Talk:Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain/Archive 4

Lead: revision
This is a discussion for a revision of the lead.

Second Paragraph

First sentence: "The available evidence includes the scanty written reports, and archaeological and genetic information."
 * What belief or proposition are we talking about here? Why are we talking about evidence? If there is evidence then there must be a belief or proposition we are referring the evidence to. Right now there is no belief or proposition we are bringing up so the use of evidence makes no sense. Scanty assumes insufficiency. On what terms is the information insufficient and insufficient for measuring what in particular? Actually the whole first sentence adds no substance to the article and should be omitted. Gordon410 (talk) 10:47, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

"The assumption that the Anglo-Saxon settlement developed from the invasion or migration of people from the Germanic coastlands, largely displacing the native people, has been challenged by those suggesting that the changes in material culture and language were caused primarily by a process of acculturation that followed the movement of a relatively small number of people." People do not assume that the Anglo-Saxons "largely displac[ed] the native people." That is a traditional view and can be discarded. Why is this "assumption" mentioned at all? '''The end of the sentence is unclear to who the "relatively small number of people" are who are doing the moving. Are they the natives, Anglo-Saxons, Romans, etc.?''' I do not know because it is not clear. Rewrite: "The assumption that the Anglo-Saxon settlement developed from the invasion or migration of people from the Germanic coastlands, largely displacing the native people, has been challenged by those suggesting that the changes in material culture and language were caused primarily by a process of acculturation that followed the movement of a relatively small number of Anglo-Saxon people." Gordon410 (talk) 02:49, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Assumption should be rewritten as traditional hypothesis. Gordon410 (talk) 15:22, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Third sentence: "The view that the Anglo-Saxons arose from insular changes and developments, rather than as a result of mass migration and displacement, is now widely accepted." Are the "changes and developments" human, climatic, political, or a combination? This needs to be clarified; it is currently too obscure to be practical information. Again, it is unclear who is doing the "mass migration." The Anglo-Saxons are not implied. This sentence is swamped with obscurity. Rewrite: "The view that the Anglo-Saxons arose from insular changes and developments, rather than as a result of mass migration of Anglo-Saxons and displacement of the natives of Britain, is now widely accepted." Gordon410 (talk) 12:36, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Fourth sentence: "However, the extent to which incomers displaced or supplanted the existing inhabitants and the extent to which mutual acculturation occurred is still the subject of ongoing debate." Forgive me if I am wrong, but as far as I know, this debate is over. Archaeological and genetic research has given substantial evidence that the natives were not displaced except for the natives who fled to the mountains of Wales and Scotland. The majority of the native Britons remained in their homeland and were subdued by the Anglo-Saxons. Gordon410 (talk) 13:04, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Sixth sentence: "The sources that do exist are open to a variety of interpretations, as is the more recently available evidence largely derived from archaeology and genetic research." Why are we talking about a variety of interpretations? There does not seem to be a whole lot of variety that is worth mentioning. Again, forgive me if I am wrong, but most of the major discrepancies about the Anglo-Saxon Settlement have been cleared up through archaeological and genetic evidence. Anything that has not been cleared up is marginal and should not be mentioned. Otherwise the reader will get the feeling that there is a legitimate debate going on which there is not! Somebody please tell me what the debate is, because I do not see it. Gordon410 (talk) 13:21, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Second citation: This is a citation of an abstract. An abstract of an indisputably reliable source may be of some use for referencing something stated clearly in the abstract. But, we have access to the full source, and we should cite the full source. I would suggest that we make out the reference itself to the paper rather than the abstract, to guide the reader directly to the more in-depth source. Gordon410 (talk) 11:21, 31 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Please read the whole article. You will then see that there is an active academic debate. To characterise that population genetics or ancient DNA work has entirely clarified the situation is incorrect. Virtually every new publication in this field raises more questions than it answers. All the research produced so far is open to challenge on legitimate scientific grounds to a greater or lesser degree, in regard to assumptions made, processes of mathematical modelling, experimental design and the interpretations of data. Urselius (talk) 13:54, 15 April 2016 (UTC) Take the latest ancient DNA/population genetics paper on the subject - it claims that 38% of the genetics of the English are from the population of the 'Germanic coastlands' of Europe. This seems fine, until you read that they also give the same origins to 30% of the Welsh and 30% of the Scottish population. There is obviously something wrong here. If you posit that the people arriving in Wales from England were only 38% 'Germanic' then the numbers of English immigrants into to Wales and Scotland must have been huge, over half of the ancestry of the Welsh and Scots must be English as neither country had any direct influx of Continental proto-Anglo-Saxons.Urselius (talk) 13:59, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

@Urselius: Please specify how "every new publication in this field raises more questions than it answers" and what these specific questions are. All you did was show how genetic research is unreliable. Also, I have no idea how this genetic evidence conflict is actually relevant to the Settlement of Britain. Regardless of the differences of the genetic sources, the majority of the the population are natives (Britons). This genetic conflict does not raise any questions about the Ango-Saxon settlement, and for this page, that is all that is relevant. As a fact, the majority of natives were not displaced by the Anglo-Saxons but were merely subdued. This concept aligns both with genetics and archaeology and really is not up for a legitimate debate. We can talk genetics all we want, but really, the differences in genetic research is marginal and doesn't change the way we think the Anglo-Saxon settlement happened. Does it change the way you think? I know am sounding like a broken record, but I just want to stress my point of view because I very much hold it as the truth. Gordon410 (talk) 14:20, 15 April 2016 (UTC)


 * I happen to agree with your point of view - in broad terms. However, my opinion and your opinion count for nothing here on Wikipedia, all articles must reflect the scholarship available. There is demonstrably a range of views on the subject of this article and this must be reflected in the article, especially in the lead. I think that this article is one of the best and most thorough of its kind on Wikipedia. I would assert that the prose of the lead is limpid in its clarity. The differences in population genetics research are very far from marginal. The differences between the conclusions of, say, Sykes and Weale are huge. I personally think Weale's idea of an apartheid between natives and incomers is laughable considering that the British arrival in India produced the Anglo-Indian community, when the physical, cultural and religious differences between 18th century British and Indians was vastly greater than between post-Roman Britons and continental Germans. However, Weale's work and opinions must be included in the article. Your suggestion of a link to the article on material culture was well made, and I have done so. Urselius (talk) 13:37, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

I understand that there is still some unknown and debate about genetics and apartheid, and I agree it should be on this page. But again, how is that relevant to the lead? The lead hardly says what we do know. The first two paragraphs slightly inform about the settlement, but suddenly shrouds the entire event in mystery and doubt. It confuses the reader. I am trying to form substantial information to put in the lead. Afterwards, we can bring up the debates that are irrelevant to what we know. I have written a paragraph that informs the reader of what we do know (Anglo-Saxon Settlement of Britain - what really happened). Gordon410 (talk) 17:23, 16 April 2016 (UTC)


 * No, if the contents of the article do not impress you with the fact that there is no definitive knowledge concerning "what really happened" then anything I say here will be wasted. If the reader is not fed pap that knowledge is definite then this is to the good, as the subject itself is complex and not straightforward. Urselius (talk) 20:17, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

@Urselius: But I do think the article never concisely informs the reader of the settlement of the Anglo-Saxons. If we just tell them what I wrote in "what really happened" section (below) we can can clear up a lot of misunderstanding. Telling people the problem with history is a bad way of introducing something. And currently that is what this article is doing in the second paragraph. That is what I am trying to change. Gordon410 (talk) 00:11, 17 April 2016 (UTC)


 * The lead says, "The Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain was the process, from the mid 5th to early 7th centuries, by which the coastal lowlands of Britain developed from a Romano-British to a Germanic culture following the Roman withdrawal in the early 5th century". This is essentially all that can be said with cast-iron certainty, all else is open to variations in interpretation and in emphasis. Even what might be imagined to be factual can often be balanced by other 'facts' indicating the opposite. Dumbing down the lead by using one person's viewpoint or one version of history cannot be an improvement. There is no "what really happened" within our present-day knowledge - it does not exist beyond your personal viewpoint, which is nothing but 'own research' and therefore disallowed by Wikipedia policy. I will not engage in any more discussion here, outside a possible formal arbitration process, but I will reverse any edits that I think are not constructive or that break policy on own research. Urselius (talk) 09:22, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

What is wrong with "what really happened"? What is wrong with discussing it? I believe I know what really happened and I have evidence to back it up. Until someone shows me what is wrong with it, I will continue to push it. Gordon410 (talk) 11:42, 17 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Just to make things perfectly clear. What you are describing as "what really happened" is equivalent to "what Gildas said happened". Gildas' account is included at length in the body of the article, it is there already. The subject of this article is not "what Gildas said happened", it is an analysis of all the evidence concerning how most of Roman Britain became Anglo-Saxon England. This is why Gildas and what he said is not included in the lead, as it forms only a small part of the evidence. Gildas is our closest written account to the time of the Adventus, this makes it important. However, there are reasons why his account cannot be regarded as "what really happened". Gildas was not writing a history, his primary interest was not historical accuracy. In effect he was writing a very long religious sermon on the subject of sin and its divine punishment. His was a politically driven moral crusade, he wanted the leaders of the British to co-operate rather than fight each other, this was to be obtained through a general 'return' to Christian values and morality. The actual nuggets of historical fact in his narrative are few and often worded ambiguously. Even when he is being unambiguous there is reason to doubt his veracity. He claims that the Saxons spread fire and destruction right across Britain 'from sea to sea'. If this were literally true then there should be evidence of a destruction layer in many if not all towns and villas in the former Roman province, all datable to one time. Archaeology has shown no evidence whatsoever of such a destruction horizon. Gildas does not go into the lead because it is a very small part of the evidence and is demonstrably not entirely reliable. Urselius (talk) 13:29, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

@Urselius: I will respond after you answer my questions. Gordon410 (talk) 17:46, 19 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Do a lot of reading, do a really large amount of reading, concerning the subject of this article. When you have an informed opinion get back in touch. Urselius (talk) 18:53, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

@Urselius: I have devoted over 50 hours of research already. Every one of these books corroborate my account: The Anglo-Saxon Age, Fisher; The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain; The Mother Tongue, Bryson; The Celts, Kruta et al; The Adventure of English, Bragg. What more do you expect me to read and study before I have an informed opinion? And why have you refused to answer my questions? Gordon410 (talk) 19:28, 19 April 2016 (UTC)


 * I would recommend, as a beginning: Pryor, Francis (2004), Britain AD, London: Harper Perennial (published 2005), ISBN 0-00-718187-6 Hills, Catherine (2003), Origins of the English, London: Duckworth, ISBN 0-7156-3191-8 Richard Hodges (1 January 1989), The Anglo-Saxon Achievement: Archaeology & the Beginnings of English Society, Duckworth, ISBN 978-0-7156-2130-1.


 * I will not individually answer all of your questions, as your questions come from a very narrowly informed and simplistic view of a very complex subject, and you are wasting my time. Read the whole of the article if you do nothing else, it is a good analysis of the current state of knowledge. Urselius (talk) 20:05, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

@Urselius: Although you did not answer my questions, I will still respond to your comment. You are wrong. What I say happened is not equivalent to what Gildas said happened. We agree on parts of the account. However I don't currently claim all of his account to be true. It is irrelevant that Bildas said there was "fire and destruction" because I do not claim that. Thank you for the suggestions. I will check the books out. I am sorry that you have wasted your time reading my posts. Obviously we disagree, hopefully respectfully; we will try to come to a satisfactory result and then Bob's your uncle. Gordon410 (talk) 02:40, 20 April 2016 (UTC)


 * OK, if not Gildas then who? Either: 1) it is your personal synthesis, and it is disallowed anywhere in the article because it is 'own research' and therefore against basic Wikipedia policy, or 2) it is a view of one or a few scholars, and it is disbarred from the lead because it is far from being a consensus view of all reputable scholars. If it were a consensus then the whole of this article would be about two paragraphs long as it would be a cut and dried situation. Either way, your "what really happened" is not going into the lead. Urselius (talk) 11:16, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

@Urselius: I have already told you who I have taken the information from. I told you five books I read. I have still yet to cite these sources properly, however, but will do it soon. I have some literary proof that there is a consensus:

"...the sequence of events is highly conjectural, but there is a fair measure of agreement about their outline." (Fisher, pg.1) Fisher, D.J.V. The Anglo-Saxon Age. London: Longman Group Limited, 1973.c http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/780471.D_J_V_Fisher

Therefore, I am pushing to create that "outline" of events so that the general public and I will have a more clear understanding of the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain. Gordon410 (talk) 14:21, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Your sources are old and weak. Fisher was published in 1973. Oxford Illustrated History was published in 1984, and written by a specialist in modern British and Welsh history. Bill Bryson is not a scholar, but a (very good) general non-fiction writer. I don't know anything about Kruta, but I don't see that he's been referenced in this discussion or in the article. Bragg is a journalist. --Macrakis (talk) 20:06, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

@Macrakis: Old and weak it may be, but still a beginning it is. I will look into contemporary sources in due course. Gordon410 (talk) 02:28, 27 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Once again a narrative of 'events' is not admissible to the lead, because there is no available historical evidence that is unequivocally accurate. The clue is in the name "Dark Ages", they are dark because the written evidence is so sparse, or indeed entirely missing . Some historians have created narratives for the political history of the period and these are mentioned in the body of the article. However, the historians, if they are respectable scholars, always hedge their syntheses with qualifications concerning the very great uncertainties. What you imagine are facts are merely theories. You seem to think that you are on some sort of crusade, but you are not. Please drop your ambitions for the inclusion of your delusion of the existence of an accurate historical narrative into the article. If necessary administrators can be called in to regulate this dispute and the outcome is inevitable. Urselius (talk) 08:12, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

@Urselius: Nothing here is needed to be regulated. I am trying to be helpful. If there is any policy I have breached, please let me know. My account is accurate. What isn't clear in this article is what is accurate. It is just a group of theories. If you group all the theories together like I have done you will see that there really is no conflict. The only conflict is between the people who think there is a conflict going on somewhere and those who are in agreement, like me. Gordon410 (talk) 16:05, 27 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Whatever. I'm glad that you are in agreement with yourself. I have tried to explain why your approach is wrong, but to no avail. Do not add your simplistic analysis/synthesis to the lead. Urselius (talk) 19:20, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

@Urselius: No, you have helped me to some avail. I will not add my "analysis" to the lead until I'm allowed to. Thank you. 45.47.192.105 (talk) 23:22, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

People do not assume that the Anglo-Saxons "largely displac[ed] the native people." People do not say that there was a large displacement. If you live in Britain, ask anybody what their assumptions are? Why is this "assumption" mentioned at all? What evidence is there to support the view to make it relevant to the lead? Gordon410 (talk) 02:30, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Hi Gordon, as someone who made a large contribution to this page in the past I understand the question you are pursuing. Unfortunately, there are a lot of assumptions made in this area. However these are based on the historical narratives that present a view that is challenged. The archaeological and linguistic have been hampered by questions of interpretation. Since I last wrote on this page there has been some important breakthroughs in chronology and the study of early english laws. These suggest that we can see this period in terms of three era. One is a period between 370-470 of great economic change and the breakdown of the Diocletian/Constantian laws binding people to the land. Population is thought to decrease and a new 'middleman' migrant community came to Britain with furnished cemeteries. This era had its center point between 470-570. In 536 a world wide climatic event led to poor harvests and the decline of the separate Germanic and Britonnic cultures living side by side. Furnishing of graves became florid, the breaching of mund (security) through raids increased, the power of women decrease and people started to look to local leader many of whom were of Brittonic heritage but who now spoke from Anglo-Frisian. From 570-670 the adoption of older symbolism as found in graves, the election of kings and the creation of tribes (see tribal hidage) created 'new' social boundaries but the need to hark back for authority continued. This led to the adoption of Christianity by Old Irish speaking monks in the north (this was the main language of the people) and Frankish influence from the south. In 736 Bede creates a telelogical account which is still taught in schools. The most important research is: Hines look here Martin Books https://www.amazon.co.uk/Textus-Roffensis-Language-Libraries-Medieval/dp/2503542336 Language Contact and the Origins of the Germanic Languages Cruciform Brooch and Anglo-Saxon England see figure 50 --J Beake (talk) 20:00, 3 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your comment. You certainly summarized the entire article appropriately. Your paragraph introduces the article with more substantial information than the present one. Could we use your comment, or parts of it, for the lead of this article? Thank you for your response. Sincerely, Gordon410 Gordon410 (talk) 14:05, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Well? Do you have any objections to this? Gordon410 (talk) 20:05, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

6.3	'Romano-Brittonic' peoples' fate in the south-east: revision
This is a discussion for a revision of 'Romano-Brittonic' peoples' fate in the south-east.

First paragraph
 * First sentence: "The most extreme estimation for the size of the Anglo-Saxon settlement suggests that some 80% of the resident population of Britain were not Anglo-Saxon." Extreme is a vague term. Is it extremely large or extremely small estimation. Gordon410 (talk) 20:28, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Third sentence: “Whilst the developments were rather complicated, there are two competing theories.” Absolutely not.  Both theories agree with each other, and they are not competing. I do not see how these theories are in competition with each other. One theory says the natives were victims of invasion, extermination, slavery, and forced resettlement. This theory is Edward Augustus Freeman's claim that "the Anglo-Saxons defeated the Britons and consequently their culture and language prevailed." The other theory is Grant Allen's claim that the natives had a "strong Celtic contribution to Englishness." Invasion, slavery, prevalence of Anglo-Saxon culture and language, and a strong Celtic Contribution all could have still happened. '''The only competing theory is extermination. With exception to extermination, I don't see a competition of theories here because they both could have happened.''' Both theories are true since the Celtic contribution is genetic and the Anglo-Saxon contribution is cultural and lingual. Since Freeman's theory is consistent with Allen's theory, how are they "competing theories"?
 * The description of Freeman's theory includes the word "genocide", in this scenario the A-S not only defeated the Britons, they wiped them out. Therefore, there is a huge distinction from Allen, who considers that no genocide took place and many A-Ss were of British descent.

To whoever wrote the above comment: You have incorrectly stated that "in this scenario the A-S not only defeated the Britons, they wiped them out." In this scenario the A-S defeated the Britons but did not wipe them out. Furthermore, you have incorrectly stated that Allen "considers that no genocide took place." Because Allen never claimed to disagree with the genocide theory, you are incorrectly assuming that he did. Thus you have made two false claims, a seriously flawed comment, and an illegitimate case to why this article should not be revised. Gordon410 (talk) 20:46, 23 May 2016 (UTC)


 * The etymology of genocide: genos = race, -cide = an act of killing; the meaning of the word is encompassed unambiguously by the elements that the word is composed of. The article is a form of dialogue: a theory, an opposing theory then an attempt at rationalising which is more likely from the available evidence. Deciding that one theory is more likely than another does not mean that you can just ignore the less likely theory and dismiss it. I grow very weary of pointing out the obvious. Urselius (talk) 07:42, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

@Urselius: I agree that the etymology of genocide is "race" and "act of killing." Allen's theory of Celtic contribution could still be true even with a genocide of some of the population. I do not understand your first sentence. Please rephrase your comment. From the parts of your comment that I understand, you have made an illegitimate case to why this article should not be revised. Genocide has been incorrectly defined as "wiping out." According to the United Nations Genocide Convention, genocide is "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group". The key words are "in part". That definition of genocide does not mean a "wiping out." No theory claims a "wiping out" of the natives because genocide does not mean "to wipe out." Also you have incorrectly stated that there is "an opposing theory." Please explain how the theory opposes the other. To reiterate my previous statement, all theories agree with genocide, and therefore, agree completely. If they agree completely, there cannot be a competition, and the article has made a false statement. Therefore, the article must be revised. What is so obvious that you are weary of pointing out? Gordon410 (talk) 11:57, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Second paragraph

First sentence: "One theory, first set out by Edward Augustus Freeman, suggests that the Anglo Saxons and the Britons were competing cultures, and that through invasion, extermination, slavery, and forced resettlement the Anglo-Saxons defeated the Britons and consequently their culture and language prevailed." This sentence is incorrectly cited and must be edited. This sentence incorrectly states what Freeman wrote in Old English History for Children on page two as the citation (142) says. Invasion, slavery and genocide are not mentioned on page two; they are mentioned on pages twenty-seven and twenty-eight. Therefore, the citation is incorrect and the citation should read Freeman, Old English History for Children, p. 27-28. This citation is still incorrect. How is it possible that the Britons were exterminated and enslaved? An extermination of the Britons would surely not allow for their survival through slavery. The word competing was already used in the last sentence. This is poor writing. Use word such as rival - "rival cultures". Gordon410 (talk) 13:45, 18 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Possibly "interacting and conflicting" would convey the sense in which "competing" was used?  And that "through those conflicts, including wars and their aftermath, the Anglo-Saxons prevailed, with their culture and language forming the basis for the English culture and language"?  The evidence for "enslavement" is remarkably thin, and it is clear that "extermination" is a bit of an overstatement, even in Freeman's view.  "Invasion" is a bit tautological at best, and so adding it is not really utile.

Fourth sentence: "However, Freeman's ideas did not go unchallenged, even as they were being propounded." The use of a singular idea of genocide should replace ideas since genocide is the only "idea" being challenged. Gordon410 (talk) 21:44, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Avoid "However" as a general rule. Collect (talk) 15:44, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Fifth sentence: "In particular, the essayist Grant Allen believed in a strong Celtic contribution to Englishness." To be more clear, I suggest replacing this sentence with the following: "In particular, the essayist Grant Allen believed that the native Celts were not destroyed but instead strongly contributed to Englishness." Why does Freeman have a link but Allen does not? Each individual should be treated equally. It should read: "In particular, the essayist Grant Allen believed..." Gordon410 (talk) 14:10, 18 July 2016 (UTC)


 * No it isn't, the Wikipedia spell-checker is wrong, 'Englishness' is correct.

Third paragraph

First sentence: "Another theory has challenged this view and started to examine evidence that the majority of Anglo Saxons were Brittonic in origin." This is basically the same issue raised in the first paragraph, third sentence revision discussion above. How has this theory of Brittonnic origin challenged the original view by Freeman that Anglo-Saxon culture and language prevailed? Again, these two views are not in disagreement but rather in agreement. Freeman's view is correct in that the Anglo-Saxon culture and language prevailed while this new theory of Britonnic origin is also correct. Both theories are correct and are therefore not being challenged. Gordon410 (talk) 20:06, 21 May 2016 (UTC)


 * I refer you to my first comment. Genocide is a very particular method of ensuring that your 'culture and language prevail', by killing off the people with a different culture and language. I have corrected the spelling.

To whoever wrote the above comment: Your first comment is factually incorrect as I explain more in depth in my second comment. I do not understand the second sentence of this comment. Please rephrase your comment. Gordon410 (talk) 16:18, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

So why are we refusing to get rid of the word "compete"? Can you show me one good reason why Freeman and Allen's theories are competing? I believe I have made myself very clear. Nothing in this article shows how these theories compete! If editors refuse to take action, I will myself. Gordon410 (talk) 22:09, 16 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Well? How do they compete? Gordon410 (talk) 03:45, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

Geographical anachronisms: Britain, England etc.
The whole article plays fast and loose with the terms Britain and England. The island, Great Britain, and what constituted Roman Britain don't coincide; neither do Anglo-Saxon England (for instance, Northumbria included parts of what are now Scotland) and England.    ←   ZScarpia  10:26, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
 * What specific changes would you like to make to the article? Richard Keatinge (talk) 10:32, 12 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Well let's start off with the very first sentence: "The Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain describes the process which changed the language and culture of most of England from Romano-British to Germanic." The article is titled the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, yet, despite the fact that the title implies that article covers any Anglo-Saxon settlement on the island of Great Britain, it then goes on to refer specifically to England and Romano-British culture, when Angles and Saxons settled areas outside England where Romano-British culture may not have been dominant (see, for example: settlements of Angles, Saxons and Jutes in Britain in about 600). Other similar examples occur elsewhere.      ←   ZScarpia  12:28, 12 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Can you suggest how it could be re-phrased? I agree btw that we should not use the term England in reference to territory before the Anglo-Saxon settlement, although we could use such expressions as "the territory that is now England."  TFD (talk) 12:45, 12 April 2017 (UTC)


 * It is remarkably difficult to be accurate, concise and understandable all at the same time in these matters. We are talking about a time before the modern, or Medieval, political divisions of the British Isles were in place. The only area of Britain outside of previously Roman jurisdiction that came under Anglo-Saxon control during the period in question is what became Lothian. This is quite marginal. The area was not Scottish until 1018, and at the time in question, although not part of Roman Britain, was British in culture. Later Welsh sources treated both Manau and Strathclyde as being as fully British as areas of the 'Old North' that were south of Hadrian's Wall. The area of Manau (Lothian) was also under considerable Roman influence, and the later Roman authorities must have been involved in the apparent translation of Cunedda (and his warband, presumably) from Manau to what would later be North Wales. Whilst this could be worth a mention, it should not obscure the basic fact that "Lowland Britain" (i.e. modern England, more or less) passed from a Romano-British to a Germanic Anglo-Saxon culture. In general small exceptions should not be used to dictate a general rule. Incidentally, the first sentence, when I wrote it, said ".. the coastal areas of eastern Britain" or something to the same effect. Urselius (talk) 13:57, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Oppenheimer's hypothese are giving vast amounts of undue weight
There is literally no scholarly backing to his theory that germanic languages were already spoken in early iron age Britain and the massive section devoted to the idea feels like little more than english nationalists trying to give undue weight to a crank who rubs them the right way. Also the general rejection of genocide as a possibility is odd as every other subroman theory where the germanic tribes invaded did not assimilate to germanness unless they were immediately on the borders of Germania, and the english language has at best a dozen borrowings that can be traced to brythonic dialects. 67.70.103.227 (talk) 01:28, 29 June 2017 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't say Oppenheimer's a 'crank', and his prominence in popular discourse is probably a good reason to discuss his work in this entry (I note that he's fairly prominent, for example, in a recent professional encyclopedia entry: Hills C.M. (2013). Anglo-Saxon Migrations. The Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration. Wiley-Blackwell. DOI: 10.1002/9781444351071.wbeghm029). But of course you're right that there's no evidence for Germanic being spoken in Britain as early as Oppenheimer suggests and that other scholars haven't followed this line of thought. Oppenheimer made the suggestion that Germanic got started in Britain early on as a way to reconcile the facts that (a) English was so little influenced by Brittonic/Latin while (b) there is little reliable evidence for a huge demographic shift. However, there are other models available for explaining a swift and dramatic language-shift without recourse to a demographic shift. This is an emergent area of study: I did some work on it a few years ago, but need to catch up with recent studies to make sure of a neutral point of view before trying to develop this page. (My main contribution was Alaric Hall, 'The Instability of Place-names in Anglo-Saxon England and Early Medieval Wales, and the Loss of Roman Toponymy', in Sense of Place in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. by Richard Jones and Sarah Semple (Donington: Tyas, 2012), pp. 101-29, http://alarichall.org.uk/alaric_hall_instability_of_anglo-saxon_place-names_working_paper.pdf.)


 * I think it would be good to have a historiographical section in this entry discussing how the topic is a political hot potato, as you imply. I note that Hills's entry does this: 'The historical, archaeological, linguistic, and biological evidence for that migration is often read as telling a simple story of the replacement of native Briton by Germanic Anglo-Saxon in the south and east of England. This origin myth of the English has had continuing political power because it has been seen as the basis for the distinction between the English, Scots, and Welsh. The political dimension has also been a factor in alternative versions of the story, stressing the unity of all British people rather than their differences, and playing down the scale of the migrations. It is the reason why the story still has significance and is still hotly debated, with no consensus yet agreed to as to the absolute or relative numbers of natives or immigrants.' Alarichall (talk) 11:28, 2 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Have any sources also noted that traders (that is - neither immigrants nor natives) also spread languages and mix languages? I understand that trade goods have been found which did not originate in Britain, and that materials from Britain have been found across Europe. Collect (talk) 12:00, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
 * The end of Roman culture in Britain has been claimed to be a 'systems collapse'. The Romano-Britons were reliant on a professional army, on industrial-scale pottery and metal-ware production and had an agricultural system at least partly based on a cash economy, and dependence on a large-scale consumer in the shape of the Roman army. When all these systems fell apart, the Anglo-Saxons, with their own warrior skills, small scale independent pottery and metalworking abilities and subsistence farming methods, must have had a great deal to offer the native British. This could lie behind the large-scale adoption of Germanic material culture. Urselius (talk) 10:12, 4 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the question, Collect. I don't think any of the scholarship has discussed this angle, and I appreciate being pushed to consider it. I agree with Urselius that English seems to get going in Britain at the same time as a huge economic collapse, so in this particular context, trade doesn't seem a likely vector of language-change. (Though I doubt that Brittonic-speakers lacked skills and technologies suited to a subsistence economy, as there's plenty of reason to think that these all existed alongside the cosmopolitan Roman economy. So the switch to English would probably be led more by political/social factors than by technological ones.) I also wonder whether trading languages have been found elsewhere to achieve the dominance that English did in Britain? Trading languages often contribute loan-words to other languages, and non-native-speaking merchants may influence a language in other ways: Low German influence on the Continental Scandinavian languages would be an example of this. But are there examples of trading languages achieving dominance in their own right? And particularly without taking on many loanwords from the local language, and also replacing local place-names? 23:02, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
 * The answer lies in the "proto-Indo-European" culture - associated with advances in transportation including by trade by sea, the development of the wheel etc. all of which is clearly important to any trade culture. Indeed, it is fairly clear that the spread of related languages makes no sense where no genetic evidence exists of the PIE taking over other nations, but there is strong evidence of trading (including the spread of the horse across Europe and Asia).  Collect (talk) 15:48, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
 * If the Yamna culture/Yamnaya culture represents the PIE peoples then there is a lot of recent ancient DNA work that suggests that they were involved in a huge migration event in the late Chalcolithic/Early Bronze Age. There are two Nature papers that investigated this, and they suggest that approximately one third of modern European ancestry derives from the Yamnaya. The only population to have little or no Yamnaya component is the Sardinian. To the chagrin of any Hitlerite 'Aryanists' the putative PIEs were were predominately dark in colouring and would have been fairly swarthy. Urselius (talk) 17:10, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
 * What I find neat is the possibility that PIE also was quite ancient in the Ararat Plateau area - and "relatively swarthy" may be an overstatement about the Yamna who were likely only about as "swarthy" as modern Italians and Greeks. This means, amazingly enough, that the Neanderthal influence was substantial on northern Europeans and introduced a large variability in melanin production. In any event, we must either look to the possibility that the "extinct species" of humans may not have had African origins (huge numbers of people traveling vast distances before the horse was domesticated and before the wheel was invented, or boats were invented seem unlikely indeed compared to the possibility that humans were several distinct species - just as we now know that giraffes are not all the same species now with the latest DNA studies) http://www.nature.com/news/dna-reveals-that-giraffes-are-four-species-not-one-1.20567 This does not mean "Darwin was wrong" but does mean "evolution is far more complex than even Darwin thought."  :) .  Collect (talk) 17:34, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

I do not believe that Oppenheimer has come up with what you could call a theory, after all by definition a theory has been extensively tested and is generally accepted, I rather think that you mean a hypothesis (which is a speculative guess that has yet to be tested). What Oppenheimer's books contain are a series of untested original hypothese backed up solely by a survey of previously published results rather than contributing any new evidence! For example his German language hypothesis is based on work by Forster, a copy can be found here. By talking about Oppenheimers' theories you are actually giving more weight than he deserves. It's OK to use Oppenheimer as long as he is correctly qualified, ie that his conclusions are purely speculation. Wilfridselsey (talk) 18:19, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

More apt poem?
At the moment we have a piece of poetry in the article text to emphasise the Anglo-Saxon idea of having arrived in Britain from over the sea. However, would not the ending few lines of the poem The Battle of Brunanburh be more apt?

Engle and Seaxe upp becomon,

ofer brad brimu Britene sohton,

wlance wig-smithas, Wealas ofercomon,

eorlas ar-hwaete eard begeaton.

Translation:

Angles and Saxons came up

over the broad sea. Britain they sought,

Proud war-smiths who overcame the Welsh,

glorious warriors they took hold of the land.

See: http://loki.stockton.edu/~kinsellt/litresources/brun/brun2.html#astext

Urselius (talk) 13:17, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Sounds good. Johnbod (talk) 13:30, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
 * This bit of Brunanburh strikes me as the best possible option. Richard Keatinge (talk) 10:49, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

I prefer my own translation, obviously :)

"Angle and Saxon came up

Over the sea's broad brim, seeking Britain,

Proud war-smiths, they overcame the Welsh,

Noble warriors, they took the land".

Then again, I'm biased. Urselius (talk) 15:02, 6 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Hi there Urselius! I see you've reverted my edits re Brunanburh. Your comment noted that you thought some aspects were good and some were bad, so I think it's a shame you just reverted the whole thing. I'd like at least to go back and use the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records edition of the poem rather than the current one, since its ultimate provenance isn't clear and it doesn't use OE characters, which suggests it may not be very reliable. But I'd also like to move away from the statement that 'This 'heroic tradition' explains the conviction of Bede, and later Anglo-Saxon historians, that the ancestral origins of the English were not with the British, but rather with the Germanic migrants of the post-Roman period.' As I said on the edit, this statement implies that Brunanburh attests to a 'heroic tradition' which in turn gave rise to Bede's understanding of English ancestory. But the poem explictly cites 'books', and indeed survives as an addition to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. So we can't assume that it's evidence for some pre-Bedan heroic tradition, whereas we can be sure that it's evidence for how later Anglo-Saxon poets incorporated written history into their poetry. Obviously I don't want to just wind up with us reverting things back and forth, so I thought I'd get your thoughts here. Thanks! Alarichall (talk) 10:11, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
 * (Just a further note on this: I just had a look around the secondary literature on this. For example, Mark C. Amodio, The Anglo Saxon Literature Handbook (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013) says 'while Brunanburh rightly deserves its position among the great articulations of martial deeds in OE poetry, it is removed from them not just because of its immediate context in the almost wholly prose Chronicle and because it is based on a purportedly historical event, but because it closes with a direct acknolwedgment of the existence of written sources, something that does not occur in the other secular, heroic poetry that survives from the period'. I'm afraid I don't have a page reference as I looked it up on Google Books and the copy that's up there is unpaginated. But it just illustrates that this is a mainstream view.) Alarichall (talk) 11:01, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I have no particular investment in what edition or translation is employed here. I am not a linguist or philologist. I think that you have more interest in the poem as a piece of literature than an appreciation of what the excerpt was trying to accomplish within the article. All the excerpt needs to do is show that the Anglo-Saxons considered that their ancestors had come to Britain from elsewhere and had taken control of the land from the British by violent means. The last few lines of Brunanburh accomplish this very adequately, and adding the preceding section just dilutes the effect of the poem in illustrating that the Anglo-Saxons held this belief. I do not understand your objection to the poem being an articulation of a heroic tradition. Gildas was writing a generation or more after the adventus so was presumably working, at least in part, from an oral tradition. The Anglo-Saxons were not literate in any meaningful sense before the conversion, which was many generations after the adventus, so Bede was working from an oral tradition - which certainly emphasised a war-torn past inhabited by heroic figures - as well as on the writings of Gildas. The writer of Brunanburh was certainly part of the same society as Bede, they would have shared a similar cultural outlook and many of the same traditions and prejudices. Saying that the writer of Brunanburh was reliant on written sources is just kicking the can down the road, if the written sources, including Bede, were themselves reliant on oral traditions, many of them arguably 'heroic'. Urselius (talk) 12:24, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
 * PS, if you have a problem with the word 'heroic', for any reason, I would have no problem with either, 'tradition' on its own or 'oral tradition' in its place. I think that it is entirely safe to regard any claim concerning events around 450 AD made by either Bede or the writer of Brunanburh being based almost exclusively on tradition. Urselius (talk) 13:02, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks Urselius! This is helpful. I think your PS gets to the nub of the problem for me: it's actually pretty easy (and plausible) to make a case that Bede had very little 'tradition' to go on regarding the fifth century. When I have a moment, I'll look out some of the scholarship on this, and bring it to the discussion. But basically, Bede seems to have used written sources as much as possible, and his account is disjointed enough to suggest that the stuff about Angles, Saxons, and Jutes was a late addition to the work, in turn suggesting that he heard about it quite late in his research. Meanwhile, migration is actually conspicuously absent from surviving OE poetry: Brunanburh is the exception and, as I say, explicitly draws on books. So it's actually easy to hypothesise that Anglo-Saxons didn't develop any grand narratives about their ancestors' migrations until Bede's own time, and that this was quite a bookish endeavour. The seminal work on this is Nicholas Howe, Migration and Mythmaking in Anglo-Saxon England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989). Alarichall (talk) 22:52, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm reasonably sure that I have read the Howe work, at least in part. The major problem with the view of the literate Anglo-Saxonss of their past is separating the component parts of tradition: fabricated myth from a recollection, however distorted, of real past events. Bede is fairly reliant on Gildas and presumably continental Church sources, for some of his adventus narrative, though his narrative is quite short and lacking in detail. Perhaps the A-S Chronicle should be referenced more than Bede in connection to the oral tradition of conquest. The adventus narrative of the Chronicle is more obviously based on tradition and the foundation of the West Saxons is certainly heroic in nature and is more overtly mythic (and unrealistic) than most other A-S kingdom foundation traditions. Urselius (talk) 10:58, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Hi there Urselius! Sorry for going quiet here. I now have some time to come back to this so if it's okay, I'll draft a a redeveloped section on Anglo-Saxon literatary representations of the settlement, drawing on Howe and his successors, and post it here for comment before I implement it? Also, I think it's a bit weird that 'language and literature' is currently under 'Reasons behind the success of the Anglo-Saxon settlement': there's no reason to think that either of them was a cause of Anglo-Saxon cultural dominance. So the material might move elsewhere? Alarichall (talk) 14:51, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

The 'Linguistic evidence' section
I'm impressed with this section, which is careful, sensible, and pretty up to date. I think it's quite wordy though: in particular, I think scholarly concensus now is pretty firmly behind the idea that linguistic evidence does not support the old genocide scenario that it was once thought to, and that this section spends a long time chewing this over.

So I'd like to do a copy-edit of the section, making it shorter (but without removing any of the substantive points), and integrating closer reference to more recent work (like David N. Parsons, 'Sabrina in the thorns: place-names as evidence for British and Latin in Roman Britain', Transactions of the Royal Philological Society, 109.2 (July 2011), 113–37 and Peter Schrijver's 2014 book. It would also be an opportunity to move the stuff on Oppenheimer's idea that Germanic was already spoken in Britain for a long time before the fifth century, discussed above, from the DNA section to the Language section, and to handle that bit more concisely.

Just wanted to post to see if anyone wanted to object or make any points about this before I do? Thanks! Alarichall (talk) 14:59, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Probably useful to make it clear that Sykes is in agreement with Oppenheimer's genetic conclusions, and not with his linguistic ones within the article. Urselius (talk) 20:56, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I've done quite a lot on this now. I hope people are OK with it! I haven't had a go at the place names section yet but will :-) Alarichall (talk) 17:47, 24 August 2017 (UTC)


 * I think the place name section has a couple of important omissions: 'cumb- names' derived from the Britons' own name for themselves - Cumbrogi, and the effects of the 'Middle Saxon Shuffle' where large-scale relocation of settlements occurred many generations after the adventus and probably led to widespread novel place-name production. Urselius (talk) 20:47, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Something that has intrigued me for some time is Bede's statement: "This island at present, following the number of the books in which the Divine law was written, contains five nations, the English, Britons, Scots, Picts, and Latins, each in its own peculiar dialect cultivating the sublime study of Divine truth. The Latin tongue is, by the study of the Scriptures, become common to all the rest." Taken at face-value Bede is stating that a Latin-speaking community, outside the Church, existed in Britain in his own day. Has there been any scholarly debate over this rather startling assertion? Urselius (talk) 20:52, 24 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Oops, I overlooked your point about Sykes and Oppenheimer: I'll try and sort that out. Also good point about the cumb= names. Yes, I'm meaning to update British Latin about spoken Latin in early medieval Western Britain, but there's a movement to suggest it lasted quite a long time (however long that is!). So early medieval Welsh Latin inscriptions used to be seen as just being badly spelled, whereas Language Contact and the Origins of the Germanic Languages argues that they show spoken-language features. I've made quite a lot in the past of Bede's comment that Ecgberht 'in Germania plurimas nouerat esse nationes, a quibus Angli uel Saxones, qui nunc Brittaniam incolunt, genus et originem duxisse noscuntur; unde hactenus a uicina gente Brettonum corrupte Garmani nuncupantur' [knew that there were many peoples in Germania (on the Germanic-speaking Continent), from whom the Angli, or Saxones, who now inhabit Britain, are known to derive their stock and origin—for which reason they are incorrectly still called Garmani by the neighbouring nation of the Britons]. Garmani is clearly a pronunciation that Bede disapproved of, but is consistent with evidence for how Latin was pronounced in late Roman Britain; meanwhile, there's no evidence for this word in Welsh. So Bede is talking about the spoken Latin of ethnic Britons ─ maybe it was still a mother tongue for some? Alaric Hall, 'Interlinguistic Communication in Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum', in Interfaces between Language and Culture in Medieval England: A Festschrift for Matti Kilpiö, ed. by Alaric Hall, Olga Timofeeva, Ágnes Kiricsi and Bethany Fox, The Northern World, 48 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), pp. 37-80.
 * I'm pleased to hear that there is investigation into a possible continuance of vernacular Latin in post-Roman Britain. The use of the term laeti in Kent might suggest that Latin could also have survived for a while in some of the heavily Romanised areas of the south and east that came under rapid A-S political control. Urselius (talk) 12:53, 26 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Okay, I'm done with my revision, though I'm sure I'll keep tinkering. That said, I'm thinking it might be good to make this section into an article of its own on the early expansion of English, which would become a 'main' article. Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain would have a much more concise account and link to the main one via a hatnote. That would make it much easier for other articles, like History of the English Language, Old English, Brittonic languages, Sub-Roman Britain, Brittonicisms in English, etc. to link to the article specifically on the expansion of English. Any opinions? Alarichall (talk) 22:01, 26 August 2017 (UTC)
 * PS I've done some copy-editing of the article header and made a slight substantial change to the account of language. Obviously the header is a particularly sensitive area so I'd appreciate you checking it's okay, Urselius. Alarichall (talk) 19:07, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Does User:Suspended Time want to offer a view on moving the bulk of the language section to a new main page, for the reason given above? I just ask because you've been editing it too :-) Alarichall, I do not object to your relocation of my last edit to another section of the Wikipedia article in question, i.e. the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain. It is fine by me.Alarichall (talk) 22:16, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I've followed through and done a main article on Celtic language-death in England and trimmed the section in this entry accordingly. Hopefully that will make this very long entry slightly more digestible! I'm now going to trying moving the 'Linguistic evidence' section up so that it follows 'Historical evidence'. I think that way the article will now be presenting evidence in order of historiographical importance: historical sources used to be the main source, then linguistic sources added to the picture, then archaeology became dominant, and then DNA came on the scene. See what you think! Alarichall (talk) 17:55, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

Answer to conundrum?
I was looking again at: Schiffels, S. et al. (2016) Iron Age and Anglo-Saxon genomes from East England reveal British migration history, Nature Communications 7, Article number:10408 doi:10.1038/ncomms10408

Again I was struck by the huge overlap of the incidence of modern Welsh and English 'rare genetic markers', and their separation from both pre-Roman British and adventus-era 'Anglo-Saxon' ancient DNA marker incidence, that is shown in the study. The study claims that the eastern English have 38% continental Germanic ancestry, whilst the Welsh have 30% of the same ancestry, despite the Welsh not having any historically attested influx from the Germanic areas of the continent. Then it struck me that the ancient and modern populations were not comparable, as modern populations have been through an historic genetic selection and population bottleneck since Roman and Anglo-Saxon times. I am referring to the pandemics that swept Britain from the 14th to the 17th centuries, particularly the Black Death. These pandemics undoubtedly were more lethal to people of some genetic ancestries than others and would have drastically affected the incidence of certain genetic markers. I suspect that Schiffels et al is showing more the distinction between pre-and post-Black Death populations, than between incomer and native populations. Urselius (talk) 14:10, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Interesting. I haven't got stuck into the DNA debates. I'm hoping if I wait long enough, the dust will settle and there will be a reasonable concensus, after which it'll be easier to keep on top of developments. 10 years, maybe 20 to go?! Alarichall (talk) 17:57, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The problem at present is that the geneticists are not, in general, involving historians, archaeologists and mathematicians in their studies. The basis for population genetics studies are mathematical models, and geneticists are not the finest mathematicians and computer scientists. The models tend to incorporate simplistic assumptions, such as a single time-point immigration event. The lack of historical and archaeological knowledge tends to generate simplistic conclusions, drawn from already flawed models. There is also sometimes a lack of understanding of human nature. The apartheid model ignores the fact that human beings have always created sexual relationships across ethnic, linguistic and religious boundaries. If the British in India could create the Anglo-Indian community across a great divide of physical appearance, religion, language and custom, the trifling differences between the Germanic migrants and native British would offer a truly negligible barrier. Urselius (talk) 18:45, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

Grammatical changes made by unregistered user
Hi, Urselius. I see you've reverted a lot of copy-edits by an unregistered user. You said that you were 'reversing a host of, at best, dubious grammatical changes', but I had a close look at them and I thought they were mostly good copy-edits (and often make what is a very long article a shade more concise). Admittedly I thought some of the rephrasings were a bit unsuccessful, but often they were replacing phrasing that was equally clunky. I think it's a bit unwelcoming to someone who's obviously acting in good faith, and to my mind being quite helpful, and who might be on their way to getting more involved in Wikipedia, to just revert their edits wholesale. So might I encourage you to be a bit more selective in future about reverting things? And maybe even to reinstate some or all of the changes? Alarichall (talk) 05:10, 12 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Hi, there were a number of typos in the replaced text and a number of grammatical errors were introduced that were merely stylistic issues beforehand. The previous text was at least grammatical, and did not have glaring typos. I do not have the time to sift through extensive changes in order to correct supposed corrections. If it looks as though changes are not a substantial improvement and also introduce errors, I tend to revert them wholesale. This is done in the belief that it is the responsibility of the editor to ensure that their edits are typo-free and grammatical. If the original editor, or anyone else, wishes to go through the edits and correct them they are free to do so. Urselius (talk) 11:54, 12 December 2017 (UTC)


 * I have again reverted further edits by this unregistered editor, for the reasons outlined above. Some of the edits were OK, but there was at least one instance of a change in meaning to a sentence that was plain wrong. Do a job properly or leave it alone. Urselius (talk) 12:04, 12 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Well, I see your reasoning, but don't forget that this kind of thinking is one reason why lots of people with a lot to give are put off editing Wikipedia at all. Alarichall (talk) 15:58, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
 * If you check, the IP address has a history of disruptive edits. It may or may not be the same person responsible, of course. However, if this editor were to make fewer changes at any one time, I would be more inclined to check and correct any that required correction. Urselius (talk) 22:21, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Good point: looks like an indefatigable Manchester City Council employee! But why do you see the edits as disruptive? Looking across the last dozen or so edits from this IP address, they all strike me as perfectly reasonable copy-edits. Sometimes I'd agree they're fixing things that ain't broke, but I don't see that they're making anything worse, and they're making a lot of things better, so I'd live and let live. Certainly by reversing the changes en bloc, the article gets worse rather than better: more corrections than mistakes are removed. And it's pretty fiddly, if you're doing a general copy-edit of an article, to save every change separately. I'd just encourage you to take a more collaborative stance :-) Anyway, hopefully I'll find time later to reimplement their changes to this article and check for introduced errors. Alarichall (talk) 05:38, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
 * The first substantive edit in the last slew was to change: "Rather, males inherit the Y-chromosome directly from their fathers, and both sexes inherit mtDNA directly from their mothers. Consequently, they preserve a genetic record from individual to individual that is altered only through mutation" to "Rather, males inherit the Y-chromosome directly from their fathers, and both sexes inherit mtDNA directly from their mothers. That makes them preserve a genetic record from individual to individual that is altered only by mutation". This is an 'early-teen' level of English expression, and it is wrong. It introduces an active statement, which is just incorrect; the sex-specific inheritance of mtDNA and Y chromosomes does not exist for the preservation of a genetic record that can be investigated, it is merely a by-product of fundamental mammalian (Y) and eukaryotic (mtDNA) biology. Also Procopius becomes 'Procopiu', one of a number of typos.


 * I do not think the edits to this page were disruptive, but I do not think that they were particularly useful in most cases either. If you are going to make a lot of stylistic changes to an article you need to ensure that you do not change the meaning of sentences and that you do not introduce typos. Creating unnecessary work for other editors, in checking through all your changes for errors, is fundamentally unfair. Urselius (talk) 10:11, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

My new edits are valid and taken from the best sources
I'm not sure why, but some user named 'Uselius' is inexplicably reverting my edits which are from very valid citations. Wikipedia policy quite clearly states to be bold and edit from respected, academic sources. I have done this, almost verbatim, to correct many outdated statements in this article, and some which border on original research. The genetic studies I cited are the most thorough, recent and accurate to date on this issue. I also corrected the material entered from the Schiffels, et al study to reflect what it specifically states. The genetic evidence clearly supports that there was a significant Anglo-Saxon migration, and that there was large interbreeding between the migrants and the native Romano-British. I also provided an edit, cited again from Leslie et al (2015), which shows that the cereal patterns, pottery, language and place names all changed drastically after the Anglo-Saxon migration.

The landmark study by Leslie et al., 2015, definitely needs to be included here, and its findings: As for the study by Schiffels et al., its findings were not properly entered in the genetics section.

Epf2018 (talk) 21:10, 12 January 2019 (UTC)


 * You do realise that the Leslie paper was conducted on Modern DNA and not Ancient DNA, don't you? Though the paper makes grandiose claims, so do all papers of this type, and they should be taken with a pinch of salt. All population genetics papers are based on mathematical models, and the results are only as good as the model employed and the, often dubious, assumptions that form its basis. The Shiffels paper does use Ancient DNA from Romano-British and Anglo-Saxon burials, it is therefore not reconstructing the past from the present, it is investigating the past. None of these pieces of research are perfect, they merely add to the sum of the known, very rarely do they prove to be definitive. Urselius (talk) 21:29, 12 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Firstly, the Leslie study included information from both modern populations and ancient DNA, especially in its citations to the findings from ancient DNA in other papers. The Leslie study is unlike previous genetics studies, in that it is using genomics and fine-scale genetic structure. It was able to show the major genetic structure found in non-English populations, as well as within English populations, which is why it is able to provide such a thorough analysis of the Anglo-Saxon genetic component. If you read the study, it quite clearly demonstrates this by showing the marked difference between the homogenous Central/South England population and more isolated, Celtic populations within England like Cornwall, Cumbria, Welsh Borders and Devon. It specifically states it was able to identify the British populations which were absent or largely absent of the Anglo-Saxon component detected at its highest in Central/South England. This was even reflected in the structural difference between Cornwall and Devon, with the latter having a longer and more thorough history of Anglo-Saxon settlement. It analyzes modern genetics with regards to, and comparison with, ancient DNA and the genetics of other modern populations. It is the most thorough and accurate to date on the genetics of indigenous British populations. It is a massive collaboration from some of the best researchers in the field, and has produced landmark findings cited by other subsequent papers, including Schiffels et al. In any case, none of what you state here is any reason to oppose its inclusion in this article, according to Wikipedia policies. My edits were taken almost verbatim from this study and from Schiffels et al. Thus, your only opposition is from your own subjective POV, which according to Wikipedia, is not a valid reason for the exclusion of such a highly respected academic study.Epf2018 (talk) 21:45, 12 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I have no problem with the Leslie paper as an investigation of fine population genetic structure in Modern Britain. However, it is not the Holy Grail, and should not be treated as such. In particular genetic dating is fraught with the possibility of error, this is widely appreciated. Also there are often assumptions made in formulating mathematical models, such as genetic influx treated as a single event - ignoring the possibility of genetic exchange over many generations. This tends to bias conclusions. Also tending towards bias is a desire to fit genetics into a known historical scenario, this creates circular arguments. If you, as I have, discover a new gene in an organism, then demonstrate the function of the protein it codes, this is straightforward. There is little room for doubt or uncertainty. But in population genetics this is not the case, the results and the conclusions taken from the results are based on the reliability of the mathematical/computer modelling, therefore they are open to doubt and uncertainty because they are not simple facts but are the product of a construct. It is interesting to note in the Leslie paper that the English have as much, or more, genetic identity with the French as with the Germans. Now their model ascribes the German component to the A-S settlement, but makes vague reference to "Bronze Age" origins for the French component. Is this a real or an artefactual difference. Is their model free from bias, unconscious or conscious, based on historical expectation? I cannot say, and neither can anyone else. The take home message is that a single paper is never definitive, wait long enough and another will come along making radically different claims. Urselius (talk) 22:08, 12 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I have re-entered the information from Leslie et al. and Schiffels et al. into the genetics section. They are taken verbatim from those studies and should not be removed without reason as has been done. The study by Leslie et al., is from 2015, and has received widespread support and acceptance. It is cited by the study mentioned by Schiffels et al., and is continually being cited by a plethora of newer studies on other populations and ethnicities, as genomics and studies on fine-scale genetic structure provide massive amounts of new information. Ancient DNA, genomics and fine-scale structure are new developments, and distinct from previous population genetics studies on a limited numbers of markers or loci. They are providing a huge swathe of new information, and helping resolve many questions. I also think you have misread the study by Leslie et al., as the population in France shared with Britain is in reference to the Iron Age, Celtic population distinct from 'Germanic' samples, and which ultimately derives from the initial proto-Celtic or "Beaker" culture; the first Indo-European migration into western Europe in the Bronze Age (from the Yamnaya culture of the Pontic Steppe, see Haak et al., 2015) which replaced much of the older Mesolithic and Neolithic genetic ancestry in Western Europe and brought early Indo-European languages, like Celtic. A similar fine-scale genetic study on the Irish population was revealed last year, which revealed major regional differences from prehistorical and historical population movements, and also heavily cited Leslie et al.: Insular Celtic population structure and genomic footprints of migration.. Epf2018 (talk) 22:20, 12 January 2019 (UTC)
 * "Projections from modern data to the past are, however, subject to considerable uncertainties and may be compounded by unknown complexities, which do not feature in their underlying models. Prehistorians point out that the Germanic affinity of eastern Britain could also be a result of earlier communications with the northwest European mainland. For example, there may have been ‘Belgic’ peoples in Britain at the time of the Claudian conquest in AD43 (ref. 32), and the Roman army that arrived in Britain was composed of recruits from various provinces33. Recently Leslie et al.4 have used haplotype-based statistical methods applied to modern genome-wide SNP genotypes to infer several distinct ancestral influences from migratory events into Britain. This included a major 35% contribution to modern Central and Southern English populations from a German source, which, they surmise, occurred in the century after AD 800, some 200 years or more after archaeological evidence for initial Anglo-Saxon influence. Evidence from direct observations of ancient genomes is required, however, if we are to draw conclusions about genetic exchange that distinguish between closely dated events." From: Genomic signals of migration and continuity in Britain before the Anglo-Saxons   Rui Martiniano, et al. Nature Communications volume 7, Article number: 10326 (2016) Urselius (talk) 22:31, 12 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Leslie et al., did not date the genetic ancestry from the Anglo-Saxons it detected to "after AD 800" whatsoever. Either the article you are citing made an error on that claim, or you did on the date. The study by Leslie clearly states that its detection of Anglo-Saxon ancestry dates to after the Roman withdrawal, but could reflect continuing migration from the opposing coast of the North Sea throughout the period. This scenario has been supported in other fields of research of continental Germanic artefacts, such as at Sutton Hoo, dating to well after the 6th century. In any case, Leslie et al., states: "After the Saxon migrations, the language, place names, cereal crops, and pottery styles all changed from that of the existing (Romano-British) population to those of the Saxon migrants. There has been ongoing historical and archaeological controversy about the extent to which the Saxons replaced the existing Romano-British populations. Earlier genetic analyses, based on limited samples and specific loci, gave conflicting results. With genome-wide data we can resolve this debate. Two separate analyses (ancestry profiles and GLOBETROTTER) show clear evidence in modern England of the Saxon migration, but each limits the proportion of Saxon ancestry, clearly excluding the possibility of long-term Saxon replacement. We estimate the proportion of Saxon ancestry in C./S England as very likely to be under 50%, and most likely in the range 10%-40%." In any case, the study you mention above is again not a valid reason for the exclusion of the findings of Lesie et al., or of Schiffels et al. You should also remember that Schiffels et al., corroborated the findings by the Leslie study and found approximately the same amount of Anglo-Saxon ancestry in Central/Southern English, at around 38%, and it was based directly on ancient DNA, and not only on modern English populations. Epf2018 (talk) 22:44, 12 January 2019 (UTC)
 * You have also included a small part of the study by Martiniano et al., but ignored its overall conclusions which also corroborated the findings by Leslie et al.: "Six of the Roman genomes show affinity with modern British Celtic populations, particularly Welsh, but significantly diverge from populations from Yorkshire and other eastern English samples. They also show similarity with the earlier Iron-Age genome, suggesting population continuity, but differ from the later Anglo-Saxon genome. This pattern concords with profound impact of migrations in the Anglo-Saxon period." Genomic signals of migration and continuity in Britain before the Anglo-Saxons. Epf2018 (talk) 22:54, 12 January 2019 (UTC)
 * A pure cut-and-paste job. "Globetrotter" is their mathematical model, they created it, it does not have an independent validity, it isn't a measure of accuracy. So now Leslie is correct in everything, but the authors of another "Nature paper" are incorrect, or possibly just stupid. Engaging with you is an exercise in futility. I am happy for this to go to formal arbitration, but the discussion here is over from me. Urselius (talk) 23:01, 12 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Leslie et al., did not create "GLOBETROTTER" or "STRUCTURE", and both were used in their genomic and fine scale structure analyses. I did not say Martiniano et al. were incorrect, merely that the use of 800 AD as you did was not what was stated by Leslie et al., in their major study. You also, again, completely ignored the fact that the study by Martiniano et al., you mention corroborated the findings by Leslie et al. I showed above, and that Martiniano et al., concluded there was a "profound impact of migrations in the Anglo-Saxon period" in eastern England. Also, you should read what Leslie et al., actually states about the date of the Anglo-Saxon intermixing with the native British Celtic population:
 * "Note that a migration event is likely to precede any subsequent population admixture, possibly substantially so, if the migrants mate largely within the migrant group for some time after their migration. Further, admixture is likely to be a gradual process, so that using a model of a single pulse of admixture in GLOBETROTTER is likely to estimate a time after the commencement of admixture. For these reasons, the admixture dates estimated by GLOBETROTTER should provide upper bounds on the dates of the migrations, as for both examples here, where the estimated dates are 200 or more years after the known dates of the migrations, suggesting that the mixing was indeed a gradual process." Epf2018 (talk) 23:16, 12 January 2019 (UTC)
 * If Urselius does not continue to discuss the issue, then I will re-enter my edits into the article, as he has still not provided a single valid reason to exclude the edits I have entered almost verbatim from highly respected and widely accepted genomic studies on the significant contribution of Anglo-Saxon migrations and ancestry to the English population. Epf2018 (talk) 23:22, 12 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I have now discussed the issue on the talk page here. If User:Urselius does not explain their opposition to my completely valid edits of information taken almost verbatim from two of the most important genetic studies on this subject, then there is no reason to revert my edits. The study by Leslie et al. is one of the largest genetic studies to date on the English population and its amount of Anglo-Saxon ancestry, but it is not even included in the current state of this article. All I did was include its findings, and that of Schiffels et al, showing clearly there is a significant genetic ancestry of Anglo-Saxon origin in the English, and that there was a migration of some degree. Epf2018 (talk) 21:27, 12 January 2019 (UTC)
 * You are over-hasty, you must leave people enough time to compose a reply - overnight if needed. Urselius (talk) 21:29, 12 January 2019 (UTC)
 * You have yet to provide a single, acceptable reason to exclude my edits from the landmark study by Leslie et al. Your only reasoning is from a subjective, personal issue with the source, which is not a valid reason according to Wikipedia policy. Under your reasoning, I can start removing large sections of cited material in this article if I wished simply because I personally disagree with it. That is unacceptable. Until you can provide a valid reason to exclude major, widely-accepted academic research, I will being reinstating my edits. Epf2018 (talk) 21:48, 12 January 2019 (UTC)
 * You have proceeded with your editing of the article while this discussion was active and without waiting for any outcome from it. You are acting in bad faith and there is no point in talking to you. Presumably, if you do not moderate your actions and attitude, you will be soon be banned from editing. Urselius (talk) 22:19, 12 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I apologize. I am not acting in bad faith. However, I personally do not see a valid objection from you with regards to my edits to the genetics section. Your opposition to my edits to the introductory section have more merit, and I would like to come to a compromise on that. My edits to the genetics section, including the findings of Leslie et al., and more specific information from Schiffels et al., should not be changed much. They are taken almost verbatim from the studies. Epf2018 (talk) 22:23, 12 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't - you seem to be getting into trouble on several pages for edit-warring. A large para of yours has been left, but bits higher up removed. No doubt Urselius has his reasons, which he will explain before long. Over-emphatic editing on the fairly early-stage genetic studies of this and various other historical subjects is a regular feature of WP I'm afraid. You seem to have broken the WP:3RR rule already. Johnbod (talk) 21:57, 12 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I am not 'edit warring' at all. Making bold edits from valid, highly respected studies is not in violation of any Wikipedia policy. The studies I have entered are not that early stage, and are from 2015 and 2016. They are massive, landmark studies with findings widely accepted by the best researchers in the field, and are being cited by most new studies in these subject areas. A valid explanation to my edits in the genetics section has yet to be provided by Urselius. Epf2018 (talk) 22:28, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

Request for comment
User:Epf2018 made a number of edits which concerned a modern population genetics study that were misplaced in a section on Ancient DNA evidence. I reverted the edits and directed the editor to the talk page. Having engaged in reverting a number of times this editor agreed to enter a discussion. While the discussion was ongoing, User:Epf2018 unilaterally, and, I consider, in bad faith, resumed editing the article. I do not object to the addition of relevant material to the article, but the editor removed previously existing sound material and changed the wording derived from the conclusions of the paper it was describing. User:Epf2018 has a decided opinion that one particular paper is entirely definitive, in a complex field that has thrown up many studies with diametrically differing conclusions. I would like to defend the article from dumbing down to the state where one study is given a spurious pre-eminence over all others. Urselius (talk) 23:26, 12 January 2019 (UTC)
 * My edits were not "misplaced" whatsoever, are taken almost verbatim from the sourced academic studies, and are completely pertinent to the subject of this article. There are numerous other genetics studies cited in the article on this topic, and I merely included two of the newest ones, which are also the most comprehensive, accepted and respected studies to date on the contribution of Anglo-Saxon genetic ancestry to the English population. I also elaborated on and included more material, again almost verbatim, from another study in the section by Schiffels et al. The study by Schiffels et al and Martiniano et al both use ancient DNA, including Anglo-Saxon remains, and both found evidence for a significant, albeit minority, genetic contribution from Anglo-Saxon migrants. Despite the assertions by Urselius, I have not removed any of the pre-existing content, but only added to it with cited material from the studies provided. I have not "changed the wording" of the conclusions of the studies whatsoever, and entered verbatim their conclusions about the genetic contribution of the Anglo-Saxon migration. Urselius unilaterally and completely removed my edits several times, without reason. After trying to discuss with him, he has decided he no longer wishes to try and resolve the issue; likely because it has been shown he has no case apart from his own subjective disagreement with the studies mentioned. He has still not provided a single valid reason to remove the content I entered, which is taken directly from the studies. I have also not given "preeminence" of one study over all others, but merely entered the findings of two studies not previously included, while entering more information verbatim from a third study already found in the article. Again, the "wording" I have entered is taken verbatim from these excellent studies. Urselius has failed to make any case to support removing my edits without reason. I have simply been bold in adding cited material directly from very reliable academic sources, and do not wish to have a conflict with another editor. Urselius cannot provide an objection to the inclusion of the findings of these articles, and simply has a problem with including verbatim their stated conclusions, which he seems to have a personal, subjective issue with. That is not a reason to omit them from the article. Epf2018 (talk) 00:11, 13 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I have recently made my edits in the form I personally wish them to be seen in the article. If this was "hasty", I apologize. This was not done in "bad faith" whatsoever. I do wish to understand Urselius' contentions, but he has simply stopped discussing them. I'm not sure what they are in the genetics section, as I added verbatim the conclusions from three highly respected, very recent, widely accepted genetics studies completely pertinent to the issue of the genetic contribution of Anglo-Saxon migrations. Is he personally debating the findings of these 3 studies? That is not a valid reason to exclude those findings from the article. If he has an issue with with my change to the summary in one of the introductory paragraphs of the article, I am willing to come to a compromise on this, as that is paraphrasing and not cited verbatim from a study (that whole section is a combination of paraphrasing and OR). He has failed to state what exactly he objects to in my edits in that specific case. Epf2018 (talk) 00:21, 13 January 2019 (UTC)
 * My problems with your edits are less to do with their content than with your methods. You did remove material on the Schiffels paper, material that the authors certainly considered important, because they made much of it in a non-specialist article. Following my reversion of your edits you then allowed this material to remain. I was aware of the existence of the Leslie paper, but considered, as it was essentially another work on modern population genetics and based its conclusions about historical genetic influx to Britain on back-projection from a mathematical model, that it was only a minor addition to previous studies using modern populations. Also it had been superseded by work on ancient DNA. The section from Martiano I quoted above is as succinct a critique of back-projection studies as could be wished. There is also a significant factor that all modern population studies universally ignore, the 'pandemic genetic bottleneck'. The Black Death killed 30-45% of the population of England, and there were subsequent pandemics on a lesser scale up to 1665. The plague was undoubtedly more lethal to some genetic lineages than others. Comparing modern population genetics to pre-Black Death population genetics is a comparison of different entities, there is a discontinuity caused by selective pressure due to disease.
 * I will now describe what should have happened. This is an actively curated article on a complex subject, as such a new editor should begin by proposing changes or additions on the talk page. Had this happened I would have been supportive of adding material on the Leslie paper. However, as the section about whole genomes and rare alleles was primarily about one paper whose major importance was that it was on ancient DNA, I would have suggested splitting it into modern and ancient DNA sections. This I think is necessary, to avoid confusion. Urselius (talk) 11:25, 13 January 2019 (UTC)
 * The Leslie et al study is a major research paper on the subject, and is itself cited by both the Schiffels and Martiniano studies. Hence, its findings should very much be included here. Modern population genetic studies on native English populations are already found throughout the article, as they are now a major source of evidence in the discussion of the extent of Anglo-Saxon migrations. Studies like Leslie are particularly helpful in that they show the regional differences which correspond with historical records (regardless of their accuracy) of Anglo-Saxon political divisions and settlement. You make an interesting point about the critique mentioned by Martiniano et al of the limitations of these studies, but you ignored that the  Martiniano study itself came to the same conclusion as Leslie and Schiffels of a significant genetic contribution from the Anglo-Saxon migrations. Your point about the Black Death and population changes since the Anglo-Saxon period is interesting, but irrelevant to the need to include the findings of the Leslie study. The Leslie study more than accounted for this, in any case, and that was what was so striking about its findings - that they found genetic continuity in the regions of Anglo-Saxon and Celtic settlement from the Anglo-Saxon period onward, and more specifically, genetic structure matching the historical political divisions of the period, including between different predominantly Celtic regions, such as Cornwall, Devon, North and South Wales, Cumbria, the Welsh Borders, western Scotland, etc. The Black Death affected nearly all of Europe, to varying degrees, but it was not enough to effect complete change of the profiles of long existing, indigenous gene pools with geographic structure. If it had such an impact, the findings of Leslie et al would not have showed the geographic substructure it did, which correlate with recorded political divisions and historical populations movements of the Anglo-Saxon period. For example, Devon was lightly settled by Anglo-Saxons and part of the Kingdom of Wessex for a significantly longer period than neighbouring Celtic Cornwall, and even this fine division in genetic substructure was detected; Devon was distinct from both Cornwall, and from Central/South England, coinciding with it being a Celtic region of late Anglo-Saxon settlement (late 8th century according to records), but still not remaining Celtic for as long as Cornwall did, which was independent until the 10th century, autonomous into the 12th century, and mostly Celtic-speaking well into the 16th century. The findings and methods of Leslie et al have also been so groundbreaking, that they have been cited and reproduced with similar, newer studies on other European ethnicities, such as the Irish and the Finnish populations (Please see: Kerminen et al., 2017. "Fine-Scale Genetic Structure in Finland" and Byrne et al., 2018. "Insular Celtic population structure and genomic footprints of migration."). In both cases, similar geographic substructure was found based on regional, cultural and historical divisions. The studies of Leslie, Schiffels and Martiniano are, thus, all related and reference each other, using a combination of analyses of ancient DNA and modern genomics and fine-scale genetic structure. The title of the current section seems fine to me, as it states these corroborating and related studies are from both ancient DNA and genomics. Epf2018 (talk) 16:06, 13 January 2019 (UTC)
 * We can differ on the relative importance of the Leslie paper. I have a problem with the distinctive West Yorkshire (Elmet) genetics reflecting a generation's length time difference between it falling to Edwin in 616, and many other places (such as most of central England), which fell under Anglo-Saxon control from 575-590. How does 20 to 30 years of continuing political independence profoundly affect regional genetics? I therefore find the fitting of Leslie's findings into the framework of the dating of Anglo-Saxon political control of regions of England and Britain less than convincing. However, I have never had any problem about including Leslie in the article. I notice that you do not engage at all with my criticism of your high-handed editing style. Had you discussed the matter before making extensive edits, that included removal of perfectly sound material, this dispute would never have happened. Wikipedia is a collaborative effort, it works by consensus. Just looking at the article and its length, complexity and level of citation should have given you an inkling that the article had received a great deal of editorial work and that it was probably curated by one or more dedicated editors. While no editor has any form of ownership of articles, new editors should have the decency to enter into dialogue before making any profound changes, especially the removal of material. Urselius (talk) 16:27, 13 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I see that you have split the section into two new subsections. The format change seems fine to me. Epf2018 (talk) 16:08, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

Genetics studies - a word of caution
Please do not take any single genetics paper as being definitive.

Some of the anomalies in recent papers:

The Schiffels paper has one huge elephant in the room. They claim that the modern population of the east of England has 38% ancestry from Northern Germany (i.e. proto-Anglo_Saxon immigrants), which appears to be fine. However, they then say that the population of both Wales and Scotland have 30% of the same ancestry. These areas did not receive any known direct immigration from Continental Germany (excepting Lothian/Borders in Scotland). Where could this ancestry have come from? The only source would be the English of England. However, the English themselves comprised only roughly a third Continental German ancestry. The 30% of Wales and Scotland would suggest that these areas have well over 50% English ancestry, which is just absurd.

Olalde et al. claim that 90% of the British gene pool was replaced by incomers (from the Rhineland - and ultimately of Yamnaya steppe origins) of the Beaker Culture within a few centuries. However, Haak et al. claim that the modern English population is roughly a third Yamnaya derived and roughly a third each of Neolithic and Western Hunter Gatherer ancestry. This would suggest that the pitiful 10% of the inhabitants of Britain surviving the Beaker onslaught then out reproduced these people to eventually comprise two thirds of the modern British gene pool. Obviously there is something awry here also.

The take-home message is, treat individual papers with some circumspection. Urselius (talk) 12:12, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Indeed. Imo, the whole area of study of remote human historical DNA is in its infancy (as suggested by the wild disparities between papers, typical of every region studied), and we should treat it with considerable caution for the time being. Arguably we should treat papers like these as WP:PRIMARY in any case. Johnbod (talk) 15:08, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
 * There is certainly a conflict between wanting Wikipedia articles to be up-to-date and at the same time to reflect a level of consensus within the relevant scholarly community. This is made worse by the pressure (getting the next round of grant funding) on scientists to be more definite in their published claims than may be entirely justified, and to ignore any anomalies and uncertainties in their methods and results. Urselius (talk) 16:02, 14 January 2019 (UTC)