Spanish ancestors
Friday, September 29 2006
"Don't tell the locals, but the hordes of British holidaymakers who visited Spain this summer were, in fact, returning to their ancestral home. "
This is how an article starts in the independant online news. Professor Bryan Sykes, from the Oxford University, claims that British people of so-called Celtic ancestry are in fact decended from Spanish seafarers. The Ileach also wrote about it:
QUOTE:
One of Britain’s most prominent geneticists, Professor Bryan Sykes of Oxford University, is claiming that British people of so-called Celtic ancestry are in fact decended from Spanish seafarers who arrived in Britain by sea across the Bay of Biscay around 6,000 years ago. Traditionally it had been thought that the so called Celts comprise remnant populations of warrior tribes who originated in central Europe and spread throughout Germany France, Spain and Britain, only to be subsequently forced into the marginal western areas of Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Cornwall and Brittany etc by the Romans. Out on these wild margins the idea of a separate Celtic race has become deeply engrained in our cultural psyche, complete with its own languages, political systems, music and art. Professor Sykes claims to have debunked this myth using DNA samples from 10,000 volunteers in Britain and Ireland. His studies suggest that Iberian seafarers must have developed ocean-going boats that enabled them to sail to Britain - and it is their genetic fingerprints that are most prevalent in our modern population. The people with the next most widespread genetic trait originated as Viking invaders from Denmark and Norway while relatively small numbers of us are descended from north African, Middle Eastern and Roman clans.
Linking these DNA “fingerprints” through the paternal grandfather and mapping their place of birth, Prof Sykes has published a book called “Blood of the Isles” in which he has created the first genetic maps of the British Isles. Sykes’ maps show that while “Celts” (he calls them “Oisin”) are most dominant in areas of Ireland, Scotland and Wales they are also strongly represented in other parts of Britian. “Although Celtic countries have previously thought of themselves as being genetically different from the English, this is emphatically not the case.” says Sykes. “This is significant because the idea of a separate Celtic race is deeply engrained in our political structure and has historically been very divisive. Culturally, the idea of a separate race holds water, but from a genetic point of view, Britain is emphatically not a divided nation.” Archaeologists have long realised that most of our modern visions of Celtic people, including the Druidic cults, were actually the romantic invention of an 18th century clergyman historian turned fantasist called William Stukeley. It is perhaps unwise to be too critical however as historians are increasingly aware than few of the words used today to classify people stand up to much academic scrutiny.
UNQUOTE
The Scotsman also writes about this, which in fact is based on a book called Blood of the Isles
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Anyway, I know that I am not an expert on these matters (my understanding of DNA testing comes from the CSI programmes on TV!) but to me it looks like Sykes is preaching to the gullible - at least those that will run out and buy his books! It would be interesting to know what anyone else thinks!