Ancient graves hint at cultural shift to Anglo-Saxon Britain

Human remains dug up from an ancient grave in Oxfordshire add to a growing body of evidence that Britain's fifth-century transition from Roman to Anglo-Saxon was cultural rather than bloody.

The traditional historical narrative is one of brutal conquest, with invaders from the North wiping out and replacing the pre-existing population.
But a new study, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, hints at a more peaceful process. Dr Andrew Millard, from Durham University, is one of the study's authors.
'The main controversy over the years has centred on how many Anglo-Saxons came across the North Sea,' he says.
'Was it a mass invasion, where the existing population was wiped out completely or forced back into Wales, or was it a small band of elites whose ways were then adopted very quickly?'


Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-02-ancient-graves-hint-cultural-shift.html#jCp

At last, people have been saying this for years especially after the gene investigations done on the British population several years ago. The markers in a significant number of people in eastern side of England Suffolk, Norfolk etc showed that there is still many people with the original British genes  and it increases the further west and north you go. They also found that the Normans left little trace, the majority of the army returned to Normandy after the conquest, the Romans also left little trace, so much for the mongrel nation theory. People don't realise Celtic Britain had a great deal of contact with traders who came for many things these islands had to offer the ancient world so the Britons would have picked up on habits and goods from all over the known world, for instance wine was already being imported to southern Britain before the Romans even turned up.

Vintage wrote:At last, people have been saying this for years especially after the gene investigations done on the British population several years ago. The markers in a significant number of people in eastern side of England Suffolk, Norfolk etc showed that there is still many people with the original British genes  and it increases the further west and north you go. They also found that the Normans left little trace, the majority of the army returned to Normandy after the conquest, the Romans also left little trace, so much for the mongrel nation theory. People don't realise Celtic Britain had a great deal of contact with traders who came for many things these islands had to offer the ancient world so the Britons would have picked up on habits and goods from all over the known world, for instance wine was already being imported to southern Britain before the Romans even turned up.

Tbf the mongrel nation tag was less to do with mixes with Romans and Normans, and more to do with Angles, Saxons, Britons and various Scandinavians.

Still doesn't work though given what was found. There is a prt of England on the east coast is a high percentage of Anglo Saxon, not much Briton but as you spread out from there more and more British markers are found until you get to The North of England, Wales, Cornwall and of course Scotland where of course the high percentage reverses. The mongrel nation thing has been a propaganda excercise to undermine a national identity or national identities, with an apparent emphasis on England, of a lineage as long as any where else but you don't hear it said about France or Italy for example.

A higher % yes, but still mixed- even in our names you can see the way the English and the British have interbred over the years. If one has a Grandparent Jones and another Wilson then you have two names showing clear lineage to both. I don't really understand your opposition to this?

Eilzel wrote:A higher % yes, but still mixed- even in our names you can see the way the English and the British have interbred over the years. If one has a Grandparent Jones and another Wilson then you have two names showing clear lineage to both. I don't really understand your opposition to this?

Mixed yes, but not to the degree of a 'mongrel nation' which would imply no particular lineage, where as most people on these islands, until fairly recently at least could actually trace their lineage easily up to 1837 and if motivated can use parish records and manorial records to trace back very much further, some families have lived in a village or the area for hundreds of generations until perhaps the industrial revolution when people began to move into towns and cities, the genetics confirmed this. My opposition is that there is some political idea to trash this idea of there being a British lineage especially when there is such strong evidence of a very high percentage of original British ie ancestry from at least the last ice age with the add on of Anglo Saxons in Eastern England and that I've never heard of the same thing being said about the French, Italians or Germans for example and in many cases peoples long lineage in a country or region is very bound up with their culture and considered worthy and honoured, why is it not the same for Britain?

Of course it is a mongrel nation Vintage only one side is shown to have the same line back far enough, normally the mother, but not the case with the father, that would mean it is mixed. Yes the line goes back to the very first Britons, by they still bred with others that came to these shores, hence why in the south more have Anglo Saxon heritage, and in the north more Viking, you would be hard pressed to find someone completely descended to the first Brits who settled here, meaning very much mongrel, which to me has made for a better nation, as there is nothing wrong with that. Even more so if you go back far enough we are all related at some point, though why is it such s a big deal for you?  

Do you only get to call yourself English if you are of a certain ethnic group, of have for years people come here who were once say French, are now English are generations?

PhilDidge wrote:Of course it is a mongrel nation Vintage only one side is shown to have the same line back far enough, normally the mother, but not the case with the father, that would mean it is mixed. Yes the line goes back to the very first Britons, by they still bred with others that came to these shores, hence why in the south more have Anglo Saxon heritage, and in the north more Viking, you would be hard pressed to find someone completely descended to the first Brits who settled here, meaning very much mongrel, which to me has made for a better nation, as there is nothing wrong with that. Even more so if you go back far enough we are all related at some point, though why is it such s a big deal for you?  

Do you only get to call yourself English if you are of a certain ethnic group, of have for years people come here who were once say French, are now English are generations?

Thats not what has been found in the majority in a minority yes.
Why is it important? Why is being seen as French with a long lineage and culture important or a Zulu or Greek or German or Native American or Indian or Malaysian or how about the Irish and then there's Maoris who by your description are mongrels now. Identity is very important it doesn't always mean people are budding Nazis to think this.

Its very important to a lot of people, its don't preclude newcomers joining the culture or melding two cultures as you seem to be trying to make out that anyone proud of their long roots in a country is against. Being proud of your lineage, heritage & culture is not the perogative of racists or just the British. Think of it as a fruit tree which has to grow to a certain size then grafts from other trees are attached and become one with the tree, they blend, the original tree is still the original tree and always will be. A community would need to be completely cut off to remain totally pure, genes of various groups have been exchanged for all time including between Neanderthals and humans so all people outside of Africa are to some point mongrels of these and probably Denovisians and Cro Magnons and although we all come from the same place originally there is enough differences in the genome to tell us this.

No in the vast majority, like I said can you find me one single person that is solely descended from the original Brits that came from the Basque area? If not then everyone is mongrel something that escapes you at every turn. Now the majority will be descended through one line back to theses people original Brits, but that is through one line, even if both your parents were to descend back to this line they would no doubt still have other ethnic mixes. Seriously you think you are some exclusive club, when this land has been taking on migrants for centuries after centuries and as you are a cultural pessimist, you like many before you fear what you have is going to suddenly vanish into thin air just because some other people have come with different cultures. You will not be the first or last to suffer from this pessimism, but again as seen countless times your pessimism is completely unfounded. The fact is at some point there has always been a set of people against change, whether it be the vote for women to equal rights, to rock and roll to hip hop, you will always have some like you against something, even though you will find others that have no issue with it and before you come out with your usual bore on those from Islamic countries, many actually do adapt our ways, not all, not all Nepalese do either, or Indian but the majority do. It is a collective people that make a nation, not its bloodline, we can certainly be proud of the heritage and its history, but the reality is you like many no doubt have a very mixed ethnic root. For example, A genetic study of five thousand people found that up to four million men in England and Wales carry distinctive genetic signatures which are most commonly found, and likely have their origin, in Italy. There was you think you were Celtic, when the case maybe you are not, even the Celts did not come in great numbers, but their influence spread far and wide and they did mix also, hence Celtic genetic markers also, but they were also a mixed group. So your celtic culture comes far more from influence. So a few centuries or armed occupation has left this many with a Roman marker, even though many would also be descended to the first Brits.

Are you starting to see how mixed we are?


The DNA markers are much rarer in Ireland, where there was no Roman invasion, and Scotland where the armies' presence was limited to a brief occupation of some southern regions.
Researchers examined DNA from the Y chromosome, which is only passed on by men, and identified five rare patterns which are unusually common among English, Welsh and particularly Italian men.
The most prominent pattern, known as Alpine, R1b-S28, is found in 13 per cent of men in Italy and 6.5 per cent in England and Wales but just 4.3 per cent in Scotland and 1.8 per cent in Ireland, for example.
Applying the findings to the whole population, this suggests 1.6 million English and Welsh-born men carry the Alpine marker alone. A further 2.3 million English and Welsh men have one of the four other genetic signatures identified by the study.      


The fact is we like many Europeans are mixed, the above is just from the Romans coming for a few centuries.


You are also getting confused Denisovans and Cro Magnons are different species, humans are on race biologically

How is that confused we know that Neaderthals cross bred with humans we don't yet know what happened with Denisovans etc or any others that may have been about.
We are all mixed obviously markers go back a very long way but we have become nations with long lineages in those nations and people are proud of it, why is that a problem for some people?

Vintage wrote:

PhilDidge wrote:Of course it is a mongrel nation Vintage only one side is shown to have the same line back far enough, normally the mother, but not the case with the father, that would mean it is mixed. Yes the line goes back to the very first Britons, by they still bred with others that came to these shores, hence why in the south more have Anglo Saxon heritage, and in the north more Viking, you would be hard pressed to find someone completely descended to the first Brits who settled here, meaning very much mongrel, which to me has made for a better nation, as there is nothing wrong with that. Even more so if you go back far enough we are all related at some point, though why is it such s a big deal for you?  

Do you only get to call yourself English if you are of a certain ethnic group, of have for years people come here who were once say French, are now English are generations?

Thats not what has been found in the majority in a minority yes.
Why is it important? Why is being seen as French with a long lineage and culture important or a Zulu or Greek or German or Native American or Indian or Malaysian or how about the Irish and then there's Maoris who by your description are mongrels now. Identity is very important it doesn't always mean people are budding Nazis to think this.

Its very important to a lot of people, its don't preclude newcomers joining the culture or melding two cultures as you seem to be trying to make out that anyone proud of their long roots in a country is against. Being proud of your lineage, heritage & culture is not the perogative of racists or just the British. Think of it as a fruit tree which has to grow to a certain size then grafts from other trees are attached and become one with the tree, they blend, the original tree is still the original tree and always will be. A community would need to be completely cut off to remain totally pure, genes of various groups have been exchanged for all time including between Neanderthals and humans so all people outside of Africa are to some point mongrels of these and probably Denovisians and Cro Magnons and although we all come from the same place originally there is enough differences in the genome to tell us this.

Are you claiming most English people are in fact not really English at all?

Vintage wrote:How is that confused we know that Neaderthals cross bred with humans we don't yet know what happened with Denisovans etc or any others that may have been about.
We are all mixed obviously markers go back a very long way but we have become nations with long lineages in those nations and people are proud of it, why is that a problem for some people?

Yes we know also a small percentage of Africans also have Neanderthal genes, still different species the neanderthals.
No you are proud of a fabrication, it is a people collectively that makes a nation no matter where they originate from, because they grow up with varied views being free to decide.
I am very proud of our nation, you do not need to be exclusively from a nation to be part of it, are you now saying all those that fought and died foreign born to this nation were not one with this nation in its fight? My genetic roots even stem from Ireland back to England, so where does that leave me?
The reality is you hold a confused concept over who you are, which has as stated many different mixes, which makes no real difference, but to you it does, as to the making of a nation of great people., is about the unity of that people Why do you hold such silly views that you have to be of a line as if this would in someone make a group some what superior?