questions!

[njslim]

Grease trap theory in operation

Unfortunately we have have equivalent areas that function
same way: Florida, Texas, California

All the nuts go there and not being able to move any farther
are stuck......

[muawiyah]

That’s only 3,000 years ago ~ whata about way back when ~ there’s cut stone in Scotland MUCH OLDER THAN THAT.

[muir_redwoods]

I’m not seeing something I’d call a veneer. Can you elaborate?

[DManA]

There are some hints that humans had it going on right before the ice age ended. If I had a time machine I’d head right for 12,000 BC.

[Celtic Conservative]

It has also been posited that the origin of Celtic or Proto Celtic cultures could have come from as far east as the Indus valley . One researcher that I can recall noticed structural similarities between some Celtic and Indian Musical forms. One thing is a fact: the Celts got around. At the time of Christ, Celtic communities streched from modern day Turkey (Galatia), to modern day France and Switzerland (Gallia Cisalpina) to Spain (Galicia)to Ireland (Eire). With that kind of travel history i wouldn't be suprised if the Celts came from that far away.

CC

[DManA]

Post #11 sums it up pretty well.

[njslim]

Found Celts in western China (Sianking) - even today some
of the usually Mongolian populations show umistakable
Cacausian features.....

[babble-on]

that was the very first episode I ever saw of that show, ending with Angus Podgorny playing in the Wimbledon finals against a blancmange. I was hooked for life from that moment on, even though I had no idea at the age of 11 what a blancmange even was.

On a side note, everyone knows we Scots are part neanderthals, onnaccountof our red hair!