Briton Brython Etc.

I have been reading a large number of posts over the
last 2 or 3 days, a considerable waste of bandwidth, not
to mention meaningless retorts to a person who is completely
clueless.

Way wrapped up in these issues are the pre Anglo-Saxon migration
culture of Northwestern Ilses of Europe (Great Britian or Britian and
Ireland, etc). In this context we are referring to what the names
were according to a third party (niether Anglo-Saxon or Native) but
Roman.

In this regard it needs to be remembered that while the Romans had
historians and military scribes and the like, the relative experience
of the greeks and romans really places the romans of the period more
or less as an emperialistic militaristic empire which placed a
greater value on exhalting their expoits than documenting history in
an objective manner. An account is an account, we cannot go back in
time and correct errors in that account. However, if an account is
backloaded with false assumptions, biases, etc, its value as an
account is more or less useless. So the value of the definition needs
to be weighed. Briton is a word that describes [handwaving] some
people who lived ont these NW Ilses at the time of the romans. The
word itself is putative from Britto which is a celtic word. The
people the romans encountered probably were key.

"
The Roman geographer Ptolemy called the larger island Megale
Brettania (Great Britain), and the smaller island of Ireland Micra
Bretannia (Little Britain). Hence, originally, the term Great Britain
referred to the largest island in the British Isles, just as the
largest of the Canary Islands is still called Gran Canaria, and the
largest of the Comoros is Grande Comore.
"

Therefore we have a contemporary source that defines the entire
region of the Ilses. The modern use of the term however is contested,
but the contest may be irrelevant given the History.

"
The usage of the term is sensitive in some areas, particularly among
supporters of some political parties, for example the Scottish
National Party, and can vary in exact meaning depending on context
and the author's personal prejudices.
"

Let us consider if Ptolmey's understanding is not perfect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picts

"
The Picts were a confederation of tribes in central and northern
Scotland from the 3rd century to the 10th century. They lived to the
north of the Forth and Clyde. They were the descendants of the
Caledonii and other tribes named by Roman historians or found on the
map of Ptolemy.
"

"
The name which the Picts called themselves is unknown. The Latin word
Picti is taken to mean painted or tattooed people.[1] The Gaels of
Ireland and Dál Riata called the Picts Cruithne, (e.g. Old Irish
cru(i)then-túath).[2] There were also Cruithne in Ulster, in
particular the kings of Dál nAraidi.[3]
"

1 Pict first appears in a panegyric written by Eumenius in AD 297.
Although Picti is usually taken to mean painted or tattooed in
Latin, the term may have a Celtic origin, e.g. the Pictones of the
Loire.
2 Presumably from Proto-Celtic *kwriteno-touta.
3 The Cruithni are discussed by Byrne, Irish Kings and High-Kings,
pp. 106?109, Ó Cróinín, Early Medieval Ireland, pp. 48?50.

So that it seems likely that the celtic name may have been derived
from the first peoples the romans encountered to the southeast and
the understanding of the peoples to west and north resulted in an
error of generalization. This specific problem is dominant with
regard to later history (repeated and successful attempts of the
southeast to control the north and west).

From a molecular genetic point of view, precedences in the region
need to be considered. The genetic relationship between the Irish and
Scottish and Welsh is virtually identical, the cornish show patterns
of distinction from these groups and suggest that the above three
were part of a constantly interbreeding cluster which the cornish
separated themselves from very early on. Therefore it is probable
that the Romans were ignorant of the distinction of the Cornish from
other tribes. Obviously the Central and SE English can be
distinguished from Scottish, Welsh, Cornish and Irish. The basal
problem is that the current genetic and subregional sampling in this
region is inadequate to describe how this process occurred (which
invasion is responsible for the distinquishment). Complicating this
is the close genetic relationship between the Irish, Welsh, Scottish,
Norwegians, Swedish, Gotlanders, Goths, Northern Slavs and
derivatives in the south out europe. Great cultural differences
between groups (language, farming habits, social structure, religion)
are observed with relatively little genetic distinction. The
distinction between the Irish and Scandinavians is the result of no
more than 40% admixture with other groups. The critical issue is
when, if the bilateral isolation occurred before the onset of the
metal ages, pre-existing culture may have been irrelevant, and
genetics is not a marker at all. Distance is also a factor, in the
immediate since genes don't change with distance but culture does
tend to change rapidly as people travel, small genetic contributions
(admixing) may represent disproportionate cultural contributions.
I can, with out much trouble, explain the British as a recent (post
roman) admixture between an Welsh/Scottish like people and european
mainlanders. This would mean the romans did not go far enough in
defining Brython. While this can be done, there are enough unique
haplotypes in the survey of British to suggest a previous interaction
with the mainland and admixing in the south east, whereas the genetic
signature elsewhere on the Ilse reflects relative isolation. This
genetic signitured has to be distinguished from the overwhelming and
ancient signature of the geneflow up the western atlantic coast. As a
result the different geographic vectors of origin demonstrate a
plausible neolithic and early metal age distinction between the SE
Ilses and NW Ilses. It may be this cultural exchange and similarity
with mainland gauls that the Romans exploited as they moved into
their 'Briton' and that this is the culture they identified.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commius
http://www.romans-in-britain.org.uk/clb_tribe_atrebates.htm

So let us argue for the moment that this is correct, that adequate
geneflow had occurred before Roman times so create an admixed culture
in the SE of England that followed a tradition of similar past
cultures. Secondary arguments about tribalisms and the need for
trade, who was king and who the romans recognized as king. The
atrebates settled in the south but not directly across Dover, and the
romans were able to make aggrements with people north of the Thames
estuary. Even if the Atrebates brought group specific HLA types to
England, the level of those types even now would not suffice to be
recognized over the general sample of England. Therefore it means the
influence if of a pre-roman recency would have to had stretched
farther inland, therefore the sphere of what was core to the roman
recognition of 'briton' would have countained 4 or 5 British counties
in the southeastern part of England. Beyond this there would have
been cultural intermediate zones of trade and cultural blends until
one got to the regions of Briton that the romans were less familiar
with and failed to document or preserve history of.
The issue is not resolved, but the fact the romans built a wall to
the north and the cornish can identify themselves separately suggests
at least some error (over generalization) on the romans behalf.
The ptolemic definition of Great Britian is probably adequate given
the post-ptolemic events, and not neccesarily inadequate to define
briton of the period. For example the pictic tribes may have been
more culturally brythonic before the arrival and dominance of the
Scottie in Alba (which is the Irish/Caledonian name of the whole
island of Great Briton) after the 9th century, some are now saying
this change was of little importance, culturally since caledonians
had settled in Ireland and vice versa during the previous period.
The Romans recognized Ireland as Hibernia, but apparently failed to
see the strong cultural connection between Ireland and northern
Britian and western Britian. This understanding may be due to the
fact that the Romans did not have a significant presence in Hibernia.

So I would argue that while one can come up with a historically
derived definition of 'Briton' 'Bython' 'Britain' the secondary issue
of meaning can be asserted. For the romans the meaning of romans was
the name of an Island they found handily with name by natives. Since
they define Great Britian as the larger Island and Lessor Britain as
Ireland then we have a pretty good indicator that this was explicitly
their reasoning and the cultural complexities was not a reason for
the definition.
We have poorer examples. We have North America named after a dude
named amerigo and South America and it is dubious whether this
individual stepped on either continent. West Virginia and Virginia
are named after a Queen of England. IN terms of Naming things, really
bad nomenclater is pretty par for conquerors.

The secondary issue is what is culturally briton, versus cultural
alban or cornish as this might be sort of important as split modern
definition. Culturally Briton (people who recognized themselves to
the romans as part of a larger collective Britto) may have only
included a small number of tribes, which we know almost nothing
about, either genetically in representation of the uniqueness of
modern English or historically, in the means by which the romans
documented the culture of these peoples as they were encountered. It
may have not been inaccurate to descrive intermediate tribes between
cornish or hibernian as being Brythonic.

Relevance to the discussion. Post-emperial invasions of these Ilses
by this or that group does not make more culturally sophisticated in
recognizing intertribal or intercultural boundaries. Its taken 500
years of post colonial invasions to arrive at a greater understanding
of the native cultures of the new world. It is not a common goal of
the conquerors to exhalt the culture of the conquered. Percentages of
westward or northward migrants, etc would be something the migrators
would want to conceal from their enemies. Therefore accounts get
blurred in the fog of wars. Levels of admixture are often not
revealed (i.e. if you can blend into the basturds, best not to reveal
your differences) in the perceptions or history. From this logic
follows there is no genuine means of resolving the issue of invader
versus invaded at the cultural level. And one can translate this to
mean there is no particular way for the Invaders to know when they
crossed the cultural line (if such a line exists) between briton,
romanized britons and some other different tribe which leaned more
toward the core cultur of some other geographically defined group.
It would be very nice for me to come back with grand details of sub
nodes within SE briton and a catagorization of which groups dominated
in which region. That objective information does not exist, and so
the cultural or historical heresay claims by romans are the only
thing of value, even if culturally I disagree that this is a fair
cultural representation.

I think it is exceptable in this instance if there is some
confusion over what Briton and Britian are in the iron-age, but we
have to agree that from a political and geographic point of view
Briton is already defined even if the definition confuses an earlier
definition. The confusion lies in how in depth the romans would
recongnize culturally distinquishable peoples, and how far their
cultural definition went, we cannot know on the ground the answer to
either question.




.

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