[blam]

So, I may not be a WASP after all.

[KellyAdmirer]

Perhaps the Britons will start demanding reparations too?

[blam]

(From The BBC, 12-03-2001)

Monday, 3 December, 2001, 18:15 GMT

Viking blood still flowing

Many Vikings settled in Britain 1,200 years ago

Blood tests taken over the past year may help show part of Cumbria in northwest England was a Viking stronghold 1,200 years ago.
Geneticists discovered the area around Penrith has clear evidence of Norwegian influence.

However, the study also confirms that Vikings settled in large numbers in the Shetland and Orkneys and the far north of the Scottish mainland.

The research is part of a ground-breaking project commissioned by the BBC to uncover the UK's Viking roots.

Vikings revealed

In the first large-scale genetics survey of its kind, experts from University College, London, studied the DNA of 2,000 people.

The full results of the project will be revealed in the final programme of the series, Blood of the Vikings, on Tuesday at 2100 GMT.

The study shows the genetic pattern of the Vikings remains in some parts of the UK population.

The research confirms the Norwegian Vikings did not just raid and retreat to Scandinavia, but actually settled in Britain.

Genetic markers

Of all the English test sites, only Penrith in Cumbria had clear evidence of Norwegian influence.

Surprisingly, mainland Scotland had a similar Celtic input as the population of southern England, showing that not only were the English never "homogenous Anglo-Saxons", but neither were the Scots predominantly Celtic.

Geneticist Professor David Goldstein, from the University College London (UCL), led the study. He said: "Modern genetics has opened up a powerful window on the past.

"We can now trace past movements of peoples and address questions that have proved difficult to answer through history and archaeology alone.

Men only

"I'm delighted that we have been able to distinguish clear markers to indicate the genetic inheritance from the Norwegian Vikings."

Scientists at UCL took mouth swabs from 2,000 people from 25 different locations across Britain.

They only tested men because information they were interested in was contained on the Y chromosome - which women do not have.

The genetic material in the samples was compared with DNA taken from people in Scandinavia where some locals are thought to be most similar to the Vikings.

[Interesting Times]

This would be adequately explained if the invaders killed the men and ravished the women...

[LN2Campy]

This is not that surprising. Although a great number of Germanics migrated to Britain, enough to cause its name to change, the place was pretty thickly settled and it is not practical to think that every Celt ran away to Scotland and Wales (which, even to this day, have much lower population densities than England).

I'd be interested to see if the DNA info indicates any correlation between England and Italy. After all, my Roman ancestors were there for a good 400 years, and we Mediterraneans ALWAYS go for those succulent pale redhead types...

[Lumberjack]

It is hardly surprising that this is the case. But it may not change the contention that the Anglo-Saxons chased Celts off of mainland England and up and over to Wales, Scotland and Ireland. They've had almost 1,500 of co-existence since then, and as far as I can tell, inter-marry quite frequently. Regardless of the DNA, couldn't that account for these findings and not a rewrite of a well established history?

Taken in another light. The United States govt. chased Indians the hell out of every habitable plot of land in the Union. This is a fact. But who would want to bet that if a similar test were performed in the United States, that most individuals would show a Sioux, Iriqouis, or any other Indian Nation, trace in their DNA? Would that then mean that we really didn't round most Indians up, via coercian, treaty and force into lifeless "reservations"? No.

[LibertarianLiz]

Interesting stuff. I'll have to read it to hubby later. He may be more Celtic than he originally thought.

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[MozartLover]

My great-grandfather came from Dorset County in the south of England. I've always wondered why my heart skips a beat at the sound of the pipes.:)

[BluH2o]

Only 10% of those tested in Wales were of Anglo-Saxon origin, confirming that it has retained an almost exclusively Celtic population.

Being of mostly Celtic heritage probably explains my good looks. ;)

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

AYE what would you do without your FREEEEEEDOOOOOMMMMMMMM?

[Slyfox]

So, we actually ARE all Irish on St. Paddy's Day.

[white rose]

This whole thread, as well as the original article, proved to be quite interesting, thank you for starting it all. It's quite fascinating how the "old legends" and "fairy tales" may prove to have more to them than the more orthodox historians like to think.

[rightofrush]

WCPs rule! What would also be of interset would be to check if a Basque genitic signature could be found in the British Isle as well continetal europe.

[Torie]

I once read somewhere that the vikings tended to go up the rivers, and thus the hills stayed more celt than the valleys, and that as of a couple of generations ago you could still see the physical differences based on topography. FWIW.

[Don Myers]

bttt

[McGavin999]

All this proves is that the Celts have an amazingly strong bloodline.

[Arthalion]

What I find interesting here is the view that the Celts are somehow the indigenous peoples of the British Isles, when archaeology clearly shows that they were invaders just like the Vikings and the Anglo's. GB really hasn't had a "native" population since the Bell-Beaker people crossed over from modern France and taught metalworking to the neolithic natives who were barely more advanced than cave men. This merging of the small Bell-Beaker group and the larger native group resulted in the Wessex Culture, which is often described as the only truly British civilization to grace the Isles. The Wessex were sun-worshipping pagans who apparently developed quite an advanced understanding of math, astronomy, and engineering. It was also the Wessex who built Stonehenge and a number of the other complex stone monoliths that dot the English countryside. The Celts didn't cross the channel into the Isles until between 1500B.C. and 1000.B.C. The culture they encountered upon landing was already in decline, so it would appear that they had little trouble taking Britain away from the natives. How peaceful (or violent) this takeover was is lost to modern history.

So you see, if these tested people really have Celtic blood, then they are Germanic or French by ancestry, not British. Given the relatively small population of pre-Celtic Britain, though, it's highly likely that the truly native bloodlines are nearly destroyed.

[ZULU]

"In Scotland the proportion of those with Celtic ancestry was found to be little different from the population of southern England."

PROBLEM 1:

Highland Scots and Lowland Scots have very different ethnic backgrounds. Did this study distinguish between the two? Highland Scots are mainly Celtic with some Norman and Scandinavian blood. Lowland Scots supposedly had more Saxon, Flemish, and other northeastern European genes.

PROBLEM 2

"Researchers took swabs of saliva from 2,000 people in 30 locations around Britain, and from 400 people in Norway, Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein, the area in northern Germany identified by the team as a homeland of the AngloSaxons."

The researchers are assuming the present population of Schleswig_Holstein is derived from the Anglo-Saxon people of the 400's and 600's. These people may have moved to England to escape pressure from other invading Germanic Tribes from the East who then settled in the old Saxon Homeland. As a matter of fact, the modern language most closely related to English and Anglo-Saxon today is Frisian, a language spoken by a small population in the Netherlands.

PROBLEM 3

"On the mainland, the survey found that 70% of those tested in York were from the continental European groups rather than the indigenous population, suggesting that the Anglo-Saxons made more of an impact on the Celts in northern England."

York was part of the Danelaw, the area settled by Danish Vikings in the 800s and 900s, a group presumably more closely connected with the modern population of northeastern Europe than were the Anglo-Saxons.

"Many of the place names in southern England have Celtic origins. Among them are Leatherhead, in Surrey, which meant "the grey ford". "

So what? In the U.S. many of the place names are Indian in origin. Yet the American Indian component in America's current bloodline, while there, is not pervasive. Traditionally, place names used by a displaced or conquered race are employed by the conquerors - i.e. all the "chesters" in England form the Latin "Castra", etc.

OBSERVATION

"If you believe Gildas, the Anglo-Saxons would have been chasing the ancient Britons, catching up with one who wasn’t fast enough and saying, ‘Look here, before I cut off your head, just tell me the name of this place’,"

Its more likely that the Anglo-Saxons, being better organized and more warlike, conquered the Celtic masses, used them as serfs and slaves and intermarried with them. (This was a process which was occuring in Gaul before the Roamn legions stepped in and blocked the Germanic advance for a few centuries.) As time progressed, the two separate populations became fused into one. There are clearly individuals today in England who have Germanic features and others who have Celtic features and some a combination of both or neither.

[Virginia-American]

Watever it's worth, the English name Moore is an Anglicized form of the Gaelic Murphy

[blam]

And, another article.