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Modern Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish people found to have Pictish ancestry

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Re: Modern Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish people found to have Pictish ancestry

#41
post #21

I realize that there's real research being done here. But as a layman, I read this and only understand that Scottish, Welsh and Irish people are descended from the people who lived in those regions before. This seems obvious. So what am I missing, as a layman?

Glad you asked.

I grew up near lots of Pictish stones, and had just assumed too.

Re: Modern Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish people found to have Pictish ancestry

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think what's surprising to me is all the people who seem to think that the chief method of conquest is replacement, when it's long been established that it's indoctrination. The Romans… …are a singular example. I can name a singular counterexample: the R1 Y-chromosome haplotype completely replaced the preexisting indigenous Y-chromosome haplotypes across Europe, indicating that the male population was replaced wh…

But your later day examples were caused mostly by disease, not strategy. The deaths caused by europeans arriving in the americas (without fighting) are estimated at 10% of all living humans of that era.

Yes but the disease and resulting depopulation was probably a necessary precondition to European settlement nonetheless. Even as it was, European settlers themselves often assimilated into indigenous communities; this is the most likely explanation for the lost colony of Roanoke, and smaller scale instances of this sort of thing were well-known late enough that Benjamin Franklin wrote about the phenomenon. Without disease and depopulation, there would have likely been no good uncontested sites to colonize in the first place, and the American Indians would have likely been able to resist colonization far more effectively.

At any rate, there’s no generalization to be made either way. In some cases, conquest involves an existing population accepting foreign rule; in other cases, it involves population replacement. Even counting which cases count which way is difficult and controversial.

Re: Modern Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish people found to have Pictish ancestry

#43
post #20
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Romans didn't kill off native peoples - they subjugated them, taxed them, and forced them to comply with some Roman norms. That's painting with a bit of a broad brush. The Romans had no problems killing off large swaths of the population. Depopulation was a tactic that was absolutely on the table. For example, during the conquest of Gaul, ~1/3 of the population was killed and another ~1/3 were sold off as slave…

> For example, during the conquest of Gaul, ~1/3 of the population was killed and another ~1/3 were sold off as slaves. The tactics you're talking about were used on the remaining 1/3. And that one small, pesky village of Gauls the Romans just could NOT conquer, try as they might.

More like the third that were already most likely to be their allies (or to be receptive to being roman clients).

Hence the comment about the tactics working on the "1/3 of the friendliest population".

Re: Modern Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish people found to have Pictish ancestry

#44
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Romans didn't kill off native peoples - they subjugated them, taxed them, and forced them to comply with some Roman norms. That's painting with a bit of a broad brush. The Romans had no problems killing off large swaths of the population. Depopulation was a tactic that was absolutely on the table. For example, during the conquest of Gaul, ~1/3 of the population was killed and another ~1/3 were sold off as slave…

> For example, during the conquest of Gaul, ~1/3 of the population was killed and another ~1/3 were sold off as slaves. This is probably a misremembered quote from Plutarch: > For although it was not full ten years that he waged war in Gaul, he took by storm more than eight hundred cities, subdued three hundred nations, and fought pitched battles at different times with three million men, of whom he slew one million…

My source was an episode of Hardcore History. I believe the population estimate he gives is 6 million (which would make sense if there were 3 million men) with 2 million deaths and two million slaves.

I'll give it a re-listen to see if I can find the source he was quoting from, but if anyone's heard the episode, it's the part where he's explaining why it's sometimes called the "Celtic Holocaust".

Re: Modern Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish people found to have Pictish ancestry

#45
post #43
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example, during the conquest of Gaul, ~1/3 of the population was killed and another ~1/3 were sold off as slaves. The tactics you're talking about were used on the remaining 1/3. And that one small, pesky village of Gauls the Romans just could NOT conquer, try as they might.

More like the third that were already most likely to be their allies (or to be receptive to being roman clients). Hence the comment about the tactics working on the "1/3 of the friendliest population".

The above was a joking reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterix

Re: Modern Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish people found to have Pictish ancestry

#46
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like the third that were already most likely to be their allies (or to be receptive to being roman clients). Hence the comment about the tactics working on the "1/3 of the friendliest population".

The above was a joking reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterix

Ahh, fair enough. I'm not familiar with the material. Looks fun
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