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The genetic discovery of France

Finally, a deep drive into the population genetic structure of France, The Genetic History of France:

…These clusters match extremely well the geography and overlap with historical and linguistic divisions of France. By modeling the relationship between genetics and geography using EEMS software, we were able to detect gene flow barriers that are similar in the two cohorts and corresponds to major French rivers or mountains…A marked bottleneck is also consistently seen in the two datasets starting in the fourteenth century when the Black Death raged in Europe.

Nothing too surprising. In a nation of France’s size without strong socio-cultural dynamics that might encourage endogamy, it makes sense that geographic barriers are very important in structure. That being said, there does seem to be a correspondence between deep linguistic differences which date back to antiquity. Additionally, the people of Brittany turn out to be more “British” than not. This is not entirely surprising since the Breton dialect descends from the Brythonic language brought bystanders Celtic Britons (its closest relative is quasi-extinct Cornish).

I do wonder though how much France being a “target” nation for immigration over the centuries has shaped some of these patterns. I’m not talking here about recent non-European immigration, but the migration of Spaniards, Italians, and Poles, in the 19th-century, and earlier. Until the rise of Britain in the 18th-century France had been the largest, most powerful, and in the aggregate wealthiest, Western European nation in the post-Roman world. I suspect that this results in long-term trends toward cosmopolitanism genetically that might be absent in a few populations, such as the French Basque (who are distinct in these data).

9 thoughts on “The genetic discovery of France

  1. The recent intraeuropean migrants from the 19th century wont have a big impact on France. At best you might find traces in urban areas, but nothing spectacular.

    What you see is really the more Celtic and Germanic North East and the old Mediterranean and Roman South, with Bell Beaker Basques and British Bretons as special cases.

    Just another proof for the classic physical anthropology being right. You could take the 19th and 20th century racial categoeisations and they fit almost 1:1.

    Most natural differences dont come up by chance, nor are they arbitrary.

    Its a shame France refused to make genetic studies like that for so long. I hope more will come in the near future and that was just a start.

  2. Why India’s genetic makeup has to be seen from Caste perspective but not from similar Language & Spatial regional divisions & differences ?

  3. Breton is also closely related to modern Welsh. To a Welsh speaker Breton sounds like Welsh spoken in a French accent.

  4. All of Gaul is divided into three parts

    It appears Caesar was wrong, and all of Gaul is divided into five parts. 😉

  5. Caesar could not know the future.
    Full scale Roman colonisation, Germanic invasions and Breton settlements happened all later.

    Deep: India is divided by race, ethnicity, caste and religion.
    But India is much larger and populous too and has a completely different historical development…

  6. I wonder how much of the Breton DNA is really British and How much is just Breton Bell Beaker, Genetically related to Brits but not descending from them. NE France has a lot of Germanic and possibly roman and Iron age Celtic input. Which could mean a more Welsh/Irish/Cornish like relic population in NW France remains. This affinity would of course be accentuated by Britons migrating

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