Strathclyde

[Skyelander]

Originally posted by Eleana
[BDoing statistics is almost a science for itself. It is extremly important to understand how the sampling was done.

How many Scots, how many English, representating what of the recent population... don't want you to bore with it, but statisticians can argue for ever.

[/b]

Point taken, and as a matter of course, it also makes my point. You could have this test done again and again right now and the results will be different: dependent of the samples taken; the analysis and the conclusion of both. With people on the move for 100 years, there isn't likely a place in this world where the DNA is going to remain as it was in 500 AD or even 1400 AD. These tests are interesting and annoying at the same time because they do not properly take into account these factors - and cannot take into account these factors. We cannot time travel-back to 500 and do a DNA test. The results today only tell us about the population now, or perhaps our parents and g parents generations.

Skye

[Eleana]

Yeah the male Y chromosone, darnit can't do with the X...
So with which Celts are the Basque's Y Chromosomes almost identical? The Anglos, the Irish, or the Scots?

Tsktsk those fertile reproduction happy Celtic men.

[Skyelander]

Originally posted by ANDY-J2

Both things happened.Some were squeezed south into Cumbria and Wales while those that remained assimilated themselves into society alongside Anglo-Saxons/Normans and Gaels.

A good answer, Andy. Sometimes I get the impression from the questions I've received from people outside the UK or those unfamiliar with British history, that they think cultures have gone through time in a vacuum. The situation was very fluid, and just because we know that one culture was concentrated in an area 900 years ago does not mean that they remained until today. One culture comes in and destroys, assimilates of dominates another culture, in the case of the Britons of Strathclyde or any of the North Welsh kingdoms in Scotland, leaves little trace if it today. As with the Picts, this isn't to imply they disappeared off the face of the planet, but that the people were mixed and interbred until that kingdom of Britons cannot be said to still be in any noticable concentration by area.

The Picts only disappear from history as a separately named race. They were assimilated by the Scots. I'd like to see a DNA test done on that...but how would you obtain a model of a "Pict?" Same goes for the Britons. Just because they had a kingdom in the area in 850 A.D. doesn't mean all their people stayed there until today. When I read questions about "where are all those original Britons now", I have to wonder if people think about all the invasions, migrations and mixing of the peoples in North Britain.

From everything I've studied and read about the origin of the Scots (the Dal Riata Scots), Ireland plays the most important role. So, is the DNA test suggesting that the Irish originally came from Spain? Curious...

Skye

[SherbrookeJacobite]

The DNA results mean that some Basques and some Celts who live in the British Isles, at some point in the distant past, share a common ancestor. People seem to always assume that this means the Celts moved from the Iberian Pennisula, but this is not necessarily so. After the last ice age ended, 10,000 years ago or so - people once again spread out across Europe. Archeologists have identified a population in Britain that predates that by about 4000 years. So, who is to say that the Basques didn't come from the British Isles (which weren't Isles at the time of the Ice Age) or some other place in Europe? The Haplogroup that the Celts and Basques belong to is very common in modern Europe, and carried by about 2% of all the males. Therefore it is impossible to say where this group originated.

[Eleana]

Originally posted by SherbrookeJacobite
The DNA results mean that some Basques and some Celts who live in the British Isles, at some point in the distant past, share a common ancestor. People seem to always assume that this means the Celts moved from the Iberian Pennisula, but this is not necessarily so. After the last ice age ended, 10,000 years ago or so - people once again spread out across Europe. Archeologists have identified a population in Britain that predates that by about 4000 years. So, who is to say that the Basques didn't come from the British Isles (which weren't Isles at the time of the Ice Age) or some other place in Europe? The Haplogroup that the Celts and Basques belong to is very common in modern Europe, and carried by about 2% of all the males. Therefore it is impossible to say where this group originated.

I think that the receding ice line determined where folks would have lived and moved to. It's true no islands but one big continent.

I mentioned somewhere above that the Celts were the predominant people in Europe for many centuries... everywhere. The were even conquering Rome!

Of course there will be relationships then.

The point is that DNA and cultural spread does not have to be congruent.

As long as no genozide has occured instead a slow migration of another tribe into a territory there is no reason to have DNA marks to disappear.

I don't know about the Basques but there are different options (again)

Basques are Celts and a tribe moved from there to Ireland (why on earth would they ???)
Basques are not Celts but moved in and have intermingled with Celts and thus carry the DNA.
Celts moved in and intermingeled with resident Basques.

That's about what the DNA explains to you: there is a relationship.