Modern Genetics Show That Anglo-Saxons Compose Only 5% of Modern Day British DNA Markers

[BurgMeister]

Both Oppenheimer's 'Origins of the British' and Bryan Sykes' 'Blood of the Isles' confirm this.
Don't you find all this a bit troubling?

[Méldmir]

Germanics in England may pre-date the Anglo-Saxons.

http://www.proto-english.org/

Of course, that theory is far from main-stream yet, but as we know, history has changed alot in modern times as new evidence is found. The authors of that site have alot of evidence to back up their claims, so it's not some weird conspiracy thing. Maybe in 10 years that theory is much more wide-spread than now.

The authors of that site, also agree with Oppenheimer's genetic test results. The reason why Anglo-Saxon DNA is so uncommon in England, is because there never were many Anglo-Saxons in England, but there were other, older Germanic tribes.

[Huginn ok Muninn]

After the last Ice Age ended (about 8000 BC) , there were two language families in Britain: primordial Germanic east of the Pennines and primordial Brythonic in the west [1]. When agriculture arrived (about 4500 BC) both languages were developed into the ancestors of proto-English and proto-Welsh respectively . The proto-English zone was split into two regions: the Midlands and the Northeast were one zone, the South and Southeast were another. Both initially spoke a different variant of the Germanic idiom.

Poppycock.

[Méldmir]

Hmm, but you can read the others things as well, whether you beleive it or not it's interesting with "alternative history"

Anyway, either this theory above is true, or the genetics of the English is mostly Celtic. In the latter case, it would be strange that so many Celts would start speaking a Germanic language.

[Agrippa]

Actually, if the amount of Anglo-Saxon is so low, we shouldnt assume that the majority of the British population was Celtic, because unless this being proven, we deal with a pre-Anglo Saxon/pre-Germanic population, in which the Celts might have been a smaller minority themselves.

Dont forget, even though some use it that way, the Celts in Britain were no "aboriginals" in the sense of the oldest populations, Britain became "Celticised" as it was "Germanised" later.

The majority of the British might be derived from much older layers with a pre-Indoeuropean background, with the Celtic AND Germanic input from the continent being both the minority actually. British popular science is just so crappy in their designations, I mean "Celtic" for groups of todays British which have close to zero Central European input from after 2000 B.C.! Whats Celtic about that if they are not Celts by language neither any more? Nothing...

But again, that are all at best preliminary results, just the best we have until we get new data. Actually I would be always very careful with those genetic data, they suggest an objective character and interpretation, which might not be based on actual hard facts and data which allows such conclusions.

In any case, it seems to be obvious that the Germanic, not just Anglo-Saxon, contribution varied regionally very strongly and doesnt make up the majority of the population in Britain.

[BurgMeister]

You're right, but even then; such Germanic rantings wouldn't go above 25% according to I Y-DNA haplogroup frequencies (R1b1c9 also counted as Celto-Germanic).
The further we move towards the Atlantic coast, the higher Basque R1b frequencies we find.
So such Germanic presence in Britain is relatively confined to East Anglia and other regions.

The Viking factor, however; is quite seducing.

My genetic results showed that my maternal side reached the isles with Germanised Slavic Vikings!

[Agrippa]

Yet the male contribution is just one side and R1b is not Basque neither, but just another haplogroup. Actually some of the Celts, Germanics and Vikings might have been R1b actually.

So I wonder how they sometimes know for sure, whether a specific genetic variant came into Britain pre-Indoeuropean, Celtic, earlier Germanic, Viking etc. There are clear cases of course, but there are also many unclear ones, if just thinking about the fact that the borderline between Celts and Germanic wasn't always that sharp neither.

[Méldmir]

We have to keep in mind that the English speak English, and how could that language been spread to all layers of society with just some Anglo-Saxons arriving?

I know much of history is just a mist, so I'm not saying I believe anything to be facts.

[BurgMeister]

You're right, considering that fact that 'Viking', 'Celt' and 'Germanic' are way too young to be used, let it be; in their 'proto' forms.

R1b1c9 is a notable case of Belgic (Celto-Germanic) genetics.

[Agrippa]

We have to keep in mind that the English speak English, and how could that language been spread to all layers of society with just some Anglo-Saxons arriving?

I know much of history is just a mist, so I'm not saying I believe anything to be facts.

That has nothing to say though, because the Hungarians speak a Finno-Ugrian, Turks a Turkic language, yet both have just a minimum amount of Finno-Ugrian or Turki genetic and racial input respectively.

Actually the "Celticisation" of large parts of Europe too, might have happened with a minimum input of...and so on.

Very small groups of people can get a socially dominant position, from which they begin to change the people, including their language. The opposite can happen too, a large group of dominant immigrants learns the language of the subjected people - both is possible and its often about details whether this or that scenario becomes reality.