Posted on 05/13/2006 10:43:55 AM PDT by blam
EXPERTS FIND RARE ROMANI DNA IN NORWICH ANGLO SAXON SKELETON
By Sarah Morley 12/05/2006
The recent discovery of Romani DNA in an Anglo Saxon skeleton has made experts re-think the nature of the city's early population. Picture courtesy Sophie Cabot. © HEART
Experts from Norfolk Archaeology Unit based at Norwich Castle have discovered a rare form of mitochondrial DNA identified as Romani in a skeleton discovered during excavations in a large area of Norwich for the expansion of the castle mall.
The DNA was found in an 11th century young adult male skeleton, and with the first recorded arrival of the Romani gene in this country put at 500 years later, historians may need to re-think the ethnic mix of the city's early population.
Norfolk Archaeological Unit’s lead archaeologist on the dig was Brian Ayres. He told the 24 Hour Museum: “The bones were of a late Saxon Christian. We know this because it was found in a graveyard associated with the church.”
Brian was on the scene when they discovered the DNA in the bones of the young Saxon male - out of the 59 skeletons sampled. Though the excavation was done around the early 90’s the results of the DNA testing has only recently been published to a specialist audience.
DNA testing is a completely revolutionary way of testing and dating bones to find out their origins. Modern methods only recently discovered allow for lots of new links to be made, such as finding where an individual originated from through their genes.
Extracting DNA from ancient bones is a complicated procedure involving removing the DNA from the tooth pulp as the hard tooth enamel preserves the gene. This form of mitochondrial DNA is passed down the female line and the identified gene is only found in the descendants of Romani. According to DNA records the first recorded Romani Gene found in England was in the 16th Century.
Extensive archaeological excavations have unearthed both Roman and Anglo-Saxon finds in and around Norwich. © Norwich City Council
The find is exciting because it paints a more diverse picture of ancient Norwich. Although Norwich has a rich history of cultural diversity, the discovery of first recorded Romani Gene in the country points to new levels of diversity.
“This exciting find emphasises a more cosmopolitan Anglo-Scandinavian society,” explained Brian who went on to say not only does this find show Norwich as an early multi-ethnic society but it gives a wider indication of a more fluid world in the 11th Century, where humans were constantly moving from country to country.
Romani people have a bloody history of persecution, murder and banishment in almost every country they entered. They were accused of witchcraft and almost every crime imaginable. They originated from the ancient warrior classes of North India and are closely linked to the culture of the Punjabi people, also of North India.
The Romani people are known to have been in Byzantine Empire in the 10th century, so it is thought that the only way the Romani Gene could be found in this country so early is if the previous historical records are mistaken.
Another possibility is that if the Anglo-Saxons were also in Byzantium in the 10th century, relations between the Anglo Saxons and the Romani people may have led to the spread of the Romani Gene to Norwich, England.
You can't get mitochondrial DNA from your father. It's not possible.
Even if a Roman soldier had a gypsy mother, none of his children would have her mitochondrial DNA.
My sons have my mitochondrial DNA but it stops there. Their children will get their mitochondrial DNA from their mothers.
"Ancient warrior classes of India" my foot.
White men once again dig up graves in a known Church graveyard. Typical. Of course it's in the name of science, do that makes it okay.
Interesting Romani-related link...
An early instance of being left on the door step by Gypsies.
http://www.geocities.com/~Patrin/timeline.htm
Did you know that this is the birth of the history of Zott?
"820-834. Zott state established on the banks of the River Tigris
855. The Persian chronicler Tabari relates how large numbers of Zott are taken prisoner when the Byzantines attack Syria. "
This man may be a descendant of Vikings. The Vikings penetrated far into Russia and Eastern Europe during the Dark Ages, as far as the Black Sea and Persia. One of them may have courted (or more probably, kidnapped) a fetching gypsy girl and brought her back to Denmark as his wife (or more likely, his servant and concubine). All of their offspring would have had the Romani mitochondrial DNA, and all of their female descendants would have passed it on, perhaps for centuries.
So perhaps this man was born of a Saxon father, and a woman of mixed Saxon and Danish blood who had a Gypsy great-great-grandmother. The Danes invaded much of the eastern part of England, including Norwich, in the 8th through 10th centuries. They might well have brought along some gypsy blood acquired in the 6th or 7th centuries.
-ccm
Or maybe the gypsies didn't really originate from Northern India? Nobody really knows where they came from.
It's an exceedingly weird culture. I know it's an "offensive stereotype" to say that they're thieves, but it's also true.
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Or maybe they did come from Northern India, after all. Apparently there are still nomadic tribes in Nothern India that are considered "criminal tribes" because they are professional thieves.
Of course this is just "offensive stereotyping" -- at least that's the official word.
Except that they really do steal and commit fraud. Ask any cop.
Interesting.
"Modern methods only recently discovered allow for lots of new links to be made, such as finding where an individual originated from through their genes."
Since it was only recently that they had this ability and used this technology it might not be "rare".
A Tinker's Ping!
Surprise at this finding basically rests on ignorance of the connections between Saxon England and the late Roman Empire (by your leave, the Empire did not change names simply because the last Western Augustus was retired to a villa near Naples in 476--the name 'Byzantine Empire' is a fiction created by Western post-Enlightenment 'scholars' with an anti-Christian agenda).
Pipe organs (used at the Imperial court in Constantinople, though not in Orthodox churches) first came to Europe with a gift to King Alfred the Great of Wessex. He installed it in the cathedral, as it, not his palace, was the only building in his kingdom capable of housing the gift.
Likewise in the 11th century, Saxon nobles fleeing the Normans went principally to Constantinople and Kiev: a chapel for the Saxons was built in Constantinople in 1090, and the daughter of King Harold Godwinson (or St. Harold, Last Orthodox King of England, as some of us Orthodox prefer to call him) married Prince Vladimir Monomach of Kiev.
(In passing I would note that the cornonation rite of St. Harold is still extant, and the creed was recited without the filioque. Likewise England was temporarily out of communion with Rome when the mutual anathemas of 1054 were promulgated--indeed the Normans had a papal mandate to reduce the English church to papal rule--so that Orthodox, especially of British ancestry, tend to regard England as having remained Orthodox until 1066.)
I recall an article a long time ago, maybe in Scientific American, about some cats in the Hebrides or maybe the isle of Man being related to some cats in the Black Sea area, and the explanation they came up with was the Vikings might have carried cats with them on their ships. The Vikings got around.
Yup. Also, very clannish.
Talk about a woman in every port...they had kids in every port.
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