page_title: Welsh people
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Welsh people / History
caption_attribution_description: Owain Glyndŵr at City Hall, Cardiff, Wales
context_page_description: The Welsh are a Celtic nation and ethnic group native to Wales. The term "Welsh people" applies to people from Wales and people of Welsh ancestry perceiving themselves or being perceived as sharing a cultural heritage and shared ancestral origins. Wales is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. The majority of people living in Wales are British citizens.
  The Welsh language is taught in schools and protected in law. It remains the predominant language in parts of Wales, particularly in North Wales and parts of West Wales. English is the predominant language in South Wales and many Welsh people do not speak the language, although even in predominately English-speaking areas of Wales, many are fluent or semi-fluent in Welsh or, to varying degrees, capable of speaking or understanding Welsh at limited or conversational proficiency levels. Although the Welsh language and its ancestors have been spoken in what is now Wales since well before the Roman incursions into Britain, historian John Davies argues that the origin of the "Welsh nation" can be traced to the late 4th and early 5th centuries, following the end of Roman rule in Britain.
context_section_description: During their time in Britain, the ancient Romans encountered tribes in present-day Wales that they called the Ordovices, the Demetae, the Silures and the Deceangli. The people of what is now Wales were not distinguished from the rest of the peoples of southern Britain; all were called Britons and spoke the common British language, a Brythonic Celtic tongue. Celtic language and culture seems to have arrived in Britain during the Iron Age, though some archaeologists argue that there is no evidence for large-scale Iron Age migrations into Great Britain. The claim has also been made that Indo-European languages may have been introduced to the British Isles as early as the early Neolithic (or even earlier), with Goidelic and Brythonic languages developing indigenously. Others hold that the close similarity between the Goidelic and Brythonic branches, and their sharing of Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age terminology with their continental relatives, point to a more recent introduction of Indo-European languages (or close communication), with Proto-Celtic itself unlikely to have existed before the end of the 2nd millennium BC at the earliest. The genetic evidence, in this case, would show that the change to Celtic languages in Britain may have occurred as a cultural shift rather than through migration as was previously supposed.
  Some current genetic research supports the idea that people living in the British Isles are likely mainly descended from the indigenous European Paleolithic (Old Stone Age hunter gatherers) population (about 80%), with a smaller Neolithic (New Stone Age farmers) input (about 20%). Paleolithic Europeans seem to have been a homogeneous population, possibly due to a population bottleneck (or near-extinction event) on the Iberian peninsula, where a small human population is thought to have survived the glaciation, and expanded into Europe during the Mesolithic. The assumed genetic imprint of Neolithic incomers is seen as a cline, with stronger Neolithic representation in the east of Europe and stronger Paleolithic representation in the west of Europe. Most in Wales today regard themselves as modern Celts, claiming a heritage back to the Iron Age tribes, which themselves, based on modern genetic analysis, would appear to have had a predominantly Paleolithic and Neolithic indigenous ancestry. When the Roman legions departed Britain around 400, a Romano-British culture remained in the areas the Romans had settled, and the pre-Roman cultures in others.
  In two recently published books, Blood of the Isles, by Brian Sykes and The Origins of the British, by Stephen Oppenheimer, both authors state that according to genetic evidence, most Welsh people, like most Britons, descend from the Iberian Peninsula in Southwest Europe, as a result of different migrations that took place during the Mesolithic and the Neolithic eras, and which laid the foundations for the present-day populations in the British Isles, indicating an ancient relationship among the populations of Atlantic Europe. According to Stephen Oppenheimer 96% of lineages in Llangefni in north Wales derive from Iberia. Genetic research on the Y-chromosome has shown that the Welsh, like the Irish, share a large proportion of their ancestry with the Basques of Northern Spain and South Western France, although the Welsh have a greater presumed Neolithic input than both the Irish and the Basques. Genetic marker R1b averages from 83–89% amongst the Welsh.
  DNA research conducted by CymruDNA Wales has shown that a percentage of Welshmen living today are descended from ancient Kings and Princes of Wales, the quintessential DNA signature R-L371 aka S300 snp downstream from R1b-L21 (S145) is believed to have originated in North Wales around 1000 AD. Recent DNA evidence suggests that Welsh people descended specifically from middle eastern DNA carriers, an idea previously proposed at least as early as the 19th century, in History of the Welsh Baptist by Jonathan Davis.
  The people in what is now Wales continued to speak Brythonic languages with additions from Latin, as d
caption: Owain Glyndŵr was proclaimed Prince of Wales by his supporters on 16 September 1400. The last native Welsh person to hold the title.
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