Saxons, Vikings, and Celts: The Genetic Roots of Britain and Ireland

Sykes, in his new book, is still sticking to his story that he knows Jasmine was a neolithic lady. He does not! Jasmine could have lived a total cavelady existence one hundred or even five hundred years prior to the neolithic revolution in the Middle East. He shows his error on page 107 when talking about how he found what life must have been like for these women (including Jasmine). Archaeology of the neolithic middle east is not that exact date-wise.

Was Sykes really the first to ever discover how to extract DNA from human remains thousands of years old in 1989 (as this book claims)? On April 16, 1985 New York Times reported Svante Paabo (later to first get dna from neanderthals) extracted dna from a 2400 year old human egyptian mummy. Seems to me Paabo may have been the first to extract dna thousands of years old from an ancient human. Paabo did not of course get mention in 1985 of his later neanderthal discovery, I added that in.

Sykes in this book takes sole credit for figuring genetically that the Polynesians had roots in asia. The same year he did another genetic scientist, one Alan Redd, also figured out genetically that the polynesians had roots in asia. No mention of Mr. Redd here!

I’m also not positive this is really the very first dna study to create a genetic map in the UK as the book jacket sort of claims either. On page 110 it mentions in 1996 the Oxford Genetic Atlas Project beginning which was the collection phase of the the Isles research. Before 1996 Luigi Luca Cavalli- Sforza had already done a study of the dna of people in (among other places) Scotland, England and Ireland. It seems Sforza’s study was a genetic map of the British Isles already. Sforza wrote The History and Geography of Human Genes (with a couple of others he wrote this) based on dna studies all done prior to 1996.

Another beef I have with the book is it promises more than it delivers when it comes to Roman genes. Sykes mentions a y-chromosome, he found in a patrilineal clan with no name (what does that mean?),on page 286 that he found only in England and not anywhere else in that same British island. This clan shares a y-chromosome with southern europeans even Italians. That is what is bothersome. If this y chromosome was uinique to Italy and England that might have been better evidence of early Roman occupation of Britain but southern europe could also mean Portugal and Spain etc.  But at least he admits he only guesses at this. Too much history of Roman occupation and not enough on Roman genes is a problem here.

PS What happened to the african-type dna he found in a British lady in SDOE he thought was possibly from Roman occupation? She appears on page 283 I think. Roman slave descendants he guesses.