Assimilated Anglo-Saxons

I'm intrigued by the genetic evidence that claims that modern-day English people are still descended from the original inhabitants of Britain leading up to the Germanic invasion. So this question popped up.

What if the Anglo-Saxons simply assimilated into the native population, leaving little more than loanwords in the native Celtic language?

Would England view itself as first among their Celtic brother nations, or following the example of Dane-settled Norfolk, even call itself "England" after the invaders?

Would global historiography change, now that the globe-spanning British empire would spread its romanticized attitudes toward their Celtic ancestors?

Would British propagandists have a swell time during the Great War, portraying themselves as noble Celts battling savage Germanics? :D
 
I'm intrigued by the genetic evidence that claims that modern-day English people are still descended from the original inhabitants of Britain leading up to the Germanic invasion. So this question popped up.

This was actually posted forth several years ago, but has actually been thoroughly debunked. In fact, finer resolution of genetic markers has shown that a sizable quantity of the population is actually descended from the Anglo-Saxons.

What if the Anglo-Saxons simply assimilated into the native population, leaving little more than loanwords in the native Celtic language?

The main reason this did not happen, and why the Anglo-Saxon invasion was so successful was that Britain was depopulated by the Plague of Justinian, with a population loss as much as 50% of the population.

Would England view itself as first among their Celtic brother nations, or following the example of Dane-settled Norfolk, even call itself "England" after the invaders?

Would global historiography change, now that the globe-spanning British empire would spread its romanticized attitudes toward their Celtic ancestors?

Would British propagandists have a swell time during the Great War, portraying themselves as noble Celts battling savage Germanics? :D

The butterflies... the butterflies! :eek:
 
This was actually posted forth several years ago, but has actually been thoroughly debunked. In fact, finer resolution of genetic markers has shown that a sizable quantity of the population is actually descended from the Anglo-Saxons.



The main reason this did not happen, and why the Anglo-Saxon invasion was so successful was that Britain was depopulated by the Plague of Justinian, with a population loss as much as 50% of the population.



The butterflies... the butterflies! :eek:

Okay, let's just say that the Justinian Plague did not kill as many natives in Britain, leaving a population still too small to resist the Anglo-Saxons, but big enough to assimilate the tongues of their Germanic overlords at the end.
 
This was actually posted forth several years ago, but has actually been thoroughly debunked. In fact, finer resolution of genetic markers has shown that a sizable quantity of the population is actually descended from the Anglo-Saxons.

Yes and no. If you look at mitochondrial DNA (inherited from the mother) then the population of England is indeed populated by the original inhabitants (whatever that means :))

If you look at the Y chromosome (inherited from the father) then a large segment of the English population, especially in the south and east, are indeed descended from the Anglo-Saxons

There is a conclusion that can be drawn from this...
 
Yeah. And as I was going to note, the whole "Justinian Plague" deal is a HIGHLY speculative theory. Plausible, but uncertain.
 
Why? We know that this pandemic depopulated the Mediterranean region. I don't see why it shouldn't have spread into sub-Roman Britain.

I think the highly speculative theory he's referring to is that the Justinian Plague wiped out the majority of Romano-British, not that the Justinian Plague reached Britain.

As far as the British Empire propagandists using a Celto-Historical model in their work... the fact that the English nobility are descended from Normans and Saxons didn't stop Henry VIII from latch on to the legend of King Arthur (a Briton by all accounts).
 
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Of course, the fact that the Tudors were part Welsh had something to do with that...

Aye. There is even a version of the story in which Merlin takes Arthur/Vortigen to watch the fight between a red and a white dragon, where the Red one slays the White one, with the White dragon as the Saxons. Granted, Richard used a white boar rather than a white dragon, but Wales defeating England could certainly be played up a bit there.
 
What if the Anglo-Saxons simply assimilated into the native population, leaving little more than loanwords in the native Celtic language?

other then my long life dream comming to reality???:D:D
 
I've read somewhere that a good many Saxons were brought in as mercenaries, and then when the Romans left, stayed and settled.
 
I've read somewhere that a good many Saxons were brought in as mercenaries, and then when the Romans left, stayed and settled.

It's what I was told in a thread about things that boggle our mind as kinda ASB - in OTL. Why the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians, etc came to Great Britain? There was some already there, federated, mercenaries... When they saw the local imperial power structures fading, somes surely sailing back, and told their chiefs... things.

They pulled a Jagi. ;) *FONS*
 
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