Native Ethnicities Within Britain
05 10 07 - 12:28 PART 1: THE ANCIENT BRITONS[Note: There remain many mysteries concerning the Celts, and historians continue to argue over the details.]
The word Celt is derived from Keltoi, the most powerful tribe of the Hallstatt culture (Salzburg, Upper Autstria). The ancient historian, Hecateus, reported that these people called themselves Keltoi (517BC) and Julius Caesar said that the Gauls referred to themselves as Celtae. But the Celtic people existed before the name was applied to them. It is thought that they originated in the Steppes, migrating west around 1500BC, but we must also consider the presence of the tartan clad Celtic Indo-Europeans in China 3000 years ago, and the Nordic mummies also found there (Takla Makan) 4000 years ago (before the Asiatic types got there). It could be the case that the Celts came from Scandinavia. This would be consistent with the extremely Nordic physical appearance of the Celts of La Tene.
Romans described the Celts as having gold around their necks and gold on their heads (hair), and they were naked like white bulls - whereas Germanics were more characterised by having reddish hair. Amongst the Gauls, the true Celts (translates as fighters) were the warrior caste, as distinct from the druids and peasants, who were possibly Old Europeans. The anthropologist Carlton Coon concluded that the Celtic, along with Germanic, Sythian and Iranian peoples appear to have emerged from a Nordid source.
Caesar bragged that he killed a million Celts in Gaul, defeating them, and populating the area with Romans. The Celtic warriors were huge men. Their wrist bands were so thick that they would fit around the knee joint of the average man of today. The Celts were known to have a character prone to being impulsive, volatile, enthusiastic and colourful. They were less inclined to think things through carefully than other sub-races. Their favoured battle tactic was elan, which means fire. This involves a lack of strategy and attempt to overwhelm the enemy by a rush of force - Celtic charge. This technique is portrayed well in the film Braveheart (although it is a film containing a number of historical inaccuracies). Elan was often enough to win a battle. Indeed the French fought this way right up to WWI. Caesar noted that, if you could hold off that initial charge, the Celts soon became demoralised. This lack of staying power has been one way of differentiating the Celt from the original Germanics.
The first of two waves of Celts (the Q Celts) came to Britain around 600BC . They were the Goidels, and they spoke Gaelic. Originally Britain had been inhabited by Old Europeans. The Stoneage Britons contained a gene pool of probably about 5000 individuals , some of whom, to judge from their skull types, were probably the descendants of the Solutreans (variously described as Basque or Guanache). Cannibalism existed amongst them. In 3000BC, a Mediterranid type invaded Britain. They built long barrows .These must have had darker complexions and thus suffered from rickets, because of the lower levels of sunlight, so this would have limited their advance. Nevertheless, the population expanded with the introduction of agricultural practices. We can only estimate the proportions of these different groups in the population. Each wave would have subjugated the previous group, killing and intermarrying from region to region. Later, came the Beaker folk, (originating in the Rheinland) who were fairer in complexion conquered Britain and built the round barrows. When the Q Celts arrived, followed in 400BC by the P Celts, as the next waves of invaders, they did not replace or wholly interbreed with the population. They formed the aristocracy, and by the time that the Romans arrived, the P Celts, had conquered some of the Q Celts, and were the leaders of some tribes. The P Celts officially, occupied southern Britain (but not Ireland) . They were the Belgae tribe, which Caesar commented were more Germanic looking than the Gauls. The P Celts spoke the Celtic Brythonic language, which was later spoken also by those they ruled. The word Britain is derived from the word Brythonic. The Goidel Q Celts were the only Celts to reach Ireland, coming over from the British mainland. Again, they formed the aristocracy and the Gaelic language was adopted by all the Irish.
There is much debate over who the Picts (inhabiting the north-east of what was to be Scotland) were. When the Romans arrived in the area, they described the Picts as being large, red headed and obviously Germanic. Pict is a Roman word meaning painted men, and was a derogatory term that Romans applied to people north of Hadrians Wall. It could be that the Picts were in (future) Scotland - specifically Aberdeenshire - before the P and Q Celts. However, Dr Richard Cox, lecturer at University of Aberdeen Department of Celtic, has discovered that inscriptions on Pictish symbol stones are written in Old Norse.
PART TWO
ROMAN AND THEN ANGLO-SAXON CONQUEST
Between 0-400AD Britain was conquered by the Romans, from the south to Hadrians Wall in the north. They ventured further north, but pulled back. They could not defeat the Caledonians, who are widely reported to also have been Pictish, but were very likely Q Celts because the name of the leader of the Caledonians in the 1st century was Calgaich, which means swordsman in Gaelic.
Nevertheless some damage was done to the Picts , during the battle of Mons Grapius, around the Aberdeen area, who were systematically raped by the Rapax Legion (particularly dark). This incident may explain the short statured, black haired and brown eyed people common in Aberdeenshire to this day. The smaller Pictish elements further north in the Highlands and islands were unaffected. The Aberdeenshire area was agricultural land, and so easier to attack than the hostile mountainous terrain of Caledonia.
The Britons south of Hadrians Wall partially interbred with the Romans and their society became Romanised. Now they had become Romano-Britons. The Romans gave up trying to conquer Scotland by 160AD. They withdrew their army completely from Britain shortly before the Anglo-Saxon invasion.
In 449AD, the Angles and Saxons (from Germany) invaded. They had formed an alliance. The Jutes (from Denmark) also came at this time. They settled in the far south, on the mainland just opposite the Isle of Wight, which they also took. They were defeated by the west Saxons. The Saxons concentrated in the south of England. They were intolerant of the Romano Britons, who tended to look recognisably less Germanic, and spoke a language which was Celtic/Latin. They termed them Wealas ( = Welsh) which was a derogatory word for foreigners (slaves/mongrels). They had a policy of ethnic cleansing - but the process was slow, taking hundred of years, and patchy. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says that the Romano Britons fled from them as if from fire. This is unsurprising, as the Romano Britons were a civilian population, while the Angles and Saxons were warrior tribes. The Romano Britons fled to Wales, Cornwall and Brittany (in France).
As mentioned earlier, the very term Welsh is from Anglo-Saxon. These Romano Britons became the population of Wales, their Roman genes further diluting any Celtic ethnicity passed down, although some individuals in Wales do have a Celtic appearance. (Although we must bear in mind the Vikings that settled in Wales later looked comparable to Celts).
At the time of the Roman conquest, Tacitus made a point of describing an ancient Briton tribe living in south Wales called the Silures. As with all the tribes of ancient Britons, their elite would have been Celts. The Silures looked remarkable because they had such dark curly hair and brown eyes that the Romans believed they must have come from Spain. The Silure genes must have mixed into the Romano Britons entering Wales, fleeing from the Angles.
Similarly, the people of Cornwall absorbed genes from Phoenician traders before 1000BC who, while white at this time, could have brought genes for darker hair, explaining the darker look of the Cornish.
Amongst the Irish, there are a significant minority who have a swarthy countenance very unlike the stereotype of the very red-haired, freckled, blue/green eyed Irish who are not as commonly found as many non-British seem to imagine. The fairer peoples recessive genes are easily masked by darker dominant genes.
It is not exactly known where these particularly dark Irish genes came from. Colloquially, they are called bog Arabs by the English and black Irish in the US. Possible sources are: the original pre-Celtic population (remains of the Mediterranid type) Phoenician traders, Spanish traders in medieval times, Barbary Pirates from around 1500AD, and Romany Gypsies, as well as a Norman character called Strongbow, who in 1170 brought Welsh Silures as mercenaries.
According to Victorian maps, Connaught in the west has the least dark complexions and dark eyes, while Munster is darkest.
PART THREE
THE SCOTS COME FROM IRELAND, VIKINGS SETTLE IN BRITAIN AND NORMANS ARRIVE
The Angles had conquered Scotland (which was not yet called Scotland, as the Scots had not yet arrived from Ireland) all the way up to Edinburgh. The lowland Scots of today are of Anglo-Saxon descent, not Celtic, and never spoke Gaelic.
In 600AD, the Scots came from Ireland. They still had a Celtic warrior elite. They took Dalriada and made Dunadd their capital, initially. At Dunadd there is a footprint carved into the rock, that seems to be a possible place for the inauguration of kings.
The Picts and the Caledonians (Picts or else Q Celtic Gaels like the Scots) were a strong presence in Scotland at this point, and separate from the Scots as a tribe. At some point however, the royalties of both Scots and Picts intermixed. In 841AD, Kenneth McAlpin, whos mother was a Pictish princess and father a Scottish king, organised a banquet for the Pictish aristocracy and then, infamously, had them killed. By this means he became king of both Scots and Picts (who were now to be considered Scots). McAlpins treachery left a number of Pictish princesses, who were married off to Scots. The Pictish Matriarchal society was replaced forcibly by the Patriarchal society of the Scots. This eventually led to the end of the Picts as a political power, although the Pictish language persisted until the 12th century.
Going back a little to 800AD, the Vikings colonised the Scottish coasts and islands. They colonised parts of England at the same time, and occupied Ireland at Dublin, Limerick, Cork, Wexford and Waterford around 840AD, where they settled as traders. There was cooperation as well as battle with the Irish.
The Vikings founded Dublin, Irelands capital city, which they called Hurdle Ford at the time. Dublin, York (England) and Rouen (France) were significant Viking towns with prolific trading. Although the Irish took control of Dublin from the Vikings on a number of occasions, such as just after the Battle of Clontarf, they were mostly in control until 1171, when Normans came from England, led by King Henry II, .the Norman king of England, and expelled the Vikings. This was one group of Norsemen defeating another.
The Normans had conquered England in 1066 (William the Conqueror) and dominated the Anglo-Saxons as the aristocracy. For around a century, Wales, Scotland (and Ireland) retained independence from the Normans.
To return to the history of Viking settlers, the Vikings raided Wales and traded there, occupying the south west. The Viking settlements in Ireland have already been mentioned. No doubt Viking genes were absorbed into the Irish and Welsh populations. The Isle of Man (English) was an important Viking settlement. The island still has its own parliament, which meets at a stepped earthen mound called Tynwald, a word derived from thingvollr, (assembly fields) or allthing as the original Icelandic parliament was called.
In Scotland, Vikings colonised coastal areas, the Western Isles, Orkney and Shetland. The people of these areas remain of mostly Norse ancestry. Scottish clans are ethnically divided and there have been many battles as a result of clan hatreds that still simmer to this day. For example, MacLeod is Norse, as are the Fraser and Ross clans. Gordons are Celts and Campbells are Scots (from Ireland).
England had significant Norse settlements, where the people are clearly more Scandinavian in looks to the areas that Vikings did not settle in. York was their main town. They took over various areas throughout England. The Anglo-Saxon king, Ethelred the Unready, killed many Norse in southern England.
The reign of the Anglo-Saxons ended when the Normans invaded in 1066. These Norse French became the new ruling class, having defeated Harold, Earl of Wessex, in the Battle of Hastings. Despite this, the English people are usually referred to as Anglo-Saxons. The Normans were the elite in the same way that the Celts were the elite ruling over the previous populations when they settled. Clearly there is a great amount of Celtic, Roman (which was 90% Germanic) and Norse/Norman ancestry throughout the population of the whole of Britain. Englands second most common surname is Jones, a Romano Briton surname. It is also the most common surname in Wales. This shows that diluted Celtic genes are still in England, especially when one adds to that the millions of recent Irish extraction who came over to escape the Irish potato famine in the mid 19th century.
Because Britain and Ireland are descended from several tribes, including genes from various conquering armies, those who advocate mass foreign immigration like to encourage a belief that the Brits are so racially mixed that there should be no logical objection to the influx from any foreign races. This is a mistaken assertion for three obvious reasons. Firstly, all the waves of settlers in Britain were Indo-European and almost entirely Nordid in the roots from which the variations have emerged; secondly, invasion and settlement by waves of warriors is incompatible, in terms of its effect on the national character, to the genetic impact of masses of economic migrants or refugees arriving passively or as victims. The third factor is that the people of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales (and some smaller regions) do have separate cultural identities as nations - resulting from their individual histories and particular mix of genes. This can be made stronger, by use of eugenics, to up-breed and improve levels of intelligence and health.. People require a feeling of belonging and identity that is exclusive and precious. Those interests seeking to destroy this sense of identity know that they can better enslave people with no knowledge of their heritage or origins. Every nation must strive to resurrect and preserve the particular characteristics of which it is most proud, and resist attempts to replace their culture with the One World Monoculture that threatens to enslave us all.
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