Celts have been a breed apart for 10,000 years

[Vetinari]

For Celts who have long felt they are a breed apart from the English, help is at hand from an Oxford University academic.

In a new book, The Real Eve: Modern Man's Journey Out of Africa, Professor Stephen Oppenheimer suggests the distinction between the two peoples goes back 10,000 years - far further than thought.

Traditionally the difference between the English and Scots, Welsh, Irish and Cornish was attributed to the influence of invaders such as
the Anglo-Saxons, Celts and Vikings settling in the UK hundreds of years ago.

But Professor Oppenheimer says the Celts are descended from an ancient people living on the Atlantic coast when Britain was attached to Europe. The English are more closely related to the Germanic peoples of the interior.

"The English ... are more linked to continental Europe. The Scots, the Irish, the Welsh and the Cornish are similar in their genetic pattern to the Basque."

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/...p?story=510742

http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/13789.html

http://icperthshire.icnetwork.co.uk/...name_page.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3618613.stm

http://news.scotsman.com/education.cfm?id=411802004

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2767300

[Vestmannr]

Here's tae us. Wha's like us?

Damn few, and they're a' deid,

I dont think we should be that surprised. However, I seriously doubt that the Anglo-Saxon invasions were the first time that I Y-STR haplotypes had entered Britain.

[Strengthandhonour]

Sure is interesting. I always thoughtt he saxons and the celts had some sort of connection to one another. But I guess I was wrong..

[Vestmannr]

Well, sure we have a connection: incessant warfare

Seriously now, note it is a difference of 10,000 years. Heck, many 'Celts' and 'Saxons' share the Atlantic Modal Haplotype male lineage, IOW a good number of us had the same ancestors back during the last Ice Age. 8,000 years was enough time for divergence enough that there was conflict when we came back into contact.

'Celts' had such a diversity depending upon the place ... so I'm not so sure that every Anglo-Saxon was so foreign looking, and might not have looked similar to Britons, or even Gaels of certain tribes. Of course, it is a mistake to confuse modern Welsh with ancient Britons. The idea that Wales was populated by refugees from the east is pretty well debunked... whole parts of England are still far more 'Celtic' than the valleys of Wales: ie, Devonshire, Cornwall, Wiltshire, Somerset, Cumbria, Westmoreland, Lancashire, etc. I have a tendency to think that the Viking settlement was far more 'foreign' to those already in Britain, than were the Anglo-Saxon settlements.