The British ethnos has absorbed many features of the peoples who migrated from the European continent to the British Isles. However, scientists are still arguing about who is the main ancestor of the current inhabitants of the United Kingdom.
Settlement of the British Isles
For many years, a group of scientists led by Professor Chris Stringer from the Natural History Museum in London studied the process of settlement of the British Isles. Finally, the research results were released. Scientists have brought together archaeological data over the past centuries, thanks to which the chronology of the settlement of the islands has been built most fully.
According to published data, people made at least 8 attempts to settle in the territory of what is now Great Britain and only the last of them was successful. Man first arrived on the islands about 700 thousand years ago, which is also confirmed by DNA analysis. However, after several hundred thousand years, due to cold weather, people left these places. It was not difficult to carry out the exodus, since the islands and the continent at that time were connected by a land isthmus, which went under water approximately 6500 BC. e.
12 thousand years ago the last conquest of Britain took place, after which people never left it. Subsequently, new waves of continental settlers found themselves in the British Isles, creating a motley picture of global migration. However, this picture is still not clear. “The pre-Celtic substrate remains to this day an elusive substance that no one has seen, but at the same time few would dispute its existence,” writes British scientist John Morris Jones.
From Celts to Normans
The Celts are perhaps the most ancient people whose influence can be seen in present-day Britain. Presumably fleeing Roman rule, the Celts began to actively populate the British Isles from 500 to 100 BC. e. Celts who migrated from the territory French province Brittany, being skilled shipbuilders, most likely instilled sailing skills on the islands.
From the middle of the 1st century AD. e. The systematic expansion of Britain by Rome began. However, mainly the southern, eastern and partly central regions of the island underwent Romanization. The west and north, having put up fierce resistance, never submitted to the Romans.
Nevertheless, Rome had a significant influence on the culture and organization of life in the British Isles. The historian Tacitus describes the process of Romanization carried out by the Roman governor in Britain, Agricola: “He privately and at the same time providing support from public funds, praising the diligent and condemning the sluggish, persistently encouraged the British to build temples, forums and houses.”
It was during Roman times that cities first appeared in Britain. The colonists also introduced the islanders to Roman law and the art of war. However, in Roman politics there was more coercion than voluntary motives.
The Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain began in the 5th century. Warlike tribes from the banks of the Elbe quite quickly subjugated almost the entire territory of the present Kingdom. But along with belligerence, the Anglo-Saxon peoples, who had adopted Christianity by that time, brought a new religion to the islands and laid the foundations of statehood.
However, the Norman conquest of the second half of the 11th century radically influenced the political and state structure of Britain. The country has a strong royalty, the foundations of continental feudalism were transferred here, but most importantly, the political orientations changed: from Scandinavia to central Europe.
Commonwealth of the Four Nations
The nations that form the basis of modern Britain - the English, Scots, Irish and Welsh - emerged in the last millennium, largely facilitated by the historical division of the state into four provinces. The unification of four distinctive ethnic groups into a single nation of the British became possible due to a number of reasons.
During the period of great geographical discoveries(XIV-XV centuries) a powerful unifying factor for the population of the British Isles was the reliance on the national economy. It helped in many ways to overcome the fragmentation of the state, such as, for example, in the lands of modern Germany.
Britain unlike European countries Thanks to geographical, economic and political isolation, it found itself in a situation that contributed to the consolidation of society.
An important factor for the unity of the inhabitants of the British Isles was religion and the associated formation of a universal in English.
Another feature emerged during the period of British colonialism - this is the emphasized opposition between the population of the metropolis and the native peoples: “There are us - and there are them.”
Until the end of the Second World War, after which Britain ceased to exist as a colonial power, separatism in the Kingdom was not so clearly expressed. Everything changed when a stream of migrants - Indians, Pakistanis, Chinese, residents of the African continent and the Caribbean islands - poured into the British Isles from the former colonial possessions. It was at this time that the growth of national self-awareness intensified in the countries of the United Kingdom. Its apogee came in September 2014, when Scotland held its first independence referendum.
The trend towards national isolation is confirmed by recent sociological surveys, in which only a third of the population of Foggy Albion called themselves British.
British genetic code
Recent genetic research may provide new insights into both the ancestry of the British people and the uniqueness of the Kingdom's four main nations. Biologists from University College London examined a segment of the Y chromosome taken from ancient burials and concluded that more than 50% of the English genes contain chromosomes found in northern Germany and Denmark.
According to other genetic examinations, approximately 75% of the ancestors of modern Britons arrived on the islands more than 6 thousand years ago. Thus, according to DNA genealogist from Oxford Brian Sykes, in many ways the modern Celts’ ancestry is connected not with the tribes of central Europe, but with more ancient settlers from the territory of Iberia who came to Britain at the beginning of the Neolithic.
Other data from genetic studies conducted in Foggy Albion literally shocked its inhabitants. The results show that the English, Welsh, Scots and Irish are largely identical in their genotype, which deals a serious blow to the pride of those who pride themselves on their national identity.
Thus, medical geneticist Stephen Oppenheimer puts forward a very bold hypothesis, believing that the common ancestors of the British arrived from Spain about 16 thousand years ago and initially spoke a language close to Basque. The genes of the later “occupiers” - the Celts, Vikings, Romans, Anglo-Saxons and Normans, according to the researcher, were adopted only to a small extent.
The results of Oppenheimer's research are as follows: the genotype of the Irish has only 12% uniqueness, the Welsh - 20%, and the Scots and English - 30%. The geneticist supports his theory with the works of the German archaeologist Heinrich Hörcke, who wrote that the Anglo-Saxon expansion added about 250 thousand people to the two million population of the British Isles, and the Norman conquest even less - 10 thousand. So, despite all the differences in habits, customs and culture, residents of the countries of the United Kingdom have much more in common than it seems at first glance.
who were the ancient inhabitants of great britain and got the best answer
Answer from Tolik Panarin[guru]
Britons.
Answer from knock Knock[guru]
cannibals
Answer from Victor Veselkov[guru]
Shaved then Romans
Answer from Oleg Agarkov[guru]
Iberians, then Celts, then together with the Skelts, Romans, then Germans, Britons, Angles, then French-Normans were added
Answer from Chelovek[guru]
By 5000 BC. e. Britain finally turned into an island, inhabited by small tribes of hunters and fishermen.
Around 3000 BC e. The first wave of settlers arrived on the island, who grew grain, kept livestock and knew how to make pottery. Perhaps they came from Spain or even North Africa.
Following them around 2400 BC. e. other people arrived who spoke an Indo-European language and knew how to make tools from bronze.
Around 700 BC e. The Celts began to arrive on the islands, who were tall, blue-eyed people with blond or red hair. Perhaps they moved from central Europe or even from southern Russia. The Celts knew how to work iron and make better weapons, which convinced earlier inhabitants of the island to move further west to Wales, Scotland and Ireland. To consolidate their success, groups of Celts continued to move to the island in search of permanent residence over the next seven centuries.
Julius Caesar made an unofficial visit to the British Isles in 55 BC. e., but the Romans captured Britain only a century later, in 43 AD. e.
The Romans never conquered Scotland, although they tried for a good hundred years. They eventually built a wall along the northern border with unconquered lands, which later defined the border between England and Scotland. The wall was named after Emperor Hadrian, during whose reign it was erected.
With the collapse of the great Roman Empire came the end of Roman control over the British. In 409, the last Roman soldier left the island, leaving the "Romanized" Celts to be torn apart by the Scots, Irish and Saxons, who periodically raided from Germany.
The wealth of Britain by the fifth century, accumulated through years of peace and tranquility, haunted the hungry Germanic tribes. At first they raided the island, and after 430 they returned to Germany less and less, gradually settling in British lands. Illiterate and warlike people were representatives of three Germanic tribes - the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. The Angles captured the northern and eastern territories modern England, the Saxons are the southern territories, and the Jutes are the lands around Kent. However, the Jutes soon completely merged with the Angles and Saxons and ceased to be a separate tribe.
The British Celts were very reluctant to cede land to England, but under pressure from the better armed Anglo-Saxons they retreated to the mountains in the west, which the Saxons called "Wales" (land of strangers). Some Celts went to Scotland, while others became slaves of the Saxons.
The Anglo-Saxons created several kingdoms, the names of some of which still remain in the names of counties and districts, for example, Essex, Sussex, Wessex. A hundred years later, the king of one of the kingdoms proclaimed himself the ruler of England. King Offa was rich and powerful enough to dig a huge ditch along the entire length of the Welsh border. However, he did not control the lands of all of England and with his death his power came to an end.
The British Isles were inhabited by humans long before the Germanic tribes invaded Britain in the 5th century AD. e. The first population of the British Isles was a non-Indo-European tribe of Iberians, whose level of material culture belongs to the Neolithic (late Stone Age - approximately 3 millennium BC). The next settlers were the Celts - Indo-European tribes who settled in Britain in the 8th-7th centuries. BC e.
The Gaels were the first to appear on the island of Britain - one of the many Celtic tribes that inhabited the vast expanses of central and western Europe. Around 5th century BC e. The island of Britain experienced another invasion of the Celtic tribes - the Britons, who were superior to the Gaels in their culture. They pushed the Gaels to the north and settled in the southern part of the island. In the 2nd century. BC e. Celtic tribes of the Belgae appear on the island of Britain and settle among the Britons.
The Celts had a tribal system, the basis of which was clan, but a transition to royal power was already planned. With the spread of land ownership in Celtic society, a division emerged into classes of landowners, free farmers and semi-slaves.
By this time, the Celts were at a fairly high level of culture - they already knew how to cultivate the land with a hoe and a plow. The Celts built the first cities of Britain, which were essentially fenced villages. The Celts of this period did not have writing.
Celtic languages are divided into two main groups - Gallo-Breton and Gaelic. The Gaulish language was spoken by the population of Gaul - (territory modern France); British languages are divided into a) Breton (BretonorArmorican), preserved to this day in Brittany (northern France); b) Cornish, now extinct - the language of the population of Cornwall, which was spoken until the end of the 18th century; c) Welsh (KymricorWelsh), spoken by residents of Wales. The Gaelic group includes a) the language of the Highlands of Scotland (Scotch-GaelicoftheHighlands), b) Irish (Erse) and c) the Manx language (theManxlanguage), which was spoken on the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea (extinct in the 20th century).
Roman conquest. In the 1st century BC Celtic Britain is invaded by Roman legions. In 55, Julius Caesar, who had by this time conquered Gaul, undertook a campaign against the British Isles, landing in the south of Britain. This first campaign was not successful. The next year - 54 BC. e. - Caesar landed in Britain for the second time, defeated the Britons and reached the Thames River, but this time the Romans’ stay in Britain was only short. The lasting conquest of Britain began in 43 AD. e. under the emperor Claudius, under whom the entire southern and central part of the island passed into the hands of the Romans.
The Romans colonized the country and created many military camps from which English cities later developed. These are all those cities that contain in their names an element derived from the Latin castra “military camp, fortification”: Lancaster, Manchester, Chester, Rochester, Leicester. Among the largest trading centers were the cities of London (Londinium), York (Eburacum), Colchester (Camulodunum). The cities were inhabited by Roman legionaries and simple people of both Roman and Celtic origin. The urban population was apparently largely Romanized, mainly its upper strata. The Celtic nobility, along with the Roman patricians, also became the owners of large land holdings, gradually adopted Roman morals and customs, losing their folk features, which cannot be said about the rural population. History has not recorded any serious clashes local population and the Romans. The most serious known attempt at resistance by the Celts was the revolt led by Queen Boadice in 60 AD. e., which was suppressed by the Romans.
In the 80s, under Emperor Domitian, the Romans reached the rivers Glotta (now Clyde) and Bodotria (now Fort). Thus, the territory under their control included part of Scotland, including the areas of the modern cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow. Britain became a Roman province during this era. This colonization had a profound impact on Britain. Roman civilization - paved military roads (stratavia) and powerful walls (vallum>weall) of military camps - completely transformed the face of the country. To protect the borders of their possessions from their warlike northern neighbors, the Romans built defensive structures - Hadrian's or Roman Wall, which stretched south of mountainous Scotland, and at a distance of more than a hundred kilometers north of Hadrian's Wall, Antony's Wall was built.
The Latin language replaced the Celtic dialects in the cities and probably gained some popularity outside them. In any case, it was the language of administration and the army, and thus the language of communication of a very significant upper layer of society. In the 4th century, with the introduction of Christianity in the Roman Empire, it also spread among the Britons. However, Christian communities were apparently small in number.
The Romans ruled Britain for almost four centuries, until the beginning of the 5th century. In 410, under Emperor Constantine, the Roman legions were recalled from Britain to defend Rome from the advancing Germans (in this year Rome was taken by the Goths led by King Alaric). In addition to the endless attacks of barbarian tribes, including the Teutons, the empire was also threatened by the emergence of independent kingdoms in former Roman territories. Thus, the penetration of the Franks into Gaul finally cut off Britain from the Roman Empire.
After the Romans left, the Britons were left to their own on our own. The richest and most economically developed part of the island - the southeast - was devastated, many cities were destroyed. From the north, the Britons were threatened by tribes of Picts and cattle, and the southern part was attacked by Germanic tribes living on the continent.
It should be noted that since the Romans left Britain some time before the invasion of the West Germanic tribes there, there could be no direct contact between them in Britain. It follows that elements of Roman culture and language were adopted by the invaders from the Romanized Celts. However, it should not be forgotten that the Germanic tribes had already come into contact with the Romans and the Romanized populations of the continental provinces before their invasion of Britain. They met the Romans in battle, were brought to Rome as prisoners of war and slaves, were recruited into Roman forces, and finally traded with the Romans or Romanized Celtic merchants. Thus, through different ways Germanic tribes became acquainted with Roman civilization and the Latin language.
The British are a nation and ethnic group that makes up the main population of England and part of the former colonies; speak English. The nation was formed in the Middle Ages on the island of Great Britain from the Germanic tribes of the Angles, Saxons, Frisians and Jutes, as well as the Celtic population of the island assimilated in the 5th and 6th centuries.
The British ethnos has absorbed many features of the peoples who migrated from the European continent to the British Isles. However, scientists are still arguing about who is the main ancestor of the current inhabitants of the United Kingdom.
Settlement of the British Isles
For many years, a group of scientists led by Professor Chris Stringer, representing the Natural History Museum in London, studied the process of settlement of the British Isles. Scientists have brought together archaeological data over the past centuries, thanks to which the chronology of the settlement of the islands has been built most fully.
According to published data, people made at least 8 attempts to settle in the territory of what is now Great Britain, and only the last of them was successful.
Man first arrived on the islands about 700 thousand years ago, which is also confirmed by DNA analysis. However, after several hundred thousand years, due to cold weather, people left these places. It was not difficult to carry out the exodus, since the islands and the continent at that time were connected by a land isthmus, which went under water approximately 6500 BC. e.
12 thousand years ago the last conquest of Britain took place, after which people never left it. Subsequently, new waves of continental settlers found themselves in the British Isles, creating a motley picture of global migration. However, this picture is still not clear. “The pre-Celtic substrate remains to this day an elusive substance that no one has seen, but at the same time few would dispute its existence,” writes British scientist John Morris Jones.
From Celts to Normans
The Celts are perhaps the most ancient people whose influence can be seen in what is now Britain. They began to actively populate the British Isles from 500 to 100 BC. e. The Celts, who migrated from the territory of the French province of Brittany, being skilled shipbuilders, most likely instilled navigation skills on the islands.
From the middle of the 1st century AD. e. The systematic expansion of Britain by Rome began. However, mainly the southern, eastern and partly central regions of the island underwent Romanization. The west and north, having put up fierce resistance, never submitted to the Romans.
Rome had a significant influence on the culture and organization of life in the British Isles.
The historian Tacitus describes the process of Romanization carried out by the Roman governor of Britain, Agricola: “He, privately and at the same time providing support from public funds, praising the diligent and condemning the sluggish, persistently encouraged the British to build temples, forums and houses.”
It was during Roman times that cities first appeared in Britain. The colonists also introduced the islanders to Roman law and the art of war. However, in Roman politics there was more coercion than voluntary motives.
The Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain began in the 5th century. Warlike tribes from the banks of the Elbe quickly subjugated almost the entire territory of the present Kingdom. But along with belligerence, the Anglo-Saxon peoples, who had adopted Christianity by that time, brought a new religion to the islands and laid the foundations of statehood.
However, the Norman conquest of the second half of the 11th century radically influenced the political and state structure of Britain. A strong royal power appeared in the country, the foundations of continental feudalism were transferred here, but most importantly, the political orientations changed: from Scandinavia to central Europe.
Commonwealth of the Four Nations
The nations that form the basis of modern Britain - the English, Scots, Irish and Welsh - emerged in the last millennium, largely facilitated by the historical division of the state into four provinces. The unification of four distinctive ethnic groups into a single nation of the British became possible due to a number of reasons.
During the period of great geographical discoveries (XIV-XV centuries), reliance on the national economy was a powerful unifying factor for the population of the British Isles. It helped in many ways to overcome the fragmentation of the state, such as, for example, in the lands of modern Germany.
Britain, unlike European countries, due to its geographical, economic and political isolation, found itself in a situation that contributed to the consolidation of society.
An important factor for the unity of the inhabitants of the British Isles was religion and the associated formation of a universal English language for all British people.
Another feature emerged during the period of British colonialism - this is the emphasized opposition between the population of the metropolis and the native peoples: “There are us, and there are them.”
Until the end of the Second World War, after which Britain ceased to exist as a colonial power, separatism in the Kingdom was not so clearly expressed. Everything changed when a stream of migrants - Indians, Pakistanis, Chinese, residents of the African continent and the Caribbean islands - poured into the British Isles from the former colonial possessions. It was at this time that the growth of national self-awareness intensified in the countries of the United Kingdom. Its apogee came in September 2014, when Scotland held its first independence referendum.
The trend towards national isolation is confirmed by recent sociological surveys, in which only a third of the population of Foggy Albion called themselves British.
British genetic code
Recent genetic research may provide new insights into both the ancestry of the British people and the uniqueness of the Kingdom's four main nations. Biologists from University College London examined a segment of the Y chromosome taken from ancient burials and concluded that more than 50% of the English genes contain chromosomes found in northern Germany and Denmark.
According to other genetic examinations, approximately 75% of the ancestors of modern Britons arrived on the islands more than 6 thousand years ago.
Thus, according to Oxford DNA genealogist Brian Sykes, in many ways the modern Celts' ancestry is not connected with the tribes of central Europe, but with more ancient settlers from Iberia who came to Britain at the beginning of the Neolithic.
Other data from genetic studies conducted in Foggy Albion literally shocked its inhabitants. The results show that the English, Welsh, Scots and Irish are largely identical in their genotype, which deals a serious blow to the pride of those who pride themselves on their national identity.
Medical geneticist Stephen Oppenheimer puts forward a very bold hypothesis, believing that the common ancestors of the British arrived from Spain about 16 thousand years ago and initially spoke a language close to Basque.
The genes of later occupiers (Celts, Vikings, Romans, Anglo-Saxons and Normans), according to the researcher, were adopted only to a small extent.
The results of Oppenheimer's research are as follows: the genotype of the Irish has only 12% uniqueness, the Welsh - 20%, and the Scots and English - 30%. The geneticist supports his theory with the works of the German archaeologist Heinrich Hörcke, who wrote that the Anglo-Saxon expansion added about 250 thousand people to the two million population of the British Isles, and the Norman conquest even less - 10 thousand. So, despite all the differences in habits, customs and culture, residents of the countries of the United Kingdom have much more in common than it seems at first glance.
The British are a nation and ethnic group that makes up the main population of England and part of the former colonies; speak English. The nation was formed in the Middle Ages on the island of Great Britain from the Germanic tribes of the Angles, Saxons, Frisians and Jutes, as well as the Celtic population of the island assimilated in the 5th and 6th centuries.
The British ethnos has absorbed many features of the peoples who migrated from the European continent to the British Isles. However, scientists are still arguing about who is the main ancestor of the current inhabitants of the United Kingdom.
Settlement of the British Isles
For many years, a group of scientists led by Professor Chris Stringer, representing the Natural History Museum in London, studied the process of settlement of the British Isles. Scientists have brought together archaeological data over the past centuries, thanks to which the chronology of the settlement of the islands has been built most fully.
According to published data, people made at least 8 attempts to settle in the territory of what is now Great Britain, and only the last of them was successful.
Man first arrived on the islands about 700 thousand years ago, which is also confirmed by DNA analysis. However, after several hundred thousand years, due to cold weather, people left these places. It was not difficult to carry out the exodus, since the islands and the continent at that time were connected by a land isthmus, which went under water approximately 6500 BC. e.
12 thousand years ago the last conquest of Britain took place, after which people never left it. Subsequently, new waves of continental settlers found themselves in the British Isles, creating a motley picture of global migration. However, this picture is still not clear. “The pre-Celtic substrate remains to this day an elusive substance that no one has seen, but at the same time few would dispute its existence,” writes British scientist John Morris Jones.
From Celts to Normans
The Celts are perhaps the most ancient people whose influence can be seen in what is now Britain. They began to actively populate the British Isles from 500 to 100 BC. e. The Celts, who migrated from the territory of the French province of Brittany, being skilled shipbuilders, most likely instilled navigation skills on the islands.
From the middle of the 1st century AD. e. The systematic expansion of Britain by Rome began. However, mainly the southern, eastern and partly central regions of the island underwent Romanization. The west and north, having put up fierce resistance, never submitted to the Romans.
Rome had a significant influence on the culture and organization of life in the British Isles.
The historian Tacitus describes the process of Romanization carried out by the Roman governor of Britain, Agricola: “He, privately and at the same time providing support from public funds, praising the diligent and condemning the sluggish, persistently encouraged the British to build temples, forums and houses.”
It was during Roman times that cities first appeared in Britain. The colonists also introduced the islanders to Roman law and the art of war. However, in Roman politics there was more coercion than voluntary motives.
The Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain began in the 5th century. Warlike tribes from the banks of the Elbe quickly subjugated almost the entire territory of the present Kingdom. But along with belligerence, the Anglo-Saxon peoples, who had adopted Christianity by that time, brought a new religion to the islands and laid the foundations of statehood.
However, the Norman conquest of the second half of the 11th century radically influenced the political and state structure of Britain. A strong royal power appeared in the country, the foundations of continental feudalism were transferred here, but most importantly, the political orientations changed: from Scandinavia to central Europe.
Commonwealth of the Four Nations
The nations that form the basis of modern Britain - the English, Scots, Irish and Welsh - emerged in the last millennium, largely facilitated by the historical division of the state into four provinces. The unification of four distinctive ethnic groups into a single nation of the British became possible due to a number of reasons.
During the period of great geographical discoveries (XIV-XV centuries), reliance on the national economy was a powerful unifying factor for the population of the British Isles. It helped in many ways to overcome the fragmentation of the state, such as, for example, in the lands of modern Germany.
Britain, unlike European countries, due to its geographical, economic and political isolation, found itself in a situation that contributed to the consolidation of society.
An important factor for the unity of the inhabitants of the British Isles was religion and the associated formation of a universal English language for all British people.
Another feature emerged during the period of British colonialism - this is the emphasized opposition between the population of the metropolis and the native peoples: “There are us, and there are them.”
Until the end of the Second World War, after which Britain ceased to exist as a colonial power, separatism in the Kingdom was not so clearly expressed. Everything changed when a stream of migrants - Indians, Pakistanis, Chinese, residents of the African continent and the Caribbean islands - poured into the British Isles from the former colonial possessions. It was at this time that the growth of national self-awareness intensified in the countries of the United Kingdom. Its apogee came in September 2014, when Scotland held its first independence referendum.
The trend towards national isolation is confirmed by recent sociological surveys, in which only a third of the population of Foggy Albion called themselves British.
British genetic code
Recent genetic research may provide new insights into both the ancestry of the British people and the uniqueness of the Kingdom's four main nations. Biologists from University College London examined a segment of the Y chromosome taken from ancient burials and concluded that more than 50% of the English genes contain chromosomes found in northern Germany and Denmark.
According to other genetic examinations, approximately 75% of the ancestors of modern Britons arrived on the islands more than 6 thousand years ago.
Thus, according to Oxford DNA genealogist Brian Sykes, in many ways the modern Celts' ancestry is not connected with the tribes of central Europe, but with more ancient settlers from Iberia who came to Britain at the beginning of the Neolithic.
Other data from genetic studies conducted in Foggy Albion literally shocked its inhabitants. The results show that the English, Welsh, Scots and Irish are largely identical in their genotype, which deals a serious blow to the pride of those who pride themselves on their national identity.
Medical geneticist Stephen Oppenheimer puts forward a very bold hypothesis, believing that the common ancestors of the British arrived from Spain about 16 thousand years ago and initially spoke a language close to Basque.
The genes of later occupiers (Celts, Vikings, Romans, Anglo-Saxons and Normans), according to the researcher, were adopted only to a small extent.
The results of Oppenheimer's research are as follows: the genotype of the Irish has only 12% uniqueness, the Welsh - 20%, and the Scots and English - 30%. The geneticist supports his theory with the works of the German archaeologist Heinrich Hörcke, who wrote that the Anglo-Saxon expansion added about 250 thousand people to the two million population of the British Isles, and the Norman conquest even less - 10 thousand. So, despite all the differences in habits, customs and culture, residents of the countries of the United Kingdom have much more in common than it seems at first glance.