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Read the text below and answer questions 35 to 40
- A new study from archaeologists at University of Sydney and Simon
- Fraser University in Vancouver, has provided important new evidence
- to answer the question "Who exactly were the Anglo‐Saxons?" New
- findings based on studying skeletal remains clearly indicate the Anglo‐
- Saxons were a melting pot of people from both migrant and local
- cultural groups and not one homogenous group from Western Europe.
- Professor Keith Dobney said the team’s results indicate that "the
- Anglo‐Saxon kingdoms of early Medieval Britain were strikingly similar
- to contemporary Britain ‐‐ full of people of different ancestries sharing
- a common language and culture." The collaborative study looked at the
- three‐dimensional shape of the base of the skull. "Baased on this, we
- collected 3D data from suitably dated skeletal collections from Britain
- and Denmark, and then analysed the data to estimate the ancestry of
- the Anglo‐Saxon individuals in the sample."
- The researchers found that between two‐thirds and three‐quarters of
- early Anglo‐Saxon individuals were of continental European ancestry,
- while between a quarter and one‐third were of local ancestry. When
- they looked at skeletons dated to the Middle Anglo‐Saxon period
- (several hundred years after the original migrants arrived), they found
- that 50 to 70 percent of the individuals were of local ancestry, while
- 30 to 50 percent were of continental European ancestry, which
- probably indicates a change in the rate of migration and/or local
- adoption of culture over time. "These findings tell us that being Anglo‐
- Saxon was more likely a matter of language and culture, not genetics."
- Although Anglo‐Saxon origins can clearly be traced to a migration of
- Germanic‐speaking people from mainland Europe between the 5th
- and 7th centuries AD, the number of individuals who settled in Britain
- is still contested, as is the nature of their relationship with the pre-
- existing inhabitants of the British Isles, who were Romano‐Celts.
- The ongoing and unresolved argument is whether hordes of European
- invaders largely replaced the existing Romano‐British inhabitants, or
- did smaller numbers of migrants settle and interact with the locals,
- who then rapidly adopted the new language and culture of the Anglo‐
- Saxons? "The reason for the ongoing confusion is the apparent
- contradiction between early historical texts (written sometime after
- the events that imply that the newcomers were both numerous and
- replaced the Romano‐British population) and some recent
- biomolecular markers directly recovered from Anglo‐Saxon skeletons
- that appears to suggest numbers of immigrants were few," said
- Professor Dobney. "Our new data sits at the interface of this debate
- and implies that early Anglo‐Saxon society was a mix of both
- newcomers and immigrants and, instead of wholesale population
- replacement, a process of acculturation resulted in Anglo‐Saxon
- language and culture being adopted wholesale by the local
- population." "It could be this new cultural package was attractive,
- filling a vacuum left at the end of the Roman occupation of Britain.
- Whatever the reason, it lit the fuse for the English nation we have today
- ‐‐ still comprised of people of different origins who share the same
- language," Professor Dobney said.
Adapted from article available at:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210623144901.htm
Accessed on: July 13, 2021.
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