From: guto rhys
Message: 13893
Date: 2002-06-19
Out of interest - yes there were Saxons in the west of England before the collapse of centralized �Roman/Romano-British� rule according to a number of archaeologists who date Anglo-Saxon remains in the outskirts of some Roman towns to the late fourth century. Mercenaries / foederati certainly.
Also Edward the Confessor and much of his court was also largely Normanized (linguistically and culturally) - one of the reasons which gave Harold Godwinsson support among the more pro-English factions in England at the time.
In both cases this trickling largely paved the way for large-scale invasions and the subsequent and accompanying linguistic changes.
ehlsmith <ehlsmith@...> wrote:
--- In cybalist@..., "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
> A very good idea. One problem however is that between the Neolithic
> and Roman Iron Age, cremation is the only form of burial (at least
> here in Denmark), and you won't get much DNA from ashes.
Torsten,
Have there been any recoveries of bog corpses which date to before
the Roman Iron Age?
> > [TP]> I don't believe in people trickling. It was not a safe
thing
> to
> > do
> > > then.
> >
> > Most genetic historians whose work I have read of do seem to
> believe
> > in it though. As far as safety goes, that is a relative term-
> > travelling off over the horizon to unknown territory might have
> been
> > unsafe, but would it have been as unsafe as staying put when you
> knew
> > you were about to die of starvation or be overwhelmed by an enemy?
>
> Even a defeated army will try to stay together. Once it's broken
up,
> that's it. They're doomed.
But armies would be irrelevant in the time period I was discussing.
Only bands existed then. While Olson did not define what he meant by
"trickle" I don't believe he meant to imply that it was necessarily
movement of isolated individuals. It could have occurred as movements
of bands. Given the long time period involved (c. 25, 0000 years),
and the low population density of Europe (c. 100,000 total population
at max)it may have taken only about one new band every few years to
account for the amount of added gene lines. Also, it did not have to
involve great distances at any one time; my back-of-the-envelope
rough calculation is that an average rate of 4 km per generation
suffices to cover the distance from the Urals to the Atlantic.
[Note: Olson is not implying that bands maintained some sort of
genetic purity as they travelled from one end of Europe to the other.
What travelled were the genes, and intermarriage between neighboring
bands could account for that.]
>
> And BTW, Hengist and Horsa didn't do much trickling either, did
they?
> Or William?
Again irrelevant, since they existed at a time when society was
organized at a level more complex than band. Furthermore, they would
be counter-examples if someone had claimed that "trickling" was the
only way populations spread, but merely showing some cases where it
didn't occur in no way is disproof of it occurring in other cases.
(And by the way, weren't there Saxons in Britain before H&H and
Normans in England before Wm.?)
Regards,
Ned
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