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>The degree to which pre-modern Britain included people of African origin within its population continues to be a topic of considerable interest Why? Also, ar
by igf 10y ago
>The degree to which pre-modern Britain included people of African origin within its population continues to be a topic of considerable interest
Why?
Also, aren't all people of African origin?
- ema 10y agoWhile ultimately all people are of African origin it is still interesting to see whether there were later migration waves out of Africa. (Or even back into Africa for that matter)
- clouddrover 10y ago> Or even back into Africa for that matter While not mainland Africa, Madagascar is an example of a migration back into Africa. It was settled by Austronesians from Borneo. Malagasy is an Austronesian language: https://www.britannica.com/place/Madagascar https://www.britannica.com/place/Madagascar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagascar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagascar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malagasy_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malagasy_language
- neximo64 10y agoAll people are of African origin on a very long timescale of over 50,000-300,000 years ago. That there were Africans in a more modern Britain sooner (just 5000 years ago), is interesting for this reason and it begs the question as to where the population went to-
- dghf 10y ago> it begs the question as to where the population went to I'm guessing they married out. I cannot find a reference, but I seem to remember learning that eighteenth century Covent Garden in London had a significant black population, possibly former slaves freed by and then recruited into the British Army during the Revolutionary War. Within a century, that population had gone, at least as a distinct, visible group: the original population were all male and had taken local wives.
- yandago 10y ago>I cannot find a reference Stop here.
- dghf 10y agoWhy? Someone might know what I'm talking about and provide the reference that eluded me; or, just as usefully, they might be able to demonstrate I'm speaking nonsense.
- pjc50 10y agoGoogle delivers: "roughly 10,000 [black people] in London" in the late C18th. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=CCd8AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA8&lpg=PA8&dq=eighteenth+century+Covent+Garden+in+London+had+a+significant+black+population&source=bl&ots=zmkjgk-phz&sig=oJXIreIiKoAOn1dzRLSjuQGdVsM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjtqPWqx9fOAhVEGsAKHVLGC1YQ6AEIPDAF#v=onepage&q=eighteenth%20century%20Covent%20Garden%20in%20London%20had%20a%20significant%20black%20population&f=false https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=CCd8AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA8&lpg=...
- acjohnson55 10y agoThat's presuming these folks remained a distinct population, rather than assimilating. http://afroeurope.blogspot.com/2010/08/history-of-black-people-in-europe.html http://afroeurope.blogspot.com/2010/08/history-of-black-peop...
- qrybam 10y agoGo back far enough and we'll find a common ancestor, and they probably came from Africa, and while confirming this is in itself interesting I think that people travelling and cross settling in our history is excepotion ally interesting.
- arethuza 10y agoAgreed - I'm certainly somebody who finds the history of the many waves of immigration to and emigration from the British Isles absolutely fascinating, particularly where these might overlap with the various origin myths for where peoples believed they originally came from. [e.g. I've always wondered why I have epicanthic folds (which are fairly common in the part of Scotland I come from) even though my family has been in Scotland for many hundreds of years, although I think I've found a Finnish connection in the 17th century].
- simonh 10y agoThis is about evidence of people who themselves personally came from North Africa. Not people who's ancestors came from North Africa. The evidence is found in the oxygen isotopes in their teeth from the water they drank in their early lives, so it's nothing to do with genetics or ancestry and is purely environmental.
- JoeAltmaier 10y agoThough I'm surprised the research didn't simply use present-day Britain DNA records?
- simonh 10y agoWith DNA there would be no way to know when the African ancestry was introduced. Bear in mind we've had extensive contact with Africa via the slave and sugar trades for about a dozen generations.
- JoeAltmaier 10y agoI think that's exactly what you can use dna evidence for. E.g. its used to identify when Neanderthal was added etc. Or is it because the introduction was continuous? Hm.
- simonh 10y agoWe don't know from the DNA evidence itself when we received Neanderthal DNA other than the fact we know roughly when main-line Neanderthals died out. There's a huge difference between saying these modern British people have some tiny amount of African DNA and we don't know where it came from, and saying this person right here in this grave from this historical period grew up in Africa. They tell us very different things.
- JoeAltmaier 10y agoThat's just wrong, far as I know. We can tell when DNA was introduced - but I don't know how that works. Anybody?
- pjc50 10y agoOngoing arguments about representation. Some people want to maintain the lie that there were no black people in the UK before the Empire Windrush. Some people want to insist that fantasy novels of pseudo-medieval settings should not have black people in as it's not "realistic", which is also silly.
- aminok 10y agoIt should be noted that North African is generally not black and in fact genetic testing of remains of some individuals living in the region of Carthage at the height of its power show them to possess a European haplolyte that has since mostly disappeared, and survives predominantly on the Iberian peninsula.
- dghf 10y ago> It should be noted that North African is generally not black It's not as simple as that. Do a Google image search for 'Tuareg' and you'll find a number of faces that meet modern British (and American) conceptions of 'black'.
- berntb 10y agoConsidering the large slave trade that filled the harems etc with black female slaves, there should be quite a lot of black ancestry in the Arab world? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_the_Muslim_world#Arab_slave_trade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_the_Musl... But the Tuaregs were isolated from that type of immigration?
- aminok 10y ago>It's not as simple as that. Do a Google image search for 'Tuareg' and you'll find a number of faces that meet modern British (and American) conceptions of 'black'. I didn't put it in overly simplistic terms. I said it "is generally not black", not "it is not black" or "it is never black". I was referring to the majority, rather making a blanket characterization about all North Africans.
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- patrickg_zill 10y agoIs this still current? (from 2007) http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-the-out-of-africa-theory-out/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-the-out-of-afri...
- GFK_of_xmaspast 10y agoCheck out some of the hate mail this person: http://medievalpoc.tumblr.com http://medievalpoc.tumblr.com gets if this is surprising to you.