Pre-Anglo-Saxon England Long before the island of Great Britain was invaded by Germanic tribes called
The oldest human remains so far found in England date from about 500,000 years ago, and belonged to a six-foot tall man of the species Homo heidelbergensis. Shorter, stockier Neanderthals visited Britain between 300,000 and 35,000 years ago, followed by the direct ancestors of modern humans.
Anglo-Saxon England or Early Medieval England, existing from the 5th to the 11th centuries from soon after the end of Roman Britain until the Norman conquest in 1066, consisted of various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms until 927, when it was united as the Kingdom of England by King Æthelstan (r. 927–939).
The Anglo-Saxons spoke the language we now know as Old English, an ancestor of modern-day English. Its closest cousins were other Germanic languages such as Old Friesian, Old Norse and Old High German.
The first people to call themselves English were predominantly descended from northern Europeans, a new study reveals. Over 400 years of mass migration from the northern Netherlands and Germany, as well as southern Scandinavia, provide the genetic basis of many English residents today.
English is a West Germanic language that originated from Ingvaeonic languages brought to Britain in the mid-5th to 7th centuries AD by Anglo-Saxon migrants from what is now northwest Germany, southern Denmark and the Netherlands.
Cheddar Man lived around 10,000 years ago and is the oldest almost complete skeleton of our species, Homo sapiens, ever found in Britain. Research into ancient DNA extracted from the skeleton has helped scientists to build a portrait of Cheddar Man and his life in Mesolithic Britain.
They found the Stone Age Briton had dark hair - with a small probability that it was curlier than average - blue eyes and skin that was probably dark brown or black in tone. This combination might appear striking to us today, but it was a common appearance in western Europe during this period.
The first king of England
It was Edward's son, Æthelstan, who first controlled the whole area that would form the kingdom of England. Æthelstan's sister had married Sihtric, the Viking ruler of the Northumbrians. When Sihtric died in 927, Æthelstan succeeded to that kingdom.
English is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the island of Great Britain.
The Sami people. The Sami people are also an important part of Scandinavia's pre-Viking days. What is this? The hunter-gatherers inhabited northern parts of Europe (Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia) for around 5,000 years.
According to St. Bede the Venerable, the Anglo-Saxons were the descendants of three different Germanic peoples—the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes.
Mercia was one of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of the Heptarchy. It was in the region now known as the English Midlands now East Midlands & West Midlands.
The primary source of the language, however, is the main ethnic stem of the English: the Anglo-Saxons, who invaded and colonized England in the 5th and 6th centuries.
British Isles: Humans probably first arrived in Britain around 800,000 BC. These early inhabitants had to cope with extreme environmental changes and they left Britain at least seven times when conditions became too bad.
While the average UK residents' DNA is 60.56% European and 36.3 per cent Anglo-Saxon, breakdowns of the data reveal variations within the UK and regions of England. For example, Yorkshire stands out as being the most 'British' county, with 57.98 per cent European ancestry and 39.93 per cent Anglo-Saxon ancestry.
Anglo-Saxon Britain was divided and ruled very differently to the way we know now. By 556, Britain was divided into 7 Kingdoms: Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex, Sussex, Kent, Essex and East Anglia. Each was ruled by a different king. They fought to defend their kingdom or take control of other kingdoms.
The origins of the English monarchy lie in the establishment of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, which in the 7th century consolidated into seven kingdoms known as the Heptarchy. At certain times, one of the Anglo-Saxon kings was strong enough to claim the title bretwalda or overlord of England.
The continental Saxons are no longer a distinctive ethnic group or country but their name lives on in the names of several regions and states of Germany, including Lower Saxony (which includes central parts of the original Saxon homeland known as Old Saxony), Saxony in Upper Saxony, as well as Saxony-Anhalt (which ...
Where did the Celts come from? Early sources place Celts in western Europe and also occupying land near the headwaters of the Danube River. Their home territories have often been traced to central and eastern France, extending across southern Germany and into the Czech Republic.
They were stationed along Hadrian's Wall, probably between AD 253 and 258. Based at the fortress of Aballava, they defended the Roman Empire's northern border. The 'Aurelian Moors' are the first recorded African community living in Britain. It is likely that they settled and had families in Britain.
:: Much of 'white British' DNA can be traced to people who colonised the island soon after the end of the Ice Age. :: From the south coast to Yorkshire there is a distinct genetic pattern of the Angles - people who came from the southern Danish peninsula - and the Saxons, who came from North West Germany.
The longest family tree in the world is that of the Chinese philosopher and educator Confucius (551–479 BC), who is descended from King Tang (1675–1646 BC). The tree spans more than 80 generations from him and includes more than 2 million members.
Considering the current British royal family can trace back their lineage to the 9th century, 1,209 years and 37 generations, the Windsors have a good deal of confirmed ancestors. The monarchs are all descendants of King Alfred the Great, the sovereign back in 871.
(linguistics) A language that is descended from another. English and Scots are the descendants of Old English.