Saxons, Vikings, and Celts

by Bryan Sykes

  SAXONS, VIKINGS, AND CELTS

  By the same author

  THE SEVEN DAUGHTERS OF EVE

  ADAM’S CURSE

  SAXONS, VIKINGS, AND CELTS

  The Genetic Roots of Britain and Ireland

  Bryan Sykes

  W. W. NORTON & COMPANY

  New York • London

  Copyright © 2006 by Bryan Sykes

  First published as a Norton 2007

  Originally published in Great Britain under the title Blood of the Isles: Exploring the Genetic Roots of Our Tribal History

  All rights reserved

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Sykes, Bryan.

  Saxons, vikings, and celts: the genetic roots of Britain and Ireland/Bryan Sykes.—1st American ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN: 978-0-393-07978-4

  1. Human population genetics—Great Britain—Popular works. 2. Human genetics—Popular works. I. Title.

  GN290.G7S95 2006

  599.93'50941—dc22

  2006033178

  W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110

  www.wwnorton.com

  W. W. Norton & Company Ltd., Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT

  To my son Richard, companion on very many journeys

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgements

  List of illustrations

  North American Preface

  Maps

  Prologue

  1 Twelve Thousand Years of Solitude

  2 Who Do We Think We Are?

  3 The Resurgent Celts

  4 The Skull Snatchers

  5 The Blood Bankers

  6 The Silent Messengers

  7 The Nature of the Evidence

  8 Ireland

  9 The DNA of Ireland

  10 Scotland

  11 The Picts

  12 The DNA of Scotland

  13 Wales

  14 The DNA of Wales

  15 England

  16 Saxons, Danes, Vikings and Normans

  17 The DNA of England

  18 The Blood of the Isles

  Appendix

  A rare display of English national identity. England supporters at the 2006 World Cup in Germany.

  Brutus the Trojan sets sail to discover Britain and become its first king–according to Geoffrey of Monmouth, at any rate.

  The coronation throne at Westminster Abbey with Lia Fail, the Stone of Destiny, before its return to Scotland.

  Tintagel Castle on the Cornish cliffs, where Uther Pendragon deceitfully seduced Eigr and King Arthur was conceived.

  Merlin before King Vortigern as he prophesies the subterranean lake containing the White and Red dragons.

  King Arthur, seriously wounded at the battle of Camlan, well on the way to recovery thanks to Morgan Le Fay and her attendants on the Isle of Avalon. Or is he?

  Glastonbury Abbey, scene of the ritual reburial of King Arthur’s remains by Edward I on Easter Day, 1278.

  Mask made 9,500 years ago from the skull and antlers of a red deer, recovered from the Mesolithic site at Starr Carr, East Yorkshire.

  The defensive ditches of the Iron Age fort of Maiden Castle, Dorset, which fell to the II Augusta legion under Vespasian following the Roman invasion of Britain in AD 43.

  Stonehenge, iconic religious centre of the ancient Britons. The massive stones were transported 250 miles from the Preseli mountains of West Wales, about 4,200 years ago.

  Exquisite gold and garnet cloisonné buckle from a sword belt recovered from the Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo, Suffolk. Made in the early seventh century but still in mint condition.

  Aerial view of the Roman fort at Richborough, Kent, where the main invasion force landed in AD 43. The platform with the cross marks the foundations of the 26-metre-high triumphal arch faced in white Carrara marble, through which all official visitors entered the province of Britannia before heading inland along Watling Street.

  Saxon ceremonial helmet inlaid with bronze gilt belonging to Raedwald, King of East Anglia, recovered from the Sutton Hoo burial.

  The unopposed landings by the Normans at Pevensey in 1066, as depicted in the Bayeux tapestry. King Harold was busy fighting a Norse army near York at the time and had to dash south to fight the Normans under Duke William at the Battle of Hastings.

  Full moon over the standing stones of Callanish on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, one of the breathtaking megaliths constructed along the Atlantic fringe from Iberia to the Shetland Isles about 5,000 years ago.

  The exposed interior of one of the 5,000-year-old houses at Skara Brae, Orkney, complete with domestic furniture, hearth and even fishtanks to keep the lobsters fresh!

  The central chamber of the passage grave at Maes Howe, Orkney, showing the vaulted roof built 5,000 years ago with the conveniently flat sandstone slabs from the locality.

  Hadrian’s Wall, Northumberland, built in AD 122 to mark the final frontier of the Roman Empire–and to keep the belligerent Picts out.

  The settlement at Jarlshof, Shetland, where the rectangular Viking longhouses have incorporated the earlier Pictish roundhouses.

  The eighth-century Pictish symbol stone at Aberlemno, near Perth, depicting a battle between the Pictish King Bruide and an invading army under Ecgfrith, King of Northumbria. The Picts won. The hole in the stone was drilled to make it easier to move!

  Mousa Broch in Shetland, the largest of the characteristic Pictish fortified dwellings built to a standard design between 2,100 and 1,900 years ago.

  Robert Knox MD, anatomist, surgeon, author–and venomous racist.

  ‘A Celtic groupe; such as may be seen at any time in Marylebone, London.’ An engraving from Robert Knox’s The Races of Men, in which he makes his attitude to the Celts abundantly clear.

  John Beddoe towards the end of a long life spent recording the physical features of the people in every corner of the Isles.

  A page from Beddoe’s album of photographs showing an ironworker from York of Welsh parentage coupled with a short handwritten description and a serial number. Beddoe was an avid and systematic collector.

  History teacher Adrian Targett meets Cheddar Man. Tests on mitochondrial DNA showed they are related to each other over a span of 9,000 years.

  The readout from a DNA sequence analyser that provides the raw material for Saxons, Vikings, and Celts. Coloured peaks on the trace denote the order of the four DNA bases, A, C, G and T, in a segment of DNA.

  Professor Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum, London, takes the 12,000-year-old lower jaw from its storage case prior to my attempts at DNA recovery.

  Extracting dentine powder, which contains DNA, from a molar belonging to a young man who died over 12,000 years ago in Cheddar Gorge, Somerset. The teeth are in excellent condition and the enamel has protected the DNA during the intervening millennia. The pink material is a dental mastic, which I used to protect the rest of the jaw.

  The Priory at Lindisfarne. The ruins occupy the site of the undefended monastery which was attacked on 8 June 793 in the first recorded Viking raid in the Isles.

  The beach just below the monastery at Lindisfarne–perfect landing for the Viking longships in advance of their attack.

  Viking longship of the type that terrorized the Isles for 500 years. The sleek lines and shallow draught made for both speed and stealth. Longships like this could be swiftly beached on almost any coastline for a lightning raid.

  Jarl squad members in full Viking dress celebrate Up Helly Aa in Lerwick, Shetland. Th
e annual pageant, held on the last Tuesday in January, celebrates Shetland’s Viking past and culminates in the burning of a replica Norse longship.

  Beddoe describes the inhabitants of northern Lewis as a ‘large, fair and comely Norse race, said to exist pure in the district of Ness at the north end of the island’. Plainly they are still there.

  The 5,500-year-old Neolithic cromlech at Carreg Sampson in Pembrokeshire, south-west Wales. Originally a covered grave, the earthen mound has eroded to reveal the megalithic internal structure.

  The Roman fort at Caerleon in Gwent. The Romans spent huge amounts of time and effort trying to subdue the Welsh, with only moderate success.

  Offa’s Dyke, near Knighton in mid Wales, constructed in the late eighth century in yet another attempt to confine the troublesome Welsh and prevent them from raiding England.

  The head of Offa, King of Mercia, who considered himself to be in the same league as his eighth-century contemporary Charlemagne.

  Pembroke Castle, built by Arnulf de Montgomery, Earl of Shrewsbury, the first of the Norman Marcher Lords to make significant inroads into Wales in 1093.

  A young Welsh fan cheers on his team at the 2003 Rugby World Cup finals match against Italy. Merlin’s Red Dragon is still a prominent feature of Welsh identity.

  The sun streams into the Neolithic passage grave at Newgrange, County Meath, at the midwinter solstice. The massive tombs clustered around Newgrange on the Boyne were constructed about 5,200 years ago.

  The rocky coastline of south-west Ireland, near the river Kenmare, the first landfall for Mil on his way from Spain to defeat the Tuatha Dé Danaan.

  The sacred hill at Tara, seat of the High Kings of Ireland.

  A delicate model of a sea-going vessel, made of solid gold between 1,900 and 2,100 years ago, and probably a votive offering to Manannan mac Lir, King of the Ocean.

  St Patrick’s Day, the most vigorously and widely celebrated of the four national Saint’s Days. Here crowds throng Fifth Avenue, New York, for the 2006 parade, the 245th in the city’s history.

  This bronze statue of Cú Chulainn, Celtic super-hero and the saviour of Ulster in the war with Connacht, stands in Dublin’s main Post Office, the scene of the most intense fighting during the Easter Rising of 1916.

  The resurgence of the Celt. The dramatic entrance to Canolfan Mileniwm Cymru, the newly opened performing arts centre in Cardiff, with two lines of poetry by Gwyneth Lewis, one in Welsh, the other in English.

  Once more, young children, like these from Lahinch, County Clare, are having lessons in the ancient languages of the Isles.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  The research that led to Saxons, Vikings, and Celts was a team effort. I had a wonderful team both in the field and in the lab. Eileen Hickey, Emilce Vega, Jayne Nicholson, Catherine Irven, Zehra Mustafa, John Loughlin, Kay Chapman, Kate Smalley, Helen Chandler and Martin Richards all criss-crossed the Isles in pursuit of DNA, while Lorraine Southam, Sara Goodacre and Vincent Macaulay helped to tease out its secrets in the lab. I relied on many people’s generosity in the search for our origins. The directors and staff of the Scottish Blood Transfusion Service deserve special mention for their enthusiastic backing and for their tolerance as we invaded their otherwise tranquil donor sessions. The head teachers and the staff of the very many schools we visited, particularly in Wales and Shetland, I thank for the same reasons. Talking of Shetland, I must thank Beryl Smith, who organized all our visits there in advance. But, of course, none of this would have been remotely possible without the consent and co-operation of the manythousands of volunteers who agreed to having their DNA taken and analysed.

  Among professional colleagues, I am particularly grateful to Dan Bradley of Trinity College Dublin for advance access to Irish genetic data, though I should stress that I have only used published material here and also that any conclusions are my own and not necessarily Dan Bradley’s. So blame me and not him. I have also benefited from the publications of Jim Wilson and Mark Thomas from University College London, who have produced very useful data from parts of Britain. Among my friends and colleagues in Oxford, William James has, as usual, been a rich source of ideas and creative conversation. I must also mention Robert Young, recently of Wadham College, who introduced me to the racial mythology of the English, a subject of which I was almost completely unaware until he sent me a reprint of his work. Norman Davies, a fellow of my own college, Wolfson, was not only a source of bountiful historical references in his magisterial The Isles–a History (never has a book been more thoroughly thumbed), but also helped me resolve the tricky issue of what to call my own book.

  But words are not enough. Books need midwives before they see the light of day. My agent Luigi Bonomi has kept me going throughout with his irrepressible enthusiasm and I am, once again, very fortunate to have in my editors Sally Gaminara and Simon Thorogood not just consummate professionalism but great encouragement as well. Thanks too to Brenda Updegraff for her immaculate copy-editing and, as before, to Julie Sheppard who rapidly transformed my erratic handwriting into legible text.

  But most of all I thank the Muse without whom nothing flows.

  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  English supporter at the World Cup, 2006: © Tony Quinn/internationalsportsimages.com/Corbis

  Brutus the Trojan Sets Sail for Britain, 15th-century manuscript illumination by Master Wistace from ‘The History of the Kings of Britain’ by Geoffrey of Monmouth: Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris/The Bridgeman Art Library; coronation throne of Edward I: © Angelo Hornak/Corbis; Tintagel Castle, Cornwall: © English Heritage/Heritage-Images; Merlin before King Vortigern, manuscript illumination from ‘Prophecies of Merlin’ by Geoffrey of Monmouth, c. 1250: © The British Library/Heritage-Images; The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon (detail) by Edward Burne-Jones, 1881–98: Museo de Arte, Ponce, Puerto Rico/The Bridgeman Art Library; Glastonbury Abbey, Somerset, detail of the ruins: © Nigel Reed/Alamy.

  Head dress found at Starr Carr, Yorkshire, c. 7500 BC: British Museum, London; Maiden Castle, near Dorchester, Dorset, c. 3000 BC: Collections/Peter Thomas; inner circle of Stonehenge, Wiltshire, c. 2800-1500 BC: © Royalty-Free/Corbis; air view of Richborough Castle, near Sandwich, Kent, AD 43–287: Collections/David Bowie; sword-belt buckle from the ship burial at Sutton Hoo, early 7th century, British Museum: © 2006 The British Museum; Anglo-Saxon iron helmet from the ship burial at Sutton Hoo, early 7th century, British Museum: © Visual Arts Library (London)/Alamy; detail from the Bayeux tapestry, c. 1080; © Nik Wheeler/Corbis.

  Callanish standing stones, Lewis, Outer Hebrides, c. 3000 BC: © Adam Woolfitt/Corbis; Skara Brae, Orkney, c. 3000 BC: © Kevin Schafer/Corbis; burial chamber at Maes Howe, Orkney, c. 2750 BC: © Crown copyright reproduced by courtesy of Historic Scotland; Jarlshof, Shetland, 2400 BC: HIE/stockscotland; broch at Mousa, Shetland Islands, 1st century AD © Peter Hulme/Corbis; Hadrian’s Wall, Northumberland, AD 122: © David Ball/Corbis; Pictish stone in Aberlemno, Perth & Kinross, c. AD 750: Collections/Michael Jenner.

  John Beddoe, frontispiece to his book Memories of Eighty Years, 1910; ‘A Celtic groupe’, from Robert Knox The Races of Men, 1869; engraved portrait of Robert Knox: Wellcome Library, London; loose leaf from one of Beddoe’s albums, 1882: Royal Anthropological Institute, London.

  Adrian Targett with the skeleton of Cheddar Man, March 1997: swn.com/Darren Fletcher; drilling Cheddar man’s tooth and Professor Chris Stringer with Cheddar Man jawbone: both courtesy Bryan Sykes; DNA sequence chromatogram: © Mark Harmel/Alamy.

  Lindisfarne Priory and view of the seashore, Holy Island, Northumberland: both photos courtesy Bryan Sykes; Gokstad Ship, Viking Ship Museum, Oslo, c. AD 850–900: © Richard T. Nowitz/Corbis; Jarl squad, Lerwick, Shetland Isles, January 2000: © Reuters/Corbis; woman on Lewis: courtesy Bryan Sykes.

  Neolithic cromlech, Carreg Sampson, Pembrokeshire: Collections/Simon McBride; Roman barracks and latrines, Caerleon, Gwent, 1st century AD: Collections/Robert Estall; Offa’s Dyke near Knighton, Radnor, la
te 8th century AD: © Homer Sykes/Corbis; obverse of silver coin of Offa, AD 757–796: Ancient Art & Architecture Collection; aerial view of Pembroke Castle, late 12th to 13th century: © Jason Hawkes/Corbis; young Welsh fan, Canberra Stadium, Rugby World Cup, 2003: Gareth Copley/PA/Empics.

  Burial chamber, Newgrange, County Meath, 3200 BC: Mike Bunn/Irish Image Collection; Mizzen Head, County Cork: Collections/Brian Shuel; Mound of the Hostages, Hill of Tara, County Meath, c. 2000 BC: George Munday/Irish Image Collection; the Broighter ship, gold, 1st century BC, found at Broighter, County Derry: Werner Forman Archive/National Museum of Ireland; Cú Chulainn: Collections/Robert Bird; spectators at the St Patrick’s Day Parade, New York, 2006: © Justin Lane/epa/Corbis.

  Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff: © Photolibrary Wales; pupils at Moy School, Lahinch, County Clare: © Stephanie Maze/Corbis.