From The Scotsman:
Genetic ‘map’ shows Dark Age Scottish kingdoms live on in today’s Scots
SHAN ROSS
Monday 02 September 2019It was a time when the warring kingdoms of Dark Ages Scotland such as Gododdin and Pictland were fighting for supremacy, with battle skills honed fighting Roman invaders.
But rather than all traces of such peoples being lost in the mists of time, Scotland’s first comprehensive genetic map reveals the DNA of Scottish people still contains signs of the ancient kingdoms, with many apparently living in the same areas as their ancestors more than a millennium ago.
Research from the University of Edinburgh shows Scotland is divided into six main clusters of genetically similar individuals located in the Borders, the south-west, the north-east, the Hebrides, Orkney and Shetland.
These groupings mirror Dark Age kingdoms such as Strathclyde in the south-west, Pictland in the north-east and Gododdin in the south-east. ….
Professor Jim Wilson, from the university’s Usher Institute and MRC Human Genetics unit, said: “It is remarkable how long the shadows of Scotland’s Dark Age kingdoms are, given the massive increase in movement from the industrial revolution to the modern era.
“We believe this is largely due to the majority of people marrying locally and preserving their genetic identity.” Prof Wilson added:
The study specifically looked for people whose ancestors were homebodies:
The study looked at the genetic makeup of more than 2,500 people from Britain and Ireland, including almost 1,000 from Scotland, whose grandparents or great grandparents were born within 50 miles of each other.
Experts found Orkney and Shetland had the highest levels of Norwegian ancestry outside Scandinavia and that many islands within the archipelagos had their own unique genetic identity.
It also emerged the founders of Iceland may have originated from north-west Scotland and Ireland, and the Isle of Man is genetically predominantly Scottish.
Here’s the PDF.
