What is Anglo Saxon? Genetics, Burials and Isotopes!

When it came to understanding a person's culture in the past, their grave goods were the primary way of telling who they were, but now science is helping us to understand a far more complex picture of the past! In this episode, I look at current research on the Anglo-Saxons and bring together a number of different fields of research to understand the Anglo-Saxon 'invasion' of England better.
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Research: A 3D basicranial shape-based assessment of local and continental northwest European ancestry among 5th to 9th century CE Anglo-Saxons
Kimberly A. Plomp, Keith Dobney, Mark Collard
Published: June 23, 2021
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My Patreon: / alexilesuk
Iles Tours Website: www.ilestours.co.uk
Iles Tours Facebook: / alex-iles-uk-106299758...
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Introduction and Outro Video made by Lauren Kirkwood: / lauren-kirkwood-9b8750191
Many thanks to Geza Frank and Event Horizon for permission to use their music - Pulsar ( • EVENT HORIZON - Pulsar... )

[@loweffortamv8407]

Great video as always, this is a big reason why sub-Roman and early Anglo-Saxon Britain are my favorite time periods. There's so much we're still learning about the complex cultural and political scene and every new shard of evidence inches us closer to drawing back the curtain on the so called "dark ages".

[@AlexIlesUK]

When I go back to University I want it to be the core of what I will be studying!

[@Rymontp]

Really fascinating stuff. I simply love the Anglo-Saxon period and we need more videos like this. I have always liked to watch documentaries on channels like "Timeline" that also upload Time Team etc but I've noticed that their documentaries are mainly outdated. Especially the ones about Anglo-Saxon migration from the early 2000s just don't hold up to modern data anymore. So sadly there's no real point in watching them, since a lot can simply be wrong in the eyes of modern science. This is why I also find these Isotopes and modern genetic research really interesting. It's not only about guesswork anymore, instead we have a lot more proof and evidence now. Hopefully there are some amazing new finds in the future. This could really revolutionise our perception of the Anglo-Saxon times. Thanks for bundling it into such a short but very informative video!

[@AlexIlesUK]

You are welcome! I need to do a lot more research but it's a very interesting study to look more in depth at!

[@markbrownless1679]

have studied this for 50 years and you are spot on ...i live in Hertfordshire and there is no Saxon merging until the 600 s...there is a reason for this and Christianity ..is the clue ..

[@AlexIlesUK]

I'd need to read the local Archeology reports to know for sure, I know the North East better.

[@markbrownless1679]

@@AlexIlesUK Hertfordshire has lots of British names sacombe. British fo wood at the end of the valley .and also Saxon names for Romano British settlements eg Wallington town off the welsh ......

[@Mrs.Entwife]

@Markbrownless1679 Can you explain what you mean by "there is a reason for this and Christianity is the clue"? As someone less informed than you or @AlexIlesUK, Idon't know what you are hinting at. Are you suggesting that pagan Anglo Saxon culture was oppressive toward the "Welsh" and then became more accepting toward them once the AS adopted Christianity? (I know my q is phrased in a way that is skeptical, but it's not.)

[@AlexIlesUK]

I think he may be suggesting that the expansion was caused by the 7th century conversion period.

[@joshuaconnelly2415]

It is fascinating how DNA and isotopes reveal migration and assimilation taking place. Thank you, Alex as always!

[@AlexIlesUK]

You are welcome! I really liked making this video as it's something I wanted to point out for a while now!

[@overworlder]

Welsch/Wallas also used of non-German communities in the eastern Alps (on the margins of Tyrol and Austria) and even as far east as Romania (Wallachia). Also some communities further north in the Slovakian and Polish Carpathiams.

[@AlexIlesUK]

Quite certain I mentioned that

[@andrewlawrencemilton]

I have one deciduous tooth. Would be more than happy to donate it to an archaeologist many years in the future. But not just yet.

[@AlexIlesUK]

Keep it untill you're ready to part with it! ;)

[@HLStrickland]

@@AlexIlesUK 🤣🤣

[@HLStrickland]

🤣🤣

[@janebaker966]

That was interesting. So as always it was more complicated than we think. A matter of culture adoption as much as race. Did you know getting buried with grave goods is not just an ancient thing. It's a big thing now. I know this because my brother has worked as a Cemetery Operative for the last 20 years with our local authority. We joke "gravedigger" but actually he doesn't do that bit and it's not done by hand now but with a digger. But he and his colleagues cut the grass,remove dead flowers,sweep the fallen leaves,all the jobs needed to keep the places tidy. But he is often on the team to help fill in a grave and they stand discreetly back while the coffin is lowered in and the words spoken. He has seen boxes go in in which the deceased person inside has got all their personal jewellery with them or all sorts of objects that meant a lot to them. Sometimes by their own instruction and sometimes by their families choice. Strangest of all,some people really do choose to " take it with them" ie be buried with their money in their coffin. Really its true. When I say money I mean the paper tokens that represent money. One burial was memorable because the deceased person had thousands of pounds stuffed around his body in the coffin (this is true) and his solicitor sat in his car the whole time to watch the team completely fill in the grave. Its unbelievable but true. To people like that I'd say leave your money to a cats home rather than do that.

[@janetwalmsley-heron]

Thank you fascinating and love learning God bless you😅

[@AlexIlesUK]

Thank you very much!

[@tobyplumlee7602]

Excellent!

[@AlexIlesUK]

Thank you!

[@noahtylerpritchett2682]

As always. Good video

[@AlexIlesUK]

Thank you, much apprecaited!

[@MattyJames1]

This is so fascinating. Thank you so much for this Alex.

[@AlexIlesUK]

You are welcome! Glad you enjoyed it! It's a topic I have found fascinating to research!

[@waynemcauliffe2362]

Good stuff again.Science rules

[@AlexIlesUK]

It does!

[@janebaker966]

Not in my book. Science is now being used to misrule. Oops, misinformation.

[@AlexIlesUK]

Jane, I respect your personal opinion and understand why you may be sceptical, but there's a lot which we need to be thankful to science for especially in the area of history.

[@A-C100]

I wonder how many of the Germanic tribes who came to England predate the anglo-saxon period. My own Y line is R-Z12 (S21 branch) which is considered Germanic. According to the SNP tracker website my particular subclade of R-U106 was formed in the UK around 300 BC. Great video by the way.

[@AlexIlesUK]

It is a really interesting question and as always, More research is required!! :) Most of Northern Europe shares a great deal of their genetic material!

[@ozark8043]

It is interesting, as 11% of the total DNA which was called "Dane" they say was already in England before the Anglo-Saxons. Yet almost no ethnic Roman DNA. We know Rome used largely Germanic mercenaries in England who lived in the Roman cities with their families. So it seems there was already a large Germanic presence there when the Anglo-Saxons began to settle. The 20% that was previously called "Europe West" has since been renamed Germanic.

[@AlexIlesUK]

I'll need to do more reading to know! But great question!

[@AlexIlesUK]

Well Roman citizenship could be bought or earned so a lot of those could be Roman. We think of DNA being peoples identity due to the 19th and 20th centuries, but culture was a lot more important than Race in the Roman empire and into the early mediaeval period.

[@HLStrickland]

I've watched as many dig videos (British Isles) as I can - all different sources. What I DID notice is under the one there is always an Iron Age or even earlier village. They have built on top of the precious settlement. There is a reason they built at any one particular spot they chose. The SECOND (the one built on top of the older village) - in my opinion - is to show dominance. The MINE now idea... if I explained that correctly.

[@AlexIlesUK]

A lot of the time this is just because the land is fertile and suports life. This is the best reason!

[@HLStrickland]

@@AlexIlesUK Bingo.

[@molecatcher3383]

The Beaker People became 90% of the British population after the Bronze Age. The Beakers who settled in the East and North of Britain came from what is now the Netherlands. Probably the DNA of the descendants of these Beaker people is still to be found in the modern populations of the Netherlands. Could it be that there is a significant overlap between “Germanic” DNA in Britain and Beaker (British) DNA ?

[@AlexIlesUK]

Yes and no. The recent genetic studies do show a migration of a large number of people - some say 200-300 thousand over a hundred to two hundred years, into the British isles which had a post Roman population of 1-2 million. But the Atlantic coast does have a similar genetic make up because of a shared history.

[@molecatcher3383]

@@AlexIlesUK I do not disagree that there was a significant immigration from NW Europe from the 3rd/4th/5th/6th ? Centuries. My comment tries to point out that the immigrants and the locals may have shared common ancestors in the Beaker people which could add more complexity into classifying the genetic origins of human remains.

[@AlexIlesUK]

I think they can tell them apart by later mutations, or at least that's what's been explained to me at one point or another!

[@guywillson1549]

Maybe that's why the Dutch and English prefer to drink from mugs!

[@HLStrickland]

As for the grave goods - trading did go on from many parts of the world. Could they have just LIKED the goods they bought and decided to be buried with them? Not goods that they had but what they acquired - traded with? Just a thought ...

[@AlexIlesUK]

Entirely posible as well - people like items and use them if they work and are accsessable. This is why all three need to be used to tell the story.

[@HLStrickland]

@@AlexIlesUK A lot needs to go into determining who they are.

[@JohnLandau-h5g]

Whenever a conquering people arrive in a new land, they almost always interbreed with the "locals." THere are many more recent examples of this. Most notably, the Spanish conquerors of much of the Americas, beginning in the sixteenth century, have interbred with the native pre-Columbian people so thoroughly that in many countries most of the population is of mixed Spanish and native American origin However, the overwhelming majorition throughout "Latin America" speak Spanish rather than the pre-Columbian languages. Bias continues to exist against those people in the" Latin-American" countries who speak Native American languages and who are regarded as being of "pure" Native American descent. All this is a pattern similar to what you have described as having occurred in Anglo-Saxon England.

[@AlexIlesUK]

A fair point

[@paperflowers-ks6vv]

Yes, there is a lot of discrimination against the Welsh speakers in Wales, and there have been real efforts by the government to stamp out the language. Welsh is the remnant of the native Britons' language that was spoken before the Saxons arrived. Anglo-Saxonism was a form of English nationalism that denied any kind of Celtic/ Welsh ancestry in the English, and believed that the Welsh were racially inferior. The Saxons, would be described today, as being 'racist' towards the native Britons. There's a paper called 'Anglo-Saxon attitudes- in search of the origins of English racism' by Dr Debby Banham that analyses all the ways the Saxons treated and viewed the native Britons. Racialised them as 'dark skin', compared them with animals, portrayed them as demonic and not worthy of their land, portrayed their language as evil, discriminatory laws.

[@IrishMedievalHistory]

From my Medieval view and I had always felt it would be 40% Saxon and 60% Britian.

[@AlexIlesUK]

Well turns out you were right! Luck of the Irish ;) !

[@IrishMedievalHistory]

@@AlexIlesUK 💯% buddy!

[@BananaMan-g6j]

Wal = Gaul Similar like warranty = guarantee or warden = guardian Wales Cornwall Wallonia Walloons

[@AlexIlesUK]

Interesting concept

[@osgar333]

This doesn't explain the language shift does it?. If the Anglo Saxons were in effect just a ruling cultural elite, does that not beg the question why the Britons dropped their Romano British tongue completely. There's next to no adopted Celtic words in the English language barring place and river names? In contrast the Anglo Saxons did not lose their common Germanic language when conquered by the Normans after 1066. Eventually the Norman elite spoke English.

[@AlexIlesUK]

I'd suggest looking at the previous video in the series to see my answer to that question - I think there were Germanic peoples in the British isles fare earlier than we think.

[@antonyreyn]

Linguists theorise the vocab of AS did not include Celtic loan words but the word order Syntax changed suggesting AS being taught to children by non fluent speakers i.e. Celtic mothers AS fathers or even reverse. Cheers

[@paperflowers-ks6vv]

Have you read 'Apartheid and Economics' by Alex Woolf? Or 'Why did the Anglo- Saxons not become more British' by Bryan Ward Perkins? They give a very good explanation for why the Britons would drop their language, identity, culture and 'become English'. Due to discriminatory laws that would encourage assimilation. But there was mass migration which would also explain the language change.

[@AlexIlesUK]

I've read 'why did they not become more British' and I didn't find it convincing.

[@byronbailey7915]

It's more complicated than that with regard to Norman French and Middle English. Latin remained the language of law and government in Britain for centuries after 1066, and English borrowed heavily from its vocabulary. (The English we speak today is over 50% loan words from Latin or Latin-through-French.) At the same time, the Norman nobility began to speak a sort of creole (Anglo-Norman) with many borrowings from English. As it stands today, Modern English retains only 20-25% of words originating from Old English (Anglo-Saxon), and those are generally so changed as to be unintelligible to contemporary speakers. Try reading Beowulf in the original if you doubt it. A mono-lingual speaker of Modern English would recognize far more words in Norman French than Old English. As for the non-retention of Brittonic in the Anglo-Saxon period, the bringers of the new language were far from just a "ruling class" like the Normans. I believe this is noted in the very informative video beneath which we're commenting now. With the proviso that broad genetic data is only really beginning to be gathered and analyzed, the best guess at present seems to be that the migrants came to be a plurality or even a slight majority, especially between the east coast and the Midlands. Very shortly after migration/invasion, the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms had the authority of Christianity (from the top down) to help cement their cultural authority. By the time William arrived, Roman Catholicism was already in place. That must count for something with regard to cultural and linguistic dominance. Cheers.

[@AndyJarman]

After visiting the Viking ship museum in Oslo I changed my view of grave goods. I seriously think that burying a person's belongings with their body is NOT evidence of a belief in an "afterlife". For me it is just as likely an evolved social mechanism for showing respect to a dead person's memory and a device for ensuring appropriation of goods by family members did not lead to internecine disputes over inheritance of property (something that plagues our society today). At a psycho social level I also think we under estimate the role of ancestor worship in maintaining respect and status for members of society and for the status of family and bloodline. Classical Greece and Rome was a society famed for its obsession with family heritage (Gens) and reputation. "Son of" is an appellation used all over northern Europe. Before nation states and written law, reputation not material wealth is where a lot of your security lay.

[@AlexIlesUK]

Some of those burials, the artifacts are just chucked in, because they were left open for weeks afterwards for people to add items. It would have been horrific in there with the decomposition!

[@Frederick-in2rz]

So does this mean that mebbe there was no mass invasion, mebbe just the usual migration patterns we see today?

[@AlexIlesUK]

I've done an updated video on Anglo-Saxon aDNA hopefully that'll answer your question

[@John-qs2xr]

Wallas meant Roman not foreigner hence Walloons are latin speakers, walnut-roman nut, Wallachia etc.

[@AlexIlesUK]

I've read that paper and while it's convincing I am not entirely convinced! I need to do more research on that area

[@jchisholm1968]

It's widely accepted that the word relates to those that were not Germanic in origin. In other words, strangers or foreigners to those that were.

[@AlexIlesUK]

There's a good paper that suggests it's actually Roman. I sit on the fence.

[@neilog747]

Meeting with Swiss germans a few years ago they called the French 'Welsh' (thats how they pronounced it). I was suprised by the parallel with the English word and meaning.

[@jchisholm1968]

​@@AlexIlesUK Taking into consideration the long-lasting influence of the Roman Empire, no doubt a fair majority of Europeans were considered as Romans at that time.

[@richardkean5940]

You use the term Anglo-Saxons as if they are one, but, they were two different peoples. So how do we know the Angel settled north eastern and Saxons settled west . What's confusing comes when archeologists dig up the graves of these people they use the term Anglo-Saxons, no matter where they dig. Have the DNA ever been compared between these two groups in their respective locations? I have looked at different maps and some show the Angel settled in East Angles but on others it shows Saxons went there." ? "

[@AlexIlesUK]

Hello Richard. You have touched on a great point - there's a few things here. Firstly Bede in the 8th century outlines the Angles and Saxons in his history of the English people. I believe Æthelstan styled himself as King of the Anglo-Saxons and so it is a early mediaeval description. The modern issue is that it's likely that the Anglo-Saxon identity was created in the British isles after people migrated from the continent during the 5th and 6th century. Slowly identities built up around the idea of Anglian Saxon and Jute. To identify them by genetics is very difficult. I would like to do a video on this and it's an area I'm planning currently! I hope this helps your questions!!

[@richardkean5940]

@Alex Iles Thank you Alex for your speedy response. I will be looking fro for your next video.

[@richardkean5940]

@Alex Iles Thank you Alex for your speedy response. I will be looking fro for your next video.

[@richardkean5940]

@@AlexIlesUK thank you for your response. I understand what you're saying, however there is a reason they would have been separated in terms of Anglo and Saxons by medieval times. They may not have called themselves by those names but, someone knew something about their origin for there is little doubt they came from different regions. I also don't believe the Saxons got their name by the dagger they carried. The word " Saxon" has its origin in Roman history centuries before they appear in Britain.

[@AlexIlesUK]

Hi Richard, they were not really separate. The issue is that various kingdoms in Early Mediaeval England decided to take on specific identities around 'Angle' and 'Saxon' and this is passed to us most by Bede. In the law codes Saxon is used (though these come mostly from Wessex) it's complex - it's more like identities that are being utilised to create unity in the 8th century. By the Medieval period they are 'English' not Anglian and Saxon. The Romans called the people living in the North and North West of Germany Saxons (they migrated a bit) we don't know if they called themselves differently as they wrote. There is a theory that the name Angle comes from a Throwing Spear and Saxon comes from the Saex, but it's so lost to history it's hard to say!

[@danielferguson3784]

This all goes to indicate that the 'Anglo-Saxon' takeover of 'England' did not involve a great replacement by the newcomers of the existing British population, but rather a combining of the two over time. The repeated employment by Rome of 'germanic' Auxiliary soldiers, & an increase of these over time to include Federati warbands serving Rome but under their own leaders, can only mean more 'germanic' speech & culture within the Provinces of Britannia over time. The people of Britain, during some 350 years in the Empire, would consider themselves to be Romans, not a distinct 'race' of Britons. Even first & second generation incomers became 'Romans' while they served the Empire. The late Roman administration adopted many 'germanic' cultural elements, including certain designs of belt buckles etc, as part of their official signs of rank etc, which turn up as 'grave goods', along with pottery styles that seem to be of 'german' manufacture. So such things cannot be taken as indicating the origin of the person with which they are buried. The DNA of both 'Iron Age' British & Migration period individuals both may be closely related to that found in 'Dutch' & 'Danish' samples, so it is not possible always to distinguish at what period that DNA came into Britain. Only the isotopes may indicate a person's origin, & that only where it can be closely matched in a particular, distinct area. An apparent 'passive' blending of the two populations in the migration period does not negate the probability of conflict between competing groups, but these may be short term & localised, while the researched graves etc may be in marginal or atypical areas. This was still a warrior elite led society on both sides, the grave good weapons show that. The West Heslerton sites suggests a blending of populations, in buildings of 'Roman' type among Anglian forms, over several generations. It is unnecessary to suggest that anyone would 'choose' to become 'Anglo-Saxon' by taking up 'germanic' styles of dress or other things, or adopting a new language, simply to 'fit in' with an incoming alien group, especially when the native Britons, of whatever origin, would have been the majority. To use 'Welsh' as an ethnic label may just be a slur without reality, but may be traceable to the word 'Gaul' or Gael', used in a similar way in Scotland etc.

[@AlexIlesUK]

I made this before my aDNA video and its nice to see what I learnt between the episodes.

[@airborneranger-ret]

Please don't stand in front of the map ;)

[@AlexIlesUK]

Old videos but hearing you loud and clear!

[@AndyJarman]

It seems the interpretation of the recent investigations given here could be explained through a different scenario. What if, the east coast Beitains were always "Anglo Saxon". What if they were the remnants of the people who shared Doggerland with the people who would later be forced back to the Netherlands/Denmark? If you were part of rhis Hansiatic like league of peoples, when the enemy (classical Rome) invaded Britain wouldn't you get in your boats and scarper to go live with your relatives across the sea in unoccupied territory? And if you were a west Briton, wouldn't you flood into east Britain and take up Roman rule as a fellow interloper with the new administration? There'd be no written record and no folk memory of expulsion because the Germanic English will have been expelled and left aling with that memory. Consequently after the Romans withdrew the natural propensity for the North sea coastline to create "a people" would have reasserted itself. It seems strange to me that we all seem to assume before the Romans we were all organised by land mass, not by mutual interest (trading routes across water). We know the Gauls of France would travel to Britain for religious instruction. Why not the Dutch and Belgians? I think imperial Rome has invented a lot of frontiers in our minds, perhaps more indelibly than on our landscape.

[@AlexIlesUK]

One of the things that goes against that is that there's not shared material culture that would suggest that sort of traffic, unless it was organic and therefore invisible.

[@jacquelinevanderkooij4301]

The burials can not tell you were the person came from. Trading was over thousands of miles for many many ages. An historian said 'if you find someone in a levi-jeans, that will not tell you are an american. 😂

[@AlexIlesUK]

That's why I say you need all three and even then you don't get the full image.

[@raydawson2767]

The vikings would burn their dead bodies,maybe that’s why there’re not finding many Viking graves.

[@AlexIlesUK]

I did a follow up on Scandinavian aDNA which you can watch on the channel. It's important to note that the Scandinavians did practice cremation but alongside that integrated very quickly. They are also very genetically similar to the Anglo-Saxons so they don't always show up separately.

[@gwynwilliams4222]

Problem with England and Scotland is that the Welsh lived here for 9000 years can you tell the difference between Welsh and English bones

[@AlexIlesUK]

Do Welsh bones have little dragons on them?

[@EasternRomeOrthodoxy]

🤺☦🇷🇺Anglo-Saxons, as all Germanic peoples, despite mixing with the Cimmerian race of the Celts (=Riphat R1b), are the race of Magog, defined by haplogroup I1

[@AlexIlesUK]

Well, that's an interesting comment to read on a Sunday afternoon. Have an interesting life Lionboy!

[@guywillson1549]

Weren't the Cimmerians originally a people enslaved by the Assyrians?

[@EasternRomeOrthodoxy]

@@guywillson1549 No, that is a foolish myth by Protestants who doesn't understand Hebrew & think Omri is linked with Cimmerians.