The Anglo-Saxon Misconception

It has often been asserted in the absence of strong evidence until
relatively recent times that the English are overwhelmingly of Anglo-Saxon
ancestry, with little if any genetic inheritance from the previous Roman,
Celtic, and pre-Celtic or Iberian-Basque-Berber peoples. The Basques, like
the Berbers and the ancient Iberians, speak or spoke a non-Indo-European
language. The Iberians, before the Celtic, Greek, Roman, and Visigothic
invasions, spoke a non-Indo-European language. Even the Irish and Welsh, who
have long been assumed to be of overwhelmingly Celtic ancestry, have been
discovered to be of largely Basque origin in recent DNA studies, and unlike
the Celtic dialects, the Basque language is definitely not an Indo-European
language. The Irish have been found to be only about 20% Celtic in their
paternal Y chromosome ancestry, and about 1% Celtic in their maternal X
chromosome or MtDNA [ i.e. Mitochondrial Deoxy ribo nucleic acid ] ancestry.
For the Welsh, the figures are about 10% Celtic for the Y chromosome and
about 1% for the X Chromosome or MtDNA. In addition, the Basque genetic
inheritance has found to be more common in Scotland, England, Cornwall,
France, Belgium, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, and Germany than hitherto
expected.

In the Neolithic era, the Berbers of North Africa, who are the distant
cousins of the Arabic peoples of the Middle East, migrated into what is now
southern Europe from North Africa via the narrow Strait of Gibraltar, and
from Spain they spread out into western and northwestern Europe. The Basques
have been shown by DNA tests to be closely related to several Berber tribes
in North Africa. During the period from around 8,000-4,000 B.C., and also
from around 26,000-20,000 B.C., the Sahara and Arabian Desert was similar in
vegetation and fauna to the African savannas and light woodlands of today.
Around 17,000 B.C., during the height of the last Ice Age, sea levels
worldwide were about 130 meters lower than today, because so much of the
world's water was locked up in polar ice caps and glaciers, and because of
the lower sea levels, a near land bridge used to exist where the Strait of
Gibraltar is today, and of course there was a land bridge where the Strait
of Dover, the English Channel, the North Sea, and the Irish Sea are found
today. Another near land bridge existed where the sea separates Sicily from
North Africa, and during the height of the last Ice Age, the Strait of
Messina, which now separates Sicily from Italy, was a land bridge at the
time. The northern half of the Adriatic Sea also had a land bridge at the
height of the last Ice Age. The Aegean Sea, which today separates Greece
from Turkey, had many near land bridges during the height of the last Ice
Age, and the Strait of the Hellespont, Dardanelles, Gallipoli, or Troad, as
well as the Strait of the Bosporus, Bosphorus, Byzantium, Constantinople, or
Istanbul, where dry rift valleys when the Ice Age was at its most severe,
thus linking the Balkans with what is today Turkey. During the height of the
last Ice Age, the highest peaks of the Atlas Mountains of North Africa, as
well as the highest peaks of the coastal mountains of what are today part of
Syria and Lebanon, had minor glaciers or at least heavier snowfall, and
despite the effects of global warming [ for example Mt. Kilimanjaro ],
overgrazing, overcultivation, excessive deforestation, and soil erosion, the
Atlas Mountains and the mountains of Lebanon still have some forests left to
this day. Because of these above-mentioned facts, it is possible to see why
the original pre-Greek language of Greece, i.e. the Pelasgian, Eteo-Cretan
or Minoan languages, all of which are non-Indo-European languages, are
distantly related to the non-Indo-European languages of the Lydians and of
the Georgians of the Caucasus Mountains, or why the pre-Italic or Latin
languages of Italy, for example Ligurian and Elymian, were non-Indo-European
languages related to the Berber dialects of North Africa. In prehistoric and
ancient times, people often travelled the short distances provided by
glacial near land bridges by using wooden rafts, dugout cannoes, or
coracles, i.e. boats made of wooden frames or branches covered by
waterproofed animal skins or barks. Coracles are still used in remote parts
of Ireland, Wales, and Scotland to this day.

To return to the Anglo-Saxon topic, it has been alleged by some geneticists
that the Anglo-Saxons largely had a policy of genocide and expulsion towards
the previous inhabitants of what is today England, because DNA tests have
shown the English to be closely related to the Frisian peoples of The
Netherlands, who today speak a Germanic dialect. Nevertheless, it must also
be remembered that at one time the Indo-European speaking Celts could also
be found in The Netherlands, as well as far east as up the Weser River in
Germany, and as far north as the Thuringian mountains of Germany. It is
often remarked that the Germanic or Nordic peoples are usually long or
narrow headed or dolichocephalic, and often have light skin colour and
blonde or blond hair. Then again, many Celtic peoples also have blonde or
blond hair and light skin colour, as do the Lithuanian, Latvian, and Slavic
Indo-European speakers, and as the Indo-European Latin, Iranian,
Illyrian-Thracian [ of whom the Albanians are partly descended from ] and
Greek peoples once originally had. However, unlike the Germanic or Nordic
branches of the Indo-European language family, the Celts, Slavs,
Lithuanians, and Latvians are usually brachycephalic, that is, short or
broad headed. In addition, many inhabitants of Europe are neither
dolichocephalic or brachycephalic, but are mesochephalic, or medium-headed,
needer dolichocephalic or brachycephalic. The Celts seem to have originally
come from what is now Germany south of the Thuringian Mountains, i.e.
Franconia, Bavaria, and Swabia, as well as from Switzerland and Austria, and
from around 1500 B.C. onwards they spread into other western and
northwestern Germany, the Benelux or Low Countries of Belgium, Luxembourg,
and The Netherlands, Britain, Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, the Danubian
regions of the Balkans, and Italy, intermingling or miscegenating with the
previous non-Indo-European inhabitants known as the Basques, Gascons or
Vascons, Iberians, Ligurians, and Elymians, all of whom DNA tests have shown
to be closely related to the non-Indo-European Berbers of North Africa, who
in turn are closely related to the Arabic peoples of the Middle East. The
Berbers migrated from the Middle East into North Africa many thousands of
years ago, although DNA tests have revealed that those Berbers who live on
the southern margins of the Sahara Desert have intermingled extensively with
the African blacks. The Indo-European languages of Latin and Greek seem to
be especially closely related to the Celtic language.

Originally, the ancestors of the Indo-European speaking peoples lived in the
steppes and prairies of southern Russia and the Ukraine located north of the
Black Sea in the Neolithic and early Bronze age, and from there they spread
into what is now the rest of Europe. In their original homelands, they lived
as semi-nomadic, tribal herders and warrior horsemen, who often fought among
themselves as mounted archers, lancers or spearmen, swordsmen, and
battle-axe warriors, usually reducing defeated tribes to tribute-paying
status at best, or outright slavery at worst. Whenever their human and
livestock population became too large, and when prolonged droughts struck
them, the pressure for the excess population to migrate into new lands and
to enslave the previous inhabitants living there became great, partly
because their backward method of farming and herding was too inadequate and
inefficient to cope with such pressures. The chieftains and warlords of
these prehistoric Indo-European tribes usually had extended families, and
they often practiced polygamy, concubinage and harem-keeping too, partly in
order to enlarge their number of household slaves as a source of cheap
labour by means of producing offspring from their female slaves and
concubines. Such chieftains or warlords usually kept a large personal
bodyguard of household warriors, many of whom were their relatives. Some of
the Indo-European speaking peoples, in particular the Iranians, began to
migrate from around 1500 B.C. onwards from their original homelands north of
the Black and Caspian Seas into what are today the nations of Iran,
Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India, enslaving and intermarrying with the
previous non-Indo-European speaking inhabitants living there. Another group
of Iranians set off from lands located north of the Black Sea towards what
is today Lithuania and Latvia, where they too enslaved and mixed with the
previous non-Indo-European speaking Finnish peoples, with whom the Estonians
are closely related to.

Recent DNA tests have revealed that about 80% of the Germans have mixed
ancestry, and that those living east of the Elbe and Saale Rivers share
close genetic similarities with the Slavic Poles and Lithuanians. Recorded,
written history, as opposed to orally transmitted prehistory passed over the
generations, shows that from around 1150 A.D. onwards, the German crusading
order known as the Teutonic Knights began to gradually conquer, enslave, and
Christianize the Slavic and originally Lithuanian-speaking Prussians living
east of the Saale and Elbe Rivers. DNA tests have revealed that many of the
Germans living in the southern, central, and western parts of Germany share
close genetic similarities with the Celtic-speaking peoples, as well as with
the non-Indo-European speaking Basque peoples. Recorded history has shown
how the Hungarian Magyars introduced their non-Indo-European language, which
belongs to the Finno-Ugric language family and is therefore related to
Finnish and Estonian, into what is now Hungary, i.e. by invading as mounted
archers. Recorded history shows that invasions often lead to the previous
inhabitants adopting the language and customs of the conquering group, for
example, with the Celts of Gaul or France adopting the language and customs
of the originally pagan or polytheist Romans, and with the Berber Christians
of the Roman North African coastal plains adopting the language and Muslim
religion of the Arabs.

It appears to be the case that the Romans economically neglected what is
today England, Wales, and Cornwall, as compared with France, much as they
also did with the mainly mountainous and hilly Balkans, with the exception
of Romania. The reason why the Latin language seems to have had such an
impact on the Romanian vernacular spoken today is because during the Roman
era Romania yielded very valuable gold and silver mines, which attracted
many Roman colonists into settling there, even though by the 230's A.D. the
gold and silver mines became somewhat less profitable as the easily worked
surface deposiys began to be depleted, and it became necessary to dig deeper
mine shafts. Roman deep surface mining technology of course was not as
advanced as that of today. Romania during the Roman occupation which lasted
from 106-271 A.D. was known as the province of Dacia, and the Dacians
originally spoke an Indo-European language which belonged to the
Illyrian-Thracian branch, of which the Albanian language is the only
surviving member today. The rest of the Albanians living in the Balkans were
assimilated a long time ago by the subsequent Slavic and Hungarian invaders.
Romania also has many forested hills and mountains to this day, which was
able to provide some measure of defense from the invading Slavic tribes who
began to enter into the Balkan region in around 570-650 A.D., and the
Hungarian or Magyar tribes who began to arrive in the Balkan and Danubian
region around 890-955 A.D. Therefore Roman Britain, as with the Roman
Balkans with the eception of Romania or Dacia, seems to have been
economically neglected by the Romans. Unlike with Gaul or France, where a
Latin-derived vernacular is spoken today, the Celtic dialects continued to
be spoken Roman Britain, especially in Wales and Cornwall, despite the more
than four centuries of Roman rule there. The possible reason why the Roman
Gaulish province of Armorica or Brittany proved to be the exception as a
Celtic-speaking enclave, is probably because the thin, rocky soils of
Armorica led the Romans to neglect that part of Gaul. The Gaulish Celts of
Armorica were reinforced in the 400's and 500's A.D. by British Celts,
because some of the British Celts who refused to submit to the Anglo-Saxon
invaders decided to flee there., renaming Armorica Brittany, or Little
Britain in other words. By 400 A.D. there were probably far more believers
in the Celtic and Greco-Roman pagan or polytheist religions, as well as
Celtic speakers, in Roman Britain, then there were Roman Gaul. The number of
Germanic invaders of Gaul or France probably exceeded that of Britain
because it is far easier to invade by land on horseback than it is to invade
by sea the post-Ice Age island of Britain. When Roman Britain was being
invaded by the Germanic Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Frisians, Roman Britain
was being invaded by the Germanic Franks, Burgundians, Visigoths, and later
on Ostrogoths. Apparently, the Germanic invaders thought it more worthwhile
to learn the Latin-derived French vernacular, associated with the grandeur
of the Roman Empire, than the Germanic invaders thought it worthwhile to
learn the British Celtic dialects. It also must be added that at the height
of the Germanic invasions of the Roman Empire from around 370-570 A.D.,
there where civil wars between the Roman legions in the western half of the
Roman Empire from 383-388 A.D., 392-394 A.D., 407-413 A.D., 423-425 A.D.,
432 A.D., as well as the Bagaudae Gallo-Roman, Gaulish peasant uprising of
435-437 A.D, directed against the senatorial landlords of rural villas, many
of which were fortified, and their private army or bodyguard of rent
collectors, sent to collect ruinously high rents. Bagaudae might be a
Latinized Gaulish Celtic word meaning "Vagabond."




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Relevant Pages

  • Re: The original non Indo-European languages of Europe
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  • The Anglo-Saxon Illusion
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  • Re: The Anglo-Saxon Misconception
    ... The Iberians, before the Celtic, Greek, Roman, and Visigothic ... > invasions, spoke a non-Indo-European language. ... > Germany, and as far north as the Thuringian mountains of Germany. ... > close genetic similarities with the Celtic-speaking peoples, ...
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  • Re: The Anglo-Saxon Illusion
    ... The Iberians, before the Celtic, Greek, Roman, and Visigothic invasions, spoke a non-Indo-European language. ... Germany, and as far north as the Thuringian mountains of Germany. ... close genetic similarities with the Celtic-speaking peoples, ...
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