How Celtic or Germanic are the English?

[rainbow]

I haven't read the book.

But I know that brown hair comes from having a mix of blonde and dark haired ancestors. That just shows that they are a blend of both. Golden reddish hues also come from redhaired ancestors. All hair colors are in my family. Another Celtic trait is red birthmarks/beauty marks.

Former neighbors of mine were a married couple. The wife was from Sweden and looked like the blonde lady from ABBA. The husband was a dark Italian. All their kids had light to medium brown hair and light eyes (green-hazel).
The blonde hair in Ireland is most likely from the Vikings and Normans. The blonde hair in England would be from Angles, Saxons, Jutes (Denmark), Vikings, and Normans. Scottish blondes have Viking genes.

[BlackWolf]

Another thing that needs to be looked at is culture.

The Romans and other Mediterraneans always described the Celts as "Tall, blond, ligt colored hair and fair"

Many believe this is not the Celts that are in Spanish, Gaul and Britian, but, they were indeed

The Celts in fact, blonded their hair with lime water, painted their bodies blue and wore long mustaches. The Picts were described in the same manner.

In that regard, although different than Germanic tribes, since they died the hair they could have easily been mistaken for each other.
T

[rainbow]

Yes, I read that they limed their hair, which turns red hair to blonde hair. I wonder why they did that. Did they do that only for battles or on a daily basis?
According to my mom, her father, who was a redhead, said the family has Pict ancestry from Scotland (and Jute from the English line from Bristol).

I had read that the Romans were very short and that the people called "Keltoi" (may be Greek a word, which means foreigner/stranger) were said to be very tall, strong limbed, as well as light haired.

[BlackWolf]

Well, Celtic is actually a culture, not people per say

The Scots, Welsh, Irish in UK are mostly from the stone age. The English are more a mix of original Britians and Germans and Norse.

The Irish and Scots have some of that Norse Viking too as you have said. The Northern Irish "Scotch Irish" are a mix of lowland Scots, English 20%, and Irish.

The Welsh have little Norse, Viking or Saxon. But even in Wales there were a couple of Viking settlements.

The Celtic culture is seen in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Brittany and in parts of Spain.

There are places in Spain where they still play bagpipes and have their own version. I saw old drawings once from Extremadura with people in kilts and tartan colored.

I once taked to this bagpipe and Celtic group. All decked out in Kilts.

A 20ish kid had a mowhawk, been dyed lime blond. I told him, yeah your ancestors dyed their hair that color, he laughed and said, yeah I know.

Some things are just in your blood

[Stevo]

Well, Celtic is actually a culture, not people per say

The Scots, Welsh, Irish in UK are mostly from the stone age . . .

That is outdated information, based on the outmoded idea that R1b1b2 spent the last Ice Age in Iberia and expanded from there to the rest of western Europe.

Turns out that was all wrong. R1b1b2 is not old enough to have been anywhere during the last Ice Age. The 2008 Karafet et al study estimated the age of R1 (M173), the distant ancestor of R1b1b2, at about 18,000 years. R1b1b2 is much younger. According to the ISOGG (International Society of Genetic Genealogy) R tree page, which is supported by a nice bibliography at the bottom, R1b1b2 is only about 4,000 to 8,000 years old, too young to have been anywhere during the last Ice Age.

Here is the ISOGG blurb on R1b1b2:

Haplogroup R1b1b2 (M269) is observed most frequently in Europe, especially western Europe, but with notable frequency in southwest Asia. R1b1b2 is estimated to have arisen approximately 4,000 to 8,000 years ago in southwest Asia and to have spread into Europe from there. The Atlantic Modal Haplotype, or AMH, is the most common STR haplotype in haplogroup R1b1b2a1a (P310/S129) and most European R1b1b2 belongs to haplogroups R1b1b2a1a1 (U106) or R1b1b2a1a2 (P312/S116).

The recent study, A Predominantly Neolithic Origin for European Paternal Lineages, concluded that R1b1b2 expanded into southeast Europe from the Near East during the Neolithic Period and spread northwest from there.

[McComasMcGregor]

Place Name and Linguistic Evidence

The place name and linguistic evidence for what is now England suggests that the Celtic inhabitants were either killed off or driven westwards into Cornwall, Devon, Wales and Strathclyde.

There are very few words of Briton/Celtic origin in Old English. There are very few place names in England which have a Celtic origin, except for the names of rivers. This suggests a relatively slow conquest of England by the 'Anglo-Saxons' over a period of several hundred years, with the Celtic inhabitants being driven out, and rivers forming the temporary boundaries between the Celts and the invaders, hence their Celtic names. There is evidence that some of the British refugees migrated to Brittany.

The fact that English took over from the Celtic language suggests that there was little intermarriage between Anglo-Saxon men and British women. Had there been, the Celtic language should have predominated, since children are more likely to speak the language of their mother than that of their father when these languages are different.

Compare this with the Frankish invasion of France and the Norman invasion of England. We know that both were rapid, with the invaders becoming a ruling elite whilst adopting the language of the conquered peoples, Gallo-Roman in the former case and English in the latter.

[rainbow]

Last I heard, R1b was from Armenia or Anatolia. Did R1b spread to the Isles from farmers from the Near East?

What would be the original YDNA of the British Isles, if it still exists? Is it Scandinavian I? The Celts and the Norse may have had the same ydna. Hardly anyone invaded Scandinavia (though they did trade with far away cultures).

[Stevo]

The place name and linguistic evidence for what is now England suggests that the Celtic inhabitants were either killed off or driven westwards into Cornwall, Devon, Wales and Strathclyde.

There are very few words of Briton/Celtic origin in Old English. There are very few place names in England which have a Celtic origin, except for the names of rivers. This suggests a relatively slow conquest of England by the 'Anglo-Saxons' over a period of several hundred years, with the Celtic inhabitants being driven out, and rivers forming the temporary boundaries between the Celts and the invaders, hence their Celtic names. There is evidence that some of the British refugees migrated to Brittany.

The fact that English took over from the Celtic language suggests that there was little intermarriage between Anglo-Saxon men and British women. Had there been, the Celtic language should have predominated, since children are more likely to speak the language of their mother than that of their father when these languages are different.

Compare this with the Frankish invasion of France and the Norman invasion of England. We know that both were rapid, with the invaders becoming a ruling elite whilst adopting the language of the conquered peoples, Gallo-Roman in the former case and English in the latter.

The big problem with the "wipe-out theory", which is pretty much what you have put forward above, is that the genetic evidence is against it. L21 (currently called R1b1b2a1b5 by the YCC and FTDNA) is overwhelmingly frequent in the old Celtic regions of the British Isles - Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Cornwall - but it is also apparently the most frequent R1b1b2 subclade in England, as well. It is difficult to argue that the L21 in Scotland, Ireland, and Wales is Celtic but the L21 in England is something else.

I'm also not sure the linguistic evidence of Celtic extinction in England is quite as thorough as you have described, particularly the place name evidence. I recall reading recently that there is new evidence of Celtic influence on the English language, but I cannot recall the source.

It seems to me the Anglo-Saxon conquest of what is now England, and the subsequent triumph of what became the English language, were more nuanced than a simple "wipe-out" of the native Britons and their replacement by Germans. My own view is that the similarities between Celtic and Germanic cultures facilitated the assimilation of the Britons into the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. The old Indo-European posse comitatus - the Gefolge of the Germanic tribes - consisted of a band of warriors gathered about a chief who supplied food, drink, shelter, weapons and other rewards for service in battle. This tradition was common to both Celts and Germans. Warriors were not excluded from the posse or Gefolge based on tribal origin or native language. That can be clearly seen from the number of Germans who served in the Gefolge of Attila the Hun, for example.

So, in the turmoil that was post-Roman Britain, it seems likely that young British warriors took service in the warbands of Anglo-Saxon chieftains and no doubt fought against British-led warbands that may have included Anglo-Saxon warriors. Once they adopted Anglo-Saxon speech and settled in among the Anglo-Saxons, they would have become, for all intents and purposes, Anglo-Saxons.

A number of fairly early Anglo-Saxon kings had British names. Take Cerdic, the founder of the kingdom of Wessex, for example. Some subsequent rulers of Wessex had names like Ceawlin, Cedda, and Caedwalla, all of them Celtic in origin. Did these men have British mothers, or was the dynasty of Wessex simply a British dynasty that adopted Anglo-Saxon speech?

Vortigern, the British king who supposedly recruited Anglo-Saxon mercernaries, had a Saxon wife, and the mother of the famous "Niall of the Nine Hostages" in Ireland is said to have been a Saxon.

The indications are that elite dominance and the slow assimilation of the native Britons are the main processes by which the English language eventually triumphed in what is now England.

[GregKiroKHR1bL1]

Not Sure: How to Account for Hair Color in Population?

Why Europe & England has hg R1b with black hair/hg R1b with non-black hair ratio it does since light hair developed when it did???
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Suppose I: hg R1b & R1a arose around the same time
then early hg R1a & R1b members would have black hair

Dominant gene for long black hair~Asia, Middle East
Recessive gene for light color hair~Europe

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Suppose II: light hair arose in Northern Europe arose after Hg R first mutation

hg R1b most dominate in Western Europe over other groups
Black hair genes dominate light hair genes if large number of hg R1b men

light hair genes dominate in low sunlight northern regions and few original men from hg R1b with vitamin D requirements and sunlight associated with women hgs

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Supoose III: high distribution of black hair in Southern Europe suggest earlier migration patterns than with Northern Europe

Red hair in eastern Mediterranean regions 3 kya

Present day distribution of hg R1b in Northern and Southern Europe correlation with hair color.
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I am not sure if there is enough data to answer this . . .

[BlackWolf]

Why Europe & England has hg R1b with black hair/hg R1b with non-black hair ratio it does since light hair developed when it did???
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Suppose I: hg R1b & R1a arose around the same time
then early hg R1a & R1b members would have black hair

Dominant gene for long black hair~Asia, Middle East
Recessive gene for light color hair~Europe

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Suppose II: light hair arose in Northern Europe arose after Hg R first mutation

hg R1b most dominate in Western Europe over other groups
Black hair genes dominate light hair genes if large number of hg R1b men

light hair genes dominate in low sunlight northern regions and few original men from hg R1b with vitamin D requirements and sunlight associated with women hgs

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Supoose III: high distribution of black hair in Southern Europe suggest earlier migration patterns than with Northern Europe

Red hair in eastern Mediterranean regions 3 kya

Present day distribution of hg R1b in Northern and Southern Europe correlation with hair color.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

I am not sure if there is enough data to answer this . . .

From family photos, most of the Welsh in the family had dark brown to Black hair.

Almost all of these people, were from ancient Celtic regions. Wales, Cornwall, Devon, Ireland only one family from Orkney Islands Scotland had Blond hair, Norse, not Celtic.

Autosomal tests said overwhelmingly Spain and the hald of that and next was Basque.

I have NO DOUBT, that the CELTS in Wales and Ireland came from Spain, the old "Black Irish" legends are a fact.

[Stevo]

Well, fairly large scale autosomal tests show people in the British Isles, including the Welsh and Irish, grouping with other northern Europeans. People in Spain tend to cluster with other Mediterraneans.

So perhaps in the case of your own particular family the autosomal results cannot be extrapolated to encompass general statements about the origin of the Celts of Wales and Ireland.

[GregKiroKHR1bL1]

That is interesting . . . the historical books I have been reading do record a recent ( a few thousand years) migration of the Celtic people from east to west. I found their articles new and interesting to me a few years ago. I still feel awkward talking . . . also, people have been in Spain for a very long time . . . where is my ancient history teacher when I need the best references?

Morocco?

From family photos, most of the Welsh in the family had dark brown to Black hair.

Almost all of these people, were from ancient Celtic regions. Wales, Cornwall, Devon, Ireland only one family from Orkney Islands Scotland had Blond hair, Norse, not Celtic.

Autosomal tests said overwhelmingly Spain and the hald of that and next was Basque.

I have NO DOUBT, that the CELTS in Wales and Ireland came from Spain, the old "Black Irish" legends are a fact.

[PDHOTLEN]

ancient U5 connections

My own mtDNA haplogroup is U5, which has been around for tens of thousands of years. One can see a relationship to some U5 in Spain, as seen on the Spanish projects. But mitochondrial mutations occur at a slow pace, so those relationships took place over thousands of years, on average. At that rate, there haven't been many mutations since the last ice age, when everybody was living down around the Med. Sea. It looks to me like those haplotypes that moved into northern Europe from their ice age refuges blossomed out. So a particular haplotype, say HVR1 U5 with only 16270 and nothing else, while rare in northern Spain, is fairly widespread in NW Europe. (I'm confusing myself.)

[Stevo]

What someone has "no doubt" of through looking at his own family's autosomal report, while still believing in what was current in genetic circles several years ago - i.e., that the British Isles were repopulated from Iberia following the LGM - can still have little bearing on reality.

It is a fact that autosomally, northern Europeans, including the Irish and Welsh, cluster with other northern Europeans; and southern Europeans, including the Spanish, cluster with other southern Europeans.

Take a look at the study European Population Substructure: Clustering of Northern and Southern Populations. The various graphs are especially informative.

[rainbow]

From family photos, most of the Welsh in the family had dark brown to Black hair.

Almost all of these people, were from ancient Celtic regions. Wales, Cornwall, Devon, Ireland only one family from Orkney Islands Scotland had Blond hair, Norse, not Celtic.

Autosomal tests said overwhelmingly Spain and the hald of that and next was Basque.

I have NO DOUBT, that the CELTS in Wales and Ireland came from Spain, the old "Black Irish" legends are a fact.

I think that's true too. Most of my DNA Tribes 27 marker top 20 matches are multiple matches to Portugal, Spain, and Flemish. Others are to France, Basque, Swiss, Morocco, Slovakian, Croatian, and Romanian (I am a quarter Slovakian).
I know of several people who are also of mostly British Isles descent who get Iberian top matches. The only Iberian ancestry that I know of comes from royal lines of my Colonial ancestors from England, on my maternal grandmother's side.