Nail. On. Head. The amount of times I've heard people say "I hate all these foreigners coming over here, I'm a proud Anglo Saxon." Doh.
True - I'm just reading "Britain Begins" by Barry Cunliffe. The creation of Britain from when it was still attached to Europe, through the great waves of invaders/settlers, up to the eve of the Norman Conquest. It makes the idea of boasting of 'pure Britishness' a strange notion.
Aye, but to be fair, I suppose it must frustrate some that they can't put immigration control in a field near the (air) port and then deploy their 1st Eleven Thousand to implement policy and save jobs. Things were so much more civilised back in the day, when men were men and the lasses were glad of it.
Genealogists dismiss or at least find minimal the influence of the waves of visitors on the peoples here before the ice retreated. The bulk of people on these Islands would share most of their genealogy with the original inhabitants. The culture that has been changed was done by adaptation and acceptance rather than force or coercion. People seem to confuse the culture element with the bloodline.
According to the book, the last Ice Age cleared out any inhabitants. People moved in as the ice retreated.
Debatable, but even so, many experts claim to show that the bulk of people here now can trace a genealogical link to the first inhabitants rather than the 'mongrel race' theory some seem to prefer. Many other nation states would struggle to show the same lineage.
Links, yes, but DNA advances show a lot of detail within that. Germanic peoples (Angles/Saxons/Jutes/Frisians); Northmen (Danes/Swedes/Norwegians); Romans (and non-Romans serving in the Imperial army). In short - not just the Gallic/'Celtic' strains.
Sure that I read something years ago, that suggested all human beings, regardless of colour, ethnicity, nationality, whatever, were born of the same proto-human stock, and consequently all arguments about racial superiority are by essence futile. However I can't remember the details so I'm not in a position to contribute to debates on racial issues. Oh, I also once read that humans were genetically linked to animals. Cheek. Could you imagine people who behaved like a pack of wild dogs, or grieved for their young like elephants do, or organised social structures like ants, or generally terrified all other living creatures like honey badgers?
Not just, but by far and above the majority is the original settlers, (Celtic, Galic, Norse, Basque, call them what you will) and probably a greater percentage than most other nation states could claim, yet they're not described in the same 'mongrel race' manner. Using the same argument, France and Holland would be German, Russians would be Norse and Southern Africans would all be from the North West. Too much relies on some arbitrary point in time, that seems to change to suit an argument. I'm just never sure why some people seem to dislike a version that shows original settlers, yet argue the rights of native Americans, Maoris, Aborigines etc.
There's some debate about the 'one origin' as there's evidence to show that various types of early man existed and mixed, but the origins of some are still unclear.
Fair enough, but I suspect that is due to a lack of evidence rather than evolution from more than one truly diverse proto-human origin. Go back far enough and we are all related is a logical necessity seen as all life evolved from a single celled starting point. Diversification of life form has always been more mind blowing to me than diversification of humans, because when viewed from that perspective we are all the same anyhow.
I agree. Replace him with Ramy. I achieved what I set out to do on this thread (the first time I have ever deliberately tried to cause a stir) and it sort of proves my point about how threads go off on a tangant. The thread was about bringing a young star from Egypt and it has ended with debate about where we are all from. It reminds me a bit of Chinese whispers (I think that is its name). Everyone in a circle and somebody says whispers something and it goes around until the last person says what was it said. It is never the same.
Threads going off topic is hardly a revelation. It happens to almost everyone on here. We're proud of that here. You off out today? What aftershave you planning on wearing?
