Saxons, Vikings, and Celts: The Genetic Roots of Britain and Ireland | 
 enlarge | Author: Bryan Sykes
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
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Rating:  56 reviews
Sales Rank: 10915
Media: Paperback
Pages: 320
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.5 x 1
ISBN: 0393330753
Dewey Decimal Number: 599.9350941
EAN: 9780393330755
Publication Date: December 10, 2007
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Product Description
From the best-selling author of The Seven Daughters of Eve, an illuminating guide to the genetic history of the British Isles.
One of the world's leading geneticists, Bryan Sykes has helped thousands find their ancestry in the British Isles. Saxons, Vikings, and Celts, which resulted from a systematic ten-year DNA survey of more than 10,000 volunteers, traces the true genetic makeup of the British Isles and its descendants, taking readers from the Pontnewydd cave in North Wales to the resting place of "The Red Lady" of Paviland and the tomb of King Arthur. Genealogy has become a popular pastime of Americans interested in their heritage, and this is the perfect work for anyone interested in finding their heritage in England, Scotland, or Ireland.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 51 more reviews...
 British Deep Ancestry Comes Alive December 19, 2006
John D. Cofield
45 out of 51 found this review helpful
Dr. Bryan Sykes has done more than any other scientist to introduce and make popular the science of DNA genetic research to the general public. Saxons, Vikings, and Celts builds on his earlier books The Seven Daughters of Eve and Adam's Curse, covering some of the same ground with particular attention to the ancestry of the inhabitants of the British Isles.
Sykes' strong point is his ability to recreate and make real the lives of our distant genetic ancestors. He has assigned representative names to the founders of the various paternal and maternal line clans from which all present day humans are descended. These names help his readers to better realize the humanity of their distant progenitors. I've had my DNA tested at Dr. Sykes' lab and at others as well, and I enjoy thinking of myself as a member of the Tara and Oisin clans much more than as a mere T2 or R1b1c!
Dr. Sykes provides a short history of each part of the Isles: Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England. He summarizes his research, including some fascinating stories about how he goes about collecting the data and DNA samples, so that we get a better idea of the genetic makeup of the original British population. That makeup turns out to be much more complex than the old histories would have us believe, yet also shows that some of the oldest legends have at least a hint of the real truth about them. For example, the old stories of the British originally coming from the lands around the Mediterranean turn out not to be all that far off.
My only objection to Dr. Sykes' book, and it only applies to those like me who have had their DNA tested at labs other than his, is that he doesn't clearly identify the clans by the scientific names other labs use. This isn't a problem if you, like me, are one of the ubiquitous Oisins or R1bs, but it can be a little confusing to know what he means by Wodan and Sigurd. But that is only a difficulty for a relatively small number of people, and Dr. Sykes' work does a superb job of demonstrating the great promise and insights of DNA research
Wonderful blending of science and history March 30, 2008
Tim F. Martin (Madison, AL United States)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
_Saxons, Vikings, and Celts_ by Bryan Sykes is the author notes on page one the first book of its type, one on the genetic history of Britain and Ireland (which he refers to as the Isles throughout the book), using DNA as the main source of information. Having looked at much larger issues in the human past he wanted to "dissect the intimate genetic make-up of a smaller region," to look at the truth behind some of the popularly held ideas and myths about the Isles.
Throughout the centuries monarchs have used myths and legends about the origins of various peoples to justify their leadership and to bolster their policies. Several kings used Arthurian legends to justify their reign, believing the Britons, personified by Arthur, to be the truly indigenous people of the whole of Britain and the later Saxons "treacherous imposters," despite evidence for Arthur's very existence being on shaky archaeological ground (questions about him were raised at least as far back as the early 1500s by Renaissance scholar Polydore Vergil). Edward I said he was merely fulfilling Merlin's prophecies in his campaigns in Wales and Henry VII used Arthurian myth effectively in his defeat of Richard III.
In a complete about face, Henry VIII, after his bitter break with Rome, instead pushed forward the idea that the original Britons had been wiped out and the English were in fact the linear descent of Saxons, who of course now were no longer vilified but lionized as "strong, self-confident, and adventurous," who had triumphed over the weak Britons and who possessed the stout spirit of Protestant independence of the Teutonic Germans.
What began as part of a declaration of religious independence from Rome transformed into a "virulent doctrine of Saxon/Teutonic racial superiority over the other inhabitants of the Isles," one that was to have far-reaching consequences. The Teutonic Myth and "Teutomaniacs" encouraged racist and divisive policies against the Welsh, Scots, and Irish, a mind-set that only began to fade with Germany's enthusiastic embrace of the myth themselves.
The pendulum seems to have swung the other way again - albeit with considerably less racist overtones -with a virtual Celtic Renaissance and the rise of the "Celtic brand," as people throughout Scotland, Wales, and Ireland but also among those of British descent in America enthusiastically buy "Celtic" jewelry, play "Celtic" music, and celebrate "Celtic" holidays, all this despite the fact that the notion of the Celts as separate people and the idea of any similarities between the Welsh, Scots, and Irish didn't really arise until the 1700s. Nevertheless, this hasn't stopped concepts of being Celtic from serving as both political rallying cry and tapping into feelings of displacement and affinity with aboriginal peoples.
Sykes wanted to cut through all of these myths. To what degree are the people of the Isles really Saxon or Celtic (or in the north Viking)? Are these purely cultural movements, myths put forward by kings to serve political ambitions, or is there some grain of truth to these eagerly embraced (and exploited) beliefs?
Sykes wasn't the first to begin delving into the origins of the British people in a scientific manner. Even at the height of Saxon mania in the Victoria era, one individual, a barrister by the name of Luke Owen Pike, was questioning notions of racial superiority and purity and the very idea of the complete extermination of native peoples by invaders, putting forth the way-ahead-of-his-time notion that what would result would be the creation of a hybridized racial mixture, one in which the indigenous component would generally predominate. Although amateur naturalist John Beddoe struggled to come up with an impartial system of classifying physical appearance into different groups and early work with human blood groups (the famous types A, B, O, and AB) went a long way towards removing prejudice and human error from investigating the origins of various populations in the Isles, it took the discovery and analysis of DNA to make real strides. The blood groups studies were a "blunt instrument," lacking the finesse of the detailed findings of later DNA work and unfortunately tempted researchers to either fabricate arguments to explain their findings or were often so broad in outcome as to justify preconceived notions.
Sykes and his team used two tools. One was mitochondrial DNA (or mDNA), which has two outstanding properties for its use to analyze the human past. First, it mutates twenty times faster than regular DNA (by comparison the rate of nuclear DNA mutation is so low that we are virtually all the same), and second all mDNA comes only from the mother, who got it from her mother (men do not pass down mDNA). Amazingly, at any time in the past, be it 100 or 10,000 years ago, there was only one woman alive at the time from which you have inherited your mDNA from.
This of course only tells the female side, what about the male? For that Sykes looked at the Y-chromosome, found of course only in men. It is a mirror image of the inheritance pattern for mDNA and fortunately does vary enough genetically over time to be useful in a study.
So what did the study reveal? Is evidence of Saxon, Viking, and Celtic culture in the Isles the consequence of large-scale immigration or instead the result of indigenous people copying and adapting new styles, perhaps imposed by a small conquering minority? To vastly oversimplify this wonderful book, overall the genetic structure of the Isles is "stubbornly" Celtic, if by Celtic one means the people who were here before the Romans and who spoke a Celtic language. While the people of the Shetland and Orkney Islands do have a substantial Viking genetic presence (40% and 30% respectively), surprisingly 10% in the east and 5% in the north of England owe their genetic heritage to Saxons, Danes, or Normans, "only denting the Celtic substructure." There is also no genetic evidence of any large-scale Celtic immigration from central Europe to the Isles either.
Interesting and indeed revolutionary February 14, 2008
Kurt A. Johnson (Marseilles, Illinois, USA)
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
You have read the history of the British Isles, right? You have read about the waves of invaders that washed across the Isles, displacing the earlier peoples and starting all-new countries. Well, what if everything you have read is wrong?
In this fascinating and enlightening book, Dr. Bryan Sykes Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Oxford, looks at the genetic make-up of the peoples of the British Isles. Just how do the Irish, Scots and Welsh differ from each other, and from the Anglo-Saxon inhabitants of England? Were the Picts truly an ancient, non-Indo-European speaking people? Read this book and find out!
Overall, I found this to be one of the most enthralling books that I have read in a long time. This book represents the fruits of years worth of work done by the Oxford Genetic Atlas Project, and it gives some fascinating information on who the modern inhabitants of the British Isles are, and where they came from. Along the way, the read is treated to a great deal of information on genetic studies, and how the peoples have been studied over the years.
Indeed, if you are interested in British history, then you really must read this book. This is one of the most interesting, and indeed revolutionary books to have come out in a long time. I highly recommend this book!
Great History with Understandable Science February 8, 2007
Celtic Ken (Kalamazoo, Michigan)
14 out of 15 found this review helpful
This is a review of an exciting new book by Bryan Sykes: SAXONS, VIKINGS, AND CELTS The Genetic Roots of Britain and Ireland, W.W. Norton & Co., 2006, 306 pages. Mr. Sykes is professor of human genetics at Oxford University and the first to discover how to recover DNA from human remains thousands of years old. His book is a result of a ten-year survey of more than 10,000 volunteers from all across the islands and into America tracing the genetic make-up of the British Isles.
In setting the stage for his findings Bryan Sykes takes us though a storied historical travelogue of the Isles. From the Shetlands to the Southwest of England; he offers accounts on the first inhabitants through the migrations to the invasions and conquests. I start with this feature because it is what held me to the book long after a couple of bed-times.
He presents the science of genetics in very understandable terms. He explains mitochondrial DNA, the Y-chromosome, markers, mutation and other terms that helped me understand the science of genetics especially relative to genealogy. I was thrilled to learn that blood type O is 80% dominant in the far west of Ireland where my family lived. I have type O and that made me feel even more connected. Of interest also is where type O is also dominant. Find out for yourself in this great read.
Celtic Ken
A fascinating guide to the history of the Isles and the sources of the DNA of the present inhabitants March 23, 2007
Craig Matteson (Ann Arbor, MI)
15 out of 15 found this review helpful
This is a very interesting book about how the genetic history of those living in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England today who are descendents of those living here in the historic and pre-historic past maps onto the written history and legends of those times. The author, Bryan Sykes, is a professor of human genetics at Oxford University and studies anthropology through the analysis of DNA (in addition to the usual historical methods). Because of the immense public interest in this process he has also founded a commercial enterprise (Oxford Ancestors - the web site combines the names into a single word) whose services the public can use to trace their own DNA into antiquity.
Sykes is a gifted storyteller and does an especially nice job of writing for the general reader. He has the gift of being able to talk about very technical matters in plain English and more than that, he is able to put them in a context that doesn't read as if it is technical at all. While he notes that this builds on material in his previous two books (as yet, unread by me), he assures the reader that they can read this book without knowing those books. I can assure you that this is true. However, for me, this book piqued my interest in those other books and in utilizing the services of Oxford Ancestors.
The book opens with the discovery of the 12,000 year old remains of an ancient inhabitant of the present Cheddar Gorge. The author was able to extract enough DNA from the dentin material from a tooth to learn about the genetic makeup of this man. They then did a DNA analysis at a local school to see if he had any descendents in the area. He did. But it wasn't one of the children it was their teacher. There is a picture of the teacher with the remains of his ancient cousin. Fascinating.
Sykes then recounts some of the origin myths and the oldest written histories of the Isles and what we think we know from them. He is very frank about the problems and contradictions we already know about these texts and traditions. We then get a tour of the rise of ancient names and traditions in the popular culture and what that could possibly signify. The author then spends a few chapters taking us through the birth of the scientific study of the origins of the inhabitants of the Isles through observing anatomical features, blood analysis, and finally through DNA.
The author then takes through a history of Ireland, and then what the DNA tells us. We then get a history of Scotland (and the north islands), the Picts, and then the DNA of Scotland and the north islands. We then get the history and DNA of Wales and finally of the history of England (and the Saxons, Danes, Vikings, and Normans) and then what the DNA of England shows us.
The book wraps up with a summary of the DNA findings of the Isles. It is most interesting and I recommend this book to everyone who is interested in the genetic history of these peoples. If you have any genealogical ties to the Isles, you will be especially interested in what this book has to say. Some of it will almost certainly surprise you.
As the work goes on, I would hope that Sykes and his firm can get access to DNA from more ancient remains and see if there are lines that are no longer present that can offer us an even more detailed view of our genetic history. It seems to me that the seven maternal and five paternal clans are a matter of survival bias (he offers some theories such as the Genghis Khan effect) rather than what exists today being a summary of all that has ever been. While most of us have an intense interest in ourselves and our own history, it would also be nice to flesh out that knowledge with the history of lines that have died out.
The appendix gives a table of the frequency of those clans by region and offers maps showing the distribution of the lines.
Obviously, there is more than DNA that goes into the history and making of a tribe, nation, or a people. It is what they come to believe about themselves, and the culture they hold in common that makes a group of individuals into an "us". And culture can certainly have as much (probably more) to do with the survival of a people as their DNA. That is, you could have two tribes living just across the valley from each other with almost identical DNA, but they take a different approach to a way of life and one tribe thrives and the other dissipates. But this is beyond the scope of this book and I am not criticizing the author for not really discussing this. However, I want to head off any criticism of the book along these lines because that is not the point or purpose of this fine book (which is American edition of the author's "Blood of the Isles" printed in the UK).
This is a terrific book and I strongly recommend it to you.
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