Three thousand years ago, an influential migration took place from the continent to southern England, which may be related to the spread of the Celtic languages. Traces of this migration have been found in the paleo DNA of people living in England at the time. This turns out to be a large-scale study published on Wednesday in Nature, by a large team of archaeologists and geneticists led by Nick Patterson and David Reich (both Harvard University).
The geneticists were able to trace the migration thanks to a huge number of new DNA sequences from bone material from the period 1550 BC. to 50 AD. (Middle and Late Bronze Age and Iron Age), 416 from Britain and 375 from Central and Western Europe. Thanks to these much larger numbers (almost a threefold increase for Britain), from the period 1300-1000 BC popped up. a few individuals with a strikingly abnormal genetic signature, probably the first migrants. Their DNA most closely resembles that of people living in France at the same time, but also clearly has links to DNA from an urnfield culture from Central Europe, the Knoviz culture, which has sometimes been associated with early Celtic culture. In the period 1000 to 800 BC. paleo DNA shows that this new continental genetic signature is spreading further into southern England and Wales.
It is a genetic signature that is mainly characterized by a relatively high level of descent of the first European farmers, which is a sign of continental origin in this period. This genetic ‘farmer’s signature’ goes back to the arrival of the first farmers in Europe, who from 7000 BC. colonized the continent from Anatolia and the Balkans. According to the researchers’ calculations, these Late Bronze Age migrants to Britain ultimately contributed about half of the ancestry of the Iron Age (750 BC-50 AD) people living in England and Wales. The share of ‘first European farmers’ DNA rose from 31 percent around 2000 BC due to the newcomers. to 37 percent in the Iron Age.
The migration was most likely not a quick ‘invasion’
The migration most likely wasn’t a quick “invasion,” but probably consisted of a steady stream of immigrants over hundreds of years, the researchers write. Precisely that period between 1500 and 1150 BC. regarded in archeology as a time of close contact between Britain and the continent, with similar styles of ceramics and grave goods on both sides of the Channel. Because the researchers from this period have relatively little paleo DNA data available from western and central France, it is not yet clear whether this migration and cultural influence is due to the one-way traffic of the continent or to mutual exchange. From 750 BC, the beginning of the Iron Age, there are fewer traces of contact.
Because the spread of the Celtic languages to England and Wales from France is often placed at the end of the Bronze Age, it is obvious to associate the migration that has now been observed with that language change. And that is exactly what the researchers are doing, although they also emphasize that the connection is still uncertain. Paleo-dna research in France and Ireland will make that connection stronger.
‘Farmer DNA’
This Late Bronze Age migration, with its associated increase in Farmer DNA, also provides an explanation for the ancient conundrum that the current population of England and Wales has a higher proportion of Farmer DNA than the Bronze Age ancestors. How do they get that? The only known wave of migration after the Bronze Age, that of Angles, Saxons and Danes in the early Middle Ages, could not explain this higher percentage.
With the discovery of this continental migration around 1300 to 1000 BC. is also another chapter written in the checkered migration history of the British Isles, which began with the first settlement after the Ice Age, around 10,000 BC. by Western European hunter-gatherers. Around 4000 BC. the first farmers arrived, who quickly determined the DNA of the residents for 80 percent. Between 2500 and 2000 BC. Probably the most dramatic moment of migration came when, with the arrival of the Bell Beaker culture, that ‘farmer DNA’ was largely supplanted by ‘steppe DNA’, derived from descendants of the Yamnaia culture from the Black Sea region, which probably included the Indo- brought European languages to Europe. The discovery of that rapid change in the DNA signature of the inhabitants of England over a small number of centuries, also by a team led by David Reich, caused quite a stir four years ago, and led to discussion whether that change is accompanied by a lot of violence. whether it was mainly due to the higher fertility of the newcomers. The migration now discovered has therefore slightly boosted that genetic share of the first European farmers, in England and Wales.
Read also The Bronze Age steppe invasion
A version of this article also appeared in NRC in the morning of December 23, 2021
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