| Who are the Britons? | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: 11 Oct 2017, 06:13 PM (21 Views) | |
| welkyn | 11 Oct 2017, 06:13 PM Post #1 |
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Anybody who's done any serious research into the origins of the British peoples is no doubt as confused as I am, predominantly because there's been a lot of to-ing and fro-ing over the past 12,000 years. I'm slowly putting together a map of the various waves of migrants that have successfully settled on these shores, and in the course of doing so I've been unlocking my own ancestral memory (both genetic and spiritual) and recalling aspects of my own recurring character as a "native Briton." Needless to say the work is rewarding, but sometimes I need a place to dump all of the loose ends of information I've picked up over days of trawling obscure sites and archived texts: this is that place. In this thread I'm just going to spin any old nonsense so long as it pertains to British origins. Hopefully we'll have something sensible by the end! From the outset, I'm going to make a few things absolutely clear: we are not "Celts," nor are we "Germanic" peoples (of course not all of us, but not even the English), nor are we necessarily even Indo-European. I'm disabusing myself of these terms because I think they're misleading. Yes, Celtic and Germanic languages are spoken in Britain to this day, and yes, Indo-European culture seems to have predominated for the best part of 4,000 years, but the isolated and often hasty events which have marked massive invasions and even widescale population displacements in Britain have been noticeably impotent when it comes to altering the essential quality of the peoples of these isles. All of the peoples of Britain profess a common spirit, even as they differ internally relative to their locations within these isles. Thus Scots, Welsh, Cornish, English - Brythons, Anglo-Saxons, Picts and Belgae - whatever way you want to demarcate between the diversely arrayed groups of Britain, it must be recognised that each and every one of them is British, and reflects the character and quality of these isles as much as they do their more recent origins in other places. The British are British, no matter whether we're Indo-European British, Neolithic Farmer British, Hunter-Gatherer British, or any other kind of British (for example, "Modern-Cultureless-Americanised British"). It has to be accepted that even to this day we have our own particular way(s) of doing what everyone else is doing. This has always been the case, and it's always been the case everywhere: peoples are shaped by their landscapes. Culture is shaped by landscape. When humans are left to their own devices, even religion is shaped by landscape. We are products of our lands, inasmuch as we are human. As such, there is a consistent "British" quality to all of the peoples who have indigenised here, as much as there is a particular "Irish" quality to the Irish, a "Gallic" quality to the French, and so on for all lands and all peoples. Indigeneity is the degree to which one's people reflects the quality of the land - or the degree to which the people have become the children of the land. After thousands of years of living here, after having intermarried with the remnants of those who came before, the Indo-Europeans of Britain are indigenous. But we are British, as opposed to Irish, French, German or any other kind of European identity, because of that ~10% of our genetic background (and probably a whole lot more in the way of spiritual background) that we can trace back to those noteably British Farmer and Hunter-Gatherer societies that preceded our horselord progenitors and their metal-wielding kin. In the following posts I will enumerate the various strains of Eurasian hominids that have claimed Britain and her isles as their home, and I will describe (as best I can) some of the ways in which these migrations and meetings might have gone down. |
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| welkyn | 11 Oct 2017, 08:13 PM Post #2 |
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Quick'n'easy Timeline (to be updated and expanded) ~10,000 BC: Hunter-Gatherers have been turning up for a brief while. As the ice recedes, families move north to greening lands. A nomadic culture is developed: people lead the seasons round the year, following the trail of food and remembering the walks of elders past. This was our golden age, brief though it might have been. ~7,000 BC: by this time, indigenised Hunter-Gatherers have seemingly developed herding, at least in some parts of Britain. They use dogs, ditches and causeways to shepherd sheep around different parts of the landscape. Immediate predecessor to: ~6,000 BC: Neolithic Farmers start coming in. It seems, according to genetic research, that the Neolithic Farmers tended to remain largely homogenous wherever they went in Europe, though they also frequently adopted indigenous individuals into their groups (perhaps to supplement an agrarian diet with meat and fish gained through hunting, which would require local knowledge). In Britain, the two populations keep largely apart, though there is some intermixing over a period of 3-4,000 years. 5,500 BC onwards: Neolithic peoples take over most of Britain and Ireland, coming in from two distinct directions: easterly, from the continent, first through Doggerland and then across the channel once the seas had risen, and southerly, up the Atlantic coast from Iberia, where other G2 people had settled after crossing the Mediterranean from Anatolia. The Atlantic strain tend to the west of the isles; the continental strain tend towards the east. This pattern is enshrined from that point on, if it hadn't already been a pattern in the pre-Neolithic period. 4,000 BC: the megalithic tradition begins at some point in the next 500 years. This is the beginning of construction of most of the classic "pagan" monuments in Britain - Stonehenge, Avebury, Stanton Drew and other stone circles, the barrow mounds, the cairns, Silbury Hill, all manner of cromlechs, dolmens and other tombs and so on. Many of these places would go on to be used, one way or another, for the next 4,000 years or more. Some are still used to this day. 3,000 BC: some time in the next five centuries, the Bell Beaker culture is transported from the lower Rhine area (modern day Netherlands/Belgium/Cologne) to Britain. More than 90% replacement of the Neolithic haplogroup by 1,200 BC, indicating a steady influx of central European peoples - possibly conquest if not simply outcompetition. These central European peoples are very likely to have been Indo-European. It's possible that they may have spoken a form of proto-Celtic. 1,200 BC: another marked shift in culture, this time signalling the end of megalithic building techniques in many parts of Britain. Earthworks are still created, but stone circles and the like begin to become a thing of the past. Possible influx of proto-Celtic speaking peoples following the Mediterranean collapse around this time - their trajectory would be from Anatolia/Greece along the European shore to Iberia (Tartessia), then up the Atlantic coast into Cornwall, Wales, Ireland and the Hebrides. 800 BC: if Celtic languages didn't arrive in Britain earlier, they were definitely coming in at this point. Brythonic culture begins to seep into Britain from 800 BC onwards. In many places the conversion is bloody, in others the new culture is adopted peacefully. Some areas of Britain (Picts) may not adopt Celtic culture. 500 BC: Gaels. Another wave of Celtiberians coming up the Atlantic coast, this time settling Ireland predominantly. Eventually they'll reach throughout Scotland, Wales, and well into England as well. Over a period of about 1,000 years the Gaels establish Kingdoms throughout Ireland, western Scotland, and even deep into Wales. 200 BC: Belgae? It's possible that a Belgic-speaking contingent migrated north into Britain around this point, following pressure from the south (Gauls) and the East (Germans). Certainly the Belgae were noted by Caesar to have been established in Britain by 60 BC (at least three large tribes in eastern/south England). Displacement of elite populations leads to potential "Celticisation" of Pictish people to the north (Broch building from ~100 BC onwards is a clue). 0 AD: aside from a bunch of Gauls, Belgae, and perhaps Germans popping over - not to mention, quite likely, a stream of Iberians in the wake of Roman annexation of the region - eventually the Romans start turning up. They don't really leave much of a mark on our genetic background, but they've certainly left a mark on our historical and cultural background (hopefully not so much of one on our spiritual background). Multiculturalist policy of the Roman Empire eventually leads to: ~300 AD: lots and lots of Saxons. Yes, the Romans brought the Saxons over as foederatii (auxiliary troops) long before the Fall and their subsequent withdrawal from Britain. Of course, these Saxons came from precisely the same area where the original Bell Beaker Britons emerged from - the Lower Rhine region. Hence: ~5-600 AD: the adoption of Anglo-Saxon culture following the departure of Rome. 793 AD: Lindisfarne, Norse start coming in. They do leave a mark, especially in the East, in Ireland and the northern shores of Wales and Cornwall/Devon, in the Wirral and along the Hebrides, and in north east Scotland (incl. Orkney and Shetland). 1,066 AD: Normans. Let's not talk about it. |
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| welkyn | 15 Oct 2017, 09:38 PM Post #3 |
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Hunter-Gatherers (Post Reserved) |
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| welkyn | 15 Oct 2017, 09:38 PM Post #4 |
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Neolithic Farmers (Post Reserved) |
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| welkyn | 15 Oct 2017, 09:39 PM Post #5 |
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Indo-Europeans: Continentals (Post Reserved) |
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| welkyn | 15 Oct 2017, 09:39 PM Post #6 |
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Indo-Europeans: Celts (Post Reserved) |
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| welkyn | 15 Oct 2017, 09:39 PM Post #7 |
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Indo-Europeans: Belgae (Post Reserved) |
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| welkyn | 15 Oct 2017, 09:39 PM Post #8 |
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Indo-Europeans: Rome and beyond (Post Reserved) |
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12:44 AM Jul 11