Michael E. Jones
The theme of Roman and barbarian interaction, with its hint of a binary relation, is of course a convenient shorthand, a pandoran lid that opens to reveal a multiplicity of hybrid cultures. For historians and archaeologists influenced by anthropological and post-colonial theories, Roman and barbarian identities are not essentialist or homogenous. Roman and barbarian interaction is characterized rather by hybridization, mimicry, ambivalence, and fractured identities.1
With regard to the history of Roman Britain in Late Antiquity, this kind of complexity is apt. “Britannia,” or more correctly “Britanniae” (“the Britains” in plural), was a place of multiple cultures and identities. The civilian southeast was heavily Romanized, but the north and west retained a great deal of indigenous Iron age social organization and culture. much of northern and western Roman Britain remained in many ways frontier areas.1063 1064 Beyond Britannia’s northern frontier, defined by the 73-mile-long Hadrianic Wall, or the more northerly Antonine Wall, resided barbarians. It is possible to identify glimmerings of a process of ethnogenesis, externally observed through Roman sources, whereby a number of disparate peoples eventually coalesced into the confederation of the Picts.1065 This particular Roman and barbarian interaction produced a dangerous enemy for the empire, for the shores and seas of Britain were the point of intersection and overlap of two sets of barbarians—the great belt of Germanic-speaking barbarians stretching from Russia to the North Sea, and an arc of Celtic-speaking barbarians including Britons, the Scots from Ireland, and probably the Picts of northern Britain.
The period 350-450 CE seems to be the great hinge of history for Britain in Late Antiquity.1066 The first half of the fourth century perhaps marked Roman Britain’s high water mark. The villa economy representing a commercialized countryside was then at its peak. In the mid-fourth century Britain shared with the rest of the Roman world a unified currency, a common language, a centralized bureaucracy and system of taxation, a regular army, and a complex of roads and trade routes. In the second half of the fourth century, however, the security situation changed drastically for the worse. Increased barbarian threats coincided with internal security problems related to repeated rebellion and usurpation. In 400 CE, Britain still was a land with late Roman characteristics. But by 450 CE, key elements of Roman economic culture “ceased to be renewed.”1067 Coinage, manufactured glass and pottery, stone construction, and the other hallmarks of Roman civilization vanished. By the end of the fifth century, new forms of building, new forms of burial, and new forms of rural settlement seemingly drastically altered the face of Britain. What could account for such a sudden, massive, economic, political, and social change? The traditional explanation, of course, places the origin of much of this new culture across the sea in northern Germany, as a result of the anglo-Baxon migrations, the debate over which James Campbell characterized as a creeping dialectic.1068
A number of historical models, representing differing interpretations of Roman and barbarian interactions, have been constructed to bridge the gaps between 350 and 550. At one extreme, the Anglo-Saxon movement into Britain has been presented as a massive folk migration that extinguished or displaced the native Britons. But at the other extreme, an elite-dominated takeover by groups maintained by a surviving British peasantry has been proposed, wherein acculturation, assimilation, and changed political allegiance transformed these Britons into Saxons.1069 There now are a number of variations on these two extreme positions.1070 Overall, however, the debate has produced increasing uncertainty rather than a widely agreed synthesis. The debate also holds wide popular interest. It goes to the root of nationalism and identities in modern Britain.1071
Historical models of the Anglo-Saxon migration can be tested by using historical texts, archaeology, physical anthropology, and even genetics. This study will focus on the last of these. Put baldly, neither the textual nor the traditional archaeological evidence can give a decisive answer to our questions about the Anglo-saxon migrations and their role in the transformation of Britain in the period 400-600. The literary evidence is too sparse and obscure to confirm or disqualify definitively any of the various theories. archaeologists of the old school view the evidence for cemetery, settlement, house-type, ceramic and metal work as prima facie proof for a substantial immigration. In contrast, the “New archaeologists” of the processural school and scholars of the Vienna school see all of this as cultural elements in a process of ethnogenesis characterized by elite dominance, indigenous survival, assimilation, and acculturation. For them, the material trappings of ethnicity are not biological but cultural, the product of historical processes.1072 1073 But, as Dominic Powlesland remarked, the new interpretation of the archaeological evidence leaves us “without any clear model which covers the transition from Roman to saxon at the overall population level.”11
So how to proceed? The most direct source about ancient peoples, including Britons and saxons, is their biological remains. Biological evidence is probably the best hope for testing and refining our theories on the nature of the Anglo-saxon migration. As Michael Weale has noted, “genetic data comprise an obvious source of information to help solve these issues.”1074 modern European populations are genetically very closely related. although there are no distinctive anglo-Saxon or Viking or Norman genes, recent development of highly informative genetic markers in combination make it possible to define distinct genealogical groups (haplogroups). Provided that the respective source populations of natives and immigrants are distinguished by some genetic marker or markers, it ought to be possible to identify genetic changes associated with migration.1075 Genetic patterning of people is, of course, the direct result of their historical ancestry. Paternal ancestry can be traced back by study of the non-recombining portion of the Y chromosome, a complex of genes, each with a set of inherited mutations. this accumulated set has been transmitted over time by a long sequence of fathers-to-sons. The mapping of the human genome is, in effect, a collective history of these genes and their mutations. Because the Y chromosome and its contents can only be directly transmitted from father to son, and because it is statistically almost impossible for identical mutations to occur independently, UEPs (“Unique Event Polymorphisms”) shared by two individuals are a sure indication of common ancestry. The greater the level of shared sets of mutations (haplotypes), the closer is the relatedness.
The equivalent genetic history for females, on the other hand, may be traced through mitochondrial DNA. Mitochondria are inherited only through the mother and are involved in regulating activities within individual cells. By isolating specific genes and their mutations within mitochondria, it is possible to compare the modern and ancient populations in terms of relatedness or change.
This idea of genetic patterning and a comparison of genetic variation among individuals and groups has been applied to the historical question of the relation of cultural change to migration. The field of study known as archaeogenetics uses DNA extracted from skeletal remains to study ancient populations directly. For a variety of reasons, however, including problems of preservation and the degradation of DNA over time, the risks of contamination in processing the evidence, and the difficulty of reproducing results, recovery of genetic material from archaeological specimens is expensive, technically difficult, and timeconsuming. A much simpler, albeit less exacting approach to the same problem, is to classify and compare DNA from geographically defined modern populations and use the modern patterns of genetic variations to “back project” demographic processes and historical relationships. statistical analyses relating to mutation rate and population growth permit a tentative charting of the chronological evolution of the historical relationships between different genetic population groups.1076
Studies using this method have important implications for the anglo-saxon migration. sensationalist headlines, such as “saxons? We’re all ancient Britons Here,” mark a strong popular interest in our subject.1077 They also reveal the ongoing nature of ethnogenesis and the gap between academic and popular understanding. A study by Bryan Sykes, funded by the European Union and conducted by the Institute of Molecular Medicine at Oxford, matched mitochondrial DNA from 6,000 modern Britons. The study concluded that 99 per cent of the modern British group was directly descended from the Neolithic population of 10,000 years ago, at the time of the last Ice Age when Britain still was attached to the European mainland.
The Sykes study, therefore, suggests that the enormous cultural transformations associated with the arrival in Britain of Celts, Romans, Anglo-saxons, and Vikings were not reflected in significant genetic changes in the mitochrondrial history of women. There is one important exception, however, to the idea of an ancient and continuous matrilinear history in Britain. In Shetland and Orkney, the mitochondrial DNA of the modern populations suggests a large settlement of women from Norway during the Viking period. This settlement was on a par with that of Norse men, and roughly 40 per cent of modern shetlanders and 30 per cent of modem Orcadians can trace their origins to the Vikings.1078 There also is evidence of female emigration from continental Europe into eastern Britain on a scale not detected in the west and north. Sykes estimated this genetic overlay of an indistinguishable combination of saxon, Danish, and Norman inputs “to be between 10 percent in the east and 5 percent in the north—substantial in terms of numbers but really only denting the Celtic substructure.” the higher concentration of these genetic signals north of the old Danelaw line led Sykes to conclude that, within this combined female settlement, more were likely to be Viking than Saxon or norman.1079 Applied to Britain and the Anglo-saxon migrations, the overall evidence from mitochondrial DNA indicating an extraordinary continuity in female population suggests that a mass migration involving a wholesale movement of women from northern Germany and southern scandinavia into Britain was unlikely. The model of a movement of military elites, and a small, predominately male population, looks more likely.
Attempts to use Y-chromosome studies to illuminate the genetic legacy of the Anglo-saxon invasions and to determine how substantial the immigration from continental Europe was and the degree of displacement of the male British indigenous population have produced not an emerging consensus but contention and contradiction.1080 A BBC News headline from 2001 read, “Genes link Celts to Basques,”1081 and referred to a Y-chromosome study of Celtic and Basque male populations involving 88 males from Anglesey, 146 males from Ireland, and 50 males from the Basque region. Based on a comparison of mutations on the Y chromosome, the report stated, “the Celtic populations turn out to be statistically indistinguishable from the Basque.”1082 the Basques, in turn are thought to be directly descended from the pre-farming population of europe.1083 the genetic similarity might be explained either by a specific link between these Basque and Celtic populations, or by the idea that both groups are the surviving relatives of the early population of europe.
The investigation of the relatedness of Basque, Irish, and Welsh Y-chromosome patterns grew out of an attempt to assess the genetic contribution the Vikings had made to the population of Orkney. The Orkney study was part of a wider project commissioned by the BBC to trace the United Kingdom’s Viking roots.1084 The modern male population of Orkney reflected a dual Celtic and Norwegian heritage. Significant differences in Celtic and Norse Y chromosomes indicated that the Vikings had left a significant paternal legacy. In an attempt to work out where the Celtic population in Orkney had originated, investigators looked at the ancient Basque bloodline. The close genetic similarity, along with the lack of genetic variation of the Y chromosome among modern male Basque, Irish, and Welsh populations, is significant. It strongly suggests that the “Celtic” population of western Britain was not affected by large-scale male population movements in the iron Age and Anglo-saxon era.1085
Another BBC News story, from 2002, was headlined “English and Welsh are Races apart”1086 and compared men in the united Kingdom with men from Norway and Frisia (northern Netherlands), the region where investigators believed the Anglo-Saxons originated. Volunteers were chosen from seven market towns mentioned in the Domesday survey, whose paternal grandfathers had lived within 30 kilometers of the town. The results showed a clear difference between Welsh and english DNA and indicated that the english and Frisian DNA were essentially identical. Mark Thomas, the principal investigator, believes that the results of this study completely overturn the modern view of the origins of england. He infers that the Anglo-saxon migrations were on a huge scale and wiped out much of the indigenous British population, saying, “it appears england is made up of an ethnic cleansing event from people coming across from the Continent after the Romans left.” here is a restatement of the old “invasion thesis” for the origin of england, with the idea of an extermination or expulsion of the native population and historical discontinuity, the most destructive kind of Roman and Barbarian interaction.1087 It is difficult to reconcile Thomas’s conclusions with those of other Y-chromosome studies from Britain or the mitochondrial evidence suggesting widespread matrilineal continuity. it may well be that different regions within Britain have distinctly different paternal histories and that the maternal and paternal origins of the British isles are different.1088
A final study, “A Y Chromosome Census of the British Isles,” published in 2003,1089 shares the assumption that comparison of genetic variations between modern British and continental populations can illuminate demographic processes and movements within the history of the British Isles. It included 25 locations and involved 1,772 individuals. Y-chromosome material from Britain was compared with material from Norway, Denmark, Germany, and central Ireland. Based on variations in Y-chromosome frequencies for particular sets of mutations, the study made a number of interesting conclusions. Different parts of the British isles have sharply different paternal histories. Orkney and Shetland have Norwegian input but little German and danish input. English and scottish sites all have German/Danish influence (there is no significant difference between Danish and German samples). The biggest surprise was in southern England. The genetic evidence suggested only a limited continental input into a population that was “predominately indigenous.” in the context of the Anglo-saxon migrations, irrespective of whether the homeland of the ancestral english was presumed to be Frisia, Denmark, or northern Germany, “there is a clear indication of a continuing indigenous component in the English paternal genetic make up.” Such a conclusion suggests significant historical continuity and an assimilation of populations.
So where do genetic studies of modern British populations leave the question of the anglo-saxon migrations and the British example of Roman and Barbarian interaction? several observations may be made:
1. studies of mitochondrial DNA do not support the idea of massive migration and a displacement of native populations. The mitochondrial results offer some support for the idea of a takeover by male-dominated military elites;
2. Y-chromosome evidence suggests a strong affinity of the Welsh/Irish/ Basque male populations and may indicate continuity. the unanswered question is how and when this genetic relatedness developed;
3. studies of the modern Y-chromosome evidence comparing British and continental populations have produced contradictory interpretations. At the extreme, thomas’s research team has concluded that a massive anglo-saxon migration displaced or destroyed the indigenous male population of central England, replacing 50-100 per cent of the male gene pool.1090 But other studies suggest a radically different historical picture, with the Anglo-saxon invaders representing only about 5 per cent of the total population.1091
4. Regions within Britain may have distinctive paternal and maternal histories.
Attempts to work backward from DNA samples and the genetic patterning of modern populations, as an alternative to direct study of archaeologically recovered DNA, are hampered by inherent methodological problems. This may account in part for contentious and contradictory conclusions. the problems are even more acute with attempts to explain genetic change rather than mark genetic continuities.1092 1093 In the particular case of the anglo-saxon migrations and British history, the imprecision of a genetic chronology resting on uncertain calculations of timing of mutation rates and coalescence means that genetic change cannot be securely apportioned to the specific episode of the Anglo-Saxon migrations rather than to any or all other episodes in the migrational history of eastern Britain that mixed continental populations from northwestern Europe with local British populations. The temptation to associate genetic change with a specific historical event or process risks circularity of argument, excludes alternative explanations, and can create a kind of migrational tunnel vision.1094 Moreover, the closely related genetic identities of Saxons, Danes, Jutes, Angles, Franks, Frisians, and Flemmings, all involved in migrations to Britain, means that the genetic pool has been “muddied” to such an extent that the particular genetic contribution of one of these groups to the British population cannot be separated from the cumulative change created by long-term contacts between peoples on either side of the narrow seas.1095
Perhaps the most difficult problem of all is to find a suitable proxy from the DNA of modern populations to represent the original invading and indigenous populations at the time of the anglo-saxon migrations. For the anglo-saxons, the populations of Denmark and northern Germany often are selected, the traditional homelands whose populations presumably have been but little affected by inmigration or internal migration in the past 1500 years. this is a reasonable choice, although possibly based on an overly simple depiction of the settlement history. for the indigenous population of eastern Britain, the choice is more difficult. Samples cannot be taken from eastern Britain proper, for this is the area in contention. Instead, the populations of Ireland and Wales, populations less directly influenced by the Anglo-Saxon migration, are used as a proxy for pre-Saxon population in eastern Britain.33 This is a more dubious choice and it assumes that there were no significant genetic differences in the pre-Saxon western and eastern regional populations of Britain.
In fact, there is limited and anecdotal historical evidence for regional variation. It is worth quoting a famous passage from tacitus describing Britain at the end of the first century CE:
Who the first inhabitants of Britain were, whether natives or immigrants, is open to question: one must remember we are dealing with barbarians. But their physical characteristics vary, and the variation is suggestive. the reddish hair and large limbs of the Caledonians [the north] proclaim a German origin; the swarthy faces of the silures [the west], the tendency of their hair to curl, and the fact that spain lies opposite, all lead one to believe that spaniards crossed in ancient times and occupied that part of the country. the peoples nearest to the Gauls [the east] likewise resemble them. It may be that they still show the effect of a common origin; or perhaps it is climatic conditions that have produced this physical type in lands that converge so closely from north and south. on the whole, however, it seems likely that Gauls settled in the island lying so close to their shores.34
The seemingly unavoidable confusions and conflations associated with the use of modern DNA drive us back to the need for archaeologically recovered DNA. If and when large samples of DNA recovered from both eastern Britain and the continental homelands before and after the Anglo-saxon migrations can be compared, we will be in a position more confidently to assess the genetic changes associated with the anglo-saxon invasions. only then will we be able to reinforce the competing historical and archaeological theories for either a genuine folk-migration or the takeover by a military elite. Overall, the present genetic evidence can inform but not answer the question ofthe nature ofthe anglo-saxon migrations. Taken as a whole, however, the genetic evidence does not comprise a convincing argument for a massive migration. For most of the population of early anglo-saxon England, it seems, the difference between being “British” or “ saxon” was a matter of linguistics and culture, not a product of biological descent.
World History
