Actually, I don't think that Old Brythonic is as well attested as Gaulish (because Gaulish is, by large margin, the best attested ancient Celtic language): there's numerous Gaulish inscriptions written in the Etruscan, Greek and Latin scripts - and it's kind of doubtful that the sources for Old Brythonic are as plentiful. Regarding Pictish, the idea that Pictish is non-Indo-European mainly stems from some of the supposedly "unreadable" Ogham inscriptions. I would agree though with the assessment that Pictish was - with all likelihood - related with Gaulish and Brythonic.
Questions about dark age Britain
- Thread starter General Greene
- Start date
Actually, I don't think that Old Brythonic is as well attested as Gaulish (because Gaulish is, by large margin, the best attested ancient Celtic language): there's numerous Gaulish inscriptions written in the Etruscan, Greek and Latin scripts - and it's kind of doubtful that the sources for Old Brythonic are as plentiful. Regarding Pictish, the idea that Pictish is non-Indo-European mainly stems from some of the supposedly "unreadable" Ogham inscriptions. I would agree though with the assessment that Pictish was - with all likelihood - related with Gaulish and Brythonic.
archaeogeek
Banned
I thought gaulish had less sources than that actually *just did a quick check on JSTOR
*I thought gaulish had less sources than that actually *just did a quick check on JSTOR
As far as I know, there's three sources for Gaulish:
- Inscriptions in Greek script, found (not surprisingly) near the area of Massilia (modern Marseilles).
- Inscriptions in Etruscan script, found in northern Italy (Cisalpine Gaul). It's a bit complicated though because you also have Lepontic (which was an earlier Celtic language - indeed the oldest attested Celtic language - distinct from Gaulish, which was also written in Etruscan script but was supplanted with the arrival of the Gauls).
- Inscriptions in Latin from the Roman period (though many of these also include mixed Gaulish-Latin inscriptions).
Is it verified precisely which proportion of England´s area was ploughed, which proportion was cleared of forest for pasture and which proportion was covered with forest (whether old growth or young scrub on deserted pastures), from 4th century onwards? How much did the cleared area of England fall in Dark Ages and how much did it fall in Middle Ages after Black Death?
So does 500,000 people for the total population of Britian including Ireland sound reasonable?
archaeogeek
Banned
IMO, it's too low. Twice that works better (but it also depends; for Britain alone (i.e. from the Firth of Forth to the Channel) post plagues it sort of works but I'd even think it's too low).
BTW you said that the plague of Justinian had already happened by the 530s, but I was reading that it happened in the 540s, Where did you get your date? because mine comes from wikipedia.
archaeogeek
Banned
BTW you said that the plague of Justinian had already happened by the 530s, but I was reading that it happened in the 540s, Where did you get your date? because mine comes from wikipedia.
Probably a mistake, it was a brain fart; I was pretty sure it was earlier in the 6th century; anyway there's massive drops in population in the region in the 6th century although they may not have happened already; so at the time Tintagel and Glevum should still be bustling ports while the east of the island is pretty much entirely disrupted. I'm not sure when some of the southern coast cities fold back, probably a bit later too.
Actually, wouldn't this argue in favour of a (partial) population replacement? If there was a reduction in the population, this would relatively speaking mean that you'd need a relatively smaller force of Anglo-Saxons to arrive in Britain and leave behind their genetic finger print. Of course, the only way to test this would be DNA from pre-Anglo-Saxon graves in Britain, and there the absence of the Y-Haplogrous R1b-U106, R1a1a and I1.
Though, admittedly, there are scenarios that plausibly permit that R1b-U106 and R1a1a existed in Britain before the Anglo-Saxons arrived.
Last edited:
archaeogeek
Banned
It depends; given how long a lot of the west held out (checking on names, it's very likely everything in Mercia west of Lichfield was still welsh even after Offa built the dyke, with some exceptions like Hwicce, and welsh was still spoken in the "english" side of the marches into the 18th century), it's obvious there wasn't much population replacement in the West Midlands, ditto for the south and northwest; most of the population replacement in the north would have been where danish strongholds were, and have come about later (I have no idea when Rheged fell but it seems to have been pretty late, and bits of it were pretty contested) while Dorset, Devon and Cornwall were conquered so late that they were more or less in Wales' position for a while, with a "native" ruled Cornwall, a still breton speaking but english integrated Devon (IIRC the charter for the diocese of Crediton gave the local name for the city as Nymed) and a thoroughly assimilated Dorset (i.e. Principalities - Marches - Hwicce).
Leaving what sources I've got, my interpretation of the data would be - depopulated east repopulated by anglosaxon immigration while surviving britons emigrate, die or rarely mingle (there's really no traces at all of breton influence in the east other than some pre-5th century inherited names and anglosaxon has too few welsh borrowings for major assimilation to make sense in the area - minor native languages in the americas left more traces on english, spanish and french than celtic languages as a whole on standard english); Lindsay, East Anglia, coastal Yorkshire, Kent, the area around Wight, Essex; limited contact zones with hostilities further inland, with pockets of resistance which both sides attest at least through legends - plantations and assimilation but also probably some destruction as a number of city ruins have been cursed by the anglosaxons and most saxon settlements in the period are upriver from the original britto-roman ones; late (7th-8th century, maybe even Somerset in the 6th century although this one is pretty much after the plague of Justinian) conquests would conform more to the idea of "germanic aristocracy with limited plantations, welsh peasantry but with limited plantations". And that's assuming the haplotype is not native to the island at the time of invasions, however there are indications that while they likely spoke old british, the belgae might have been mixed (they certainly were on the continent and 4 belgae tribes were considered "germanic" by the gauls and caesar (his commentary on Gaul is probably wrong in parts but he was still basing it on what the gauls were telling him), which may mean they had been conquered or were especially intermingled, however none of these four seems present in the british belgae and given there's belgae in Ireland, too, it may be a false friend).
Until the 8th-9th century implantations of scandinavians, though, I'd agree that the anglosaxons were a minority and maybe a slight plurality of the population of the british isles by the 700s. Then it's british, then gaelic, then pictish.
Last edited:
That's very interesting. The percentage I1 was talking about (in terms of the modern population) is about 35% of the population of England, but that's the upper value. If R1a1a and R1b-U106 was already present in Britain before the Anglo-Saxons arrived, the value may be closer to 15% (for all of England combined, mind you), which I would consider an absolute minimum value since Haplogroup I1 in Britain is clearly of Germanic origin - it originated in Scandinavia and was enriched in northern Germany with the Germanic migrations starting in the 5th century BC. Now, I must admit that in Britain it can be of both Anglo-Saxon and Viking origin - at this point it's basically impossible to tell that apart, but it's possible to cross-check this with known historic settlements of Anglo-Saxons and Vikings. And either way, there's an east-west gradient in England of Haplogroup I1, with the highest concentrations in the east (where it accounts for 30% of the population) towards Wales (where it accounts for only 5%). This would fit with the scenario of contact zones as you describe them. With R1a1a and R1b-U106, the image is less clear, but this can be explained by the possibility that both were present in Britain before the Anglo-Saxons did - and indeed the Britons and the Anglo-Saxons had similar ratios of R1a1a and R1b-U106.
Well, though we should take him with a grain of salt, Caesar divides Gaul into three parts: Gallia Aquitania (Aquitanian being Old Basque), Gallia Celtica and Gallia Belgica, which according to him have all their own languages and customs. Given how virtually all names in Belgica (even the ones of the tribes that Caesar literally calls "undoubtably Germanic") are overtly Celtic, the idea that "Germanic" is meant as a purely geographic term would help to solve this problem (thereby suggesting that the "Germanic" Belgae simply originally lived beyond the east bank of the Rhine). Also, the idea that the Belgae spoke Brythonic (as opposed to Gaulish) would explain the difference to the Gaul proper. There is also a lot of similar tribal or near-identical names in Britain and Belgica / northwestern Gaul that would suggest a strong relationship. Another evidence that might speak for R1a1a and R1b-U106 in Britain before the Anglo-Saxons would be a genetic one: there's been a Y-DNA samples from skeletons in a cave site in northern Germany that is dated into the Urnfield Culture (basically a millennium before Caesar) which also included R1a1a and R1b-U106. From that point, it's conceivable that at least one Celtic wave into Britain brought these haplogroups with it.
Regarding "Belgae" in Ireland, I think Ptolemy mentions a tribe called "Menapii" in Ireland, which is also present in Belgica - we don't know if it is an error or not, but the name is undoubtably P-Celtic.
Well, as I said above, I didn't think of the Anglo-Saxons being a majority, but with "visible impact", I meant more than just a few percent.
Maur
Banned
Too low. Put it anywhere from 700k to slightly over million and remember to keep England/Ireland/Scotland proportion as 4:2:1.
So if we say that the total population of Britain 1 million, and the Saxons made up 15 to 30 percent of the Population of Modern England: What portion of that million is in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland? Would it be feasible to say 25% of that number is in Ireland, and 50% in modern day England?
All of this information is extremely interesting and this discussion on the portions that Britons, Picts, Gaels, and Germanics, contributed to the total population of the Islands has been very helpful. So if we say that Saxons were the largest plurality with 29% of the Million, Britons with 27%, Gaels with 26%, and Picts with 18% would that be a reasonable estimate?
All of this information is extremely interesting and this discussion on the portions that Britons, Picts, Gaels, and Germanics, contributed to the total population of the Islands has been very helpful. So if we say that Saxons were the largest plurality with 29% of the Million, Britons with 27%, Gaels with 26%, and Picts with 18% would that be a reasonable estimate?
archaeogeek
Banned
Going from Maur's ratios, I'd revise to about
- 5 for the entirety of Brittania, 2 for Ireland and 1 for the Highlands. The Lowlands were culturally split between angle, british and some slight gael presence. The Highlands 1 would probably be 80% Pict, 20% Gaelic; the British 5 would be something like 60% Briton, 40% Anglosaxon (probably closer to 60/35/5% Gael), with the Irish 2 potentially having about 10% picts.
Also it's too early for the anglosaxons to be anywhere near plurality in the 530s. We're talking about Sussex, Essex, Kent, East Anglia, Half of Wessex, much less than Half of Mercia, Bernicia is still not at its maximum extent and Deira is, I think, not at York yet (it fell in the 600s).
Last edited:
So closer to 62.5% in Wales, England, and lowland Scotland. 25% for Ireland, and 12.5% in the Highlands? Is it still fair to say that England would make up by its self 50%?
Stephen
Banned
Nearly all the curse tablets found in Britain are in Latin so it is likely the few gaulish tablets are made by travellers from Gaul where these are more common. All inscriptions in Britain are made in a very academic Latin no mixing with local languages is evident. There is no writing in local languages until St Patrick and Bede.
The names of people do not nescesarily corelate with the comon tongue I have a biblical name but I am far from a biblical person. Within a few decades of the Norman conquest all the old English personal names disapeared and all new babies got Norman names but we know they were still speaking English. Celtic personal names could just come from a celtic aristocracy.
Place names are truncated and have alternate linguistic explanations that fit. The conventional explanation of an Anglo-Saxon elite conquering and keeping the native name for cities but renaming all the insignificant vilages and streams is the oposite of what ussually hapens in a conquest scenario it just dosnt make sense.
The "main historical linguistic debate" is based on supositions upon supositions upon supositions a genuine historian should return to first principals.
This is a very interesting question as well, I'm sure we don't have anything at all close to concrete details on this, but are their any insights?
Also how big was the urban population? Do we have a good idea of how low it dropped in post-Roman times? Also what was the Urban population of Britain during Roman rule? And would population figures from either era include those living in towns? Finally, how big would a settlement have to be to be considered an urban area?
You can't be serious about that one? The idea that "English" was spoken in Britain before the Anglo-Saxon invasions totally messes up with the relationship that the Germanic languages have amongst each other.
EDIT: They're citing Oppenheimer on that website on genetics... they can't be serious about that one.
Last edited:
Stephen
Banned
You can't be serious about that one? The idea that "English" was spoken in Britain before the Anglo-Saxon invasions totally messes up with the relationship that the Germanic languages have amongst each other.
EDIT: They're citing Oppenheimer on that website on genetics... they can't be serious about that one.
Arr the call for incredulity, such a great defence for theories with big names but no evidence.
The relationship between germanic languages already is totally messed up the most similar languages to English are Friesian and West Flemish, not Saxon or Danish where the Anglo Saxons are suposed to of come from and they already had considerable diferences a few short centuries after there suposed comon origin.