Talk:Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain/Archive 6

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Leslie paper.

There seems to be a widespread misapprehension about what the Leslie paper shows in regard to the lowland English population. What the methodology was doing, in essence, was looking for genetic differences; making sequential 'cuts' of genetic information about difference at finer and finer tolerances. At its most coarse, all of Britain is shown as being genetically distinct from say Holland or France, but finer tolerances show differences within Britain. What the generalised population of lowland England really shows is that the people in that whole region, moved around and intermarried a lot in the many generations between c.500AD and now, and that the people in the highland regions did not do this to the same extent. This is entirely unsurprising as highland regions are barriers to travel and have different agricultural practices than those found in lowland regions (so are less inviting to lowlanders for settlement). What it is not saying is that the lowland English arrived from the continent in one homogenous block and took over. Neither does it say that continental Germanic people did not reach the highland regions. Urselius (talk) 17:32, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

Urselius it seems some page watchers were not active on 25 December for some reason. I notice you have changed Anglo-Saxon ancestry to continental Germanic ancestry in the section. I agree with your general points, but Leslie's section on "Estimating the proportion of Saxon ancestry in central and southern England" refers to "'Saxon' ancestry" and the Summary to "the genetic contribution to SE England from Anglo-Saxon migrations". So I suggest that 'Saxon' or Anglo-Saxon ancestry describes Leslie's calculation better than continental Germanic ancestry. TSventon (talk) 14:43, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

I think an editor changed it from 'Saxon' to 'Anglo-Saxon', before I got to it. I would argue that the Leslie paper's nomenclature was criminally sloppy here, but as you say, their usage should have precedence in describing their findings. Perhaps putting this particular word in quotation marks would be the best approach, viz: "Saxon". Urselius (talk) 14:57, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

"Saxon" would be fine. My concern is that the authors are discussing percentages for the Anglo-Saxon migration in particular, not continental Germanic migration over a longer period. For example, in the "proportion of Saxon ancestry" section, the figure of 10% includes a group in modern Germany, but not a group in Denmark. TSventon (talk) 15:34, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

But where did the Jutes come from, if not from part of modern Denmark? Too many of the people doing population and ancient genetic DNA work do not bother to talk to historians. Urselius (talk) 22:32, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

The Jutes could be invisible in the context of a particular genetic investigation. I can remember reading arguments that the Jutes came from Frisia or Kent or that some of the stories were "a load of Stuf and Wihtgar". TSventon (talk) 10:20, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

I have changed continental Germanic to "Saxon". The section was added by a now-blocked sockpuppet on 12 January 2019 and included some wording copied from the paper, so I removed that too. TSventon (talk) 20:13, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Brittones?

This article includes a reference to an invading tribe called the Brittones:

“Procopius states that Brittia was settled by three nations: the Angili, Frissones, and Brittones, each ruled by its own king.”

The idea that Britain was invaded by the Brittones seems quite counter-intuitive and I can find no mention of a Germanic tribe of that name anywhere else.

Can anyone shed any light on this? 2A00:23C6:708F:7F01:60E6:71C8:F74C:3FC9 (talk) 11:05, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

IP editor, presumably the Brittones are Britons. There is some information on what Procopius wrote in the Brittia article. TSventon (talk) 11:42, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

The word 'settled' does not directly imply invasion or recent movement. Indeed, it occurs in the phrase "They were long settled there", which implies the extended and uninterrupted occupation of a place. Urselius (talk) 15:06, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

WP:FALSEBALANCE/POV

The second and third paragraph in the lead have a tone which implies the older, romanticised/xenophobic nationalism-fuelled 19th-20th century research is still on some equal footing with research done in the past 30-odd years: That is, there is clearly no evidence for even close to a total replacement of the Celtic Britons by Germanic incomers. The latter view was fuelled by ignorance, biased historical texts, Anglo-centrism/supremacy and on the flipside Welsh ethno-nationalism (the former being that the English are some "pure" race, the latter being that the English are non-native genocide-committing aggressors, a view almost entirely reliant on biased historical texts and flawed linguistic analytical conclusion writing). The text I mostly take issue with is ' However, another view, the most widely accepted among 21st century scholars, is that the migrants were fewer, possibly centred on a warrior elite. The "however" part is stinging. The Germanic settlers were not akin to what Europeans would do in North America - it is far more akin, as backed up by the sourced genetic evidence, that the situation in England was complex and the outcome was more similar to what we have in South America: Although white supremacists in the US and elsewhere classify South Americans as "Hispanic" and homogenous, the vast majority of them outside of Argentina and some parts of Brazil are indigenous peoples or predominantly so - the Spanish colonizers subjugated and controlled the native peoples by way of intermarriage and cultural replacement/Christianization etc etc. The fact of the matter is that the English are not purely Germanic by descent, and the fact their ancestors are a mix of older and newer colonisers (Celts, far from being the original inhabitants of the British Isles!) is apparently something that is very difficult for society to except due to long-held and ingrained biases. The hypothesis of a rapid mass replacement is indefensible today. --2A00:23C4:3E08:4000:283C:5AD6:4DCB:2DD8 (talk) 18:03, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

The history of theories is a valid and relevant thing to comment on. That's the bottom line. If you find a theory undigestible that is your problem, it does not affect the necessity of an encyclopaedic treatment covering all relevant thought on a particular subject. Urselius (talk) 19:12, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

Bede's date for 'the arrival of the Saxons'

Alanscottwalker, thank you for your query need an ellipse, peren, or note here to say what Bede's "later date" was. Also helpful would likely be a bit of intro to who Bede is (something like 'Saxon monk writing in the 8th century') But most important is the need for that unsaid later date or time period attributed to Bede. about the phrase which suggests that Bede's later date for 'the arrival of the Saxons' was mistaken in the paragraph about the Chronica Gallica of 452. A version of the text you questioned was added here. Based on chapter XV of wikisource:Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation (Jane)/Book 1 the date seems to be shortly after 449. I would suggest removing the phrase as it is confusing. Otherwise, a discussion of Bede's date would fit better into the section on Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum. TSventon (talk) 09:00, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Just to add to this discussion. The Timeline of conflict in Anglo-Saxon Britain page has a Chronology section that covers this subject. Perhaps either a link to it a 'See also', or just copy that particular section here would work better and fix the problem? Wilfridselsey (talk) 09:56, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

OK. I have modified the section just concentrating on Chronology. I don't think that it duplicates what is in the sections on Gildas and Bede. Wilfridselsey (talk) 11:40, 5 July 2023 (UTC)