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The Very First Britons

• Message 1.Β 

  Posted by SleepyJane123 (U6450375) on Wednesday, 1st November 2006

  I am interested in early British archaeology and anthropology and I was wondering if anyone has read Stringer's Homo Britannicus (the new book)? I'm enjoying it very much, but I'd like to know what others think, and what you think about the ancient history - especially about early Britons etc. Let me know what other opinions are out there...Cheers!

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• Message 2

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  Posted by Idamante (U1894562) on Thursday, 2nd November 2006

  I wasn't aware of the new book but this item on 'Myths of British ancestry' may be relevant:
  
  

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  Posted by SleepyJane123 (U6450375) on Friday, 3rd November 2006

  That's great, thank you. And a very interesting article it was too! This book is actually dealing with pre-pre history, and neanderthal man. Apparently quite unprecedented because it puts man's earliest arrival in Britain over 700,000 years ago! We know even less about them than the Celts/Anglo-Saxons etc! Quite intriguing.

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  Posted by Stoggler (U1647829) on Monday, 6th November 2006

  I noticed a new book in the book shops at the weekend which may (or may not) be good - Homo Britannicus. A big hardback with plenty of nice colour piccies, about 25 quid I think. Anyone know anything about it?

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  Posted by ap Tom (U1380901) on Monday, 6th November 2006

  That is the book that is referred to in Message 1 of this thread. There seem to be quite a few books on this theme being published lately, David Miles' "Tribes of Britain", Bryan Sykes' "The Blood of the Isles" and Stephen Oppenheimer's "The Origins of the British". I'm afraid I have not got around to reading any of them yet. Has here else ventured into them?

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• Message 6

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  Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Monday, 6th November 2006

  Manuel and Stoggler,
  
  I have again spent the whole evening in doing research about the origins and spreading of the "Celtic" culture. And I tried to be as open minded as possible (smile).
  
  First (but I think I have already said it to you) I stick to the definition of:
  
  "The people of prehistoric and early historic Europe who shared common cultural traits, which thought to have originated in the Halstatt and La Tène cultures"
  
  For me is it normal that the only possibility to distiguish "people" from one another is cultural behaviour, arts, language and related items. For the rest are "people" just "people", as they are so identical to each other, the last step and changing was the Homo Sapiens Sapiens. Of course you have differences in physiognomy, but that is irrelevant to the way they are acting or behaving, in my humble opinion.
  
  In your link the author says:
  
  "But there is absolutely no evidence, linguistic, archaeological or genetic, that indentifies the Halstatt or La Tène regions or cultures as Celtic homelands".
  
  Perhaps not "genetic" as it is obvious that their was already a "genetic" stock available when the "Celtic" "culture" arrived and it can be that it was only by peer penetration (diffusion?) or adapting by the elites or brought in by an invading elite and not by a mass movement of new "people" of a different "genetic" stock. IMHO I think that it was a bit of both, because that is what common sense seems to provide. And IMO it is quite understandable that there are local adaptations and that the so-called "common" culture is only a thin layer on all those different regions. (that I admit to give in to some critics of the other "camp" (smile))
  
  But for the archaeological and linguistic branch I read: to pick up only the most "honest" ones to me (smile):
  
  (an ethymologist said to me that my name comes from the Gaulish "rix" (as in Ambiorix) (mighty, king, kingdom)Celtic: "rìgion", Northern Irish "ri", Scottish gaelic: "rìgh", Irish: "ríocht" and the German: "heir", Dutch "heer" (army, group of people).
  
  
  
  Warm regards,
  
  Paul.

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