Aboriginal/indigenous Britons?

[robin wood]

Yes indeed the Romans were very different say from our Scandinavian or Norman visitors. They came, they stayed a while, they went home. They didn't bring their women folk and settle for the most part they did a tour of duty a bit like British servicemen or diplomats being posted abroad. Undoubtedly they contributed a little to the gene pool but not so much as those that came to make their homes here. As Toddy points out little of their technology or infrastructure survived either.

I would have thought that much of the core of "bushcraft" type stuff is the work of mobile hunter gatherers so it could be argued that it began to die out at the start of the neolithic when we started settling and farming.

 

[John Fenna]

For a pretty full investigation of the subject, I can recommend Steven Oppenhiemers ""The Origins of the British".
A fascinating book looking at the population development of these Sceptered Isles from when the ice retreated to the Vikings using DNA....
Fascinaring!
One subject I always had an interest in - and wish I had time to study - is archeology and population movements in Britain...

 

[Prawnster]

I heard or read once that the Welsh language is the oldest in Europe and one of the oldest in the world. I think because of that, and coupled with the fact that a lot of the people of Britain retreated from the Romans into the hills of Wales, I've always considered the Welsh to be the only true Britons left.
Whether that is genetically true I've no idea but I love that their language has survived and is still in use. A language that would have been used by some of the people that the Romans encountered and long, long before that.
By contrast the English language, right 'next door' so to speak, is one of the newest languages in the world and is a mish-mash of Norse, Germanic and Latin.
Whilst genetic provenance can be lost (I'm not saying that is a bad thing) I think a language as old as Welsh gives us a living link to ancient history and to the original inhabitants of this land. I believe the Welsh word that defines their language (I forget it) literally means 'Of this country'.
For me language is just as important as genetics when considering which people are indigenous.

 

[m.durston]

i stand corrected! i suppose the romans suffered from too much success too soon, or to quote peter kay " you can peak too soon son"!

on the subject of the welsh language, is it true that the cornish language is similar?

 

[Toddy]

It certainly has it's place, but then, how would you define modern Scots Gaelic.........a Q celtic language with a vocabulary like Irish Gaelic, but with P celtic grammar structure like Welsh ?
Or indeed modern lowland Scots, with it's (considered slang by English purists) grammar structure reminiscent of that same P celtic, but with a big admixture of French and low country German as well as import words from the old British Empire ?
It's an incredibly tangled web to be honest. Much like ourselves

cheers,
Toddy

 

[Graham_S]

Interesting thread.
Worth doing more research.
Incedentaly, Pre-Celtic.

 

[BorderReiver]

Yes indeed the Romans were very different say from our Scandinavian or Norman visitors. They came, they stayed a while, they went home. They didn't bring their women folk and settle for the most part they did a tour of duty a bit like British servicemen or diplomats being posted abroad. Undoubtedly they contributed a little to the gene pool but not so much as those that came to make their homes here. As Toddy points out little of their technology or infrastructure survived either.

I would have thought that much of the core of "bushcraft" type stuff is the work of mobile hunter gatherers so it could be argued that it began to die out at the start of the neolithic when we started settling and farming.

Ah, but, Robin, they did stay. Not the Officer/Political lot but the legionaires were given the option of a bit of land to settle when they retired. A lot of them took up the option.

The fighting army was composed of many nationalities and they must have made a large contribution to the gene mix.

 

[BorderReiver]

I heard or read once that the Welsh language is the oldest in Europe and one of the oldest in the world. I think because of that, and coupled with the fact that a lot of the people of Britain retreated from the Romans into the hills of Wales, I've always considered the Welsh to be the only true Britons left.
Whether that is genetically true I've no idea but I love that their language has survived and is still in use. A language that would have been used by some of the people that the Romans encountered and long, long before that.
By contrast the English language, right 'next door' so to speak, is one of the newest languages in the world and is a mish-mash of Norse, Germanic and Latin.
Whilst genetic provenance can be lost (I'm not saying that is a bad thing) I think a language as old as Welsh gives us a living link to ancient history and to the original inhabitants of this land. I believe the Welsh word that defines their language (I forget it) literally means 'Of this country'.
For me language is just as important as genetics when considering which people are indigenous.

Rubbish, the name comes from "wealas", meaning foreigner. That means that everybody else on the island is British apart from the Welsh.

 

[BorderReiver]

If your going to tell a lie make it a big one and the whole we are a mongrel race is just that a BIG FAT LIE.I read an atricle at the same time as I and saw a tv documentary about just this subject a few years ago and the overwelming evidence via DNA sampling(microcondrial DNA) is that the vast/well/majority over 95 percent of White British people are indigenous to these islands,this fact. I'll leave the reason as to why the big lie as this is not the place to discuss such matters.
Lastly I will say do not swollow all you/we are spoonfed nowadays.

As the whole population crossed the land bridge from mainland Europe in the first place, it's a little odd to claim that we are indigenous to these islands.

The whole human race started from the same place in Africa, so the only place anyone is indigenous to is planet Earth.

 

[locum76]

I read an atricle at the same time as I and saw a tv documentary about just this subject a few years ago and the overwelming evidence via DNA sampling(microcondrial DNA) is that the vast/well/majority over 95 percent of White British people are indigenous to these islands,this fact.

If you take the trace of mitochondrial DNA to its ultimate conclusion you will find that we are all related to a very small population of Homo sapiens from the great rift valley in Africa.

As stated by Bonnie Greer in the 'great debate' Britain was entirely populated by Homo neanderthalus after the last Ice age until Homo sapiens made it up here from the south and ultimately Africa. For whatever reason we completely out competed the Neanderthals and they became extinct.

Therefore it is only logical that we have the same mitochondrial DNA as the 'indiginous' population of the island wasn't even the same species as us.

FACT.

Edit: I believe its possible to trace the history of our species using mitochondrial DNA all the way through history to horses and protozoa but I'm not sure we need to go that deep.

 

[Prawnster]

Rubbish, the name comes from "wealas", meaning foreigner. That means that everybody else on the island is British apart from the Welsh.

That's actually the Anglo-Saxon word for foreigner which is now the English word for Welsh. I was talking about the Welsh word for their own language which I really wish I could remember.

Rubbish!, yourself

 

[m.durston]

For whatever reason we completely out competed the Neanderthals and they became extinct.

i dunno about that one, where i work we have a confidential list of photos up on a board of all the local scallys that are banned from the town centre shops. if you saw the state of some of them you would question whether the neanderthals died out at all lol

 

[BorderReiver]

That's actually the Anglo-Saxon word for foreigner which is now the English word for Welsh. I was talking about the Welsh word for their own language which I really wish I could remember.

Rubbish!, yourself

Welsh people called themselves Cymry as well as Brythoniaid. The Welsh word for their country is Cymru (Kumree) the land of the Comrades; the people are known as Cymry (Kumree) and the language as Cymraeg (Kumrige).

 

[BorderReiver]

If you take the trace of mitochondrial DNA to its ultimate conclusion you will find that we are all related to a very small population of Homo sapiens from the great rift valley in Africa.

As stated by Bonnie Greer in the 'great debate' Britain was entirely populated by Homo neanderthalus after the last Ice age until Homo sapiens made it up here from the south and ultimately Africa. For whatever reason we completely out competed the Neanderthals and they became extinct.

Therefore it is only logical that we have the same mitochondrial DNA as the 'indiginous' population of the island wasn't even the same species as us.

FACT.

Edit: I believe its possible to trace the history of our species using mitochondrial DNA all the way through history to horses and protozoa but I'm not sure we need to go that deep. [/QUOTE]

Why not, it makes as much sense.

 

[Draven]

As stated by Bonnie Greer in the 'great debate' Britain was entirely populated by Homo neanderthalus after the last Ice age until Homo sapiens made it up here from the south and ultimately Africa. For whatever reason we completely out competed the Neanderthals and they became extinct.

Therefore it is only logical that we have the same mitochondrial DNA as the 'indiginous' population of the island wasn't even the same species as us.

FACT.

But if we're not talking humans, then ye might as well say that the only aboriginal species anywhere has to be proteins and amino acids Certainly, modern man was not the first species anywhere.

 

[Siberianfury]

i dont thnk theres such a thing as indigeonus britons, as the human race is beleived to have evolved in africa. therefotre no one is native, just some have been there longer than others.

 

[firecrest]

I think the fact that we scrutinize ourselves and refer to ourselves as not a people but a mishmash of cultures is a very british thing to do! We rarely do it to other nations, but I should imagine the majority of `peoples` even ones we consider indiginious tend to also be a mixture of races and cultures. Certainly this is so for the majority of europeans and many people in Africa have genese from the middle east.

 

[Ahjno]

<snip> Results from studies of those burial sites showed that to a 95 probability Celtic remains had a big toe the same length as, or shorter than, the next toe, while pre-Celtic remains had a big toe longer than the one next to it. That study was expanded to cover burial sites in other parts of Europe and Asia, with the same results. Because the so-called Celtic toe can disappear after many generations of intermarriage, it is not a necessary condition to having a Celtic ancestor, but it is a sufficient one: if a person has the Celtic toe, he or she is almost certain to be of Celtic descent.

That discovery should allow a much better mapping of the extent of Celtic settlement across Europe. The Celtic toe has been found in abundance in southern and central Germany and across western and central Scandinavia. It has been found in present-day descendants of the Dutch Boers who settled in South Africa over a hundred years ago; the only source of that gene is from the Celtic Dutch of two thousand years ago. It could be used to map the Scottish migration route from the central Atlantic down through the Carolinas and into Georgia in the 1700s.[/COLOR] http://www.electricscotland.com/fami...2002/celts.htm

cheers,
Toddy..........definitely got pre-celtic toes

That's cool I've got a Celtic toe (well, 2 actually), with ancestors mostly in NL, quite a lot in Germany, some French and English (no Scots or Welsh).
From my fathers side I'm a descendant of Charlemagne (742-814 AD).