Ancient Britons
Dienekes has a report on some new studies of DNA in British skeletons dating from the first millennium A.D. I’m not sure what it all means, or how it relates to previous DNA studies, but I mention it in view of my previous post on Celts and Anglo-Saxons.
The DNA is from females only – I suppose because the study involves characteristics that only pass through the female?
Assuming the authors are telling us that the population did not change dramatically as a result of the Nordic-Germanic invasions, then two things may be going on: (1) The ”Upper Crust” theory (as observed in historical times with the Norman invasion of 1066) where the invaders mainly affected the culture ? and to a far greater extent than just the number of invaders would suggest.
(2) The invaders left their womenfolk at home and eventually married the local gals (gotta love those British redheads!). In the second case, the indigenous males would have likely suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. And thus the population would have been transformed – at least with the male-carried characteristics.
I believe that mtDNA figures more prominently in paleo-DNA studies because there are far more copies per cell than Y-DNA. Hence there is a greater likelihood that more mtDNA will survive over time.
>Assuming the authors are telling us that the population did not change dramatically as a result of the Nordic-Germanic invasions<
- I’m not sure they are saying that. They seem to be saying (a) mtDNA is much the same all over northern Europe, and (b) some late Saxon sites show more ‘southern’ DNA. But what this means I don’t know.
How would one allow for the fact that there were also invasions from Ireland going on at the same time?
What about the affinities of atlantic populations of europe?
.uchicago.edu…4/ 41464.web.pdf
I would expect to find more affinities between galicians and ancient britons( from a common source in paleolithic times), that a common nordic paleolithic mtDNA from britain to estonia, according these work:
http://www.journals
http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journ…s/ 5200202a.html
Is there any reference in the article to the Glacial Refugium populations like galicians or basques?
I have my doubts about the identification of ” saxon” or viking mtDNA. For exemplo the H1 and H3 subhaplogroups in England could be of paleolithic( galicians), swedish-viking or saxon( medieval age) or recent continental origin( frenchs from Gascoigne). How can you distinguish their true origin?
I think there are not a distinctive suevian, roman or paleolithic mtDNA haplogroups in Galicia, because all these invaders came from continental europe in ancient and more recent times.
I don’t have access to the whole article but I have my doubts about this sharing nordic paleolithic mtDNA, it is in contradiction with the North Iberian paleolithic Refugium.
Danes arrived along the east coast of England, whilst the Norwegians moved down the west coast starting in Orkney and Shetland Islands and from there into Ireland and the Isle of Man.
Saxons and Danes cannot be identified genetically, but the Norse (Norwegian) contribution to the gene pool is found in some 30% of the population in the islands north of the Scottish mainland.
”
The survey
The UCL genetics survey set out to discover if any genetic traces of the Vikings remained in the British Isles – and what this might reveal about the Viking Age. We hoped to find out where Vikings settled and roughly how significant those settlements were. DNA samples were taken from men at a number of sites. In the main, small towns were chosen and the men tested were required to be able to trace their male line back two generations in the same rural area – within 20 miles of the town chosen. The aim was to reduce the effects of later population movements, assuming that in between the Norman invasion of 1066 and the 20th century movement would have been limited.
The tests looked at the Y chromosome, which is only carried by men. This chromosome is particularly useful for population genetics studies as it is passed directly from father to son with virtually no alteration. Other chromosomes exist in pairs, one member of which is passed on from the mother and the other from the father. But because women do not carry a Y chromosome, geneticists can always be sure that this part of a man’s DNA has come from his father, and from his grandfather before him. This chromosome allows geneticists to begin to unravel the male ancestry of the British Isles.
Samples taken in modern day Norway were used to represent the Norwegian Vikings, and samples from Denmark represented the Danish input. The population of the British Isles before the invasions of the Saxons was considered to be the Ancient Britons, which would include the Celts.
The Blood of the Vikings Genetics Survey at UCL was headed by Professor David Goldstein. The members of the research team were Cristian Capelli, Nicola Redhead, Julia Abernethy, Neil Bradman and Jim Wilson. Extra sampling was done in the Wirral by Prof Steve Harding and in the Channel Islands by Frank Falle.”
Google “Blood of the Vikings” for more info.
Pericles
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/bloodofthevikings/genetics_results_02.shtml
“Difficulties arose early on in the Blood of the Vikings survey as the geneticists tried to establish differences between DNA taken in Denmark (representative of Danish Vikings), Schleswig-Holstein and Northern Saxony (representative of the invading Angles and Saxons respectively, groups who invaded England in the 5th century AD). The two regions of Europe these settlers came from are very close, so it is not surprising their DNA is so similar. Because of this set-back the team at UCL was forced to take a different approach. By referring to both the Danish and Saxon DNA as ‘invaders’ a comparison could then be made against how much Ancient Briton (or Celtic) DNA was found.
The results were interesting. England (and most of mainland Scotland) were a mixture of Angles, Saxons, Danish Vikings and Ancient Britons. The highest percentage of DNA signatures from the invading groups (Angles, Saxons and Danish Vikings) was found in the North and East of England. Interestingly the place with the highest ‘invader input’ was York, a well-known Viking settlement site.
There was one result in the North and East of England which did not fit this pattern. In Penrith a significant proportion of the men tested had Norwegian DNA signatures on their Y chromosomes. It seems likely that the Norwegian Vikings who travelled along the sea road from Shetland down to the Isle of Man may well have stopped off in Cumbria. It may also have been a safe haven for Vikings expelled from Dublin at the beginning of the 10th century. This finding fits in remarkably well with archaeological finds of Viking burials, Norse-style place-names and stone sculpture. The input of the Angles and Saxons, who arrived in England in the 5th century AD, were represented by DNA samples from Schleswig-Holstein and Northern Saxony respectively.
The Vikings are also though to have settled in the north of the Wirral, but not to have reached as far as the south of this region. The evidence comes from place-names, archaeological finds on the coast and sculpture – although there isn’t as much as in Cumbria. Samples were collected in the Wirral by a local man, Prof Stephen Harding from Nottingham University, and two of his students. However, the analysis by Golstein’s lab was unable to see a significant difference between the north and south of this region, in terms of the Norwegian DNA. It appeared very similar to the rest of England, but very different from nearby North Wales, which is mostly Ancient Briton (Celtic).”
Pericles
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/bloodofthevikings/genetics_results_08.shtml
“The Channel Islands were once part of Normandy, a region of France founded by the Norwegian Viking Rollo. With the help of local historian Frank Fale, the UCL team decided to test the people of Jersey and Guernsey to see if any evidence of these early Viking settlers in France could be found in their DNA. The volunteers were split into two groups, those with Norman surnames, and those with English surnames.
The DNA of those with non-Norman surnames was found to be very similar to that from men in England. This was a mixture of Ancient Briton with those of the ‘invading’ populations. These invaders included both the Angles and Saxons who arrived in England in the 5th and 6th centuries and the Danish Vikings. These two types of DNA could not be distinguished but, like men tested in England, Channel Islanders with English surnames had a significant proportion of DNA from these ‘invaders’.
The DNA of those with Norman surnames was markedly different. These men were found to be very similar to the Ancient Britons. But on top of this ancestry was a hint of the Norwegian DNA signature, indicating that Rollo could possibly have had an effect on the genes of people from the Channel Islands today.”
Normandy on the French mainland was settled by Norse (Norwegians) led by Rollo in the ninth century, hence Normans. We English are mongrels, yet there is a division between the Northumbrians and the Suthangli to this day. The Geordie accent has a singsong lilt to it that is similar to Norwegian speech patterns. Swedish speakers and detect a Norwegian even when no Norwegian vocabulary is used.
In England we discriminate on the basis of accent, because there is a very close correlation between culture and speech patterns. People like us (Southerners) resent people like you (Northerners) coming “dahn sauf” pinching our birds and our jobs.
That is a tribal reaction to people, say from Manchester, who move 200 miles south to London. They are different up there (wherever “there” is). Bearing in mind that we live in modern times we still have “stone age” bodies and xenophobia has stood the test of time as a defence mechanism. See stranger, kill stranger, capture his women, expand tribe.
This is an explanation http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4521347.stm
Pericles
So far, this seems to me to all add up to more or less bearing out what contemporary texts have to say, viz., large scale Anglo-Saxon displacement of Britons in the 6th century, but with surviving pockets of Britons, usually as slaves, and then large scale Norse settlement in the ninth century, but with substantial amount of English remaining.
In other words, chroniclers very often know what they’re talking about.
Were most of the mothers Britons? If so, then for most genes today’s English are >50% ancient.
Andrew,
I read the post and came away with a diametrically opposite opinion of what was being said.
That is, no large scale immigration of Anglo-Saxons, except for one mentioned pocket in the East of the country.
Perhaps you should recheck the article?!