Migrants were a continuous feature of medieval Britain, archaeological study shows

Description

In the sixth century, a monk named Gildas described the arrival of the Saxons in Britain as a mass movement of German and Scandinavian mercenaries, who descended on the island as a punishment. His words, and writings by later authors, influenced our understanding of this era for over 1,000 years, giving rise to the theory of an Anglo-Saxon invasion. But in recent decades, archaeologists have questioned this reconstruction of events: Perhaps the “invasion” was simply the arrival of a small armed elite. Over time, this dominant new group may have influenced Britons, leading them to adopt foreign fashions and objects. If so, in a grave, a local would look no different from a foreigner, masking the true extent of migration.

Subject

Another big question is when Homo sapiens first sailed to Sahul, a landmass that combined New Guinea, Australia and Tasmania until rising sea levels separated them 9,000 years ago. Expert opinion has fallen into two camps: that the migration happened 60,000 years ago or 45,000 to 50,000 years ago, with the latter option increasingly popular. Adding to this debate, a team, led by Helen Farr of the University of Southampton and Martin Richards of the University of Huddersfield, recently studied 2,500 mitochondrial DNA genomes from Aboriginal Australians, New Guineans and others from the region. By analysing changes in this DNA across the centuries—a method called “molecular clock” dating—they revealed lineages stretching back 60,000 years, they write in the journal Science Advances. As in East Asia, the earlier date appears to be the most probable.