The English and the Celts - no genocide?

[Robert Vermaat]

This is from Keith J Fitzpatrick-Matthews from the BritArch list:

The final problem, as I see it, is that the idea that languages are somehow linked to genes has long been discredited. So what if we have long-term DNA continuity among the population in lowland Britain? So what if the ancestors of this population can be hypothesised as arriving via the (then dry) North Sea basin during the Mesolithic?
Keith J Fitzpatrick-Matthews

Although I have not read the whole work in context, Fitzpatrick-Matthews, above, seems to imply by his "so what"s that it is of no great significance whether the population of lowland Britain arrived across the North Sea basin or not. At the risk of stating the obvious, this may be the case when discussing language,

Which is exactly what Keith was talking about, the significance (or lack of it) between the actual movement (not if they migrated or not) and their hypothesised language. Nothing more.

On the language side, there is no reason whatever why someone whose ancestors came from Northern Europe shouldn't speak a Celtic language, or vice versa. Similarly there is a danger of assuming monoglot homogeneity; perhaps some groups spoke a Germanic language and some spoke a Celtic one. Perhaps being multilingual was commonplace, as it is many parts of the world today (great respect to RAT members for whom English is not their mother tongue). Perhaps…well, I think you get the point. So, although genetic makeup must still be considered to be one of a complex basket of markers to indicate probable cultural and linguistic behaviours, I'll accept the 'so what' in the linguistic context.

Yes, I already assumed that you and Keith (and myself) were on the same wave-length..
I see no reason why pre-Roman inhabitants of eastern Britain are supposed NOT to have spoken Celtic (and Keith gives plenty of reason to strengthen my beliefs). Furthermore, there is the difficulty oif the development of that hypothesised pre-Roman English - why would it have developed in exactly the same manner as we now suppose Old English developed 9as a derivative of other northern germ,anic languages that we know). This hypothesised 'insular English' that people want to see would have been as isolated from continental proto-English as, say, Anatolian Celts would have been from Celts in Gaul! Yet, the hypothesis is based on modern English place-names, which go back on a language that arrived from northern Germany, 15 centuries ago, instead of from 'somewhere' on the continent (where on earth?), 16 millennia ago?

However, on the genetics side the picture is different. If the population of lowland Britain was essentially 'celtic' and homogenous both within itself and with the equally 'celtic' highland population then the invasion, migration and genocide scenario's take front stage.

I agree, although we can discuss 'when' that took place. Myself, I'm for the 'gradual' migration, mixed with smaller 'invasions' from the 5th to 7th c., while I think that a later 'genocide' (better re-frased as massive ethnic cleaning I think) took place between the 7thy and 8th c., varying in time and intesity from place to place.

If, on the other hand, the lowland brits were already indistinguishable genetically from the people on the other side of the North Sea, while invasion theories are not ruled out, the possibility emerges of a very different set of less violent scenarios, which have the advantage of fitting both the emerging dirt archaeology and (most of the) more recent genetic studies far better.

That you should split out more I think. Define 'Lowland'? If you mean the Lowland zone, then I must disagree. But if you mean the areas opposite the continent, then I would agree that, during the Roman period (and before and after) one cannot deny that a constant travel of people from one shore to the other must have taken place. I mean, don't we see the same for the Irish Sea region?

I agree with Keith though that most genetic studies pose more problems than that they present clear-cut answers. Some are in direct opposition, while I keep maintaining that studies of modern dna provide only answers if you have a solid model of the relation between modern populations and the ones in, say, 16000 BC or 600 AD.