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About the Book When the first Roman soldiers invaded Britain in 54 BC, the Isles were inhabited by Celtic tribes. Five hundred years later, the Romans were succeeded by the Anglo-Saxons, the Vikings and then the Normans. History has long taught us that the Celts were wiped out by the more sophisticated aggressors, but Bryan Sykes, the world’s first genetic archaeologist, found that the evidence told rather a different story. In a major research programme, he and his team at Oxford University tested the DNA of over 10,000 volunteers from across Britain and Ireland in order to pin down the genetic make-up of 21st century Britain. What do our genes tell us about our tribal past? Did the invaders keep mostly to themselves or are the modern people of the Isles a delicious genetic cocktail? And most importantly, where do you fit in? A gripping detective story backed up by fascinating science, Blood of the Isles casts new light on our ancestry and reveals what our genes can tell us about our attitudes to ourselves, each other, and to our past. ‘Sykes’ scientific presentation is chatty and readable’ Sunday Times ‘Professor Sykes has an admirably free and easy style for an academic’ Daily Mail
Bryan Sykes, Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Oxford, has had a remarkable scientific career. He was the first to discover, in 1989, how to recover DNA from human remains thousands of years old and he has been called in as the leading international authority to examine several high-profile cases, such as the Ice Man, Cheddar Man and the many individuals claiming to be surviving members of the Russian Royal Family. Since then he has worked extensively on the origins of peoples from all over the world, using DNA from living people as well as from archaeological remains. He proved that the origin of Polynesians lay in Asia, not America, and discovered that the ancestors of most Europeans were hunter-gatherers from before the last Ice Age. He also showed that most Europeans trace their maternal genetic ancestry back to only seven women. On the male side he was the first to show the close connection between DNA and surnames, a discovery that is revolutionizing genealogy. Bryan Sykes is the founder and chairman of Oxford Ancestors (http://www.oxfordancestors.com), which uses DNA to help explore your own genetic roots, including the tribal affinities described in Blood of the Isles. He is also the author of The Seven Daughters of Eve and Adam’s Curse. In a unique first, Bryan Sykes is simultaneously publishing the detailed genetic results that led to his conclusions on the internet at www.bloodoftheisles.net. www.rbooks.co.uk
Page 4 and 5: Also by Bryan Sykes THE SEVEN DAUGH
Page 6 and 7: This eBook is copyright material an
Page 8 and 9: To my son Richard, companion on ver
Page 10 and 11: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The research that
Page 12: Bryan Sykes; Gokstad Ship, Viking S
Page 16 and 17: ook ‘Ireland’ includes Northern
Page 18 and 19: a miniature vacuum cleaner which I
Page 20 and 21: Man’. His remains had been excava
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Page 24 and 25: of descendants whose stories we can
Page 26 and 27: Plantagenet kings who reigned durin
Page 28 and 29: whose divine guidance led him to Al
Page 30 and 31: story - Arthur’s exploits are so
Page 32 and 33: Bede’s could have failed even to
Page 34 and 35: Normans were themselves of Germanic
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Page 38 and 39: Even though Celtishness is today ma
Page 40 and 41: the land, for the poem goes on to a
Page 42 and 43: visitors on similar missions to Eng
Page 44 and 45: across land from central Europe may
Page 46 and 47: Establishment. Men like Lord Lyndhu
Page 48 and 49: months refining his system. He deci
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The Index is a measure of hair colo
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However, Normans, as we will later
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But these slight differences, which
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unimportant in transfusion, and the
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Or by a mixture of both? The whole
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6 THE SILENT MESSENGERS Whatever th
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devastation. But it is these, the s
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At about that time, the sex gene on
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oth of them. It then struck me, aft
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arely travel anywhere without a DNA
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Ireland/Wales 0.0726741243702487 Ir
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ancient gold coins from Britain. Ma
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8 IRELAND The Irish landscape has o
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not forget. So far we have only men
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the soldiers of a British chieftain
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In their own conquest of Ireland, t
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crab apple show that the site was u
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Ireland for thousands of years, lea
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Iberia to the Isles. That is defini
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Fortunately, all the other judges f
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My colleague Martin Richards and I
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to a paternal clan by the genetic c
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to Anglo-Norman origins. You will r
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10 SCOTLAND It is barely 12 miles a
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on the menu. Curiously shaped imple
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may have been, the Mesolithic hunte
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11 THE PICTS On 15 July 1995 the fi
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that, along with practically every
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12 THE DNA OF SCOTLAND ‘We have j
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was unloading my slides, a lady cam
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Norway than in the other clans. We
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Westminster Abbey. Why didn’t the
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one region. At the risk of being te
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espect, the most stable place we vi
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last stronghold of the Gaelic langu
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Britain and specialized in capturin
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13 WALES The smallest in land area
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Wales defined the boundary between
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a campaign of murder and usurpation
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14 THE DNA OF WALES Wales is the on
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still hope one day to find just one
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that far from Plynlimmon where H. J
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food: fish and shellfish in winter,
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parts of Gaul. Britain was exportin
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even more so. Tacitus reckons 70,00
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16 SAXONS, DANES, VIKINGS AND NORMA
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accepting a payment, the wergild, i
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the Great Army completely and force
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17 THE DNA OF ENGLAND Our strategy
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years previously to a service stati
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female immigration into the east fr
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the way home? But if you really tho
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the north - substantial in terms of
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other, we are genetically rooted in
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