Genetics make Welsh distinct says a story in on a Welsh website[1]. Oh really???
Here are some quotes from the article:
The results show that the Welsh are related to the Basques of northern Spain and southern France and to native Americans. All are descended from the Kets people of western Siberia.
This shows that in the Dark Ages, when the Anglo-Saxons turned up, there was the most horrible massacre on the English side. They killed everybody and replaced them.
In the male line, at least, the Welsh and the Basques are survivors or relics of a period before huge numbers of farmers filled Europe from the Middle East.
The Cornish are in effect Anglo-Saxons who for a time used a language that was hanging around
The genes of Scottish males also betrayed considerable inter-mixing with outsiders
Some of the points are clarified in the article, but I don’t think they’re clear enough. On point 1, it is the descent of the Y chromosome only, the unbroken patrilineal line. This does not address the mtDNA, which is the unbroken matrilineal line, or the autosomal DNA which generally encapsulates functionality in the genome and is the vast majority of the DNA that we carry. There are often sharp differences in the phylogeny of each genetic marker for various reason[2]. Spencer Wells talks about the Ket lineage in his book Journey of Man (Wells carries the marker himself).
On point 2, see this post and this post (hint: Jones engages in a bit of hyperbole).
On point 3, see my post on demic diffusion.
On point 4, look at this physical map of the UK. Note that the boundary between Cornwall and England is far smoother than that of Wales and England (not to mention artificial boundaries thrown up in the Dark Ages). Physical relief often correlates with high genetic diversity locally. Rather than one movement of Anglo-Saxons into Cornwall-it was probably the slow generational intermigrations that blurred the boundaries between Cornwall and Wales. To say that the "Anglo-Saxons picked up the local language" is like saying that Finns are Swedes who "picked up the local language." In the latter case, it seems likely that genetic exchange with their neighbors has worked to blend the genetic profile of Finns and Swedes together-though there are still differences (the cline of the TAT lineage, etc.). Also, the Cornish were conquered by the English earlier than the Welsh, and had an avenue of escape to Brittany as a safety valve, etc. The reasons to dissent and rebut Jones’ point are myriad….
On point 5, duh. Heard of one nation, four peoples? The Angles were one of the peoples that made Scotland what it is, and this ignores the Viking contribution, so the evidence of Germanic genes should not be surprising.
fn1. The story seems to be based on unpublished research and reflects some of the points in a chapter of Steve Jones’ Y: The Descent of Man. I couldn’t find much more at The Center for Genetic Anthropology at University College-London.
fn2. For example, Y chromosomes are for more likely to show European ancestry in African Americans than mtDNA, for obvious reasons. The Y lineage of mestizos are often similar to Spaniards while the mtDNA lineage is similar to the indigenous peoples of the New World. Additionally, much of the autosomal genome is subject to selective pressures which distort phylogentic relationships but is far more informative of adaptive history.
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