The Origins of the British: The New Prehistory of Britain by Stephen Oppenheimer

The Origins of the British: The New Prehistory of Britain by Stephen Oppenheimer

'British prehistory will never look the same again.' Professor Colin Renfrew, University of Cambridge Stephen Oppenheimer's extraordinary scientific detective story combining genetics, linguistics, archaeology and historical record shatters the myths we have come to live by. It demonstrates that the Anglo-Saxon invasions contributed just a tiny fraction (5%) to the English gene pool. Two-thirds of the English people reveal an unbroken line of genetic descent from south-western Europeans arriving long before the first farmers. The bulk of the remaining third arrived between 7,000 and 3,000 years ago as part of long-term north-west European trade and immigration, especially from Scandinavia - and may have brought with them the earliest forms of English language. As for the Celts - the Irish, Scots and Welsh - history has traditionally placed their origins in Iron Age Central Europe. Oppenheimer's genetic synthesis tells a different story. There is indeed a deep divide between the English and the rest of the British. But as this book reveals the division is many thousands of years older than previously thought. 'Be prepared to have all your cherished notions of English history and Britishness swept away' - Clive Gamble

Be prepared to have all your cherished notions of English history and Britishness swept away* Clive Gamble *

The historians' account is wrong in almost every detail. In Dr
Oppenheimer's reconstruction of events, the principal ancestors
of today's British and Irish populations arrived from Spain
about 16,000 years ago.

* New York Times *

He upends some of the most deeply rooted notions of where
the British people come from, and does so in a clear, painstaking
and detailed way. The result is both fascinating and unexpected.

* Geographical *

Particularly illuminating ... The author carefully lays out the genetic data that show how three-quarters of Britishness dates to the repopulation after the northern ice sheets last retreated, and
takes us through a fascinating investigation of what this means for some cherished notions of Britishness.

* Nature *

Stephen Oppenheimer of the University of Oxford is a leading expert in the use of DNA to track migrations and his previous book Out of Eden: The Peopling of the World rewrote the prehistory of man's early colonization of the world. He is also the author of Eden in the East: The Drowned Continent of Southeast Asia, which challenged the orthodox view of the origins of Polynesians as rice farmers from Taiwan.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781845294823
ISBN 10	1845294823
Title	The Origins of the British: The New Prehistory of Britain
Author	Stephen Oppenheimer
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Little, Brown Book Group
Year published	2007-04-12
Number of pages	656
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable