Saturday, March 10, 2012

What are the DNA and other origins of the English people?

What are the DNA and other origins of the English people?

I heard that the English are Germanic, so is that German? I also heard that the English have Danish in them. What is Germanic? Where did the English come from?What are the DNA and other origins of the English people?
First, I'll mention that all native Europeans descend from one of 9 different women--so all are very interrelated!

At one time it was believed that the English were all descended from invading Angles,Saxons, and Jutes, Germanic peoples who arrived enmasse in the 5th c,with some later viking input, but it's not as simple as that. There were already 3 million people in what is now England when these Germanic people arrived. We used to call them 'celtic' but that's not really a correct tag either; mainly they were the descendants of hunter gatherers and neolithic farmers who had been in the British Isles for thousands of years. Most originally reached the British Isles from places along the old trade-way of the western seaboard--especially from Iberia down to Brittany.

Due to the change of language and some monastic accounts, it was once believed the Germanic tribes killed or drove off pretty much ALL the natives. Now think about it, there would have been between 20,000 and 200,000 max Angles/saxons/jutes including,presumably, women and children if it was a folk migration. Could they really get rid of vastly superior numbers? It seems unlikely,and even more unlikely since very little physical evidence of mass killing, no huge grave sites etc.

It is more likely they pushed there way in, grabbed the best lands and dominated the area with their language and customs. Lots of 'natives' were doubtless still about but perhaps 'second class citizens.' Interestingly, several early 'saxon' kings mentioned in their own legend such as Cerdic and Cynric, actually have CELTIC names that have been 'Anglicized'! So along the way they were adopting local history/myth into their own.

Dna testing has found most saxon genes in the East and some places in middle England. The west is far more aboriginal, with Cornwall sharing most of its Dna with Wales. In any event, the 'old' types are still as prevalent as the later ones,across most of England; as Churchill said, the English might more accurately be called 'anglo celtic.'
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