What’s the Genetic (DNA) History of Cornwall and Devon? The Celtic Origins of Cornwall Revealed…
Channel: Celtic History Decoded
Date: 2023-02-19

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What’s the Genetic History of Cornwall and Devon? The Celtic Origins of Cornwall Revealed… 

What’s the genetic history of Cornwall and its neighbour Devon, the historic counties in Southwest England? Cornwall today is the only region of England which still speaks a Celtic language, Cornish, a Brittonic language which is related to both Welsh and Breton, and which would have been related to the now extinct Cumbric and possibly even Pictish.  

When looking at the genetic landscape of Cornwall, one fascinating aspect is that there is a clear genetic distinction between Cornwall and Devon, even though the two historical counties border each other, with the division tracking well with the modern county boundary. 

In fact, the genetic differences between Cornwall and Devon are comparable to or greater than those between northern English and Scottish samples. A key explanation for this is that Saxon influence was much greater in Devon than Cornwall.

Despite the fact that Cornish is one of the 6 Celtic languages still spoken today, the People of the British Isles found that there was no single 'Celtic' genetic group. In fact the Celtic parts of the UK (Scotland, the North of Ireland, Wales and Cornwall) are among the most different from each other genetically. For example, the Cornish are much more similar genetically to other English groups than they are to the Welsh or the Scots.
 
This study also found that there is a notable contribution of DNA from northern France in many parts of Britain, although this is not present in Wales. This suggests there was a sizable migration from Northern France into Britain after the original settlers of Britain following the last Ice Age, but before Roman times. This genetic footprint is prominent in both Cornwall and Devon, and reaches as far north as Orkney. 


Sources:

Settlers: Genetics, Geography and the Peopling of Britain - Oxford University Museum of Natural History - http://www.oum.ox.ac.uk/settlers/
 
Oxford University Museum of Natural History - Genetic Ancestry and the People of the British Isles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8k9LMaFeRM&t=1s 

University of Oxford - Who do you think you really are? A genetic map of the British Isles https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2015-03-19-who-do-you-think-you-really-are-genetic-map-british-isles 

University of Oxford - People of the British Isles - Population Genetics and Facial Genetics https://www.peopleofthebritishisles.org/ https://www.peopleofthebritishisles.org/population-genetics
 
Leslie S, Winney B, Hellenthal G, Davison D, Boumertit A, Day T, Hutnik K, Royrvik EC, Cunliffe B; Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium 2; International Multiple Sclerosis Genetics Consortium; Lawson DJ, Falush D, Freeman C, Pirinen M, Myers S, Robinson M, Donnelly P, Bodmer W. The fine-scale genetic structure of the British population. Nature. 2015 Mar 19;519(7543):309-314. doi: 10.1038/nature14230. PMID: 25788095; PMCID: PMC4632200. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4632200/

#cornwall #devon #celtic 

Chapters:
0:00 The Genetic History of Cornwall and Devon
3:16 Support