A United Kingdom? Maybe

NY Times ^ | March 6, 2007 | NICHOLAS WADE

[neverdem]

Britain and Ireland are so thoroughly divided in their histories that there is no single word to refer to the inhabitants of both islands. Historians teach that they are mostly descended from different peoples: the Irish from the Celts and the English from the Anglo-Saxons who invaded from northern Europe and drove the Celts to the country’s western and northern fringes.

But geneticists who have tested DNA throughout the British Isles are edging toward a different conclusion. Many are struck by the overall genetic similarities, leading some to claim that both Britain and Ireland have been inhabited for thousands of years by a single people that have remained in the majority, with only minor additions from later invaders like Celts, Romans, Angles, Saxons, Vikings and Normans. The implication that the Irish, English, Scottish and Welsh have a great deal in common with each other, at least from the geneticist’s point of view, seems likely to please no one. The genetic evidence is still under development, however, and because only very rough dates can be derived from it, it is hard to weave evidence from DNA, archaeology, history and linguistics into a coherent picture of British and Irish origins.

That has not stopped the attempt. Stephen Oppenheimer, a medical geneticist at the University of Oxford, says the historians’ account is wrong in almost every detail. In Dr. Oppenheimer’s reconstruction of events, the principal ancestors of today’s British and Irish populations arrived from Spain about 16,000 years ago, speaking a language related to Basque.

The British Isles were unpopulated then, wiped clean of people by glaciers that had smothered northern Europe for about 4,000 years and forced the former inhabitants into southern refuges in Spain and Italy. When the climate warmed and the glaciers retreated, people moved back north. The new arrivals...

[CarrotAndStick]

A large proportion.

[SunkenCiv]

http://www.timelessmyths.com/celtic/invasions.html

The people of Ireland in medieval times had never believed that the Gaelic speaking people were native of their land. They had believed that the Ireland was invaded and settled by successive Celtic tribes over different periods. Their history is based largely upon the pseudo-historical Lebor Gabala, translated into English as the "Book of Invasions", and Cath Maige Tuired, or the "Second Battle of Maige Tuired"

Irish, Scots And Welsh Not Celtic - Scientist
IOL | 9-9-2004
Posted on 09/09/2004 6:59:23 PM EDT by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1211427/posts

Flood Made Britain An Island 'In 24 Hours'
The Telegraph (UK) | 9-25-2006 | Tim Hall
Posted on 09/24/2006 9:00:46 PM EDT by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1707584/posts

Biblical-style flood tore Britain from France:
Scientists Claim UK/France Land Mass Once joined.
The Australian | 09/25/2006 | Jonathan Leake
Posted on 09/25/2006 12:36:59 PM EDT by SirLinksalot
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1707896/posts

and a sidebar, just cuz:

Clare Places: Islands: Mutton Island or Enniskerry
(9th century catastrophe in Ireland)
Clare County Library | prior to November 19, 2005 | staff writer
Posted on 11/18/2005 2:58:58 PM EST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1524751/posts

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks for the pings, neverdem and Jedi Master Pikachu. To all -- see the list of related FR topics above.

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[blam]

Oppemheimer's book, "Origin's Of The British", is an excellent book as is Bryan Sykes book, "Saxons, Vikings and Celts". Both these books are inspired by DNA studies. 85% of the DNA of the British Isles is very ancient and mostly the people are all the same having come from the Franco-Iberian Ice Age refuge at the end of the Ice Age.

[neverdem]

bttt

[neverdem]

Thanks for the links. I think Nicholas Wade is one of the NY Times better science writers.

[Judges Gone Wild]

At the time of the Germanic Invasion of Britannia, the inhabitants were called Britons, as in Arthur, King of the Britons, for you Monty Python fans. These people were pushed to the west -- to Wales. Many others settled in France -- Brittany. The Angles/Saxons/Jutes did not kill everyone, they just forced their capitulation. Eire was spared this invasion. Subsequently, England was invaded by Danish Norsemen, and Eire by Norwegian Norsemen, (the Fitzes). Each wave of invaders imposed their language and culture on the conquered peoples. The Irish, Scots, and Welsh all speak a form of the language of the Celts -- Gaelic or Gallic, as in Gaul.

[Judges Gone Wild]

Linguistically, there are similarities in all the Indo-European languages. Polish, for example, has some words that are almost the same as Sanskrit. The Indo-Europeans fled India after the destruction of the Indus Valley Civilization. The Celts, or Gauls, went everywhere, from China in the East, to Eire in the West. They provoked the Chinese to build the Great Wall.

[gnarledmaw]

Ive seen some strange ancestry claims around here as of late...

Here is a brief comment on a few of the largest groups. Note the link to "Ancestry: 2000" for more complete information.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Just so that you know, comment 11 did not state that the majority of Americans have little or nonexistent Germanic blood, but that plenty do have little or no Germanic blood. No strong statistics are necessary to find that out (if you live in the United States).

[Roy Tucker]

It couldn't have happened this way because, according to the Goracle, there were no man-made industrial pollutants around so the earth could not have warmed at all.

[Pharmboy]

[SunkenCiv]

:')

[Basheva]

Well, if you just want to simplify this whole thing....

Everyone went everywhere.

[martin_fierro]

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[Cicero]

When the Anglo Saxons invaded, some of the Celts were pushed west. But many of them remained in place as serfs and eventually intermarried with the conquerers or had illegitimate children with them to much the same effect, putting some Anglo Saxon blood among the peasants and sometimes some Celtic blood among the nobles.

As you suggest, the earliest Arthurian stories are Celtic.

Mostly it was just that the mountains of Wales and Scotland make them harder places to conquer, so the native Celts were able to maintain their rule in those places.

[Pharmboy]

So the Brits are Basque? Who knew???

[colorado tanker]

This dovetails nicely with the Milesian Legends, but the timeframe appears to be off considerably.

The time frame seems to be the most unclear part of this study. What seems certain is that the settlers were in the British Isles before the land bridges submerged around 10,000 to 8,500 years ago.

[aculeus]

What's next?

Combined St Patrick-St George parades?

[Irish_Thatcherite]

But geneticists who have tested DNA throughout the British Isles are edging toward a different conclusion. Many are struck by the overall genetic similarities, leading some to claim that both Britain and Ireland have been inhabited for thousands of years by a single people that have remained in the majority, with only minor additions from later invaders like Celts, Romans, Angles, Saxons, Vikings and Normans.

WTH?? I accept that the peoples of these islands are more or less ethnically, if not culturally, homogenous, but this is a bizarre claim - the notion that Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Normans, Vikings and Romans are only a minority of the genetic make up???

Ireland Ping!