Anglo Saxon DNA
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- čas přidán 30. 01. 2024
- In today's episode we will be talking about Gertzinger et al 2022 paper on Anglo-Saxon DNA and the Anglo-Saxon migration into the British isles. I hope you enjoy and I look forward to chatting with you all in the comments section!
if you want to read the paper you can find it here: doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05...
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Many thanks to Geza Frank and Event Horizon for permission to use their music - Pulsar ( • EVENT HORIZON - Pulsar... )
Just because the the early 'Anglo-Saxon' in habitants of Britain did not identify themselves as 'Anglo-Saxon, does not invalidate the label 'Anglo-Saxon' given to them. The inhabitants of what is now termed 'Celtic' Britain and Europe did not identify themselves as 'Celtic' at the time. Neither did people in what we term 'Medieval' societies identify as Medieval. These terms are useful identifiers to label particular cultural, political, linguistic and social phenomena in order to give coherent historical timeline. The current attack on the term Anglo-Saxon has its origins in people who have a particular political axe to grind and an agenda to undermine identities they don't like.
I think it's made complicated by people who don't understand why academics are challenging these definitions. If we say everything that's within x area is Anglo-Saxon, because that's how it was taught we fail to see how things changed, developed and how much each region was so different and unique in this period. I think there's not a push to invalidate or have an agenda in the UK. The USA I'd agree a lot more with, but it's a small group of Academics not the whole bunch. Also I don't use Celtic as it's so wrong and tied up in nationalism way more than Anglo-Saxon is.
@@AlexIlesUK Whilst there may be a legitimate debate about the spread of (for want of a better phase) ‘Anglo-Saxonisation’ over the regions in England, this is no different to the Romanisation that progressed, over a period of time, that is encompassed in what is termed ‘Roman Britain’. A term that is not under the same threat.
However, the current ‘Anglo-Saxon’ controversy is not driven primarily by legitimate academic debate, but by a small number of socio-political activists within academia who usually end up getting their way. A case in point is the subversion of the International Association of Anglo-Saxonists. A virulent campaign was launched against its name led by its 2nd Vice President Rambaran-Olm. Her main concern was a more inclusive future for Medieval studies and the dislike of the term Anglo-Saxon which she associated with white-supremacism. When she initially did not get her way, she resigned. Then several ‘academic’ activist groups weighed in (including Queerdievalists, The Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship and Medievalist of Colour) and her cause was also supported by the likes of Adam Miyashiro (whose article ‘Decolonising Anglo Saxon Studies’ betrays his particular motives). The IAAH did what all establishments do when faced with a cancel-culture backlash and a fear of being labelled ‘racist’ - they capitulated and changed their name.
This is very interesting, and I guess you could say that many people have an agenda. Some seem to want to look at the Anglo Saxon period as foundational and downplay the various peoples (apart from the Danes) who inhabited the land. Simply labeling these people as Celtic or even Briton may not be sufficient and may be hiding some interesting connections.
@@brachiator1 I guess you could say that the Anglo Saxon period is foundational in that it witnessed, in earliest times, Germanic tribal incursions that then led to the establishment of individual kingdoms which eventually coalesced into the single nation 'England' that exists today. There is, of course, a sizeable amount of pre-Anglo Saxon genes in the mix but all were subsumed into a common English speaking identity along with aspects of their original culture. The same can be said of the Scot's incursions from Ireland into Northern Britain which led to them eventually absorbing Pictish, Brythonic and former English Northumbrian areas (in the Lothian area) into a Scottish Kingdom.
Well said @prydwen3
If the term 'Anglo-Saxon' was good enough for Alfred, it's good enough for me. 👍
Sing as Alfred really created the term and propagated it, then that's exactly correct !
And me!
Welcome back. You have raised a lot questions and I’m glad you have. Nothing is carved in stone yet!
Thank you
Fascinating stuff as always and it's exciting to be alive during the unfolding of such an elusive aspect of British history. Nothing brings us closer to the past than trying to understand how the past saw itself in its present.
Really glad you're enjoying the episode!
Great to see you alive and well. Now I get to sit back and enjoy as always
Thank you! Hope all is well over the sea!
Hello Alex, I loved this truly well researched, highly informative episode. What a great teacher you'd make.
I hope this finds you and the family well and happy.
I said to my wife yesterday that I would like to have teaching as some part of my future, but I know it wont be in a school! Thank you!
Procopius, a Byzantine historian wrote in the mid 6th century, "Now in Britain there were three very numerous nations, each ruling over a portion of the island: the Angili, the Frisians, and after these the Britons." (Book VIII, Chapter 20).
Thank you
Excellent video. Thank you!
You are welcome!
Nice and informative video... Thanks...
You're welcome!
Good to see you’re back! I watched over your old videos recently as I genuinely missed your Saxon-focused content.
I'll try to keep it up
@@AlexIlesUK Please do. And whilst I'm here, I'd also like to invite you to the Jarrow Hall Museum & Anglo-Saxon farm. I'm a collections volunteer there, but I also get involved in experimental archaeology sector at the Museum. We recently received some funding and will be refurbishing a lot of the village. There are already plans to paint the thirlings in the main hall with authentic Saxon art. We're currently in the process of installing a beehive centre, with authentic Saxon 'skeps'.In the near future, the museum will also be setting up a wooden replica of the auditorium based on Ad Gefrin - the screens and all! We plan to test how well they worked, whether the screens indeed helped etc. All in all, some really exciting projects which could hopefully inspire some videos?
@stannypk5k9 have a chat with Alice, I'm involved with training your volunteers! I tried to do a bit of filming today at the Thrillings but it was too dark by 3pm! Would love to chat further as I'd really like to do more filming there and work with you all on further projects!
There is a lot of complexity contained within this period in history. A period that is only 'dark' due to by an unfortunate lack of written records. Maybe more will turn up at some point? Contained within the British people is the history of these islands. My ancestry, I am told via DNA and written records, is English (Anglo-Saxon), Irish and Scottish in almost equal measure, with a bit of Norse thrown in to complete the picture. This is pretty common in the modern UK, it is simply the percentages that vary. The 4th and 5th centuries AD were a time of mass movements of peoples within Europe, as the ailing Western Roman Empire folded-in upon itself. We are still missing huge chunks of the puzzle. The exciting 2020 discoveries at Chedworth Roman Villa were quite an eye opener too, and proved that what we thought we knew about the time post 410 AD was wrong.
I'm hoping to do something on Chedsworth but I'll always be late to the party!!
@@AlexIlesUK - It would be a good subject. A mosaic laid in the mid to late 5th century is a game changer. The heads of historians and archaeologists are still spinning.
3rd Generation British (Saxon) German American. Subscribed!
Loved the Saxon Chronicle Series!
How do you know your British side is Saxon? I’m currently looking for the dna tests that show this
Thanks for subscribing!
My British side did some background research. My last name is of Saxon origin.
@@FrederickDunkley-vs8ut In what is now England last names came into use for the mass of the people in post Norman times.
@@seanbouk
Indeed, is not possible.😊
👍⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Nice and informative video... Thanks...
You are welcome! Best wishes!
Good stuff. Makes you think.
Thank you!
From Jutland, Denmark and other than Scandinavian DNA my test showed markers from Scotland/Ireland and East Europe. I have no known realatives from either EE or Scotland/Ireland so it may reflect where a certain seafearing people went or maybe comes from later historical events, cause a lot of history has happend since the “Viking age” afterall.
I'm going to do an episode on Scandinavian aDNA and you'll hopefully be pleasantly surprised!
Very well done!
Thank you!
Im English American but my dna is majority native Briton dna it seems. To be fair my mothers family were mostly of lowland Scots ancestry though with most of those families being historically "Anglo-Norman" such as my mother's surname of Montgomery. I was expecting to find more Germanic dna considering my fathers ancestors overwhelmingly came from England with a small distant component of Scots, and Welsh.
Very interesting!
East Saxon Essex, in East Angl-ia, disappeared under the Danelaw, reappeared in Alfred's England, and has continued to be addressed as both Anglian and Saxon ever since. The Angle settlers of Brynach (Northumbria) initially preserved the name in translation (Beornicia: Land of the Bear), and they are also considered Saxon-ish (Sassenach) by their Northern neighbours. Memes transcend genes.
Brynach actually translates as the land of the mountain passes.
@@AlexIlesUK Bryn (like Bjorn, Beor, Bear, Brun, Brown) is a euphemism for the Unnameable beast (Arth/Arctos/Arthur...). The earliest record of an Arthur ("He was no Arthur" Y Gododdin) came from this land.
Jackson, Language and History in Early Britain (1953:701-705)
@@AlexIlesUK As in Bernicia & Deira ?
Yes.
Big Weather Change around the 6th Century AD that would be caused by an enormous Volcanic Event in either the Americas or SE Asia.
Entirely possible
Thanks Alex. Well presented and considered.......though still not fully convinced by the modelling done in the most recent AS DNA paper....
Can I ask why?
@@AlexIlesUK of course. If I'm remembering correctly, it was firstly the selection of Southern French IA populations to represent the hypothetical Frankish input, rather than the more Northern populations. Some of hose individuals are paractically British IA on a lot of PCAs. Secondly, with respect to moderns, and county level inputs, again if I'm remembering correctly, was the use of Irish as a blanket representative for IA equivalents. We know from the York paper, that the gradation from English-Welsh- Scottish then Irish is not insignificant! If possible the authors should have perhaps selected Welsh populations as bieng reflective of Enlish IA populations. Finally, although the recent British IA paper, did not show PCAs for them, I have seen private PCAs that indicate a lot more variability in the IA populations alongside the Viking and AS paper. The 'author' found that many imodern ndividuals (of course not the PoBI dataset) could be effectively modelled with qpAdm just bey British IA and AS inputs,, without the high order of magnitude of AS input, at least not to the same degree............so for me jury is still out
I would add the caveat., Iam probably remembering certai details of the AS paper incorrectly. It's been a while since I read it. Probably got the Irish blanket wrong,.......
As far as I'm aware when I had my DNA test the conclusion was I am mostly/overwhelmingly Celtic, not surprising as I am Scottish and traced my ancestors many years ago and found my family originates from The Isle of Skye, on my mother's branch of the family, and the Blair Athol area of Scotland, the true centre of Scotland, for my father's. I found this interesting as I had no idea there was such a thing as Anglo-Saxon DNA.
With all of these we are putting modern names onto ancient groups, but you can see groups of people moving at different times with this study and understand migrations, and groups in the past.
I totally agree with Prydwen!
Have you looked at my reply as well?
Bede and Gildas we're talking about two different forms of Christianity. Gildas was early (Celtic) Christianity, Bede was Catholic christianity. At the time Bede was writing the majority were Catholic Christians and this benefits his church as gifts (money) were donated to his church. The pagans (read the rest of Christianity in Britain), didn't make absurd gifts which they saw as useless, either God would take you to heaven or he wouldn't, giving money to a large business was a waste of resources. That's why Beds castigated the 'pagans'. - just my take on this argument 🤔
People make far too much of a distinction between the Celtic and Roman church - when ultimately it boils down to a haircut and when Easter was. Bede would never have referred to other Christians as pagans as his whole aim is to ensure orthodoxy in the church. The 'Celtic' believers made just as many wealthy gifts - just look at Whithorn and other sites on the West of the British isles!
Hi Alex - I remember hearing (but I can't remember where) that the first time Anglo-Saxon was used was at a 6th century continental European meeting of bishops where it was to differentiate the British from the continental.....
Could it be Procopius describing the inhabitants of Britannia as Britons, Angles and Frisians?
@@AlexIlesUK What do you think to the book 'Age of Arthur' by Morris. I know it was panned by historians, but it made sense to me.
a) AS invited in, rebelled
b) The Britons halted the advance at Mons Badon.
c) Plague devastates the Britons more than the AS
d) AS take over unoccupied lands, inviting in more AS families
Morris (from memory) thinks that unlike Gaul it was not a elite takeover, but families. Explaining the loss of the British language because the women talking to the children were AS. In France there was more intermarriage of warriors with local women. If 'Arthur' had lost at Mons Badon, it would have been warriors marrying locals.
@@AlexIlesUK Oh my name & DNA says British not AS. So no dog in the fight.
I think it shows the academic work at the time, he researched and presented his argument based on what was known at the time and it's an enjoyable read but it is of its period.
@'Frankish dna' - I wonder if we should call it thus. The 'Franks' were originally from the NE Netherlands and/or from the Middle Rhine areas, and these people would be different from 'Iron Age France'. Now my questions would be this: do we know when this dna enters Britain? Because in my humble opinion (i'm NO dna expert!) we could also be looking at people who migrated to Britain during the (later?) Roman period, as Roman citizens.
Hi Robert, I should have clarified this more! So this aDNA is not present in Roman or Late Roman British aDNA samples, it comes in during the Migration period. I believe it's been referred to as Frankish due to the connection to items referred to as Frankish and the fact this aDNA has been found in the Rhineland. Hope that clarifies!
@@AlexIlesUK NE Gaul was Belgae? Didn't some cross into Kent before Caesar? I have a vague memory the Romans wrote the Belgae thought of themselves as Germans rather than Gauls.
Thanks for mentioning the Britons were never considered Celtic by the Romans. Their Celts were in todays S Germany & Bohemia. The Gauls/Britons/Germans were just another, related, part of the Indo-European language group.
I sound abit too certain in these paragraphs. I'm happy to be corrected.
I always take the historical sources with a pinch of salt but with the distances over the channel migrations would have occured more easily. From the paper this aDNA is definitely early medieval though which is interesting in itself. Don't need to apologise you've done your reading, which is great!
At 15.00 it's clear that your theories about mixing British with Anglo-Saxons that the police is sent to arrest you! 🤣
Trust me. There's some who would; sadly I can't afford a soundproofed room! It's more likely to be an ambulance as I live on a road that connects areas of Newcastle!
Thank you, Alex for this interesting presentation and for recommending the Gretzinger paper.
I haven’t had the chance to read it in detail yet but the finding that you mentioned at the end of your presentation touched on something I already wanted to ask you about. I sometimes read that the Norman Invasion didn’t have much demographic impact because only the elite was changed and they represented only about 2% of the population. I don’t think this is true. The histories of England and France were intertwined for 300 years (to the end of the 100 years war). France had a much bigger population than England during this period and led England in the development of towns and trades. I think this would have led to a slow but ultimately significant migration of French and Flemish (also heavily populated and more urbanised) people migrating into England; mainly craftspeople moving into the growing towns. I think the Frenchified English language as we know it today was nurtured and developed in this environment.
In Gretzinger’s paper, the addition of the French Iron Age ancestry is inferred by comparison with the contemporary British population. I would suggest the this is not the addition of a French Iron Age population but rather the addition of a French Medieval population. I understand that France is rather behind on using genetic studies to unravel its History but presumably this could be tested.
I think they clarified it by saying that the human remains analysed were all from the early medieval period (400-1066), so that they couldn't reflect later migrations. But it's a valid point, the Normans and later groups did settle Flemish populations in the British isles.
Eh, if we’re talking about genetics, it’s worth remembering that samples from Anglo-Saxon and Dane graves have yielded indistinguishable results
That's flagged up in the paper but they use samples from before the Viking age and after the Roman period.
You say that there was no concept of English identity until the time of Alfred the Great and that people would have identified themselves by their family, tribal group or kingdom.
Yet 150 years before Alfred and 60 years before the very first Viking raids which supposedly created it, in the year 731, Bede wrote his *Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum* . Am I wrong to assume that Bede saw exactly that: a common culture shared by all the people south of the Forth and the Clyde who were not the successors of the Romano-British inhabitants? If so, why did he use the word "Anglorum"?
Hi Keith,
Bede isn't creating an identity, such as a national identity,and many scholars believe he's referring quite specifically to Northumbria as a tribal affinity rather than anything else.
@gravegoods and identity - it seems to me that this question is treated differently when it comes to this period than when it comes to the start of the Roman period. I wonder why so much (more) stress is put on ethnic background and who they identitified with when it comes to the AS when compared to the Romans.
I think it's because so many nations see their 'foundation' in the post Roman period, so ethnicity becomes a aspect of this. A lot of it can be traced back to the 19th century!
I used to watch time team channel 4 and loved it but when they found an Anglo Saxon grave with goods they assumed it was Anglo Saxon but because someone is buried in England doesn't make them English I believed that the programme was wrong in identifying graves because someone has Anglo Saxon grave goods doesn't mean that they were Anglo Saxon and the Welsh were here 10 thousand years but more DNA research needs to be done there are lots of unanswered questions about this period of time my believe is that English people are 50 % Welsh and Anglo Saxon and other we maybe closer related than we think
I'm sure the British and native British population were far more integrated with the incoming Anglo-Saxons than we realised before.
Another really helpful video, thank you so much for keeping them appearing. I've watched the Anglo-Saxon and Pict ones so far and can't wait for the others.
For me, all the harsh comments on the 'Anglo-Saxons Didn't Exist' video represent an inability to get past modern national identities - whether 'Anglo-Saxon' or 'Celtic' (both terms that I think muddy the waters even further) - to appreciate the greater fluidity of cultural, spiritual and social identities in this period. Personally, I think there is an argument for calling this the 'Early Medieval Migration Period' rather than the A-S Ages or, worst still, the 'Dark Ages' and applying this same descriptive to much of western Europe at the time. But again, the problem of modern national identities causes this to be a contentious term because of the perception of migration in that context. Finding out the fascinating truth about the past of the place you live in doesn't mean you can't be proud to live there, it just means that you can acknowledge cultural expression outside your own and celebrate that too.
I think you make a good point. However I think its that the English people are tired of being told by progressives that their national identity is problematic, does not matter and that they need to look beyond it as you put it. When the opposite is true
Thank you both @snufkinhollow318 and @danielryan570 - I do understand both positions and see why the Radicals on one side denying any identity in England is really frustrating. To give you a prospective from me, I was born in Scotland, but don't sound Scottish so because of that face hostility from a minority of Scots as I can't be a part of their national identity (but any American can as long as they buy a kilt and some shortbread on the way!) I think the important thing is to say that the first settlers were not Anglo-Saxons and the Anglo-Saxon were not English, but these identities grew out of events and people who mixed and became the next thing. I see myself as British but this feels like a dying identity.
@@danielryan570 I don't think I singled out the English for criticism here, rather as you say 'the opposite is true'. My point was that modern national identities have a tendency to exclude any period involving migration from areas outside their national borders from history (or their origin mythology) because it is perceived as a threat to their 'purity'. Whereas, for me, it enhances the richness of their history and should be celebrated. If pointing that out makes me a 'progressive', then, yes, I will happily sit in the camp of progress. I am of Welsh ancestry, born in England and now live in Ireland, all countries that I love for their natural beauty, and I have travelled around the world too, sometimes to places where I felt completely at home within days of arriving. But do I feel like I 'belong' to any of the countries I have been to or they to me? No, I belong where my home is and where I feel safe and if there are national identities that come into conflict with that, I will criticse them, wherever they are.
@@AlexIlesUK I'm not sure that it is 'radical' to deny national identities (not just that of the English) when they are relatively modern creations that, in their turn, deny the richness of our history, but a do take the overall point you are making. Ireland where I live is also subject to the 'kilt and shortbread' phenomenon that you identify in the form of what some Irish people call 'plastic Paddies', incomers from the US who buy up what they believe to be their ancestral land in some rural area and then complain that they can't get all the services and consumer goods that they want.
I had another curious experience of this the other day when I went into a shop I've been using for over a decade and the owner was giving a hate-fuelled speech about 'immigrants' to several other customers. So I place my goods on the counter and went to walk out. He called me back and when I said I found his speech against me offensive he said "But you're not like them, you're ...." and then tailed off when he realised that it was impossible to finish that sentence without either contradicting himself or sounding like an out-and-out racist. I find it almost impossible to believe that a country will one of largest global diasporas in modern history can be so hateful towards immigrants. I expect many people from outside Ireland have heard about the recent riots in Dublin, supposedly sparked by the stabbing of a woman and child by an immigrant. Not many news reports here in Ireland or overseas, however, have included the fact that it was a Brazilian immigrant who put his own life on the line to save the victims whilst many Irish people stood and did nothing.
I'm so sorry to rant and ramble but I do feel very strongly that national identities are more a source of disharmony than of unity.
ALEX: PROPS! this video is top tier/first rate. As it went on i realized "this is very much like--is essentially--a conference presentation, and rates among the very best Ive attended across 40+ years". EXCEPT that i just watched it on my phone @ home, early on a Saturday morning: what a treat!
"Full disclosure" Your topic falls in a field which Ive never studied formally nor worked in, altho it is adjacent to mine--or the next over...or perhaps in the next valley🤔--and so broadens my horizons.
For which you are a fabulous guide. I know just enough about migrations of peoples and the New DNA-ology (if i can say that) to be able to follow YOUR extremely lucid presentation.
I would tag this video a "review essay", meaning an overview/precis of what is known currently about a topic and the questions/directions for further research.
Its true that I am unfamiliar with the researchers & studies that you cite, but your presentation bears the hallmarks of someone who has that literature at their fingertips and who is analyzing and synthesizing it with sound methods and without an agenda (other than love of their topic).
And, i enjoyed your response to the internet orcs who attacked the comments section of one your previous videos😂
Thank you I really appreciate it! I'm enjoying filming again and hope to share more with everyone shortly!!
I've just googled "A DNA" - wikipedia states that it is one of three structural forms (A,B & Z) that DNA can take. It does not mean "ancient DNA".
I suppose the term "A DNA" might have two meanings.
Try Ancient DNA: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_DNA#:~:text=The%20majority%20of%20human%20aDNA,good%20conditions%20for%20DNA%20preservation.
Best wishes
@@AlexIlesUK OK, I see that "aDNA" and "A DNA" are different! Rather confusing nomenclature!
Good overview of the DNA scholarship of this period - great refresher course for other more detailed podcasts to which I have listened. 'Climate change migrants' put me off a bit, although of course it is not impossible that climate - which has always been changing - could have been a factor for some migrations.
Hi Maniplefringe, sorry for the time it's taken me to respond! Aye it's one theory that their homelands were flooded and were not suitable, but Britannia offered better opportunity. I think it's a combination of factors. I don't see them as slavering barbarians desperate to wipe out the Britons !
@@AlexIlesUKThat’s what I thought when I listened to the discussion of climate change. A lot of the farmland in Jutland is sandy and not nearly as productive as that of lowland England. Why wouldn’t the Angle and Saxon farmers be interested in getting possession of this land when the historical situation allowed it (Romans abandoning their Villa landholdings and local peasantry pacified and unable to defend themselves).
@@AmandaSamuels It could also be that with changing dynamics the land wasn't being used rather than it being taken from the Romans it was just available. People have been looking for evidence of violence for nearly a hundred years but I wonder if we should consider a large economic contraction meaning that it just wasn't worthwhile to produce in some areas as you didn't have an area to sell to anymore! Gaul and the Rhineland were not 'buying' British grain anymore so the world shifted. Still working on my thoughts on that one!
I don't think they were 'slavering barbarians', but possibly had a different value system to Christians and would have seen acts of violence ce against 'foreigners' differently. Pre Christian Romans had similar views about non-Romans. What mattered was your own nation, 'class', or family. The idea that you should 'care' about the stranger is largely (though not exclusively) a Christian idea. Also Germanic religio-cultural moral codes may have given the Anglo-Saxons a very different view of the morality of violence and war. I'm not making a value judgement here - what we see as amoral might not always have seemed so to them. Therefore if the Anglo-Saxons were violent invaders in some cases - we shouldn't be afraid of acknowledging this, as if its morally embarassing, when they may have not seen it that way and had a very different moral worldview than us. For example the Azrecs sacrificed 1000s of people a day to make the sun come up - does that make them monsters? Or just people operating on a moral axis determined by very different religio-cultural operating system to us (even if a lot of people are no longer religious in the West, our moral codes are still essentially based on a Christian operating system).
Thank you Alex. What is an Anglo Saxon? A dirty word for UK Post colonialism etc. I'm fascinated. We don't know how pre/post Roman people wldve described themselves. Iron age tribal groups fits the bill. I'm from Liverpool. River Mersey I believe means boundary river. Age 83
I think I understand, while I've made points about the use of Anglo-Saxon I'm not against it. I need to look up the meaning of Mersry
Regarding the 'French' DNA found in southern England the Guardian's report on the Oxford University 10 year genetic study of Britain (completed 2014) makes the following comment:
'People living in southern and central England today typically share about 40% of their DNA with the French, 11% with the Danes and 9% with the Belgians, the study of more than 2,000 people found. The French contribution was not linked to the Norman invasion of 1066, however, but a previously unknown wave of migration to Britain some time after then end of the last Ice Age nearly 10,000 years ago'.
So, not a migration at the time of the 'Anglo-Saxons' but thousands of years earlier - a quite different conclusion to the later study referenced in the video.
The French inclusion in both studies are not the same. The PoBI study has 2 separate populations included FRA14 and 17. The FRA14 is indicative of pre- AS arrival, whilst the FRA17 component arrived later. The authors argue for it being possibly representative of AS DNA, but Frankish would make more sense.......or perhaps even French during the Norman Invasion?
The paper clarified this, the Iron Age French aDNA is not found in previous populations. It's really interesting.
@@AlexIlesUK
This from the University of Oxford 'People of the British Isles' :
'The most intriguing European contribution is that from Northern France, (EU17 red). This clearly post- dates the original settlers since it is entirely absent from the Welsh samples. It is, however, widespread elsewhere, even right through the north of England and Scotland to Orkney. It is also especially prevalent in Cornwall and Devon. These results suggest a previously not described substantial migration across the channel after the original post-ice-age settlers but before Roman times. DNA from these migrants spread across England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, but had little, if any, impact on Wales'.
key word "share" why would we have 40% french dna?
@@NordiCrusader7
See my second post above for the answer.
The Angelen lived in a very small region.
It can't be a very large group to migrate.
Saxons were a large group, actually living more to the easter part of germany
The frisians lived along the west-and northcoast of the Netherland and the north- and northwestcoast of germany.
They drowned in that region because of the rising sealevels and moved abroad.
Frisians were known with Brittons by trade and working in the roman army.
Old english and Old frisian are very very similar.
So...
It's interesting as the Anglian's cover more of the geography of the British isles, it'll be one for future research for certain!
The Angles lived in a smaller area than the Saxons but that doesn’t mean they had less numbers to migrate. Many Saxons remained in Europe and as you will be aware there are still Saxons in Germany. The Angles all moved to Britain in their entirety or as a political entity and no noticeable numbers remained in Denmark/Northern Germany.
There is a viking account which states that as he sailed along the Western Baltic, that the islands on one side used to be occupied by the English. If true, this expands Angeln considerably, possibly into Finn Island. Add that Jutland was Western Germanic speaking before its later occupation by Danes, and the Angelcynn, if not the Anglish alone, dwelt in a large area. Then, we can understand how the Angles may have had enough manpower to fight Scots/Picts for the British, and still have enough men left over to expand within Britain. The idea that Anglen was just a small area seems to memetic, i.e. the notion is not contested at all, just copied from one source to the next.
That's an interesting one to read more into!
It is pleasing that the evidence largely did not support woke academias attempts to rewrite Anglo Saxon history, and in some cases write them from history completly.
It should not be a revelation that the Anglo Saxons were not the only tribes to migrate/invade, or that peoples were already here. The Angles and Saxons became the dominate tribes over the centuries, much like France is named for the Franks or Belgium for the Belgae, both were still made up of many other tribes
Like all things there's exceptions to the rules and also nuance. I would really like more data from the North, but it may never happen due to the soils being more acidic.
Indeed. How about the migration of the Ingvaeon/Ingwine peoples as a more inclusive term for the early migrations? Ingwine may have been something they all indentified with at the time
Weren't aliens involved somehow? ;)
Nah m8, that's the history channel.
Could you do some Irish DNA mate which is more my lot
They'll need to publish a paper! I'll see what I can find.
Cheers mate. The world is awash in Irish DNA@@AlexIlesUK
@@waynemcauliffe-fv5yf Especially Iceland where West Irish sex slaves were most valued.. Green eyes/black hair... I had bad luck and ended up with an east irish ginger
I `ve ended up with too many hair/eye colours mate@@SunofYork
@@waynemcauliffe-fv5yf Well at least they have hair, so it could be worse....
I am Anglo Saxon and will remain so!
Do you mean your English, because I don't think you grew up within the geographic area of England and in culture and mindset of 5th - 11th century.
Alex Lies... silly anagram... liked and subscribed, so therefore you know where that silly anagram lies... pun intended.
Cheers.
I've had worse, Ailes, i-les, eeles, all sorts. Unfortunately one of my ancestors was french, we're still dealing with it as a family...
my ancestry results on gedmatch is nearly identical to early midevil saxon results im like literally identical within 1-2% despite my family being in america for the past few hundred years
It depends on which company you are using but as I understand it no one can be identical to previous populations due to mutations that occur.
@@AlexIlesUK Saxons existed around 1500 years ago.. thats less than 100 generations ago and besides why should that matter? i am not my parents but my parents are still family heck pre indo european whg are still much more family than any immigrant would be. This whole “anglo saxon” thing is pointless when we are all so similar regardless because of our common ancestry from before the era
If you dont even know what gedmatch is or g25 you cant really speak much about ancestry
It's a company that does genetic testing...
That's the point I often make that the choices we make today are more important than our generic makeup. No one should draw their value from their genetics over their character and actions.
I had a problem with the Master's thesis of Nicolas Fossannen that can illustrate the problem more clearly: he had done an archaeological study of bones found in a pit in an Ozark cave. They had been boiled and the fat removed. I had that sitting on my stove as i read the thesis and compared what he found to the bones in my soup stock. They matched. Of course I was thrilled. But I commented that this pit, 11,000 years old, had fat, it had fire, it had water, and it had ash. I said "that's soap!"
Mr. Fossannen had to say he never meant to imply that 11,000 ago Indians had soap. The problem was that I have tried (and failed) to bed an Ozark woman who doesn't believe in soap. In 1978. It's a common hillbilly belief. If Mr. Fossannen had given the idea that Paleo-Indians had soap available it would have insulted the modern Ozark people he is reliant on for approval and funding. They would have hurt him. Perhaps literally. They are prettty violent.
I'm not sure I follow.
@@AlexIlesUK This was an attempt to illustrate the problems of dealing with present people who have their own ideas of the way things should be resisting evidence to the contrary. The words "English Identity" made me think of the Gilbert & Sullivan song from "The Pirates of Penance" "'e his a Hinglishman" which is rather nationalist. The song would have made no sense to an English community of Anglo-Saxon times because all around them that would be all their was. Coastal folks knew about the other side and even went there. They might have had a concept of "England" but I wouldn't bet money on them knowing their side was an island.
They wouldn't have had an identity because all around them there had never been anything else.
But I doubt there won't be a lot of resistance to the idea that Anglo-Saxons had no identity (and I bet the Norsemen changed that)
I lived in Israel in the late 70's and knew some Southern English people. They were concerned about the influx of Levantines and Subcontinentals into England and how England was unable to stop the influx. They called Subcontinentals Pakis and "Roog Roydahs" for their habit of commuting to work on flying carpets.
I think you might just have told them that English Identity has always included Levantines and others in its mix and I'm fairly sure they won't be happy to hear it.
The mix they were concerned about seems from the outside to have been relatively smooth. You see, the English lifestyle seems to be stronger than any English race, and it's been going on for a very long time and people after people have moved into it, only to become Anglicized. Did they serve tea in Boxgrove? Maybe.
I couldn't really understand what the problem was until at the end you said "English Identity." Living people have a sense of who they are and they are working backwards to prove the point they want to make. Someone in Rural England in 553 AD had likely never met or even heard of a person coming from farther than 15 miles away. But you pointed out that the Romano-British had JEWS. That would make someone with a concept of English Identity's head explode.
There is a story I've heard, a Biblical one, that states that Joseph and Moses were Hyksos, and we got the dates wrong somehow. DNA of a Hyksos graveyard showed what had really happened. Joseph went down to Egypt alright. But he brought Jewish women who married into Egyptian wealth. After 200 years of steady female migration the yentas took over the government of the whole country, because after all, "they were the only ones who knew how to do it right." It took the Egyptian women another 200 years to drive the Jewish women out of Egypt.
I laugh at this story told in the DNA because the kind of person who relishes an "English Identity" isn't going to be very friendly to data that demonstrates female domination.
I don't think I mentioned Jews in this video. Not sure where you got that from
@@AlexIlesUK Thanks for the reply. When I heard you say that Romano-Britain had Levantines buried there I wondered who they could be? Diaspora Jews seemed to be a guess. Egyptian grain merchants perhaps? Lebanese? I didn't think the Anatolian were a good guess. Armenians maybe? Diaspora Jews were the simplest explanation.
The thing I'm pretty sure of about those Levantines is that they spoke Greek.
@@petehoover6616 I maybe Ancient Cypriots there was a woman buried during the second century AD in Yorkshire that come form Cyprus, would be part of Levantine area lot of Greek, Cretans, Phoenician and Jewish settle there. The Greeks set up colonizes in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan after Alexander the Greek conquer this regions, most Greek carried J2-M172 48% of Greek DNA, Cypriot 13%, Italian 9-36%,Lebanese 30%, Syrian 14%, Ashkenazi 30%, Sephardic 14%, Palestine 29%, Maltese 21% and Armenian 24%
@@bjornsmith9431 I have a recessive genetic weakness, a type of deafness. Ludwig van Beethoven had it and my best friend also has it. I had figured that we all shared a common ancestor on both sides of our family and my ancestors are Native American, English, and Bavarian. My friend's ancestors are Polish Ashkenazim. Beethoven is Bavarian. (If he's dead, isn't he still Bavarian? idk). I had guessed that that common ancestor had lived around the year 1000 CE and I guessed in Spain. I found out yesterday that the Jews of Germany went through a genetic bottleneck in 800 CE, when the population dropped to 300 individuals. That would be the source of an inherited recessive trait shared between myself, my friend, and Ludwig van. Ludwig van gave us an idea of what our prognosis is to be and it isn't good. But I was in Nebraska when I was diagnosed, and when I pointed out to the Nebraska Germans that I shared Jewish ancestry with Ludwig van they were racially offended and rejected me pretty forcefully. I would anticipate the same response from people who use the phrase "English Identity." It would seem that the idea that people who use the phrase "English Identity" would also reject quite forcefully and fancifully any suggestions that the English Identity includes Jews. The Cypriot connection doesn't help the case because before the bottleneck the Ashkenazim had interbred with local South Italian population. Magna Grecia. It's a replay of what I found in Nebraska: insult, offense and fear to suggest that there were Jews in England and Germany, and they had children. The mental gymnastics people go through to keep from admitting that pretty obvious fact resemble panic. The panic, like the identity, is an attempt to take a world we have now and try to square it with an imagined past that doesn't include "our present enemies," (whoever those may be)
I am often disappointed in reading what archaeologists write because so often I find them to be racists. I figured out some years ago this is because Archaeology professors are racists and they only advance students who are also racists and I don't know how to get the infection out of the field of archaeology since racists won't give a doctorate to someone who isn't racist.
The English ones don't want to remember that King John expelled all Jews from England so any English person who has a cookie bite hearing loss is not really English.
@@petehoover6616 Thank you for the information on Ludwig Van Beethoven, he was a musical genius who taught himself to used vibration to read and write notes to his piano during is lost of hearing, he never gave up his dream, has for Jewish ancestry the Jewish religion during second temple period in the Mediterranean was converting people at that time they said 1 in 10 people in the Roman empire belong to the Jewish faith and also Armenian kingdom convert to Judaism before the Romans adopted Christianity so the pure Hebrew bloodline was already deluted with non Jewish by the 3 AD century. One thing in common with these mixed people is there faith and strict married custom, Cousins marriages and Avuncular marriages (Uncle and Niece) which run the risk genetic variation and sometime problems, I sadden by your treatment you was given by your pairs the world is strange. I remember the Austrian Painter parents was Uncle and Niece, had Jewish ancestry this marriage was not his source for his madness no it was hate and blaming others, a lot of people born from Avuncular marriages and Cousins marriages lived health productive lives, it they way there mines turned to evil.
My understanding is the 2022 study does not support the theory popular in recent times, of A-S migration as an influx of warrior elites grafting to a base Briton population over time. The suggestion is it was nearer to the other end of the spectrum - a significant genetic cascade which passed through the entire population in large areas of now England during this period(ie:tended to be replacement of genetic and cultural identity) - though western and northern areas, exhibited more genetically blended rather than replaced populations and cultural identity.
An interesting question would be - the retreat of a dominant Roman presence was opportunity, but what factors fuelled this extended period of migration from now north-central Denmark,southern Sweden and lower Saxony
My question is did the Romans as we understand them actually leave? If you read the sources it suggests that they broke off from the main empire but did not 'leave' also Bede mentioned that Latin was one of the languages spoken during his time. What if that's not just church Latin but actually people talking lantin as their language? It's a fascinating period!
.....I'm just letting my imagination run free on this...I have no evidence of course....undoubtedly there would have been an ongoing roman "presence" including a persitent use of latin but I guess the character of this presence might consist in a scattered and much diminished elite and other ranks {possibly Germanic and other peoples in any case)...and possibly facing adaption as renewed waves of Anglo-Saxons began to arrive@@AlexIlesUK
Anglo-Saxons created England. English people are Anglo-Saxon-Celtic
Have a watch of some of my episodes on the Anglo-Saxons. It may help you.
@@AlexIlesUK I know my fathers ancestry and heritage.
I think there is too much heresy when it comes to UK history of early settlers. I suspect that Britton was primarily settled by Frisians. Ask yourself why the English language is so close to Frisians?
I think the argument is that both frisia and the early kingdoms were settled at the same time by the same people.
But surely there were Saxons, Angles, Jutes, & probably other groups who identified as belonging to those groups, hence the naming of 'Kingdoms' as Wessex, Essex, East Anglia etc . Why assume Gildas & Bede were entirely wrong, surely their basic material must be in essentials correct. Limited samples of populations in specific areas may be of little use as indicators for a country wide assessment of people. One also does not know what proportion of continental DNA entered the British isles during the Roman period, or even earlier, & how certain is it that the assumed British DNA really is that. Have enough country wide samples of populations been identified for each period, & how distinct are these in reality? There is recorded a substantial migration of Britons into Gaul, enough to create the new country of Brittany, so these people movements need not have been all in one direction, nor need they be limited to those recorded by the ancient historical records.
Clues may come from the archaeology, for instance the whole Sutton Hoo complex indicates a close connection to northern Europe/Scandinavia at a date as early as the 6th century, far earlier than the noted Danish/Norse invasions, but perhaps indicating that the originators of the Anglian line of kings there were sort of proto-vikings, & Angeln, the original home of the Angles is in that area. I think it is a little presumptious to simply dismiss Gildas & Bede out of hand, for whatever motives they may have had in telling their stories, they were using history, as known to themselves; & theirs was a semi-literate society so they could have had access to reliable records, & Bede especially records the searching out of older documents etc. Both of them certainly lived far closer to the events they record than we do, nor can we expect that archaeology & DNA will fill in all the details we would like, either in support of, or at variance to, their accounts, so we should allow them to still inform the narrative, at least on a basic level. After all we can hardly expect to find battle sites & war cemeteries for what must have fairly small scale clashes between competing groups of the period, when much greater & well recorded battles are also not evident in the landscape, even up to & including those of the English Civil Wars.
I think you'll enjoy my more recent episodes
MAYBE not using click bait titles would get uou less comments and you'd really hate that, right? Anglo-Saxons wouldn't call themselves by that term. The Welsh wouldn't call themselves "Welsh"; Deer wiukdn't call themselves "deer". Therefore, there were no deer in the 4th Century. And YOU don't like the term Celtic"; How about "Pillock"? Or "Berk"? "Git"? Maybe you are one third each. Maybe not. Great visuals, though! I learned a lot staring at your walls.
You've made me laugh, best comment I've come across on this episode, well done!
Love the proposition of them being climate refugees
It's one of the theories
Angles were Suevi and they burned the bodies. Angles should be a DNA population, a fairly large population that was not large before Christianization and then after Christianization should have a dramatic increase in percentage. Saxons buried their bodies because they were not odin they were thor and they have thor hammers in their grave goods- the Angles will have tweezers and no hammer- that was not a joke I am serious.
I'm sorry it's really hard to understand what you're trying to convey. Could you try again please?
@@AlexIlesUKThe Angles were a Suevi people that practiced cremation, The Saxons practiced inhumation. On a simple line graph you should be able to identify Angles by marked increase of U106 subclades post Christianization after the inhumation burial practice was adopted. You will also be able to identify Angles by the recovery of tweezers from cremation burials as apposed to Thor Hammers, that will give you advice on what geographical areas should be examined. The subclades of U106 that are Migration Period, "people from the east", will be new and different. I am CTS4528 but there are too few of us to be considered a measurement, But the U106 that you find buried along side us will also be eastern migration period reflux back into Europe during Attila's "reorganization of management" Hatherdene Close, Collegno Italy and Sopron Hungary have already been run through the DNA process and I know because I have looked at it. I looked because other than Slonk Hill Man 150 BCE near Hangleton England and two in Sopron Hungary there are no BCE recoveries of CTS4528 so I needed to find who we were moving with. Hatherdeane Close 425 AD was the first post Christianization found and then a family plot in a Longobard site in Collegno. Look for the U106 subclades in those two sites and then cross examine DNA from post Christianization burials in the UK and you will find the Angles- and remember Thor Hammer vs tweezers. Suevi were Aesir and the Saxons Vanir. If I need to break any of this out, and refine- please feel free to ask.