Who are the ancestors of the British

One of the most interesting things about bushcraft and survival is its history and how people managed to stay alive when there were none of the modern-day conveniences we all take for granted. Throughout history, people have had to stay alive by hunting their own meat and farming their own crops, just barely being able to survive on the little they could provide for themselves.

The British Isles has always had a rich history, and because it has been an island nation for most of its existence, new influences to the population have normally come in the form of major invasions as opposed to gradual mixing like so many other mainland continent nations. But who are the ancestors of the British, and how did they get there?

The great thaw and the cradle of humanity

At the end of the last glacial period of the most recent ice age, the northern hemisphere began to thaw from the equator up and the huge masses of ice were chased back to the North Pole where they remain to this day. Because the warmest area of the world was the equator zone, it’s no surprise that this area is considered the cradle of humanity and is home to the oldest civilizations that ever existed.

(Luckily we do not have to hunt things like this anymore just so we can eat, the last of the woolly Rhinos died out around 14,000 years ago)

Its widely believed that the first “humans” as we know them today, evolved from Homo erectus in a region in eastern Africa that is thought to be somewhere around modern-day Ethiopia or Somalia. This happened sometime within the last 100,000 years and mankind left its birthplace and spread out into the world, covering most of Asia, Africa, and mainland Europe over the next few thousand years.

The first records of people in Europe and the land bridge

The Romans were the first civilization to keep detailed records about the people of Europe, and the blanket term they used to refer to the many tribes and different people who lived there was simply to call them all Celts. The people of modern-day central and southern France and below were known as Gauls, but everyone else was known as a Celt, even though this term referred to many cultures, religions, and traditions of people who had never met one another.

The Celtic people were a general mix of the various people who lived in Central Europe, but Britain evolved a little differently because a land bridge used to connect Northern France with south-eastern England but was flooded around 8,500 years ago. This gave the people of the British Isles over 6,000 years with next to no genetic influences from mainland Europe, allowing them to develop without the various genetic mixing that took place elsewhere, but all this would change when the Romans came.

The Roman influence

In 55 BCE, the Romans tried to invade but were fought off by a large army of Iron Age British Celts who according to Roman records, somehow knew they were coming. In 43 AD, a new invasion was launched and this time they managed to quickly capture large areas of the country, and over the next few years they conquered all of modern-day England and Wales. Their goal was to expand the Roman Empire and this meant holding onto the lands they captured, and up until they all left in 400 AD, there was a huge amount of genetic mixing with the local population.

(There were few places in Europe where the Romans didn’t spread their genetics, but many of their armies were made up of conscripted troops from other countries, making it hard to trace a certain genetic influence)

After the initial expansion out of the cradle of humanity, the people of Europe mixed together and then a portion of them inhabited the British Isles before the land bridge flooded, and since then no new genetics were added until this massive new influence mostly from Italy. The previously European mix that had developed independently now had a new twist to its genetics, and this would be allowed to develop and evolve up until the next major influence, the Saxons.

The Saxons and the Angles influence

Starting at the beginning of the 3rd century in an area that is now northern Germany, there were a number of tribes that mostly consisted of numerous minor tribes, but together they managed to form large and formidable forces. One of the most successful of these groups was the Saxons, who expanded across the richer lands west of theirs until they eventually made their way to the coast of Britain. They crossed the channel and inhabited most of the southeastern part of England, an area that was before inhabited by people now known as Romano-British.

Around the same time that the Saxons landed, another major tribe called the Angles sailed across from what is now known as Denmark and took lands north of where the Saxons had occupied. Because the land was so much better to live on than their cold main-land territories, and because there was so much of it, the two tribes never engaged in all-out war and co-existed reasonably peacefully with each other. Over the next few hundred years they merged into one people who also mixed with the native Romano-British, to form a new people called the Anglo-Saxons.

The Viking influence

By the time the Vikings first landed in England in 793 AD on the small holy island of Lindisfarne, the majority of England had mixed into one Anglo-Saxon civilization that shared common genetics with each other. The main exceptions to the common Anglo-Saxon gene pool were the Cornish, who formed into a separate people known simply as Britons who didn’t engage or mix with the Angles or Saxons, and the Scottish who were known as Picts, who would retain a barely touched gene pool that included little influence from the Romans who never managed to conquer the country.

(A reconstruction of a Viking longship, seeing one of these approaching the shores would be a terrifying sight for the people of Britain)

For the next 50 years, the Vikings raided all over the British Isles but eventually settled all along the eastern coast of England, living there for almost 200 years before getting kicked out once and for all by William the Conqueror in 1066. Before this happened they had more than enough chance to add their genetics to Britain’s gene pool, and they also took thousands of slaves back to their homelands or forced local women to become their wives and give them children.

The Norman influence

In the year 1066, William the Conqueror came to Britain from Normandy, which was a country in modern-day northern France, and he quickly gained control of England with his superior army and ways of doing things. He implemented new government and financial structuring, and his strength of arms led to stability within the country and allowed people to prosper. Because his intention was always to stay, his entire army and many people from his home country ended up coming here, and once again, the genetics of the people of the British Isles had a new major influence.

Over the next few hundred years, there was a slow mixing of genetics when groups of people would migrate to the country, but there were no new major influences. Many people have tried to invade the country since 1066, but none of them were really successful and none of them managed to inhabit the island for long enough to make any real mark within its genetics. The next major influence on the British people has only come about in the last 100 years when modern-day technology allows people to fly from the other side of the world and call Britain their home, but 100 years isn’t long enough to refer to someone as an ancestor.

The Ancestors of the British people summary

• Modern day humans left the cradle of humanity in eastern Africa and spread across mainland Europe.

• A group of people from the mainland crossed the land bridge and evolved independently for over 6,000 years.

• Roman influence changed the native genetics into a people known as Romano-British, who existed alongside the Picts in Scotland.

• Shortly after the Romans had completely left by 400 AD, the Angles and the Saxons inhabited large areas of land in eastern England and formed into the people known as Anglo-Saxons.

• The Anglo-Saxons had influence from the Vikings between 793 AD and 1066 AD, but not to the scale where the name changed.

• In 1066, the Anglo-Saxons had Norman influence to their genetics, but again the name wasn’t changed to reflect this.

So there you have it, if you’re living in the British Isles there’s a good chance that your ancestors would have been Celtic warriors, Roman soldiers, Germanic tribesmen, Viking raiders or French knights, meaning that most people aren’t as native as they thought they were.