The Oxford geneticist Stephen Oppenheimer surprised UK people some time ago after his long research on genetics, linguistics and archaeology. He demonstrated in a BBC television documentary that main inheritance of DNA of present British comes mainly from Basque origin, rather than the traditional thought of being from Celtic or Anglo-Saxon origin a big change in the history of British isles.
During the last glaciation, European human populations concentrated in warmer areas of Ukraine, Balkan, Italy and the Basque Country. As temperatures started to grow, the humans living in nowadays Basque Country area migrated along the coast into nowadays France, UK and Ireland.
And the evidence of these inheritance has been found after Oppenheimer's study of the DNA. As he says, culture, language can evolve faster or slowlier, but DNA evolution is always slower. And the fact that nowadays UK and Ireland became islands, made them isolated from other DNA influences. Preserving in a bigger extent their connections with the Basque ancestors.
It is interesting to know that, due to other reasons, the relationship between the Basque Country and UK continued until nowadays...
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Picture credit: cc Jean Francoise
