Quote Originally Posted by Rob View Post
Too true! However, there were still historians in the latter half of the 20th century who still believed the population replacement theory, and there are still Anglo-Saxon enthusiasts who insist that genetics has got it all wrong.

Another myth that population genetics has laid bare is the belief that the native Britons (Celts) were Iron Age invaders from Central Europe who displaced the earlier Bronze Age inhabitants. We now know that the ancestors of the Britons had been in Britain since soon after the last Ice Age and had mostly come from Northern Iberia. It was only the Celtic language that replaced the earlier (probably non-Indo-European) language at some time either during or before the Iron Age, not the Celts themselves. The British Celts were definitely not descended from the Continental Keltoi/Celtae referred to by the Greeks and the Romans respectively.
Eureka! --- To a degree.... some have always spouted the p-Celtic and q-Celtic theory and that the original inhabitants of Northern Britain were p-Celtic, an earlier movement of Celts some 8,000 -9.000 years ago. I think their is no doubt that these New Stone Age people (old Stone Age pre-iceage) who populated Britain were of Iberian decent.

Their could be a case however for a later Celtic movement to Britain as the Romans advanced across mainland Europe pushing the Celts further and further into obscurity, with a sort of last stronghold if you like being Britain.

Have a look at this http://www.scotshistoryonline.co.uk/origin1.html an extract from a longer paper on the subject that I compiled a number of years ago now. It will save me a bit of typing.