A new study of ancient DNA has traced the movement of people in southern Britain during the Bronze Age. Led by the University of York, Harvard Medical School and the University of Vienna, it shows that people who moved into southern Britain around 1300-800 B.C. they were responsible for about half the genetic ancestry of later populations.
The combined evidence from DNA and archeology suggests that, rather than a violent invasion or a single migratory event, the genetic structure of the population changed through sustained contacts between mainland Britain and Europe over several centuries, such as the movement merchants, intermarriage and small-scale movements of family groups.
The study finds evidence that the new migrants mixed thoroughly with the population of southern Britain in the period between 1000 and 875 BC. The researchers say that the origin of these emigrants cannot yet be established with certainty, but it is most likely that they came from communities in and around present-day France.
The Middle and Late Bronze Age was a time when settled farming communities spread across the landscapes of southern Britain, and extensive trade routes developed allowing the movement of metallic ores for bronze production. These new networks linked large regions of the whole of Europe, as can be seen from the spread of bronze objects and raw materials.
The study's lead archaeologist, Professor Ian Armit of the University of York, said:We have long suspected, based on trade patterns and shared ideologies, that the Middle and Late Bronze Age was a time of intense contacts between the communities of Great Britain and Europe. Whereas before we might think that long-distance mobility was restricted to a few individuals, such as merchants or small bands of warriors, this new DNA evidence shows that considerable numbers of people moved, across the spectrum of mobility. society.
Some of the earliest breeding outliers have been found in Kent, suggesting that the South East may have been a focus of movement towards Britain. This is consistent with previously published isotopic evidence from archaeological sites such as Cliffs End Farm, where it was shown that some individuals spent their childhood on the mainland.
The new DNA evidence may also shed light on the age-old question of when the first Celtic languages arrived in Britain. Since population movements often drive linguistic change, DNA evidence significantly strengthens the case for the emergence of Celtic languages in Britain in the Bronze Age. In contrast, the study shows little evidence of large-scale population movements in Britain during the later Iron Age, which until now was considered the period in which Celtic languages might have spread.
Professor David Reich of Harvard Medical School said:These findings do not settle the question of the origin of the Celtic languages in Britain. However, any reasonable scholar has to adjust their best guesses about what happened based on these findings. Our results militate against an Iron Age spread of Celtic languages to Britain - the popular "Celtic from the East" hypothesis - and raise the likelihood of a Late Bronze Age arrival from France, a rarely discussed scenario called "Celtic from the Center" .
Another unexpected finding of the study is the large increase in the frequency of the allele for lactase persistence (a genetic adaptation that allowed digesting dairy products) in Bronze Age populations in Britain relative to the continent. Study co-author Professor Ron Pinhasi, a physical anthropologist and ancient DNA specialist at the University of Vienna, said:This study multiplies by twelve the amount of ancient DNA data we have from the Bronze and Iron Ages in Great Britain, and by 3.5 in Western and Central Europe . With this massive amount of data, we have for the first time the ability to carry out studies of adaptation with sufficient resolution in both time and space to allow us to discern that natural selection occurred in different ways in different parts of the Earth. Europe.
Our results show that dairy products must have been used in a qualitatively different way economically or culturally in Great Britain than on mainland Europe in the Iron Age, as it was a time when the persistence of lactase was rapidly increasing in frequency in Britain, but not on the continent .
Although the new DNA evidence sheds more light on Britain, the data also indicates population movements between different parts of continental Europe, confirming what archaeologists had long suspected:that the Late Bronze Age was a period of intense and sustained contacts between many diverse communities.