The Origins of the British: The New Prehistory of Britain

by Stephen Oppenheimer

The author offers a revolutionary theory about the origins of the British people, based on the very latest genetic evidence.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Science, Genetics, British Literature, Anthropology, Evolution

650 pages, Paperback

First published September 11, 2006

About the author

Stephen Oppenheimer (b. 1947) is a British paediatrician, geneticist, and writer. He is a graduate of Balliol College, Oxford and an honorary fellow of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. In addition to his work in medicine and tropical diseases, he has published popular works in the fields of genetics and human prehistory. This latter work has been the subject of a number of television and film projects.

Reviews

[Iset · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, where to begin? I picked up Origins of the British firstly because I’m British and interested in learning more about my own ancient ancestry, but also on the strength of the author’s previous work. Out of Eden, Oppenheimer’s previous book, used population genetics as well as archaeology to trace the expansion of Homo sapiens out of Africa and the routes they took to eventually spread across the planet. Though it was a challenging read, Oppenheimer considerately sought to explain difficult concepts in genetics that the layman might not immediately grasp, and wrote in a lucid and coherent manner that I found ultimately informative and rewarding. Origins of the British is an entirely different kettle of fish.

Since Oppenheimer is dealing with a much smaller group this time, to untangle the genetic history of the British requires going into much greater detail than he did in Out of Eden, with sub-groups and off-shoots galore. Maybe it’s just me but I felt like he didn’t take the time this time round to break it down and explain the data to the benefit of those of us who aren’t geneticists. The second element that Oppenheimer discusses is philology. Where did the various languages of the British Isles come from? How old are they? What languages are they closest to in the rest of the world? These are interesting questions, but again Oppenheimer goes into such extreme detail, of what he himself admits is an obfuscating subject, that it was no easy read, at least for me. The terminology used seems suitable for a specialist in the field. The third element that Oppenheimer delves into to support the genetics and the philology is archaeology, seeking to answer the question; do recognisable cultural artefacts signify the migration of peoples, or did ideas spread without people? Another interesting question, and one I admit I was at a much greater advantage understanding with post-graduate archaeology under my belt.

I’m not sure I would recommend this book to others unless you have a good existing knowledge of at least one of the three subject areas tackled. Oppenheimer’s research and critical analysis are impeccable, and I definitely credit the quality of the work, but it’s a challenging read and I’m not sure it’s designed to be easily understandable by the non-specialist.

The summary of Oppenheimer’s findings, for those of you who might find reading the actual book too dry? Around 50% of modern British genetic lines come from Palaeolithic migration after the ice sheet covering Britain retreated, from the Pyrenees up the Atlantic coast and from the region that is now Belgium, circa 15,000 BCE. Around 25% of lines derive from Mesolithic and Neolithic migrations, circa 9000 – 6000 BCE, from internal migration of existing Britons, migration from the Balkans via two routes – one across the Alps and Pyrenees and once again up the Atlantic coast, and the other north through Scandinavia – and migration from the ancient Near East. Regionally, these Stone Age migrations account for 88% of Irish, 81% of Welsh, 79% of Cornish, 70% of Scottish, and 68% of English.

The “Anglo-Saxon invasion” of the Dark Ages did not exist in the way we might think, as most of those bloodlines date to much earlier, some time between c. 3000 BCE and 300 CE, but there was a small migration of Angles and Jutes at the time, whose genetic markers are closely related to Scandinavia, but it was not a wholesale replacement of the native Britons – the “Anglo-Saxon” migration accounts for only 3.8% of modern British genetic make up, increasing to 5% in England and at it’s highest in some parts of Norfolk at 15% - this seems to have been a case of elite takeover and adoption of culture, not a mass migration. The Viking genetic contribution of the dark ages – again, not counting the migrations from Scandinavia that date to much earlier – account for 5% of modern Britons, with the signal stronger around the northern coastlines. As for William the Conqueror and the Normans in 1066? It seems the Normans, being descended from Vikings themselves, as yet cannot be distinguished in the genetic record, but Oppenheimer estimates from the documentary evidence that they account for at least 3%, weighted amongst the landowning classes.

Moreover, the Celtic and English languages date to much earlier than you might expect. The Celtic languages are more distant from each other than the Romance languages, suggesting a deep origin in the Neolithic or even earlier. Meanwhile, English, Oppenheimer demonstrates, shows extraordinarily old roots with Scandinavian that pre-date the so-called “Viking invasion” and instead of being evolved from West Germanic is arguably its own branch of the Germanic family, dating to somewhere between 3600 BCE and 300 CE.

In conclusion, if you’re British or Irish, your roots in the Sceptred and Emerald Isles probably go back much deeper than you expect, with 75% of genetic lines originating in Stone Age hunter-gatherers who settled here when the ice age retreated. You might have a few Angles or Vikings in your family tree somewhere, but none of the later migrations account for more than 10% of modern genetic lines, dispelling the myths of mass migration and replacement of the native Britons and re-writing the history books in favour of a story of elite take-overs and cultural adoption, rather than genocide.

A worthy read, but a challenge for the non-specialist.

8 out of 10

[Tim Pendry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although now over a decade old, this rethinking of the origins of the inhabitants of the British Isles deserves to be widely read. I am not sure its radical shattering of the standard view of our history has percolated far enough into the general public's vision of its own history.

It was so radical that initially I thought I might have picked up something closer to Bauval and Hancock but, no, this gets endorsements from luminaries such as Renfrew and Gamble and it is clear that the author has undertaken his own research and engaged with other serious researchers.

He terms it a book of 'popular science' but be warned that it is not a simple read and the art of 'skimming' a lot of technical genetic detail proved useful. And, of course, he is open about some of the speculative aspects of his work with another decade since to refine or refute by others.

I am not expert but my understanding is that refining is precisely what has been going on and that there has not been a great deal of refutation. Rather than say what is regarded as true in 2018, it might be best to summarise what Oppenheimer proposed from the genetics of over ten years ago.

The book is complex . My summary will not do it justice. I hope not to deter others from reading it and then following up with their own research. But here goes ...

The core proposition is that the vast bulk of the British population is much older in origins, although there is a cut-off date because of climatic conditions at the Last Glacial Maximum, than widely believed.

A key finding is that every historical political or military invasion (Anglo-Saxon, Viking, Norman and implicitly the migrations in the modern era) have had much less impact on the nature of the population in general than supposed by some archaeologists.

This fits with the theses of those archaeologists who see continuities in population from their reading of the artefact record. They suggest that each invasion was more of an elite takeover than a mass movement of peoples.

Oppenheimer endorses this general thrust, based on genetic evidence, suggesting that elite invasions tended to be takeovers of populations rather like themselves genetically. There were thus continuities of place as well as of time.

So where did the bulk of the population come from? One interesting finding is that there is a natural difference between what we call Celts and what we call English in the very broadest sense - or rather between the population of the Western seaways and those coming from the continent.

I think we are stuck with the terms Celts for political reasons even though it represents a wholly misguided nineteenth century origin legend but I would quite like to think of their rivals in these islands as 'Anglians'. We are stuck now with English.

This difference is ultimately expressed as two genetic lines coming from two Ice Age refuges - one in North East Spain (of which the Basques are a relict) and one in the Ukraine and Balkans. As the ice melted populations expanded northwards.

The Western line is actually the genetically dominant one, working its way up the seaways, so that perhaps two thirds of us British have ancestral origins in a settler community which expanded on the back of a neolithic culture (cardial ware) that was ultimately Mediterranean.

This is the one that underpins the genetics of what we call Celts but here Oppenheimer has a card to play. Just as he diminishes the idea of ethnic cleansing by Saxons, Vikings and Normans so he does the same to another cherished myth - the Celtic homeland in Europe.

He points out that language and culture are not genetics. Although cultural forms flowed into Britain from mainland Europe that we now link to Celticism, the culture that arrived amongst the 'Celts' (as we know them) was imported on a different genetic base.

There is much that is more speculative in the book on the Indo-European languages of which the Celtic languages are a part. Oppenheimer seems to follow Renfrew in postulating that these language families flowed across Europe via the expansion of the Anatolian neolithic.

However, it has to be said that the book was not easy to follow at this point (the depth of detail makes it easy to allow attention to lapse at times) so these sections might require a second reading - I won't try to summarise what I imperfectly understand.

So, we have a largely neolithic (though there are mesolithic aspects of the case) settling the Western sea ways and moving up the South Coast where they then meet a separate settlement process coming from Europe linked back to the Linearbandkeramik of Germany.

This latter takes over the North European plain and spreads north-westwards to meet the Cardial Ware settlers along the South Coast where it is no accident perhaps that Wessex, centred on Stonehenge, becomes prosperous on trade. Trade is what the British do after all.

With the chains of mountains dividing West and East and cultures dependent on waterways and avoiding forests until absolutely necessary, a different genetic stock, perhaps a third of the British today, peoples Eastern England and Scotland. These are our 'Anglians'.

There is a third wave linked back ultimately to the Ukrainian refuge which arrives, again along sea routes, from Northern Scandinavia to people the northern parts of the Western seaways - perhaps a reddish-haired strain moving down via the Orkneys and Shetlands.

Everyone starts to get mixed up through further mutations, secondary settlements, slaving, trade and war as well as the imposition of warriors, traders and various hangers-on from elite struggles for booty and advantage but the core lines derive from these primary neolithic movements.

The peoples who suffered under the Romans, Saxon warlords, Vikings and Normans were pretty well the same (genetically) as those who existed long before the Iron Age with the suggestion (beneath the later complexities) of two main genetic zones underpinning 'British' culture.

These two genetic zones seem to have a surprising cultural continuity throughout history with the Celtic and English speaking zones following the pattern even today regardless of the vicissitudes of subsequent history.

This raises the language question again because Oppenheimer is tempted to suggest that the peoples who pre-existed various warlord invaders might have had far more long term continuity in how they spoke than believed until recently.

His suggestion is that warlords (at least in the earlier period) arrived in part because they were already culturally like a population and that Roman Britain for example was perhaps not 'Celtic' at all but either Belgic and Germanic (North Sea).

The South Coast Saxons were in fact blood brothers to the Belgic and Frankish communities of Northern Gaul and North Sea Germany and the 'English' pre-existed as Anglians who were blood brothers to other North Sea peoples. Saxons were perhaps just later variants of Belgae.

Furthermore (though this is very speculative) such people spoke languages close to those of their continental neighbours and it is in this that English originated. There are, of course, other speculations on the Picts but the speculations are always well argued and plausible.

So, the British are divided naturally into their two halves, east and west, and then are further divided by geography within or just outside those categories north and south. Those divisions are very ancient and pre-date our historical records.

This raises an interesting question about 'race' because genetics increasingly is being shown to be linked to personality characteristics and cultures may be built on such predispositions - perhaps the free-born Englishman really is psychologically pre-set in that direction!

Oppenheimer is interesting on his own position. His name suggests German-Jewish ancestry and that is where it comes from but, in fact, his own Britishness represents by far the majority of his genetic code because incomers generally get overwhelmed by native genes as they marry in.

He has also done what I have done - married into an entirely different East Asian genetic heritage so his children, like mine (though mine have genetic antecedents from Europe through colonisation), are genetically diverse but the Asian will attenuate over time as they reproduce.

This raises interesting political questions about migration and Celt identity. Recent migration, for example from the Comonwealth and the EU, is not an invasion by warlords but a settlement process and these migrants often (though not invariably) reproduce within their community.

What we have (in England) is a core people going back to neolithic time battered periodically by elites (nothing changes in that respect) being faced by a quantitatively different intrusion where the levels of integration are ambiguous and the new settlers are concentrated in particular areas.

This might explain the unease of many English indigenes both about the fact of the matter and the lack of control or interest in their instinctive fears by elites (who, of course, see the majority around them as, basically, plunder, to all intents and purposes).

The reality is not as alarming as nativists fear but cannot be swept under the carpet. Many migrants will simply be happily absorbed into Englishness (though it is called Britishness to keep the Celts on side in a United Kingdom) but others will create new sub-groups of localised genetic difference.

This does not matter in the long run (though being identifiably different has caused problems in the past) but it does need managing. Successive Governments had and have an appalling record at matching sufficient cultural and linguistic integration with respect for indigenous concerns.

We must remember that whiteness really is an unusual mutation from the 'norm' of humanity, one which has had enormous global success in spreading for whatever mysterious reasons. But it is a marker and as the new genetics spreads into the population, its 'factness' may re-emerge.

We should be very wary of the new genetic history fuelling genuinely inappropriate interpretations of the data to suggest a 'white' community in danger. There is fortunately no sign of this at the moment but only because the English are notoriously easy-going and tolerant.

We cannot deny a genetic base to 'whiteness' or that it has some cultural meaning and the determined attempt to remove all meaning from it while giving dramatic cultural meaning to blackness and brownness has proved dangerously counter-productive in recent years.

Another political issue arises out of a debate about the Celts. The post-modern question is whether there is such a people as the Celts. The recent answer in archaeology has been in the negative but the genetics seem to suggest otherwise but within the revisionist framework.

The trend in the last few decades had been to dismiss the very existence of the Celts except as modern nationalist creations because the archaeology has disposed of the link between the La Tene and Hallstatt cultures and Britain.

La Tene and Hallstatt are now seen as elite cultural influences. The claim is that the people of the Western seaways were recipients of ideas but not linked with Central Europe's Iron Age Celts as described by the Romans. Oppenheimer suggests that we are dealing with a very red herring here.

He accepts fully the disconnection of Iron Age Europe from the modern day Celts but his genetic work demonstrates the distinctiveness of the people of the Western seaways (even in looks) and suggests a language base that gives the Celts genuine reason to consider themselves a people.

So we have two 'races' (to use an unpopular word), perhaps three if we take the Scandinavian neolithic entry into the north, who are biologically a little distinctive with different cultural attitudes formed by different environments. And if the 'Celts' exist then so do the 'Anglians'.

Of course, racialising and politicising all this is nonsense except that the history of elite struggles over these islands is the story of the domination of the seaways peoples by the 'Anglians' and then one of the Anglian elites abandoning their own people to build an Empire.

A gross over-simplification, to be sure, but there is a truth in it. The fraught politics of petty nationalism and the deep and growing resentments of the 'Anglians' who are not part of the elite within what is still an 'imperial' United Kingdom are derived from the working out of this history.

The political dynamic is thus a little different from what we have been led to expect - one not of ethnic cleansing but of successive elite replacements. The moral link between elites and mass, lord and peasant, starts to weaken as genetics show not race but power relations in operation.

Oppenheimer has an irritable introduction about ignorant media misinterpretation of his work and he is right to be concerned. The conclusion of the genetics is that difference is a fact but not a politically determinative one unless we allow it to be.

If a population has been in one place for a very very long time and absorbed elite invaders and traders rather than been displaced by them it suggests a basic resilience and tolerance. It also suggests that history has treated it as a tool and resource for highly organised out-groups.

This genetic work should be encouraged but it requires a determined effort to stop any nineteenth century racial interpretation emerging at the expense of one based on the political dynamic of native masses, uninterested in difference, being manipulated by cosmopolitan elites.

I cannot resist bringing Brexit into the argument as a paradox. The ancient history shows the 'Anglians' as the people most linked to the Continent by cultural ties and genetics and the Celts as independent seafarers building their own unique trading culture covering the known world.

Yet the position on the European Union has become the exact opposite because of the intrusion of imperial history. The English want out of the continental entanglement and the Celts equally tend to want immersion in it as guarantor of their own identity over and against the 'Anglians'.

This shows us both that the genetic base lines are still quietly working their way through our history, that underlying differences can be quite intractable and that particular positions are merely occasions for difference based on more recent history.

The book raises a question about the very concept of an elite-driven United Kingdom if it cannot balance the interests within it. The elite lost Ireland and may yet lose Scotland. The English often feel that they are culturally sucked dry for an empire. Neither side is very happy at the moment.

We can overdo this interpretation but this book is an intelligent and humane contribution to the debate on who we British are, in a country where ancestry has become a national pastime. It is welcome and should be read more widely.

Positive outcomes might be a renewed respect for the people we happen to have ended up calling Celts but also respect for the long-suffering English too, historically treated as cannon fodder in wars and milch cows for taxation. That worm may yet turn!

[Jaakko J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book "The Origins of the British" by Stephen Oppenheimer is not a light read. At 628 pages, it is not a book man would read just to amuse himself. It is a book that one reads to to gain new insight into the history. Book is filled with detailed descriptions of the genetic methods used. It is very scholarly work that is aimed squarely at the class of professional historians.
However, even if I am not a professional historian, I did quite enjoy this book. It is fun to watch when old established ideas are questioned also in the field of history. I have amused myself chiefly in my spare time with reading history for the past 40 years. The kind of new insight that this book does really bring is extremely welcome.

Stephen Oppenheimer is out to prove that the invasion of Angles and Saxons at the end of the Roman period in Britain did not simply wipe out the then current Celtic population in England. He argues that there had been a distinct Germanic population in England even at the time of Roman invasion.
There perhaps was just the arrival of new small ruling elite at the end Roman times. That new elite already had direct linguistic relationships with the people living in England already. Stephen Oppenheimer has a lot of true research in genetic outlook of the inhabitants of the British isles to back him up. Many findings in archaeology and new interpretations of historic texts do also clearly support his theories.

I laid this book down even more convinced than ever on the fact that the alleged great Germanic human migrations at the end of Roman empire were not true upheavals and migrations of real nations. They just might have been more of predatory excursions of armed groups. They just took the power to extract money from the locals away from the former Roman elite.
On a similar note, I must wonder how rarely the real predatory nature of the Roman Empire is brought to light. In the end, this was a nation that did grow and flourish by stealing the results of the hard work of others. Unfathomable riches were gathered first as plunder and then as protection money for hundreds of years. This happened as a result of predatory assaults on all of the neighboring nations that could not defend themselves from the hordes of soldiers Rome could muster to fight for plunder and slaves.

Of course, Rome did bring also the Roman peace or Pax Romana, the good roads and the Roman justice. However, this empire was also a robber nation. It did bring a new parasitic upper class to lands it conquered to live off work and toil of the conquered.
However, I must stress that these ideas are mine and not from this book by Stephen Oppenheimer. He concentrates on the flow of genetic markers and the like and like many other modern historians he does refrain himself from judging the events he tells about in any way.

I just can not stop myself from bringing up this issue. The nature of human conquests is a central one even in this book. Stephen Oppenheimer does show how the alleged great human migrations in the history of Britain just could be shifts in small elites. Stephen Oppenheimer shows that the main body of the population of the British Isles could, in fact, been quite the same for the whole of the time after the end of the last Ice Age.
According to him Britain was at that time first populated, on the other hand, by people coming from the direction of the Iberian peninsula on the west coast and from the Ice Age refuge in Ukraine area in the west of Britain.

Stephen Oppenheimer does not say this in these words. There just is not enough scientific proof for this idea, but the central trend is quite clear. The human population in a certain area is not renewed at conquests. Newcomers just bring a new set of genes to play and in the end mingle happily with the old inhabitants.
The culture and even language may change, but the basic human genetic makeup may remain very much the same millenniums after millennium- It is just enriched by new waves of immigrants. They may come as slaves or rulers; in the end, this does not make a big difference in the long run.

[Gemma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating read and very informative. My only criticism is that it sits somewhere between popular reading and academic research, the level of detail is off-putting at times.

[Val · Rating 4 out of 5]

The early peoples of the British Isles spread north along the Atlantic coast and then eastwards. Other settlers and invaders crossed the North Sea into eastern Great Britain and spread westwards. None of this is controversial and the various tribes were documented by Greek and Roman historians, but there is uncertainty about exactly where they came from, when they arrived, what languages they spoke, who they really were.
The author has looked at sources, evidence from the oldest texts, trading of goods, mining, language development, traditional archaeology (artefacts, burial customs, evidence of lifestyles) and more modern genetics. He also examines the various theories put forward through the years. (The nineteenth century 'Central European Celtic Homeland' theory is thoroughly debunked for example and the Saxon 'genocide' has very serious doubts cast on it.)
While the story of the 'Celts' is uncertain, the story of the earliest inhabitants of most of England is even less clear. There is no evidence that they were ever Celtic and the vast majority were certainly Northern European in later history. This section of the book seems more speculative than the 'Celtic' section, but it seems likely that both sets of migrations started a lot earlier than first thought. Some of this is confusing, but I think he is trying to give as clear a picture as possible.
Both the Atlantic trading route and the North Sea migration route were used many times since the end of the last Ice Age. The various genetic markers show the contributions from both, so we can get a reasonable idea of where the people came from. Artifacts, such as pottery, changes of lifestyle, such as fishing and beach-combing versus farming, with or without the people, burial customs and monuments all show cultural spread. Cultural identity is strongly aligned with language however and this is much more difficult to establish. Were the various languages of the British Isles those of the peoples, were they imposed by an invading elite, or were they a convenient medium for trade? All or any of these could account for the split.
Oppenheimer's conclusions as to where the various people of the British Islands came from and when they arrived use all the available evidence and they stand up to analysis. What language they spoke is less certain because there is little evidence, but it is probably less important.

[Laurel Bradshaw · Rating 2 out of 5]

Two stars because I have a high interest in the topic and actually managed to read the whole thing, including the notes. But having just read Barry Cunliffe's Britain Begins, I found this to be almost unreadable. Pages and pages of passages like this: "There was some later regional re-expansion and spread during the Mesolithic in several other Rox clusters (see also Chapter 4); so cluster R1b-4 features in Scotland and north Wales, being absent from Ireland, while R1b-6 expanded in eastern Europe and R1b-15 re-expanded in Cornwall, central Wales and, to a lesser extent, in Ireland, Scotland and the Channel Islands." (p. 126) My problem with it is partly that his nomenclature of these subgroups of the R1b haplogroup (which he also does with other haplogroups) are not defined anywhere making it impossible to correlate with others research. My father is a subgroup of R1b, but I have no idea whether or not he fits into one of Oppenheimer's subgroups. It also seems suspect to me that he bases his conclusions on current genetic populations, and not actual DNA analysis of prehistoric remains. Perhaps that was too new at the time he wrote this in 2006? His maps and charts were not helpful on the whole.

The book becomes much more readable when he gets to the Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings and I found his discussion of linguistic evidence interesting. But after wading through 405 pages of all his research, I could have just read his epilogue and gotten his conclusions wrapped up in those 16 pages. I really didn't learn anything in the previous 405 pages that wasn't there.

Book description: The author offers a revolutionary theory about the origins of the British people, based on the very latest genetic evidence.

[Lenore · Rating 1 out of 5]

I gave up about 200 pages in, finding the level of detail so excruciatingly tedious that I could not even bring myself to find and read the summary sections.

[Filip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bit long-winded, but good at debunking myths and definitely filling a gap in my knowledge of prehistory

[Archant]

This book although well written, along with the TV series that accompanied it, back in 2005, is an example of how one discipline sbould never be seen in isolation, it is example of archaeologists producing analyses almost for sake of it, academic naval amazing. Pryor chooses to dismiss accepted accepted historical dogma, with placenames, burials, language, written contemporary sources showing there was a large scale settlement/migration after the departure of the Romans, instead focusing on the idea that because there was no large scale field use change in one small area of the fens and extrapolate this for the whole of the country. Isotope analysis on teeth to show if they had overseas origins, ignoring that they might be 2nd generation migrants and ignoring vital data, such as skull shape and dna of the bones etc. In the TV show he meets a geneticist who showed there was a 50-100% replacement of male y dna in England but not Wales, this dna matching that of Friesland in Northern Netherlands, a likely source population on of the Anglo saxons. Certainly mitochondrial dna (female line) would be more indigenous Briton, with the Anglo Saxons integrating with the britons, some of the leaders moving to brittany, but more than likely most stayed, so here is some validity for his argument for the west of England, but there had to have been a significant settlement of people to enact these enormous changes. Thankfully genetics has finally provided the missing piece in all this. The People of the British Isles project, the largest dna population analysis ever undertaken anywhere, released in 2015, shows Anglo saxon dna at 10% in Wales to 40% in the east of England, with York at 50%. This shows that Pryor was partially right, people did integrate and adapt, but there also had to have been a large scale settlement, to show such a significant input in dna, which matches the linguistic, place name and written evidence after all.

[Philip Alzira-Rolt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stephen Oppenheimer starts at a popular science level but this soon deepens as his knowledge of the subject matter far surpasses his ability to bring it down to layman terms.
The books is interesting and I stuck with it but the details of the science involved is way beyond that of a popular science read.
What do we learn from the book? (Spoiler alert.) Some of the invaders and settlers information we learnt at school was wrong. The Anglo Saxon invaders didn't wipe out the indigenous population and in fact were just a very small single figure percentage of the overall population. The idea that the majority of invaders who settled in England came from the near continent is misplaced. In fact, most settlers came from an ice age refuge in Iberia so areas we now consider Celtic are actually most closely related to the Spanish in terms of genetics.
I would recommend this to anybody with an interest in knowing where the original British settlers came from but be aware, it is a weighty tome and not light bedtime reading.

[Viviana · Rating 5 out of 5]

I appreciate a science book that tells a good story but is transparent enough to show the reader how the hypothesis are built. It gives arguments to point to a likely conclusion but avoids giving certainties where none can exist.
I have always been fascinated by prehistory and I enjoyed the picture that is painted of early human development - it is not only about invasion or migration but mostly about cultural influence and links (including commercial links) that have been the backbone of how people became who they are

[Julie Hendricks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fasvinating. Provides thorough data to support his arguments and layman-level explanations for those of us who are not experts in genetic sciences. (Appendix A was very helpful to me!) He has provided a compelling, logical case for a major rewrite of British migrations.

[Isham Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recent controversial theory on the genetic origins of the British.

[Vanessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

My only complaint about this book is the rather sudden and abrupt ending, which happened in the middle of the book. The second half was an explanation for the processes used to come to the conclusions that he did

[Ed Dodson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this work dealing with the return of people to Britian after it last ice age had depopulated much of Europe. Oppenheimer presents and amalgamates evidence from Archaeological, Anthropological, Cultural, and Linguistic sources with his extensive genetic data to create an overview of the antecedents of the British people.
In recent decades the concepts of the origins of the Celts, the Anglo Saxon "holocaust", and the population effects Viking incursions and the Norman Conquest have been re-examined in light of genetic studies with suprising results. It was thought that these successive waves of great social change were associated with large migrations of new people to replace the ancient Brittons. Not so. The genetic changes associated with these large political and social events were rather slight overall, amounting to no more than about a 5% addition to the overall genetic makeup of Britan. So it wasn't so much an invasion of people, but an adaptation of new culture, technology, style, and language by the original inhabitants who got there many millennia ago when Britian was not an island at the end of the last ice age.
Also interesting to me was the evidence of the and keep the longstanding communication and kinship of the British with peoples and cultures in Northern Europe, Scandanavia, and Iberia. There was much more Norse genetic mixing before the Vikings than during the more dramatic raids.
A word of warning: this is a scholarly work made more accessible to non-scholars, but still a challenging read. An understanding of genetics is not essential, although that was a major attraction of the book for me. It was challenging to wade through the data trying to understand it on a basic level and keep the myriad of haplotype abbreviations straight. It would be better to accept the many genetic maps on Oppenheimer's word for their veracity. It would also be a good idea to read the appendices first, and perhaps one of the author's prior works, such as Out of Eden , first.
Familiarity with ancient and medieval history and also anthropology would be helpful but not essential. Most essential would be an interest in the British people and an appreciation of the synthesis of all these lines ofss evidence to shed light on their origins.
My only criticism of this book relates to reading the ebooks version. The diagrams were difficult to access easily, and the Illustration Plates, while listed, were not included. This book would be better to hold in your hands and physically own.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was both more interesting and more satisfying than I expected. I had anticipated a good, but mostly satisfies-idle-curiosity-about-{subject} type of book, but Oppenheimer did far more than a geneticist's gazeeter guide to prehistory and early British history. If you happened to read Cunliffe's Facing the Ocean, and wanted more on how genetics affects the story, then Oppenheimer's book is for you.

He deals with the archaeology and historical evidence for the subject, synthesizing them with the genetics - but letting each strand of inquiry stand on its own merits before seeing what picture(s) they paint together. I cannot assess his handling of the genetics (my eyes glaze over when anything more than news-article-level discussion of genetics is going on), but I am much more familiar with the historical and archaelogical evidence, and his handling of those struck me as balanced, reasonable, and in search of how much the evidence can support and what alternative interpretations are possible - so I'm assuming he's done the same with the genetic evidence and in the genetic analyses he used, as well as how he interpreted them. To the extent I followed the genetics, his handling of it felt right to me, at least.

If you have any investment in the history of the British Isles, on either the Celtic or the Germanic sides of the story (or both) - or if you're fascinated by the monumental cultures of the Neolithic - or if questions about the spread of Indo-European languages and/or the prehistoric movements of people within Europe catches your attention - then pick up this book. Oppenheimer' Origins of the British not only offers a layman's summary of the available evidence (up to when the book was published), it also offers some interesting theories, with supporting evidence, for things that I've never felt (until reading this book) had adequate explanations, such as: the origin of the Celtic languages, cultural continuity/discontinuity along the Atlantic fringes of Europe from the Mesolithic onward, the establishment of Germanic-speaking cultures in England, the apparent replacement of indigenous peoples in Orkney and the Shetlands, the age of cultural contacts both along the Atlantic coasts and across the North sea, and quite possibly more I'm not thinking of.

[Paula · Rating 5 out of 5]

This may be the first true history of the origins of the British people. Oppenheimer bases his finding on genetic evidence taken from living populations of the longest settled villages, as well as from remains taken from ancient burial sites unearthed during archeological digs. He also relies upon the confirmatory evidence left through artifacts and the early languages inscribed upon ancient monuments, to unfold the story of the earliest migrations into the British isles.

Oppenheimer's main contention is that the origins of the British go back further than history has ever reflected, by thousands of years. There were four main migrations into the British isles: The first came up from the Atlantic coast prior to Neolithic times. The second came from the vicinity of Belgium across the channel into the southern parts of England, also probably prior to Neolithic times. The third and fourth waves probably came with the Neolithic innovations. The third came from the Baltic Peninsula into Danish territory, and then across the channel into southern-western parts of England. The fourth came from above the Black Sea, up into Norway and across the North Sea into the north-western reaches of England and Scotland. The genetic evidence seems incontrovertible. This is the true history of British settlement.

That leaves us to rewrite history to reflect the truth. The Saxon conquest and displacement of indigenous populations never happened, rather early histories probably reflect the terror felt from raids made by genetic cousins from across the channel. No foreign hordes came to wipe out whole populations. Any raiders who may have stayed after the initial pillage would have mingled their DNA with their cousins. Waves of marauding bands undoubtedly disturbed the peace of coastal zones throughout early history. However, the evidence points to the fact that among those ravaging hordes were indigenous britons themselves, coming down from the Orkney isles and northern Scotland to pillage the rich villages south of them. The truth is always as better than fiction, especially when that fiction has been couched as "history."

[David Cheshire · Rating 5 out of 5]

This amazing re-writing of prehistory is derived from an astounding new methodology, genetic tracking of tiny, periodic mutations of parts of our DNA. Study of the "genetic flow" allows migrations to be quantified, dated and located. Oppenheimer gives due respect to other disciplines and urges a multi-disciplinary approach. But his revisions are astounding. The stories we've grown up with of Celtic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon and Viking invasions are turned upside down. These are not esoteric matters. We are not who we thought we were; prehistory is astonishingly genetically conservative; after the last ice age migrations to Britain have been in strictly limited numbers; when, how and in what order things happened all need rethinking. This is less revisionism, more academic dynamite. And to the question, who are the English, and how and when we got here, the jury, unsettlingly, is suddenly out.

[Linda Trionfo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book as I was wanting to connect places with family stories from long ago. It was very technical and wordy at times so I had to skip around a little to stay focused. But over all great education on where I came from and what it may have been like for my family, mostly in Scotland and Ireland in the 1400's through 1700. Worth the read.Some reviews have said this is all old news...well I never knew much about it, so its new to me and I loved learning about it! That's what books are for right!

[Alina · Rating 3 out of 5]

With this book, I continue delving into my current obsession with genetics and deep ancestry. It uses genetics, archeology, linguistics, and classical sources to argue that most Brits are descended from people who arrived in the British Isles a long, long time ago -- basically right after the ice receded -- and that the traditional division between Celt and Anglo-Saxon does not go as deep as generally believed. The good part about this book is that the subject matter is interesting; the bad part is that much of the text (esp. the genetics section) is very dry.

[Russell Ince · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting book, the gist of it being that 75% of British ancestors came from Spain beginning some 15,000 years ago. This book seriously undermines assumptions of Anglo-Saxon ethnicity. Very well written.

If I had to make a criticism: the book doesn't know whether to be a popular science book or an academic text and could do with a little more brevity.

[Peter Levi · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating look at the genetic history of the British Isles, in particularly debunking the accepted history I grew up with which was of successive waves of settlers killing off the inhabitants they found there. I can't give it five stars however as the text is very dense and it's not an easy read.

[Schmidleysscribblins.wordpress.com · Rating 5 out of 5]

Comprehensive analysis refuting the historical argument that the Anglo-Saxon invasions eradicated the 'native' people of England. Oppenheimer uses genetics, archeology, linguistics, and literature to buttress his argument. A very informative and persuasive. Book. Highly recommend for history buffs like me.

[Matt Root · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I have no means to judge the validity of Oppenheimer's specific claims, this was a fascinating and engaging read and he makes a fairly convincing case -- based on not only his own genetic research but also archaeology, linguistics and ancient literature -- that the history of the peoples of the British Isles is likely far different from the "received" traditional history.

[Angie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Facinating! I could not put it down. My family is mainly from England & Scotland (except for the German part) and I was facinated with the premise. Although I do not agree with the author's theories, I nevertheless found in very interesting.

[Catherine Kesseler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mr. Oppenheimer makes his case using linguistics, ancient writings, archeology, and genetics. A really intresting book. It did tend to bog down in a lot of details. The charts and graphs were in black and white and difficult to read.

[Paula Obermeier McCarty · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating look at ancient British history.

[Simon Marriott · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read it three or four times. To me it was a magical read that makes sense of all the bits that didnt make sense in my current history understanding.

[Peter Ellwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not always easy reading as it tends to read more like a PhD thesis (perhaps it was) - but its story of the genetic roots of the British is really interesting.

[Chas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recomme3nd this very highly