The British People

Image - Cheddar Gorge Man






For a while I have been meaning to create a definition of the various British peoples for debates to clarify the issue - here it is ;



A) The Aboriginal British - These are the earliest settlers who returned to Britain after the last Ice Age which ended around 16,000 years ago. (1)

They have been permanent rsidents in Britain for 16,000 years.

These include people like Adrian Taggart who was DNA tested and found to be a direct descendant of the Cheddar Gorge Man whose bones have been carbon dated to be over 10,000 years old. (2)

Adrian Taggart still lived in the same village as his direct ancestor, suggesting continuous occupation in the same village area for over 10,000 years by his ancestors.

Taggart, then, is living proof that southern England’s farmers were not descended, as once believed, from Middle Eastern migrants, but from European Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) and Mesolithic (New Stone Age) people.


From these Paleolithic peoples come the Celtic population of Britain, the Welsh, Irish and Scots populations.

These are the Aboriginal Britons - those who have had unbroken occupation of Britain for 16,000 years.





(B) The Indigenous Anglo-Saxon English.


The Anglo-Saxons have been present in England for 1,600 years. (4)

That is 600 years longer than the Bantu black population in South Africa who are considered as indigenous to South Africa. (3)

At the time of European contact, the dominant indigenous peoples were Bantu-speaking peoples who had migrated from other parts of Africa about one thousand years before. This places the Bantu people in South Africa from 1050 onwards.

If the Bantu are considered the indigenous people of Africa, then the English are the indigenous people of England.

The English can therefore be considered the Indigenous English.





(C) The Norman British - These are the descendants of the Normans who moved to Britain in 1066.





(D) The Modern British.

These are the people of all races and religions classified together into one group as they do not fit the legal criteria of being here in Britain since Time Immemorial. Time beyond legal memory.

This is the formal beginning of English law which is dated 3rd September 1189. This is the accession of Richard I, and the end of the reign of Henry II the father of the Common Law.









(1)http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/11/1103_031103_britainrepopulation2.html



(2) http://celticengland.com/



(3)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa



(4) http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/MEDanglosaxon.htm