Origins of the British
by Stephen Oppenheimer
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Book Summary Information
Author: Stephen OppenheimerEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-04-12
ISBN: 1845294823
Number of pages: 400
Publisher: Robinson Publishing
Book Reviews of Origins of the British
Book Review: Exploding Myths
Summary: 4 Stars
Stephen Oppenheimer: The Origins of the British. The New Prehistory of Britain and Ireland from Ice-Age Hunter-Gatherers to the Vikings as Revealed by DNA Analysis. London, England: Constable and Robinson, 2006 (Paperback edition 2007), xxii and 628 pages, with 22 color plates and numerous maps and diagrams.
Like most "Brits", I was taught in school that the Welsh, Cornish and Manx-speaking peoples were the remains of the originally Celtic population of Britain who had been decimated and driven into hiding by the furious assaults of the Angles and Saxons in the early middle ages, while the origin of the Scots was lost in antiquity. Stephen Oppenheimer, a geneticist rather than a historian, explodes all this as a radically oversimplified myth in his latest book, "The Origins of the British". Using the resources of DNA analysis, which have only become available over the past 10 to 15 years, and in dialogue with the work of historians, linguists, archaelogists, climatologists and other geneticists, Oppenheimer traces the "prehistory" of the inhabitants of the British Isles from the end of the Ice Age (he consistently speaks of the LGM = Last Glacial Maximum) up to the Norman invasion of 1066. And while he nowhere claims to have all the answers, he provides enough information to make it clear that the history of the British is a lot more complicated than my old history teacher was prepared to give it credit for. Britain appears to have been settled both from the South and West and from the North and East. The dichotomy between the Celtic-speaking western parts and the "Germanic" east quite possibly goes back thousands of years. Oppenheimer follows the historical developments from the Palaeolithic through the Mesolithic and the Neolithic right up to the Bronze and Iron Ages, establishing that the south of Britain (the part generally known today as England) was peopled mainly from the north-western European mainland. Although Oppenheimer is not a linguist, he broaches a fascinating argument on the origins of Old English, which he sees as possibly being a separate branch of the Germanic family of languages, related perhaps rather more to the North Germanic branch than the West Germanic, as is commonly supposed. This form of "Ènglish" may, he speculates, have been spoken in England already at the time of the Roman invasion, which would explain the total lack of evidence for Celtic as the original English tongue. DNA analysis makes it seem highly unlikely that the Angles and Saxons committed mass murder, and the same is true of the Viking and Danish invaders of some centuries later. The entire thrust of Oppenheimer's argument has been well summarized by some other reviewers, so I will leave it at that - this is a book that anyone interested in these issues should really read for themselves. And apropos reading it for yourself: The style is eminently sober and scientific, even if the memory-aiding names of genetic groups seem to some readers to be over-populizing. Some of the chapters in the middle of the book were a little confusing on the first reading to me as a non-geneticist, and I later wished I had read Appendix A (An Introduction to Genetic Tracking) before tackling the main body of the book. But I really cannot agree with those reviewers who accuse Oppenheimer of bad style; he has mastered an immense amount of information and passed it on in a way which is both illuminating and memorable.
Summary of Origins of the British
Stephen Oppenheimer's extraordinary scientific detective story combining genetics, linguistics, archaeology and historical record shatters the myths we have come to live by. It demonstrates that the Anglo-Saxon invasions contributed just a tiny fraction (5%) to the English gene pool. Two thirds of the English people reveal an unbroken line of genetic descent from south-western Europeans arriving long before the first farmers. The bulk of the remaining third arrived between 7,000 and 3,000 years ago as part of long-term north-west European trade and immigration, especially from Scandinavia - and may have brought with them the earliest forms of English language. As for the Celts - the Irish, Scots and Welsh - history has traditionally placed their origins in Iron Age Central Europe. Oppenheimer's genetic synthesis shows them to have arrived via the Atlantic coastal route from Ice Age refuges including the Basque country; with the modern languages we call Celtic arriving later. There is indeed a deep divide between the English and the rest of the British. But as this book reveals the division is many thousands of years older than previously thought.Genetics Books
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