| |
The Origins of the British
A Genetic Detective Story by Stephen Oppenheimer
As a child, I
sometimes wondered why people told jokes about Englishmen, Irishmen,
Welshmen and Scotsmen. Why should our origins and differences matter?
Part of growing up was realizing that they do matter and trying to
understand why.
"This book challenges some
of our longest held assumptions about the differences between
Anglo-Saxons and Celts – perceived differences that have informed our
collective sense of identity.Orthodox history has long taught that the
Romans found a uniformly Celtic population throughout the British Isles,
but that the peoples of the English heartland fell victim to genocide by
the Anglo-Saxon hordes during the fifth and sixth centuries.
|
|
Now Stephen Oppenheimer’s
groundbreaking genetic research has revealed that the
‘Anglo-Saxon invasion’ contributed only a tiny fraction to the
English gene pool. In fact, three quarters of English people can
trace an unbroken line of genetic descent through their parental
genes from settlers arriving long before the introduction of
farming.
Synthesizing the genetic evidence with linguistics, archaeology
and the historical record, Oppenheimer shows how long-term
Scandinavian trade and immigration contributed the remaining
quarter – mostly before the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons. These
migrations may have introduced the earliest forms of English.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
And what of the Celts we know – the Irish, Scots and Welsh? Scholars
have traditionally placed their origins in Iron Age Central Europe, but
Oppenheimer’s new data clearly show that the Welsh, Irish and other
Atlanticfringe peoples derive from Ice Age refuges in the Basque country
and Spain.They came by an Atlantic coastal route many thousands of years
ago, though the Celtic languages we know of today were brought in by
later migrations, following the same route, during Neolithic times.
Stephen Oppenheimer shows us, in
his meticulous analysis, that there is in truth a deep genetic line
dividing the English from the rest of the British people but that,
fascinatingly, the roots of that separate identity go back not 1500
years but 6,000.The real story of the British peoples is one of
extraordinary continuity and enduring lineage that has survived all
onslaughts.
Stephen Oppenheimer of University of Oxford is a leading expert in the
use of DNA to track migrations. His last book Out of Eden rewrote the
prehistory of man’s peopling of the world in a thesis that has since
been confirmed in Science. He is also the author of Eden in the East:The
Drowned Continent of Southeast Asia, which challenged the orthodox view
of the origins of Polynesians as rice farmers from Taiwan.
Anyone interested in knowing the
identity and distribution of their male founding cluster as described in
Stephen Oppenheimer's book "The Origins of the British" may use the
following link to have their Y chromosome tested for this.
http://www.ethnoancestry.com/oppenheimer.html
|
'Stephen Oppenhimer's exciting new book sets a
whole new agenda for prehistoric archaeologists
working in Britain...essential reading for
everyone interested in the origins of the
Britons...British prehistory will have to be
radically re-thought.'
Barry Cunliffe, Professor of European
Archaeology, University of Oxford
|
|
|
'Stephen Oppenheimer is the supreme genetic
detective fishing for evidence in the gene-pools
of history. Be prepared to have all your
cherished notions of English history and
Britishness swept away in this fascinating and
superbly illustrated account of what makes up
our national character.'
Professor Clive Gamble, Department of
Geography,
Royal Holloway University of London
|
|
|