Robert Burns, BBC Proms, Anniversaries & Organic Farming

What is it with the BBC Proms and anniversaries? They are heavy on the big names, but are reluctant to tackle some of the less known or “different” names and there are opportunities missed. This year is the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns, an event which has been noticed north of The Tweed. But for the BBC Proms strutting its stuff as a major international festival, forward looking, and all encompassing, Burns is off limits. There is the Mendelssohn “Scottish Symphony”, some modern Scots Composers, but nothing at all about Burns, who was a lyricist as much as a poet. Moreover, Burns is celebrated across the world. In a festival lasting for weeks, with the BBC forever talking about diversity, why nothing at all?

It is easy to see why the BBC might have stayed clear. They have a large hall to fill, it is now ever necessary to have high occupation figures, and what might they have done? The substantial Scottish community in the London area of the past has gone, and those that are there are lost to sight. Also, there is a basic problem.

It is that the Burns songs have been serially murdered over the last 150 years. The introduction of iron framed large pianos in the early 19th Century, with their sound allied to popularised paper music notation meant that the songs became the stuff of drawing room sentiment, and worse in the music halls the type of exaggerated emotion of the period. Later, the crooners made their impact, and then another assault was made by the joint forces of Faux Folk and Folk Rock.

Add to them sundry forms of instrumentation from anywhere, mikes, and amplifiers, and you have what results. It is how the vast majority of people hear them today, and think that is what they are. Because of what he is alleged to represent any critique of what is claimed to be his work is unacceptable, including those who want to rescue the real talent of the man from the relentless mush of commercialisation, interpretations, and imposed agendas of almost two centuries.

In the study of the brain, and the way it hears, processes and delivers sound, most theories have had little to go on, they have been based on very limited evidence. With new equipment and technique available it is now possible to see into the brain its reactions, and to work out possibilities. Now, there is the question of which came first, language or music, how one might have developed from another, and how much either or both evolved from or caused human capability to develop.

It is clear that some humans because of some feature of neurology are special in how they hear sound, how they can retain it, and make use of it. In music they might be prodigies very young, realise the ability only later, or for some reason have almost total recall, and quite rarely can match music and voice in a very special way.

To know that, it is necessary to have a piece played in a form that is at least near to that of the composer’s intentions, and in a sound world not too far removed in terms of structure and performance. Essentially, Burns took the tunes, heard in his sound world of the time, and brought words to interplay with the music to create a lyrical and poetic experience for the listener.

We can only judge how good he was if we can do that and come close to his idea and intention. The sound world of the Ayrshire and Dumfries of his time, and the places he ventured out to at times are a world away from our own age. He did not write for the concert hall; nor any large assembly; nor the church, but for groups of listening people in small places that knew him and that he knew. So they are intensely personal, for voice, close to the tune, and in his mind of sounds perhaps with an accompaniment of such instruments that were literally to hand.

So what were the voices of that time? There have been scholars that have looked intensely at the sound of the voices of the past. The handful of early recordings we have from a century or so ago tell us that speech was different. We know that the use of the singing voice has changed. In my own recollection of voices I heard of people born in the 1860’s to 1890’s tell me a good deal about how the use of words and intonations can vary, and these include people whose family were in Ayrshire at the time of Burns and before and who I knew well.

There has been serious academic study done on the voice patterns, pronunciation, and use of language in Ayrshire in that period. We know that some of Burns’ work was very personal, some done for an immediate grouping, and some intended for the appreciation of other groups. That being so, his use of language forms vary within those of the time according to the inspiration and the intention as he responded to those around him and to his own ear.

A few years ago, I heard on the radio a performance of Burns songs by a Scots group who had tried to recreate that sound world and had tried to match an instrumentation that was of the period. Sadly, I have forgotten who they were, and have not been able to trace any recording. If it is still there it will be buried deep in the catacombs of the BBC beyond recall, classified as regional folk history, perhaps the tape was reused to record an interview with a junior minister needing to utter a soundbite or two.

What it did do was to transform Burns’ lyrics from the hack bellowing and wailing that we are told nowadays is what it should be, to works of genius where the words sit precisely on the line of the music, revealing a subtlety and understanding that few can achieve. There is a transparency and musicality that are the signs of the master. The problem for the BBC is that if they tried to rescue this to help a deeper understanding of what he was about, they would encounter bitter opposition from the many differing and often opposed interests who claim him as their own.

The tunes themselves are a varied, his choice was eclectic, taking from some he heard about him from local traditions, those that were going the rounds, to others of another kind. Some give pause for thought, the tune for “As I stood by yon roofless tower..” or “The Minstrel at Lincluden” is given as the Cumnock Psalms. If this tune is derived from the traditions of The Cameronians and The Covenanters it is a striking departure, and of interest. The reference to the Minstrel auld prefigures the “The way was long, the wind was cold, the minstrel was infirm and old…” of Scott’s “Lay Of The Last Minstrel” and the words on “lads beyond the sea in bluidy wars they fa’” have a resonance in our own time. Beyond the poetry is the Word, and The Word is the Bible, Burns does not forget it, and in his time he was never allowed to.

The major problem of our age in understanding the past, is TV and film, which rarely is remotely near any real depiction of the past, even in alleged documentaries. As well as having a modern agenda, all too often they lose sight of the wood from the trees. A Jane Austen feature where the heroine talks in a broad old Hampshire accent may be close to Jane in real life, but not to the taste and understanding of a modern TV viewer or critic.

What of Shakespeare? If you try “Now is the winter of our discontent etc.” in a West Midlands accent and a marked sneer it works remarkably well, but at the National and even the Globe they would never attempt it. As for the unceasing landslide of visual rubble that passes for the history of the Tudors, believe that and you believe anything, Lady Margaret Beaufort, where are you when we need you? But the media does not worry so long as it sells and wins the ratings battle.

It is not just Burns that the BBC has ignored. In 2006 as well as Mozart it was the anniversary of Thomas Linley, who died tragically young leaving a little music. He was a prodigy, Mozart knew him as a friend and recognised and acknowledged his genius. Linley was brother-in-law to Richard Brinsley Sheridan and his family were fully involved in the theatre and society of that period. This was the same period as Burns. The opportunities in the BBC Proms, or on any BBC channel for items both commemorating Linley, and placing him in the world of London and Bath of the time were extensive, he was connected to everyone and anyone prominent at the time. But not a thing, and he was English and in London.

A worry about the BBC is that they are all too likely to have fallen for the temptation to make use of the easy option of the Boswell and Johnson touring comedy turn in Scotland, fresh from the salons of London, although Boswell did have Ayrshire background. The pity of it is that a wonderful programme could have been devised from other local sources and records from the Ayrshire of the time. They give a rich choice of readings. They run from the wonderful “Annals of the Parish” of Galt, to other sources, Mitchell, Fullarton, Aiton, Lawrie and others on society, agriculture and the changes of the period. Within the lifetime of Burns Auld Ayr had gone. Moreover the minutes and records of the Kirk, the Corporation, and the Incorporations all have a fund of material. Why did William Burnes build the cottage where he did? Who took over the cottage in 1781 after its sale to the Incorporation of Shoemakers, what were his connections, and what was he up to?

Because of our modern preconceptions, it is likely that TV would shirk the brutal realities of farming in the Ayrshire of the period. The background of the impact of instability of climate and geophysical conditions would be difficult, let alone explaining the economics and the legal and financial hindrances such as the right of the Incorporation of Fleshers in the killing of beasts. For the work of the farm, I could explain about the question of dung and manure, and the intricacies and complexities of that market, the hedge fund and futures market of its day, but it would remind me too much of the time I spent wielding shovels and buckets in the race to fertilise unwelcoming soil. Suffice it to say, that when Robert Burns became an Excise Officer, I suspect he will have been very glad to free himself from the tyranny of the dung sledge and the fees of the Fleshers.

There is an intriguing coda to all this. In Poets Corner, the South Transept of Westminster Abbey, there is a bust of Robert Burns, high on the wall, close to those of James Thomson, an earlier renowned Scots poet, author of the words to “Rule Britannia”, and William Shakespeare. Robert’s gaze is across from one corner to the other. He looks over the grave of Richard Brinsley Sheridan seemingly at the memorial to Edward Wetenhall, 1636-1713, Bishop of Ardagh and Kilmore, and previously of Cork and Ross. The conjunctions are odd you may think. It is possible to connect them all, but that is another matter.

Do Americans Care About British Soldiers?

The heading is taken from the post of August 19th by Michael Yon about the help given to rescue and treat one of our Rifles squaddies.

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/

Click on the “more” button for the full story. It is astonishing. As someone who has done duty at field HQ level in dealing with Army emergencies over half a century ago, I can only wonder at the effort and expertise involved.

Moreover, Angels really do exist, but they are down here and not up there, and very concerned with the practicalities, ladies in America who pull out all the stops.

http://www.soldiersangels.org/

There is a time when cynicism is irrelevant, and I can only state my admiration and recognition of the services and conduct of all those involved.

Yet there is nothing in the British media, nothing from our government, nothing from any of our politicians to even hint or appreciate what is being done for our injured and our families.

But thanks to Michael Yon, there are some of us that do.

Lockerbie, Politics, Policy, and Prostates.

A while ago we lived in the north of England, and I wondered why at some times there would be a great many planes headed NNW overhead, but at other times none at all. Someone explained to me that the routing of transatlantic flights could vary according to weather conditions, notably relative wind speeds in the upper atmosphere. When the Pan Am flight came down in Lockerbie I realised that some 30 to 45 minutes earlier it would have been above our town.

It may be that whoever planted the bomb, assumed that it would be on the southern route, and therefore the plane would have been over open sea in the Western Approaches when the explosion occurred. Given my own flying experience, it could have been either close to or above the southern coast of Ireland. Had that been the case, it is likely that the onus would have been on the Irish, doubtless working very closely with the American’s. The UK’s role would have been one of support and co-operation.

Twenty plus miles south of Lockerbie then it would have been an English matter. That it happened within the jurisdiction of Scots Law made everything much more complicated at the time, and since. The business of whether Al Megrahi, the person convicted by an individual process of law, might be released to die on compassionate grounds has been equally complicated. The matter has become one of those deeply unpleasant and distasteful political issues that so often disfigure our public life today.

The spectacle of a man who allegedly killed so many American citizens and others at random being cheered to the echo by a crowd in Tripoli, possibly mostly hired hoods, waving the cross of St. Andrew is a deeply unhappy. As the mess over the handling of the matter deepens what is worse is the squalid and petty argument developing between Scots in London and Edinburgh as to who is really responsible for it.

One question is just how ill is Al Megrahi? There are suggestions that he looks very well in comparison to others whose condition is said to have deteriorated to the same extent. Are the Libyan doctors about to work a miracle? If he is still up and about when the next General Election is held, and Colonel Gaddafi is offering his usual advice to UK voters, what will the electors make of it all? As far as his treatment is concerned, he has certainly had a great deal more expert attention from the NHS than usual, many can die without ever seeing a consultant.

The big question, as always, is about oil supplies. Libya is an exporter, and said to have substantial untapped reserves accessible from dry land by ordinary technology, that is at relatively low cost. The UK is no longer self sufficient, and the import needs are steadily increasing. It is also a debtor and in need of someone, anyone, with available funds to take up its sovereign debt.

So the Foreign Office did a deal with the Colonel over prisoner exchanges. Perhaps much needed, because it may well be that the Colonel wanted Megrahi back, and may have been likely to arrest a number of UK citizens to hold. Given the propensities of many UK citizens to drink too much in foreign climes, never mind doing things in public that other people do not want to see, the Colonel would have found it all too easy to round up a thousand or two weeping boozers for ransom.

The question then, was how to spring Megrahi? Unluckily, as the plane came down in Lockerbie, this rested with Edinburgh. In the urge to score points off each other, the parties involved forgot the Yanks. But the Yanks had not forgotten Lockerbie.

The right answer would have been for the USA to come to a view with the Colonel, and then propose to London and Edinburgh a way of dealing with Al Megrahi. But Brown want to have the Colonel onside for any arrangements about oil quietly, and to let Edinburgh take responsibility for a questionable release, however Edinburgh wanted a huge public relations success, but only if it really smeared London. Remember, the 2010 Election Campaign is now well under way.

Both parties now to defend themselves have to disagree with Washington DC, as well as with each other, and this is not a happy situation. Insulting Secretary Mrs. Clinton is not a sensible option, whatever the SNP thinks, and President Obama is playing an honourable straight bat, whatever Labour in London might suggest.

The Yanks, more or less, are right, and in their various ways, London and Edinburgh have made a nasty mess of it; careless of the feelings of the families, careless of the long term implications, and careless of the damage being done to the last shreds of British or Scottish credibility anywhere.

Property - Foreign Edition

In today’s Telegraph there was a tearful article from Emma Soames on the subject of her travelling problems to her second home in the Vaucluse.

Ryanair is reported to have moved many flights from Manchester Airport elsewhere because of the landing fees, and cancelled others on “economic” grounds, which means that their tight operating margins have become eroded with a range of added costs.

Here is an extract:

“Whatever you have thrown at us, we have sucked it up, because as long as we stuck to the rules – as dreamt up, and frequently changed, by yourself – our houses in France were still accessible.

I bought my mousehole, an 18th-century village house in the Vaucluse, northern Provence, two years ago. Much as I adore the region, its lavender, markets, heavenly walks in flower-surrounded vineyards, and the endlessly amusing but gravely disappointing searches for furniture in a country that has been stripped of its heritage by American decorators.

I know that bucolic rural life is not for me full time. My initial plan for my maison secondaire was to spend a week there for each of the summer months. So far, I have only managed once or twice a month for three or four days at a stretch – but it’s Ryanair flights that make it a possibility. I can fly with other airlines from other airports. But Ryanair’s presence helps bring the price of all flights down.

The harsh fact is that without Mr O’Leary, I would be mostly stuck in England. The value of the house, and the possibility of renting it out to others, would be equally poleaxed.

Which is why all second home owners should be very watchful and worried about Mr O’Leary’s latest decision. He blames airport charges for his Manchester pull-out. But if declining profitability of such routes proves to be a factor, those of us with holiday homes will need a backup.”

The tears rolled down my cheeks. The cheap landing fees enjoyed by Ryanair at many of the destinations are in fact a subsidy from the local councils at the urging of local business interests. So what happened was that as well as a few extra tourists British property price inflation was imported by second and holiday home buyers, usually at the expense of low paid local people, and often sterilising and damaging rural communities.

Ryanair in turn has benefited from the UK government approach to alleviating the costs of air travel, again at the expense of the ordinary taxpayer.

There is little doubt that if the cost of aviation fuel were to remain high or increase and other financial pressures were to force other added costs onto the aviation industry, many more low margin routes would be affected.

So how long will it be before the Telegraph starts calling for Government assistance and extra help for all the owners of second and holiday homes elsewhere?

Property - Investing And Retaining

Listed below are the people that the Labour government have helped to buy their own homes, and second, and third, and other peoples, freeholds of just about all the leaseholds, the property management services of leaseholds, and lots and lots of repossessions. Despite recent difficulties they have been able to rely on the unqualified backing of nationalised and state supported banks

To these should be added their ocean going accommodation, and interests in commercial property, such as hotels, pubs, and indirect holdings in social housing.

Added information on their overall tax commitments is also given.

Drug Barons – zero tax.

Housing benefit fraudsters – zero tax.

Money launderers – near zero tax.

Identity and passport fraudsters – zero tax.

Human traffickers in prostitution – zero tax.

Human traffickers in other forms of slave labour – zero tax.

Financiers in the UK but based in tax havens – near zero tax.

Terrorist support groups – zero tax.

Private Equity operators – near zero tax, with those buying government property paying zero tax.

Private Finance Initiative providers for government– near zero tax.

Prestige project consultants, advisers, and providers – near zero tax.

Agents and others dealing in one legged, broken winded footballers – zero tax.

Various persons dealing in three legged, broken winded horses – zero tax.

Public sector top executives and chairpersons- near zero tax.

Global company, banking, and Quango bosses – near zero tax.

Global arms dealers – zero tax.

Ministers Parliamentarians and associates – tax paid on declared incomes and expenses, of some other sources of income many will pay zero, and others near zero, apart from a small minority with unaccountable moral attitudes.

Sat Nav & GPS - The Organic Option

DNA, Genes, And All That

DNA, GENES & ALL THAT

Essentially there are three types of DNA assessment available to the public. These are:

Y Chromosome tests, which define the male line from father to son. These are used for ancestral problem solving and paternity issues; for surname studies; and for a variety of kinship groupings, tribe (clan), caste, extended families, broad ancestry etc.

Mitochondrial DNA, that defines the female line from mother to daughter. These have been used to try to estimate population movements, in that the child-bearing females are critical in population expansion. At the earlier stage of DNA testing attempts were made to identify human groupings on this basis. When Y Chromosome testing became available it was found the patterns were not the same. The debate continues.

Autosomal DNA, that is a depth examination in the 22 chromosomes other than the Y to seek the pattern of overall sources of ancestry. At 12 generations back there is a total potential of 4096 ancestors at that point for any individual. Whilst the actual figure in each case may be lower, it may well still exceed 3000. Beyond twelve generations the increase continues, probably at a lower rate. For the great majority of people beyond the very limited numbers in enclosed or highly restricted groups this implies that the total of an individuals ancestry cannot be limited to one social class, geographical area, or kinship group. For those groups or people who know that their ancestry is widely based this can help them define the major elements. But the definitions are broad in scope, entail continental groupings, and cannot distinguish between the nation states and other political entities that historically are very recently contrived.

Phases of Interest

The classification of periods and the drawing of lines at different points of time is an intellectual minefield with several dangers. One is the risk of losing sight of the woods for the trees, and another that the scheme adopted may not follow the evidence but lead to a form of analytical rigidity with the effect that findings and evidence are forced into a set mould irrespective of what the reality may be, because for particular groups and structures it is necessary to have that theoretical basis for their status, work, or to retain the integrity of their belief systems.

So a key problem in this field is that too many people can jump to conclusions, suppose grand theories on findings that are really very limited in scope, or have fixed agendas to follow from the recent past in the interpretation of data. There are also the dangers of misunderstandings leading to more serious problems. In the UK we have had major legal fiascos arising from the manipulation, gross mishandling and misinterpretation of DNA and statistical data, and this in courts where one might expect the sharpest minds to be at work on the most expert and informed evidence available.

The phases I suggest are crude lines drawn to be able to distinguish potential areas of interest and nothing more, they are not a grand historical scheme, simply marks in the sands of time. The first phase is the period from around 1700 or 1800 to the present. This is to find lost branches of known families, or lost cousins in the movement of populations around the world. For some it will as a result of the many diaspora and flights from the land, and for others to identify from whence their families came. The second is broadly the period 1100-1800 the pre-modern economy, the time of surname formation, and of the recorded history of much of Europe. The third is the Post Roman to 1100 period where the recorded history is very limited, there is a great deal of myth and legend, all too often taken literally, and a story that is becoming more complicated and indefinite as archaeology reveals more of the past.

The fourth is the period of Roman Britain and the Ice Age where the written sources are very sketchy and of doubtful reliability, but again the archaeology is becoming more complex. The fifth is the Bronze Age where there are substantial settlements, but we rely heavily on what comes out of the ground. For much of this and the earlier times the same applies to a much greater degree. We then depend on archaeology, dendrochronology, the ice cores and the many and various means of scientific analysis. The sixth, seventh and eighth phases represent the Neolithic, the Mesolithic, and the Palaeolithic, where the size of settlements is reduced as we go further back in time, and farming gives way to hunting and gathering. Again we are leaning to be less dogmatic about these matters, it seems that later hunter gathers may have had means of cultivation, and the farmers did more hunting than we have assumed.

Phase One – 1700/1800 to Now

Who on Earth am I related to? A great many people may wish to know that, although human emotions being as they are, the answer may not be welcome. A fairly near cousin who is unknown may have left his DNA at the scene of the crime, and you may be obliged to answer questions about family history about which you are sadly unclear, but if a respected and famous person is found to be one of the family that might be a happy result. Also, where did all those cousins go, and who are they? Re-uniting families can be attempted. Historically, the collation of evidence on a larger scale may lead to clarification and re-assessments of what is believed to have happened in recent history. Some of the assumptions that are made about class, social, and personal mobility have to be questioned. One thing is certain, our DNA is not our own, nor is it our private possession, we share it with others, indeed all others.

Phase Two - 1100-1800

A number of similar considerations will apply to this period of history, although broader in the scope of enquiry, and taking account of greater complexities of movement, structure, and the patterns of relationships. This will go beyond families and considerations of existing national boundaries, many of which are historically quite recent in inception. One area is surnames.

If anyone wishes to have a surname group study it is possible, but does rely on enough people to be willing to give samples. Sometimes it suggests common close ancestry, and sometimes not. We have to be aware that surnames have come into use in Europe only in the last thirty or fewer generations, and that the fixing of those names and spelling can be recent, for example Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and Battenberg’s becoming Windsor’s in 1917, despite the protests of the holder of that ancient title. If the findings suggest a common pattern amongst a large enough proportion of the sample, this could point to a degree of relationship, and perhaps nature of distant origin in broad terms.

What it might be in detail is another matter. If many Macdonald’s seem to have common male origins, this does not mean that the “Somerled” gene has been found. We do not have his DNA, and too many questions arise. One is that we cannot be sure where the early males who left most surviving progeny came from, and the exact pattern of relationships at the time. In the millennium 1000 to 2000 AD, there are still a great many uncertainties and complications concerning human demographic growth and movement.

So who my ancestor in the male line may have been in the last thousand years is arguable. He may have been a trader who never went back. Perhaps he was one of the many foreign mercenaries recruited by one or other of the Warlords down the millennia, or even a travelling friar prone to human temptations. He may even have been in the Atlantic Isles immediately after the last Ice Age. What the DNA will begin to suggest if enough samples are found for analysis is who some of my distant cousins might be, and this will narrow the number of possibilities. In any event by this stage the potential number of the ancestors is very large indeed. If a person has found one or more members of the elite groups by the 16th or 17th Century, the chances are that by 1100 almost all the then elite will appear in the family tree, as one commentator has put it, half the population or more will have King William I, The Conqueror of 1066, in their ancestry.

Phase Three – Post Roman to 1100

In this period, roughly taking in “The Dark Ages” we have very few documents, and while some of these may refer to other peoples and groups they have to be approached with a great deal of care as their information is often distant in sources, loose in description, generalised, and far from being impartial. Yet a great deal of historical writing and theorising has imposed perceived structures of population and the analysis of archaeological research since the Renaissance on these shaky foundations. Because little is available, and is written by men of religion, it does not mean that we can place greater reliance on it.

Whilst we have learned to change our minds about much in science, astronomy, and medicine, in terms of the demographic issues in History there still exists a substantial vested interest in past theoretical structures and the classification of information. Giraldus Cambriensis (Gerald of Wales), of Norman Welsh immediate descent, may be an attractive writer and persuasive in his prose, but this does not make him a reliable commentator. That another cousin of the same family, Maurice Fitz Gerald, was the progenitor of the large Irish Clan of Fitzgerald, does not make his ancestry Irish.

In the third phase my father’s forefather could be an Icelander, the Sagas etc, a Pict, one of the Irish based Viking raiders that rowed up the Severn in the 890’s, a Norseman, a Gotlander, a Frieslander, a Dane, or a Saxon or any one of quite a few other things. The Haplogroup of my male DNA is found across Europe, into the Balkans, with scatterings further beyond. There were some settled in Transylvania and the Balkans, and a few of them arrived in the Scottish Borders and the West Midlands as Dacians and others recruited by The Roman Empire. It is found in Afghanistan, albeit a minority and beyond.

The idea of my forebear being some kind of Siegfried waving his sword about, or a bold Viking doing the usual things has attractions for many. The majority of my personal ancestry by 1600 probably is Scots, and they have their own ideas, some conditioned by the terms of the Scots Declaration of Arbroath of 1320. This claims “expulsis primo Britonibus et Pictis omnio deletis,” which, however translated, gives a survivor of the 20th Century a very queasy feeling. The references to Norwegians, Danes, and Angles suggest that they were not welcome economic migrants. Also, it is addressed as submission to a Pope in Avignon then currently engaged on a major Crusade against his local Jews in southern France, eliminating any who he considered to be dissidents, conniving at the sale of heretics as slaves in Islam, and burning and pursuing the fleeing Franciscan Scholar followers of John Duns Scotus, who may well have come from Dunwich in Suffolk, where an East Anglian Scott family was prominent. So what I might like to have as an ancestor, who I did have, and their personal habits and actions may be different things.

Phase Four - Roman Britain & The Iron Age

But what were Vikings, Saxons and others before these labels were applied? The few writings of the period we have inherited are anything but clear, and modern archaeology is suggesting that what went on in the settlements was quite complicated. Similarly the story of the Roman and the immediate earlier period is becoming much more complex, there is scanty written information, and the naming and characterisation of the peoples and tribes encountered beyond the Imperial fief is vague and loose. A real problem is that this information from the Classical Period has had a major impact since the Renaissance, with again too much trust placed on too few sources. Before then in Northern and Western Europe we have only the findings of archaeology and the application of science. This has developed so rapidly in the last three decades, that much of the theorising and the ideology of historians, antiquarians, and eugenists made in the period 1700-1970, that is still imposed in many academic circles and in groups myths of origin has to be discarded. But the imposition of old theories and systems are difficult to shake off. My preference is to use the simple term “early peoples” until a great deal more is known.

Just who were the Germanii, the Goths, Visigoths, Vandals and others? How do these earlier groupings fit in to the pattern? Then, there are the Celts, an alleged all conquering Master Race eliminating native populations, presumably by the usual methods. If they were not this, and there are grounds for thinking that matters were much more complicated, are we using this term as a catch-all that has been assumed as a racial theory? Given the movement question then it begs the question of whether many of the later Saxons, Franks and Gauls were just another type of “Celt”. If there are serious difficulties in the analysis of the Iron Age and the later Bronze Age then in the times before it is necessary to be come even more careful and less dogmatic or wedded to an 18th Century and 19th Century methodology. The belief in Britain and Ireland by many that the “Celts” wiped out the previous populations to become the only Pre-Roman race in these territories is a sub-set of the early theories of an Aryan master race, and consequently has to be approached with a very critical eye.

We may have begun to learn a great deal from the benefits of the applications of science in terms of the food they ate, the metals they used, the way they built their houses and farmed, and other things. But we can only speculate about the languages they spoke, the gods they worshipped, their belief systems, how they saw themselves, or how they regarded their history. We can be surer that they knew mathematics and the way of the stars in the sky, but less so about the purpose. For myself, my ancestry is likely to be amongst all or any of them.

The Early Four Phases – The Bronze, Neolithic, Mesolithic and Palaeolithic Periods

In the early, called pre-historic times, the early Iron Age, the Bronze Age, the Neolithic, the Mesolithic and the long Palaeolithic there is no documentation for much of Europe, as well as other parts of the world. There are remains in the Mediterranean Basin, the Near and the Far East that give us an insight into language, society, and the economy of a number of peoples. In Britain and Europe in the mid 19th Century the rediscovery of the ancient world of the Near East beyond the time of the Greeks and Romans, and the decipherment of their languages with the accompanying information from these earlier societies took a long time to find acceptance. This was because whole systems of belief, theology, and the myths of peoples rested on only what had been known, and for many solely in the history recorded in The Bible. So there was denial, and the attempt to insist on fitting every finding into an existing theoretical structure.

But elsewhere only what is found and reclaimed from the soil and the scientific analysis and classification of those findings is available to us. In the last thirty years, new developments, new methods, and new science have transformed much of the dating and analysis of discoveries, and of past findings. The DNA research is attempting to provide, if not an answer, at least a means of addressing some of the issues of human occupation.

Inevitably, in the analysis of human DNA from existing populations there is a debate, with a divide between those who want to prove the continuing validity of the early theories of race and descent, and those who feel that these are inadequate or plain wrong as an explanation of the development of modern humanity.

For the lands beyond the Atlantic, now the Americas, the “New World” seems to be becoming much older than anticipated, and more complex, and illustrative of some of the problems. As the Ice Sheet covered much of North America the initial theories that became established were that the settlement of The America’s originated only after the Last Ice Age with migrants from North East Asia across a previous land bridge and later the Bering Strait who made their way south over many generations. In the USA now there are groups who have claimed the description of Indigenous People and who bitterly oppose any findings or attempt to research or reconsider any further past. Alongside them is an academic establishment alarmed that matters might be more complicated, and that there were both earlier and other peoples. So there are moves to suppress work that could challenge these beliefs. Also, little attempt was made to find anything from earlier periods because it was assumed that there was nothing to find, or to look for other peoples because the theory said they did not exist, much in the way that the concept of the circulation of the blood was once disregarded by the most learned physicians, and of course, we all know that theoretically it is impossible for bees to fly.

Coda

Given that the Ice Sheet came down to what is now the English Midlands, my male ancestor may have just stayed where he was and changed with the times or have come from one of many places. Where he may have been and what form of life he adopted, can only be guessed at. There was one of my name transported to America for theft in the early 18th Century. He would have felt that he had been sent to the ends of the Earth. But when he arrived there he would have found a local tribe in the vicinity, and he would have recognised the name.