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The settlement of the British Isles by Germanic tribes. Ancient Britain before the Anglo-Saxon conquest. Settlement of the British Isles

The British ethnos has absorbed many features of the peoples who migrated from the European continent to the British Isles. However, scientists are still arguing about who is the main ancestor of the current inhabitants of the United Kingdom.

Settlement of the British Isles

For many years, a group of scientists led by Professor Chris Stringer from the Natural History Museum in London studied the process of settlement of the British Isles. Finally, the research results were released. Scientists have brought together archaeological data over the past centuries, thanks to which the chronology of the settlement of the islands has been built most fully.

According to published data, people made at least 8 attempts to settle in the territory of what is now Great Britain and only the last of them was successful. Man first arrived on the islands about 700 thousand years ago, which is also confirmed by DNA analysis. However, after several hundred thousand years, due to cold weather, people left these places. It was not difficult to carry out the exodus, since the islands and the continent at that time were connected by a land isthmus, which went under water approximately 6500 BC. e.

12 thousand years ago the last conquest of Britain took place, after which people never left it. Subsequently, new waves of continental settlers found themselves in the British Isles, creating a motley picture of global migration. However, this picture is still not clear. “The pre-Celtic substrate remains to this day an elusive substance that no one has seen, but at the same time few would dispute its existence,” writes British scientist John Morris Jones.

From Celts to Normans

The Celts are perhaps the most ancient people whose influence can be seen in present-day Britain. Presumably fleeing Roman rule, the Celts began to actively populate the British Isles from 500 to 100 BC. e. The Celts, who migrated from the territory of the French province of Brittany, being skilled shipbuilders, most likely instilled navigation skills on the islands.
From the middle of the 1st century AD. e. The systematic expansion of Britain by Rome began. However, mainly the southern, eastern and partly central regions of the island underwent Romanization. The west and north, having put up fierce resistance, never submitted to the Romans.

Nevertheless, Rome had a significant influence on the culture and organization of life in the British Isles. The historian Tacitus describes the process of Romanization carried out by the Roman governor in Britain, Agricola: “He, privately and at the same time providing support from public funds, praising the diligent and condemning the sluggish, persistently encouraged the British to build temples, forums and houses.”

It was during Roman times that cities first appeared in Britain. The colonists also introduced the islanders to Roman law and the art of war. However, in Roman politics there was more coercion than voluntary motives.
The Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain began in the 5th century. Warlike tribes from the banks of the Elbe quickly subjugated almost the entire territory of the present Kingdom. But along with belligerence, the Anglo-Saxon peoples, who had adopted Christianity by that time, brought a new religion to the islands and laid the foundations of statehood.

However, the Norman conquest of the second half of the 11th century radically influenced the political and state structure of Britain. A strong royal power appeared in the country, the foundations of continental feudalism were transferred here, but most importantly, the political orientations changed: from Scandinavia to central Europe.

Commonwealth of the Four Nations

The nations that form the basis of modern Britain - the English, Scots, Irish and Welsh - emerged in the last millennium, largely facilitated by the historical division of the state into four provinces. The unification of four distinctive ethnic groups into one nation the British became possible due to a number of reasons.
During the period of great geographical discoveries (XIV-XV centuries), reliance on the national economy was a powerful unifying factor for the population of the British Isles. It helped in many ways to overcome the fragmentation of the state, such as, for example, in the lands of modern Germany.

Britain unlike European countries Thanks to geographical, economic and political isolation, it found itself in a situation that contributed to the consolidation of society.
An important factor for the unity of the inhabitants of the British Isles was religion and the associated formation of a universal in English.
Another feature emerged during the period of British colonialism - this is the emphasized opposition between the population of the metropolis and the native peoples: “There are us - and there are them.”

Until the end of the Second World War, after which Britain ceased to exist as a colonial power, separatism in the Kingdom was not so clearly expressed. Everything changed when a stream of migrants - Indians, Pakistanis, Chinese, residents of the African continent and the Caribbean islands - poured into the British Isles from the former colonial possessions. It was at this time that the growth of national self-awareness intensified in the countries of the United Kingdom. Its apogee came in September 2014, when Scotland held its first independence referendum.
The trend towards national isolation is confirmed by recent sociological surveys, in which only a third of the population of Foggy Albion called themselves British.

British genetic code

Recent genetic research may provide new insights into both the ancestry of the British people and the uniqueness of the Kingdom's four main nations. Biologists from University College London examined a segment of the Y chromosome taken from ancient burials and concluded that more than 50% of the English genes contain chromosomes found in northern Germany and Denmark.
According to others genetic examinations approximately 75% of the ancestors of modern Britons arrived on the islands more than 6 thousand years ago. Thus, according to Oxford DNA genealogist Brian Sykes, in many ways the modern Celts’ ancestry is not connected with tribes central Europe, and with more ancient settlers from the territory of Iberia who came to Britain at the beginning of the Neolithic.

Other data from genetic studies conducted in Foggy Albion literally shocked its inhabitants. The results show that the English, Welsh, Scots and Irish are largely identical in their genotype, which deals a serious blow to the pride of those who pride themselves on their national identity.
Thus, medical geneticist Stephen Oppenheimer puts forward a very bold hypothesis, believing that the common ancestors of the British arrived from Spain about 16 thousand years ago and initially spoke a language close to Basque. The genes of the later “occupiers” - the Celts, Vikings, Romans, Anglo-Saxons and Normans, according to the researcher, were adopted only to a small extent.

The results of Oppenheimer's research are as follows: the genotype of the Irish has only 12% uniqueness, the Welsh - 20%, and the Scots and English - 30%. The geneticist supports his theory with the works of the German archaeologist Heinrich Hörcke, who wrote that the Anglo-Saxon expansion added about 250 thousand people to the two million population of the British Isles, and the Norman conquest even less - 10 thousand. So, despite all the differences in habits, customs and culture, residents of the countries of the United Kingdom have much more in common than it seems at first glance.

Pre-Germanic population of Britain. Germanic tribes, their migration to Britain.

The first people of Britain were Iberians, by level material culture belonging to the Neolithic (late Stone Age), The next settlers were Celts- Indo-European tribes who settled in Britain in the 7th century BC. – Britons and Gaels (Gaels). They had a tribal system, but a transition to royal power was planned. The Celts of this period did not have writing. They built the first cities of Britain. In the 1st century BC Roman legions invaded the British Isles and all of Britain, except Scotland and Wales, became a colony of the Roman Empire. (Yu. Caesar undertook 2 campaigns in 55 BC and 54. The second campaign was successful). Roman culture and the Latin language greatly influenced Britain and the Celtic languages used at the time. The Romans built roads and their military settlements later became cities (those containing the second element of castra - military camp - Lancaster, Manchester, Chester). Roman rule in Britain lasted until the 5th century AD. in 449 the conquest of Britain by Germanic tribes began. At the beginning of the 5th century. Rome was under threat of attack by Germanic tribes - Goths; the internal economic and political contradictions that accompanied the collapse of the slave system undermined it from within. Rome was unable to manage its distant colonies. In 408, the Roman legions left Britain, and in 410, Rome fell to the onslaught of Germanic barbarian tribes.

At the beginning of A.D. West German tribes occupied large territories in Europe (along the Oder, Elbe, and Rhine rivers, along the southern coast of the Baltic and North Seas). West Germanic tribes were represented Angles(inhabited the Jutland-Denmark peninsulas and the North Sea coast west of Jutland), Saxons(region of the Rhine and Elbe rivers), utes(North of the Jutland Peninsula) and friezes(territory of modern Netherlands and Frisian Islands - North Sea).

The Jutes occupied the south of Britain (Kent Peninsula, White Island), the Saxons settled along the southern coast along the banks of the Thames and subsequently founded the kingdoms of Wessex, Essex and Sussex. The Angles advanced along the rivers to the central part of the island and founded the kingdoms of East Anglia, Mercia, and Northumbria. The Frisians mixed with the Saxons and Jutes. The crushing invasion of the Germans led to the fact that the Celts were defeated and most of them were pushed into the mountainous regions (Wells, Cornwall, Scotland). The surviving Celts and the Germanic conquerors gradually merged into a single nation. West Germanic languages gradually spread throughout almost the entire territory of Britain, with the exception of those areas where the Celts made up the majority of the population (Cornwall, Wales, Scotland). The languages of the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians turned out to be geographically separated from related Germanic languages on the continent and, having much in common, gradually developed into an independent Germanic language (English). At that time, English was not yet unified, but was represented by dialects: Northumbrian, Mercian, Kentish and Wessex.

Periods in the history of the English language.

Periodization based on historical (extralinguistic - events in the external history of England, which are milestones in the change of economic formations and political forms of government) factors:

3 periods: OE (Old English) 449 – conquest of Britain by Germanic tribes (VII – first written monuments) – 1066 – beginning of the Norman Conquest, Battle of Hastings

ME (Middle English) 1066 – 1475 – introduction of printing in English. Yaz William Haxton (1485 - the year of the end of the Wars of the Roses, the emergence of the bourgeoisie and the transition to an absolute monarchy).

NE (New English) XVI – present

It contains ENE (Early New English) XVI – XVII

ME (Modern English) XVIII – present

The English linguist Henry Sweet proposed periodization according to a different principle - based on the morphological features of the language:

OE – full edings: sittan,lufu

ME – leveled endings (reduced endings) sitten, love (luve)

NE – lost endings: sit, love (love).

This justification is fair, but one-sided: there are no considerations in favor of building a periodization based on the morphological structure, and not on the state of the phonological or syntactic structure, which do not fit into this periodization. Any periodization is always conditional, because it cannot cover all aspects of the language.

The place of English in the Indo-European language family and the Germanic group of languages.

English belongs to the Germanic languages (1 of 12 groups of languages of the Indo-European family). All Germanic languages are divided into 3 subgroups: East Germanic, North Germanic, West Germanic.

East Germanic – extinct languages (Gothic, Burgundian, Vandal)

North Germanic languages – Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese (North Sea islands).

West Germanic - German, English, Dutch, Flemish (a variant of Dutch spoken in Belgium), Afrikaans, Yiddish (Jewish - Germany, Poland 19th century).

The language of the Germanic group is spoken by over 400 million people, the most widespread is English – more than 300 million speakers.

The history of the Germanic languages begins with the common Germanic language - the basis, which separated from the ancient Indo-European and acquired independent features in the period between the 15th and 10th centuries BC. The common Germanic language is not reflected in written monuments. By the beginning of AD it becomes less monolithic and dialects appear.

The British are a nation and ethnic group that makes up the main population of England and part of the former colonies; speak English. The nation was formed in the Middle Ages on the island of Great Britain from the Germanic tribes of the Angles, Saxons, Frisians and Jutes, as well as the Celtic population of the island assimilated in the 5th and 6th centuries. ‎

Settlement of the British Isles

For many years, a group of scientists led by Professor Chris Stringer, representing the Natural History Museum in London, studied the process of settlement of the British Isles. Scientists have brought together archaeological data over the past centuries, thanks to which the chronology of the settlement of the islands has been built most fully.

According to published data, people made at least 8 attempts to settle in the territory of what is now Great Britain, and only the last of them was successful.

Man first arrived on the islands about 700 thousand years ago, which is also confirmed by DNA analysis. However, after several hundred thousand years, due to cold weather, people left these places. It was not difficult to carry out the exodus, since the islands and the continent at that time were connected by a land isthmus, which went under water approximately 6500 BC. e.

From Celts to Normans

The Celts are perhaps the most ancient people whose influence can be seen in what is now Britain. They began to actively populate the British Isles from 500 to 100 BC. e. The Celts, who migrated from the territory of the French province of Brittany, being skilled shipbuilders, most likely instilled navigation skills on the islands.

From the middle of the 1st century AD. e. The systematic expansion of Britain by Rome began. However, mainly the southern, eastern and partly central regions of the island underwent Romanization. The west and north, having put up fierce resistance, never submitted to the Romans.

Rome had a significant influence on the culture and organization of life in the British Isles.

The historian Tacitus describes the process of Romanization carried out by the Roman governor in Britain, Agricola: “He, privately and at the same time providing support from public funds, praising the diligent and condemning the sluggish, persistently encouraged the British to build temples, forums and houses.”

The Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain began in the 5th century. Warlike tribes from the banks of the Elbe quickly subjugated almost the entire territory of the present Kingdom. But along with belligerence, the Anglo-Saxon peoples, who had adopted Christianity by that time, brought a new religion to the islands and laid the foundations of statehood.

Commonwealth of the Four Nations

During the period of great geographical discoveries (XIV-XV centuries), reliance on the national economy was a powerful unifying factor for the population of the British Isles. It helped in many ways to overcome the fragmentation of the state, such as, for example, in the lands of modern Germany.

Britain, unlike European countries, due to its geographical, economic and political isolation, found itself in a situation that contributed to the consolidation of society.

An important factor for the unity of the inhabitants of the British Isles was religion and the associated formation of a universal English language for all British people.

Another feature emerged during the period of British colonialism - this is the emphasized opposition between the population of the metropolis and the native peoples: “There are us, and there are them.”

The trend towards national isolation is confirmed by recent sociological surveys, in which only a third of the population of Foggy Albion called themselves British.

British genetic code

According to other genetic examinations, approximately 75% of the ancestors of modern Britons arrived on the islands more than 6 thousand years ago.

Thus, according to Oxford DNA genealogist Brian Sykes, in many ways the modern Celts' ancestry is not connected with the tribes of central Europe, but with more ancient settlers from Iberia who came to Britain at the beginning of the Neolithic.

Medical geneticist Stephen Oppenheimer puts forward a very bold hypothesis, believing that the common ancestors of the British arrived from Spain about 16 thousand years ago and initially spoke a language close to Basque.

The genes of later occupiers (Celts, Vikings, Romans, Anglo-Saxons and Normans), according to the researcher, were adopted only to a small extent.

The history of the English language began with the conquest of Britain by Germanic tribes in the 5th century AD. At that time, the British Isles were inhabited by Celts, who once arrived from the European continent in three stages. Economically and socially, the Celts were a tribal society that consisted of tribes, clans and their leaders. The Celts practiced primitive agriculture. The territory of the British Isles was originally inhabited by the Celtic Gaelic tribes and the British. The Celtic languages used by the inhabitants were not Germanic languages, although they were Indo-European.

The official beginning of the conquest of Britain by Germanic tribes is considered to be 449, when Germanic tribes arrived on the islands under the leadership of kings Hengst and Horst, although Teutonic raids on the islands began long before that.

The Celts offered fierce resistance to the conquerors, and the Anglo-Saxons managed to consolidate their position in England only towards the end of the 6th century. Around 700, the Anglo-Saxons had conquered most of England (with the exception of Cornwall and the North West), as well as large parts of southern Scotland, but failed to conquer Wales. The conquerors represented more than one Germanic tribe; Beda the Venerable in 730 noted that among them were Angles, Saxons and Jutes.

Although the conquerors of Britain belonged to different Germanic tribes, they were closely linked by language and culture and considered themselves as a single people. Therefore, the word “Engle” (the Angles) began to be used in relation to all representatives of the Germanic tribes who settled in Britain, and the corresponding adjective “Enӡlisc” began to be used in relation to their language. Being cut off from the continental German language, the West Germanic dialects spoken by the conquerors of England gave rise to a new Germanic language - English.

Although the common origin of the dialects spoken by the Germanic conquerors and their joint development in Britain led to their development into a single language, in the early stages of its development English was represented by a number of disparate dialects spoken in separate kingdoms. Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians - Germanic conquerors. They formed 7 German principalities: Northumbria, Mercia - Angles; East Anglia; Essex, Wessex, Sussex – Saxons; Kent - utes.

The Old English period was characterized by constant conflicts and wars for power. Various kings managed to periodically establish sovereignty over other kingdoms, but their power was temporary. In the 7th century Northumbria was powerful and became a center of learning. In the 8th century, Wessex gained a leading position, and it was the kings of Wessex who eventually united the country. At the end of the 9th century, King Alfred saved the south and west of England from the Scandinavians, and in the 10th century, Alfred's descendants again conquered the north and south of England. The unification of England by the Wessex kings led to the recognition of the Wessex dialect as the literary standard of its era. The surviving Old English texts are written in four main dialects: Wessex, Kentish, Mercian and Northumbrian.

Each of these dialects is represented by a number of written monuments.

Northumbrian dialect(The Northumbrian dialect): runic inscriptions on a cross found near the village of Ruthwell, and on a whalebone casket, translations of the Gospel, the hymn of the monk Caedmon and "The Dying Song of Beda".

Mercian(The Mercian dialect): translations of the psalter (9th century) and church hymns.

Wessex dialect (The West-Saxon dialect): “Anglo-Saxon Chronicle”, works of King Alfred (849-900), original and translations from Latin, sermons of Abbot Aelfric (10th century) and sermons of Wulfstan (early 11th century).

Kentish(The Kentish dialect): translations of psalms (50 to 70) and old charters.

Old English poetic monuments such as Beowulf, Genesis, Exodus, Judith, and the works of the monk Cunewulf are difficult to attribute to one specific dialect, since along with Wessex forms they also contain a number of English forms. Professor B.V. Ilyish believes that these works were originally written in the English dialect, and later rewritten by Wessex scribes.

The predominance of written monuments in the Wessex dialect, both in quantitative and qualitative terms, confirms the dominance of this dialect over all others, which allows us to consider it conventionally the literary language of its era.

who were the ancient inhabitants of great britain and got the best answer

Answer from Tolik Panarin[guru]
Britons.

Answer from knock Knock[guru]
cannibals

Answer from Victor Veselkov[guru]
Shaved then Romans

Answer from Oleg Agarkov[guru]
Iberians, then Celts, then together with the Skelts, Romans, then Germans, Britons, Angles, then French-Normans were added

Answer from Chelovek[guru]
By 5000 BC. e. Britain finally turned into an island, inhabited by small tribes of hunters and fishermen.
Around 3000 BC e. The first wave of settlers arrived on the island, who grew grain, kept livestock and knew how to make pottery. Perhaps they came from Spain or even North Africa.
Following them around 2400 BC. e. other people arrived who spoke an Indo-European language and knew how to make tools from bronze.
Around 700 BC e. The Celts began to arrive on the islands, who were tall, blue-eyed people with blond or red hair. Perhaps they moved from central Europe or even from southern Russia. The Celts knew how to work iron and make better weapons, which convinced earlier inhabitants of the island to move further west to Wales, Scotland and Ireland. To consolidate their success, groups of Celts continued to move to the island in search of permanent residence over the next seven centuries.
Julius Caesar made an unofficial visit to the British Isles in 55 BC. e., but the Romans captured Britain only a century later, in 43 AD. e.
The Romans never conquered Scotland, although they tried for a good hundred years. They eventually built a wall along the northern border with unconquered lands, which later defined the border between England and Scotland. The wall was named after Emperor Hadrian, during whose reign it was erected.
With the collapse of the great Roman Empire came the end of Roman control over the British. In 409, the last Roman soldier left the island, leaving the "Romanized" Celts to be torn apart by the Scots, Irish and Saxons, who periodically raided from Germany.
The wealth of Britain by the fifth century, accumulated through years of peace and tranquility, haunted the hungry Germanic tribes. At first they raided the island, and after 430 they returned to Germany less and less, gradually settling in British lands. Illiterate and warlike people were representatives of three Germanic tribes - the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. The Angles captured the northern and eastern territories of modern England, the Saxons - the southern territories, and the Jutes - the lands around Kent. However, the Jutes soon completely merged with the Angles and Saxons and ceased to be a separate tribe.
The British Celts were very reluctant to cede land to England, but under pressure from the better armed Anglo-Saxons they retreated to the mountains in the west, which the Saxons called "Wales" (land of strangers). Some Celts went to Scotland, while others became slaves of the Saxons.
The Anglo-Saxons created several kingdoms, the names of some of which still remain in the names of counties and districts, for example, Essex, Sussex, Wessex. A hundred years later, the king of one of the kingdoms proclaimed himself the ruler of England. King Offa was rich and powerful enough to dig a huge ditch along the entire length of the Welsh border. However, he did not control the lands of all of England and with his death his power came to an end.