The Genetic History of the British Isles: Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland

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What’s the genetic history of the British Isles and what impact did the Romans, the Vikings, the Anglo-Saxons and the Normans have on its genetic make-up? The People of the British Isles study, led by researchers from the University of Oxford, set out to answer this question. They took DNA samples of UK and European volunteers to identify clear traces of population movements into the UK over the past 10,000 years. They found 17 clusters of individuals that had similarities in their DNA that matched remarkably well with their geographical locations. The major findings of the study were that:

The Anglo-Saxons made a noticeable impression on the genetics of much of England but they did not completely wipe out earlier settlers. Groups of Angles and Saxons from ancient Germany and Denmark migrated over to Britain beginning in the 5th century after the Romans left. The genetic map of Britain shows that most of the eastern, central and southern parts of England form a single genetic group with between 10 and 40 per cent Anglo-Saxon ancestry. However, people in this cluster also retained DNA from earlier settlers. The invaders did not wipe out the existing population; instead, they seem to have integrated and intermarried with them.

What impact did the Vikings have? Although highly influential militarily, politically, linguistically and culturally, there is no obvious genetic signature in England from the Danelaw period. In Orkney however, there is a remarkable genetic legacy. The population in Orkney emerged as the most genetically distinct, with 25% of DNA coming from Norwegian ancestors. This shows that the Norse Viking invasion (9th century) did not simply replace the indigenous Orkney population however, but intermarried with the indigenous Pictish population. More broadly, there was a notable Norwegian signal in all Scottish and Northern Irish samples, however this was less pronounced in Northern England, and even less so in Wales. The most different of all the clusters from the rest of the UK was Orkney, what clearly corresponds to the existence of a Norse Viking Earldom in Orkney from 875 to 1472.

The genetic evidence indicates that people from Wales are most closely related to the Palaeolithic settlers who first moved across from Europe as the ice receded. These first settlers following the last ice age spread across the British Isles, but people in England, Scotland and Ireland were more impacted by later migration and invasions than Wales. Thus, the Welsh are the most genetically similar to the earliest settlers of the British Isles after the last ice age than any other group in the study. There was however a genetic split between north Wales and south Wales.

Sources:

Settlers: Genetics, Geography and the Peopling of Britain - Oxford University Museum of Natural History - http://www.oum.ox.ac.uk/settlers/

Oxford University Museum of Natural History - Genetic Ancestry and the People of the British Isles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8k9LMaFeRM&t=1s

University of Oxford - Who do you think you really are? A genetic map of the British Isles https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2015-03-19-who-do-you-think-you-really-are-genetic-map-british-isles

University of Oxford - People of the British Isles - Population Genetics and Facial Genetics https://www.peopleofthebritishisles.org/ https://www.peopleofthebritishisles.org/population-genetics

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0:00 Intro
0:42 Anglo-Saxons
1:29 Vikings, Danelaw and Orkney
2:35 Wales
3:15 The Romans and the Normans
3:45 The Celts
5:17 Support