A new study suggests that mass migrations from France to England, Wales and England around 3,000 years ago has replaced approximately half the Great Britain’s ancestry.
An international team of researchers examined the DNA of 793 ancient individuals from Bronze Age Britain, which began around 2,000 BC and lasted for nearly 1,500 years.
According to results, around half of all subsequent population’s genetic ancestry can be attributed towards people who moved into south Britain in the 1300 BC-800 BC period.
These new migrants became thoroughly mixed in to the Southern British population in the period 1000 BC to 875 BC – likely a time of ‘intense and sustained contacts’ between many diverse communities, the researchers say,
It is difficult to pinpoint the origin of the migrants’ exact origins, however it seems most likely that they came from France or France-based communities.
Researchers based their findings on newly-discovered and already-discovered ancient remains from British towns including Amesbury in Wiltshire, Lechlade in Gloucestershire, Ditchling Road in Brighton and Ulva Cave in Scotland.
DNA from these British samples were compared to ancient individuals recovered from parts of mainland Europe.
These findings were made possible by newly-discovered or previously discovered remains of ancient British cities such as Amesbury in Wiltshire and Lechlade in Gloucestershire. These are brand new ancient remains samples; the yellow dots were previously published. Since some sites may have multiple individuals, the dots signify sites and not people.
To trace people’s movements into Britain in the Bronze Age, researchers used ancient DNA. This is the picture of the disarticulated remains from an adult male that was found in Cliffs End Farm’s burial ground. It is possible that his genetic makeup suggests that he was a descendant of a British population. His strontium and other oxygen isotopes analysis suggests that he could have come from Central Europe’s Alpine region.
Researchers are unsure of the number and reasons for migration.
The new study, published today in Nature, was conducted by a team of more than 200 international researchers, led by the University of York, Harvard Medical School and the University of Vienna.
‘We have long suspected, based on patterns of trade and shared ideologies, that the Middle to Late Bronze Age was a time of intense contacts between communities in Britain and Europe,’ said study author Professor Ian Armit at the University of York.
“While it was once believed that long-distance mobility could only be achieved by a handful of individuals such as traders and small groups of warlords, DNA evidence now shows that large numbers of people are moving across all social classes.
Professor Armit told MailOnline that the specific areas these migrants came from are unknown, although France is likely.
He said that it is possible to exclude migrants from Britain. But, the French sampling has shown large gaps.
“The nearest genetic relatives we can see come from the later Iron Age population around France’s periphery. France appears to be the likely origin area, taking in all the above and the links between archaeology and material culture.
According to the findings, the genetic structure of our island’s population changed through sustained contacts between mainland Britain and Europe over several centuries, such as the movement of traders, intermarriage, and small scale movements of family groups.
There was no sweeping ‘violent invasion’ or single migratory event that replaced the population of southern Britain. Instead, it was more peacefully called ‘homogenisation.
‘There may very well be episodes of violence scattered within it, but it is certainly a process rather than an event,’ Professor Armit told MailOnline.
“We don’t also see any bias toward males in the new population, as might be expected in an invasion situation.”
Bronze pots, tools and weapons, as well as bronze tools were imported from Europe during Bronze Age Britain. The National Museums of Scotland have shown bronze-age tools.
The skeleton shown in this photograph is from Cliffs End Farm Kent.
“People would have come in at least two centuries ago and most likely intermarried into local communities.
“The process could have been reversed, but the sample from the relevant regions of France is not yet available to prove this.
“Essentially, what we’re likely to see is the homogenization of populations on either side of Channel.”
This DNA evidence further supports the argument that Celtic languages existed in Britain during Bronze Age.
Celtic languages were thought to be originated in central Europe. These languages spread throughout the continent, including across the British Isles. Slavic languages replaced them in large parts with Germanic, Romance, and Romance languages.
The study does not show evidence of large-scale migrations of British citizens into Britain in the Iron Age. This period was previously thought to have been the time when Celtic languages might have spread.
Professor David Reich from Harvard Medical School said that these findings did not answer the question as to the origins of Celtic languages in Britain.
“However, every reasonable scholar must adjust their best guesses regarding what happened based upon these findings.
‘Our results militate against an Iron Age spread of Celtic languages into Britain – the popular “Celtic from the East” hypothesis – and increase the likelihood of a Late Bronze Age arrival from France, a rarely discussed scenario called “Celtic from the Centre”.’
The Cliffs End Farm Burial Pit is shown in this image. It shows the adult male and female, as well as two additional children, a teenage girl or a child. As part of this study, DNA testing was done on each one.
As part of the analysis of the ancient remains, the researchers also found that the ability to digest cow’s milk dramatically increased in Britain from 1200 to 200 BC, about a millennium earlier than it did in central Europe.
The researchers found that there was a significant increase in the number of alleles (a variation of a gene) responsible for lactase persistence, which is the ability of adults in Britain to consume lactose from milk in Bronze Age peoples.
An increase in milk tolerance could have been a major advantage, leading to higher survival rates for children born to people with this genetic mutation.
One of the individuals analysed, nicknamed the Amesbury Archer, was buried around the year 2300 BC in Amesbury, Wiltshire, not far from Stonehenge.
An analysis of the oxygen levels in his enamel that formed during childhood suggests that he was from central Europe’s Alps.
The Archer’s genome is from the end of the Neolithic period (3950–2450 BC), when individuals in Britain uniformly had what the authors call majority ‘early European farmer’ (EEF) ancestry.
‘This ancestry was carried to Europe thousands of years earlier by agriculturists from Anatolia, in what is now Turkey,’ Daniel G. Bradley, a professor of population genetics at Trinity College Dublin, explains in an accompanying editorial also in Nature.
Researchers found that a high number of Kentans had EEF ancestry. This is comparable to France.
This indicates the existence of migratory flows across the Strait of Dover. They would have been involved with trading and commerce during the Late Bronze Age according to Professor Bradley.
The Amesbury Archer. A Bronze Age man from the early Bronze Age whose remains were discovered in excavations near Stonehenge’s new Amesbury housing development. It is now on display at the Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum
Contribution of the early European farmer ancestry in individuals from ancient Britain. Researchers compared the genomes from ancient people living in Britain and continental Europe during the period between approximately 4000 BC and AD43. They also included the DNA of the Amesbury Archer. At around 2450 BC there was a dramatic decline in the number of early European farmers (EEF) and their ancestry. The percentage that EEF ancestry remained constant for approximately a century.
The Middle-to-Late Bronze Age (1500 BC-800 BC) saw the expansion of settled farming communities across southern Britain’s landscapes.
There are many trade routes that allow for movement of metal ore for production of bronze, which is used to make tools, pots, and weapons.
As can be seen in the spreading of bronze objects, these new networks connected wide-ranging European regions.
‘This study increases the amount of ancient DNA data we have from the Late Bronze and Iron Age in Britain by twelvefold, and Western and Central Europe by 3.5-fold,’ said author Professor Ron Pinhasi, a physical anthropologist and ancient DNA specialist from the University of Vienna.
“With the massive amounts of data we now have, it is possible to study adaptation in sufficient detail in time and space for us to see that natural selection took place in different places in Europe.