Origins of the British [Hardcover]

Stephen Oppenheimer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 11, 2006

Unpublished mtDNA and Y-chromosome genetic data has rapidly piled up about the British people. Synthesising the new genetic evidence with linguistics, archaeology and history, Stephen Oppenheimer breaks dramatic findings about the origins of the British people. The first scoop is that the roots of English identity lie over 6000 years ago, not with the Anglo-Saxons. The 'Anglo-Saxon invasion' contributed only 5-10 per cent of male English genes. Instead, the genetic evidence reveals that the majority of English people derive directly from before the first farmers. Secondly, new genetic findings finally answer the question of Celtic genetic identity. The putative origins of the Celts is an issue real for millions of people, from sore-lunged Glasgow football fans to the refined Celtic diasporas of North America and Australia. Gene lines prove once and for all the continued existence of a discrete, British Atlantic coast-based population that first spread north from the Basque country at the end of the last Ice Age - not Iron Age Europe. The division between England and the Atlantic fringe started to build up from that time. Finally, Oppenheimer puts new detail on the genetic legacy of the Viking invasions. He reveals that Orkney and Shetland, far from being victims, had been part of the Scandinavian world long before the Viking onslaught and, through the evidence of their genes, participated actively in raids on Ireland and the colonization of Iceland.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"* 'The thrill of this book lies in the vast reaches of time and space that one is deftly guided through.' Emma Crichton-Miller, Sunday Telegraph * 'I can put my finger on a map and say that is where my people came from... research by Dr Oppenheimer and others has now given us all the right to say that.' The Economist"

About the Author

Stephen Oppenheimer of University of Oxford is a leading expert in the use of DNA to track migrations. His last book Out of Eden rewrote the prehistory of man's peopling of the world in a thesis that has since been confirmed in Science. He is also the author of Eden in the East: the Drowned Continent of Southeast Asia, which challenged the orthodox view of the origins of Polynesians as rice farmers from Taiwan.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Constable (September 11, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1845291581
• ISBN-13: 978-1845291587
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,778,784 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

72 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars fascinating topic but terribly written, December 16, 2006

By 

m-starr (Washington D.C. area) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Origins of the British: A Genetic Detective Story (Hardcover)

I'm fascinated by studies of the human diaspora based on DNA evidence, especially when they interweave the genetics with history, linguistics and archaeology. Being partly of English ancestory myself, this book looked right up my alley, and indeed I read it cover to cover. It advances two interesting arguments: (a) that the Celtic peoples of the British Isles come not from a Central European homeland, but rather moved up the Atlantic coast from an Ice Age refuge in Basque country, and (b) that the Germanic roots of the English population are much older than the Anglo-Saxon invasion and instead reflect earlier waves of inflows from Scandinavia and Frisia. But the book is DREADFULLY written. It is terribly organized, so that issues come up again and again as though the author forgot he mentioned it before. There are all kinds of digressions that seem unrelated to the main thesis, but that for some reason the author wanted to mention. Small topics receive pages and pages of coverage, while some main ones go fast. In the end, it's hard to judge whether the book's novel arguments hold water, because there is too much speculation woven in with the facts. My interest sustained me, but if I found this topic anything less than fascinating, there's no way I would have plodded through this book.

55 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating topic, but not well written., November 11, 2006

By 

John Clavin (Seattle, Wa, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Origins of the British: A Genetic Detective Story (Hardcover)

I wanted to like this book, I really did, but despite being about a topic that should have kept me enthralled for hours (it's a fairly hefty book at 420 pages + 100 or so pages of appendices), I found the authors overly academic style of writing and constant references to other learned works (many of them his own) very severly got in the way of telling the detective story that he'd spent so much time unravelling.

I felt like I was back in college wading through a course related text book rather than reading for pleasure.

The premise of the book is to look at certain genetic markers in the current population of the British Isles and use that information to track back to other population groupings in Mainland Europe and adjacent areas to identify the various locations that human migrations to the British Isles during the last fifteen thousand years originated.

Who was there First?
Who were the Celts and where did they come from?
Did Celtic populations dominate southern Britain before the Romans or was it some other population group?
Which of the historical tribes has the most profound [genetic] influence on the current pupulation of Europes Northwestern Isles - Angles? Saxons? Jutes? Frisians? Picts? Vikings? Celts? Normans?

These and other questions are all dealt with through the books rather ponderous examination of the genetic clues to "The Origins of the British".

The attentions of a decent editor and the use of a friendlier writing style would have made this a much more entertaining read rather than being a trial that only just kept me occupied on a trans oceanic flight.

Rating this one is a bit tricky - I'd give it a four for interest level of the topic, and unfortunately just one for the readibility.

45 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting But Very Technical, December 11, 2006

By 

John D. Cofield - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Origins of the British: A Genetic Detective Story (Hardcover)

I'm very interested in the use of DNA analysis in genealogy and uncovering the "deep ancestry" of humanity, so I was most intrigued when I saw this book had been published and ordered it quickly. It has some useful information, but its written in a very dry, technical style which does little or nothing to interest or inspire a general readership.

Being of British ancestry myself, and having had my DNA analyzed already, I was hopeful that this book could help me determine more about my distant ancestry. There are numerous maps and charts which do so to an extent, but they don't go far enough to really illuminate things. This is not entirely the book's fault: DNA research is such a new field that a standard method of referencing the material has not completely evolved, causing difficulties if you cross-check several different sources.

Oppenheimer has been able to demonstrate that much of the mythology surrounding early settlement of Britain is just that: myth and legend. The true story of British ancestral origins is much more complex and sometimes confusing than the old story line of Celts-Romans-Angles-Vikings would have us believe. This work will be a valuable reference, especially after writers with a more general audience in mind take over the job of introducing the subject so that more people can get a basic grounding. Then Oppenheimer's work can be more fully appreciated by more people.