The population history of Britain and the roots of the identities of the historical nations of the island (the Welsh, Scots and English) is a contentious subject. New interdisciplinary research project aims to shed light on the old questions.
The fundamental population history of Britain and the roots of the identities of the historical nations of the island (the Welsh, Scots and English) is a contentious subject, especially regarding the legacies of the ‘ancient peoples’ (known canonically as the Celts, Romans, Angles, Saxons and Vikings) who are said to have migrated into it, peacefully or as invaders, by the end of the first millennium AD.
The longest-established scholarly traditions — history and philology (the history of language) — have traditionally emphasized mass migration as the fundamental mechanism for major cultural phenomena such as the origins of Celtic languages or of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in Britain, and to a large extent continue to do so. Modern popular accounts often unquestioningly accept such explanations of the past as established fact. However, many archaeologists reject mass migration as the default explanation for such processes. Genetics potentially offers an entirely independent source of evidence and methodology for addressing these issues, and some present it as a ‘magic bullet’.
The “Impact of Diasporas on the Making of Britain” is a major multidisciplinary research programme being funded by The Leverhulme Trust. The overall aim of the project is to conduct research into the impact of these ancient diasporas on the cultural and population history of Britain and how these events shaped identities in the British Isles both in the past and in the present. What makes the programme unique is that its principal purpose is to bring together the expertise from a number of different disciplines in order to create a fuller picture of the complex origins of the British people.
The multidisciplinary project thus draws on the world-class expertise of academics based in the University of Leicester in the Department of Genetics, the School of Archaeology and Ancient History, the School of Historical Studies and the School of English. The goal of the project is to reappraise key questions and evidence concerning the Roots of the British, focusing especially on the methodological interfaces between academic disciplines.
The programme is driven by six linked projects incorporating some of the latest research in genetics, computer simulations, cross-generational ‘social remembering’, linguistic variation in Early Anglo-Saxon England, the impact of Anglo-Saxon and Viking diasporas on early English dialects and place names and ideas of home and homelands versus exile, exclusion and foreignness. Each project seeks to combine information and methodologies from two or more of the following disciplines: history, onomastics, linguistics, social psychology, genetics, or archaeology. Its geographical and chronological focus is Britain in the first millennium AD but the individual projects may range more widely than this in seeking to understand patterns in the evidence.
The Programme is based at the University of Leicester, and draws on additional expertise from the Institute for Name Studies at the University of Nottingham. It runs for 5 years from January 2011, and includes provision for the employment of five post-doctoral Research Associates, each for a period of up to four years, beginning in October 2011. The RAs will be employed concurrently, and will work closely with the Research Team, comprising a Project Manager (Dr Turi King) and permanent academic staff from the Universities of Leicester and Nottingham.
SOURCE:
