[History] Who Are the British

[Raglan]

Original Thread: Who Are the British
Author: Ferrets54

Who Are the British

The School book version

The myth of the origins of the British is pretty well know and almost entirely unquestioned, even if this myth may well change slightly from nation to nation. The school text books certainly convey the myth, and I'm pretty sure any of our parents would relate it word for word, and never think to question it. It's quite simple really.

It goes like this. In the beginning, there was Stonehenge. Then the Celts came over from central Europe, and did some charming things with spirals.



The Romans invade, and give us an excuse to spend the majority of the 19th century putting Corinthian columns on the front of every public building. They then bugger off, and after a confusing interlude where the French write the story of King Arthur the Saxons and the Angles come from over the North Sea and set up England. In the meantime somebody's probably setting up Scotland but Mel Gibson hasn't got round to this so we don't really know off the top of our head's, we'll check wikipedia later.

The Saxons bumble along quite nicely for a few centuries, burying ships, fighting the Vikings, but then get taken over by the Normans, who decide we're going to start referring to meat in French and animals in German. And that leaves us the Welsh, Irish, English and Scots all nicely defined into their little national niches.

Of course, it's all bollocks.

The beginning



Welcome to Britain, 20,000 years ago, the Last Glacial Maximum. This is the height of the last Ice Age. Almost all of Britain is covered by permanent ice, the southern extremes an uninhabitable polar desert. Europe is barely recognisable, significantly lower sea levels mean that the coast is only vaguely like the one we know today, and the British Isles, including Ireland, are connected to the mainland by a plain stretching across the modern day English Channel and North Sea. Those human species that once inhabited the British Isles have long since perished or fled south to the small refuges where homo sapiens still clings on to Europe - one in Iberia, the other in the Ukraine.

We British can join up with the majority of our common ancestors some 16,000 years ago, as the Ice Age finally begins to relent, and Europe enters the Late Glacial Maximum

Out of Iberia

16,000 years ago the first hunter gatherers, our ancestors, begin moving north from the Iberian refuge. The earliest known reoccupation of north-west Europe is in the Rhineland where the Magdalenian culture, a culture split from the northern side of the Iberian refuge, is present. From here Magdalenian sites appear in Belgium, the Netherlands, northern Germany and Poland. The females of the Magdalenian culture carried two female gene lines north with them; H and Pre-V. They are splits from an older female colonist line of Europe; HV. HV was born 30,000 years ago and her line arrived in Europe 10,000 years before the Last Glacial Maximum, in a secondary colonist wave entering Europe. To underline the importance of these early Iberian colonists, H is now the most common female line in Europe, accounting for about half the gene lines in the west.



15,000 years ago and Europe is now much more habitable. The ice has retreated to Scandinavia, the Baltic and northern Britain, and the sea between Iceland and Britain is water once again. Although Britain and the North Sea Plain remain a polar desert, semi-desert and steppe is opening up across Europe. This may not sound ideal to you or me, but for hunter gathers it is wide open spaces, and big game. This is the beginning of a period of European history with a level of human expansion that shall not be seen again until the Industrial Revolution. To the east other survivors are expanding out of the Ukrainian and Moldovan refuges, founding thriving communities in central Europe.

Pioneers reached the western coast of the British arm of Europe only slightly later than the continental north-west. A culture known as Creswellian established various sites across the coast of the British Isles, still a part of continental Europe. They occupied areas as far north as Nottinghamshire, and had other sites in Devon, Somerset (including Cheddar Gorge) and south-west Wales. There is no evidence of Creswellians in Ireland, but any such coastal sites would be under the sea today, and out of our reach. The Creswellians appear to have crossed the North Sea plain and established sites in Belgium, the Netherlands and especially Frisia.



Among these early Britons is the gene line of one of the great British matriarchs - V. V is a descendent of Pre-V and almost certainly was born in the Iberian Refuge. Her line were among those expanding up the Atlantic coast, and is found mostly (with an exception of the Saami, but this reflects their late founding event and tiny founding population) in south-west France and in decling rates up the Atlantic coast. Around 5% of British women are (n)great-grandaughters of V. Another British matriarch was a daughter of H - H1. Again, H1 was born in the Iberian refuge and her line was among the first northern migrants. You will remember that 50% of British women are the great-grandaughters of H. Of this 50%, 45% are the descendents of H1, and they appear mostly in Cornwall and southern Ireland - the areas of Britain still above water that were close to the coast as these women knew it.



Male gene lines tell a similar story of men expanding out of the Iberian refuge and up the Atlantic coast into Britain. The largest of these lines is that of R, who is the great-grandfather of half of Europe's men. R was from eastern Europe. His descendents moved into central Europe 30,000 years ago, and moved into south-western Europe before the Last Glacial Maximum set in.

Only one surviving son of R emerged from the Iberian refuge after the LGM, R1b. R1b is the great-grandfather of 90% of all Basque men and the frequency of his sons drops off the further north and east you go into Europe. He is great-grandfather of 60% of French men, 50% of German men, 36% of Danish men and 18% of Estonian men. But in Britain it is even more dramatic. R1b is the great-grandfather of 90% of all men in Ireland, Wales and Cornwall, the surviving areas of the Paleolithic British coast. R1b has about eleven defined sons, whose lines have seperate distributions in Britain.

So here we have Iberian beach combers founding the British population on the Atlantic coast. But what of Eastern Britain? You will remember that I touched upon similarly intrepid pioneers making their way out of the Ukrainian refuge. After the LGM, about 14,000 - 13,000 years ago, I1c arrives on the scene from this refuge. His sons make it to northern Germany and Eastern England, but is only father to 13% of men living in these localities, and 3.3% of Britons generally. But this is very important - we are proving that the populations of Eastern England and northern Germany are genetically similar from right after the LGM - which undermines those suggesting that this similarity was from Dark Age intrusions, and remember the fact that the Creswellians have sites on both sides of the North Sea. The centre of the distribution of I1c's sons is now deep beneath the North Sea.

The Younger Dryas Event



13,000 years ago. The steppe of continental Europe is changing from grassland to forest. Traces of human activity begin to decline, due to the decreasing hunting area. Humans begin to move from the plains to the low hills, where there are fewer trees. The North Sea is still steppe plain, and the encroaching forest probably explains the expansion of I1c.

I hope you have not got too attached to your new found family, because I am afraid I am going to have to inform you of the widescale horrible deaths of most of them. This wave of colonisation suffers a set back when a geologically brief event known as the Younger Dryas kicks in 12,500 years ago. The weather becomes more eratic, and much colder. 12,300 years ago and Europe is suddenly plunged back into another period of glaciation. The Ice Caps retook Scandinavia and the Scottish Highlands and Pennine Mountains.

But it appears that the children of I, H, V and R all hung on, albeit in depleted numbers, tolerating the the steppe tundra of southern Britain, leaving behind, bone, antler and ivory artifacts. Also, one of R's sons is unique to the British Isles, and could not have recolonised from elsewhere.

The Younger Dryas ended even quicker than it began, in about fifty years. Europe emerges from the Younger Dryas event 11,500 years ago, and it has never been as cold since. Europe entered the Holocene Epoch. The steppe disappeared completely. The mammoths, wolly rhinoceros and giant deer disappeared with it. Elk and reindeer moved further north. The woods closed in, and wild pig, red deer and aurochs colonised the land. Sea levels rose at a dramatic rate, culminating in the flood of the Black Sea 7,500 years ago. Welcome to the Mesolithic.

Spring time for Hunting and Gathering

Stone tools, microliths, in use in Africa and India for 20,000 years, appear in Europe. Our mesolithic ancestors, adapting to the more difficult hunting environment in the hinterlands move to the coasts and develop more reliance on seafood. Beautiful bone fish hooks, carved painted wooden paddles, wicker fish-traps, spears, bows, ropes, woven textiles and log-boats are among preserved artifacts from the North Sea coast, still connecting Denmark and England. Such settlements are found in Scotland and Ireland. On the Island of Risga, at the mouth of Lock Sunart the inhabitants ate shellfish, nine species of fish, eleven species of water birds, including Great Auk, two species of seals, red deer, wild pig and vegetables. In Ireland large wooden buildings up to six meters in diameter suggest an increase in communal living. Later in the Mesolithic the Irish Sea finally formed modern day Ireland, disconnected from the rest of Britain.

The greatest density of these settlements was in the south of England, thriving trade already being conducted between them. Britain is slowly seeming more recognisable.

During the Mesolithic there is a fresh gene flow into Britain, mostly into the west and south, again from Iberia. 11% of overall British maternal lines come from Mesolthic migration up the Atlantic coast - these are granddaughters of H. One of these, H3, contributes to 7% of the Irish gene pool - illustrating the coastal nature of this migration. A grandson of R1b, R1b-10, established nine gene lines in Iberia which all expanded up the coast to Britain in the Mesolithic onwards from about 11,500 years ago. R1b-10 core gene type is known as the Atlantic Modal Haplotype since it is the most common single Y gene type in Western Europe, accounting for 18% of British and 19% of Basques. Another succesful Mesolithic immigrant was R1b-8, defined by the root Frisian Modal Haplotype. Well represented in Denmark and Frisia, his descendents are also common in southern England, again, showing the connection to be an ancient one. Furthermore R1b-8 is more diverse in Britain than Frisia, implying he arrived in Britain first. I type gene flow enters Eastern Britain, giving a small overall contribution of 3%.

The Neolithic: Farming and Metals



The first crops were planated in the Middle East 10,000 years ago, when our ancestors are living in their seaside settlements hunting and gathering. Agriculture did not reach Britain until 6,500 - 5,500 years ago, by two different routes, reflecting the waves of colonisation - one along the Meditterean, around Iberia and up the Atlantic coast and another through central Europe into Eastern England, across the now fully formed English Channel and North Sea.

The first evidence for Neolithic agriculture in Britain is at Cambridge and Norfolk, 6,300 - 6,200 years ago, respectively. This expanded rapidly, right up to Orkney, and the ruined settlement of Skara Brae.

On the other side of the British Isles people were reaping the benefits of the developing Atlantic trade network. Hunter gatherers on the Dingle Peninsula in south west Ireland had acquired polished Neolithic stone axes and cattle by 6,100 years ago. A type of stone tomb associated with Brittany also appears in Ireland long before agriculture, further reinforcing the theory of Atlantic trade networks, and the Irish as rather sophisticated traders.

Two types of pottery are sweeping through Europe at this time, carrying with them the first basic agriculture. LBK (Linearbandkeramik) forms in Hungary 7,500 years ago, and is in France by 7,000 years ago. It avoided the settled Mesolithic communities on the coasts, but was in Normandy by 6,500 years ago. Cardinal Ware is the other type, which spreads from the Italian coast to the Meditterean coasts of Spain and France by 9,000 years ago. From here they followed what would be the Greek and Phoenician trade routes to the Atlantic coast settlements. In between these two pincer movements is another style, La Hoguette. Its northern spread is accompanied by pastralism, horticulture and cereal agriculture on a small scall, along with a species of poppy, and hybridises with LBK.

There is more gene flow to Britain during the Neolithic, from the same two routes as before, except this time the southern route carries in Near Eastern genetic markers, bypassing the Basque Country, which remains a Mesolithic island, with only 7% Neolithic intrusion. Three main Near Eastern maternal gene lines enter Europe during the Neolithic, J, T1 and U3, accounting for 20% of the extant European maternal gene pool. However, these lines enter 9,000 years ago - the Near East Neolithic, but the European Mesolithic. This makes it difficult to attribute the Near Eastern gene flow to superior technology.

A line called J2 mirrors the spread of Cardinal Ware, along Italy, the Meditterean French and Spanish coasts, bypassing the Basque country and then arriving on the Atlantic coast. However, from here is jumps into the British Isles, where it is now associated particular with Goidelic speaking areas. J1b1 arrived in Scotland from Norway, an early indicator of developing North Sea connections. J1a mirrors the spread of LBK, and arrives in eastern England from Northern Germany, and is now present at a rate of up to 2.5% in eastern Britain.

Moving on to male lines there is also migration from Norway, especially to Shetland and Orkney but also as far south and centre as the Megalithic centre of Wessex. Similar migration from Denmark settled in Eastern England. But you may have noticed that none of these reach figures as significant as the earlier migrations.

In summary Neolithic migration accounts for between 10% and 30% of extant British populations today, again from the southern Atlantic route ultimately from the Near East and from across the North Sea, but this time from Scandinavia.

Summary

So at the Neolithic the genetic picture of Britain is starting to look very complete, and regional identity is already well under way, egged on by differing sources of influence. The original colonists from Iberia had already re-expanded and changed to form a divide between Ireland, Wales, Cornwall and the Atlantic Scottish coast in contrast to the rest of the British Isles receiving more influence from the east. We can also see how sophisticated and ancient maritime connections were, firstly along the Atlantic seaboard and later across the North Sea.

But genetics nations do not make! Tomorrow I will be further discussing the matter with more focus on culture, language and what the dawn of history has to say on the matter. We'll meet nationalistic Welsh saints, confused Northumbrian monks, try to place the embarrassingly orphaned Picts and much more!

In Ireland almost all Neolithic male expansion were from indigenous gene lines, which also entered Wales. There were re-expansions of indigenous gene lines in the Fens and North Wales, too, and a main re-expansion of a gene line from southern England. We'll see that the Celts aren't from central Europe, the Saxons aren't from Denmark or Germany and the Vikings may have been doing that for centuries (and may well have not all been Viking at all).