Re: French genetics

At 5:46 pm -0500 28/10/98, John Cowan wrote:
>Josh Brandt-Young wrote:
.......
>>  If so, what happened to all
>> the Romans living there?
>
>You mean Romanized Gauls.  These make up the bulk of the French
>stock, in all probability.
Yep - but by the time our friend Julius C. Caesar added the three Gauls to
the Roman Empire, the Romans themselves had become pretty mixed - nor were
the Celts all of the same stock at that time.

>> In the same vein, where did the Normans come from?
>
>Again, there is a thin overlay of Nordics, but the bulk of
>Normans are the same stock as the rest of France.
>
>Short of ancient DNA samples, there's no working all this out
>in detail, because there are no "pure stocks" anywhere: all are
>a result of mixing and remixing and re-remixing.
Producing a delightful blend - just like French cuisine  :)

And at 6:50 am -0800 29/10/98, Josh Brandt-Young wrote:
.......
>One more question along the same lines: when Duke William of Normandy
>took over England in 1066, would his men have been of ancestry as mixed
>as what you just described, or were they purer Nordics?
Hardly, or they'd have been speaking Old Norse.  The fact that they brought
Norman French to this island where, as AngloNorman, it was the official
language of England for the next 3 centuries, surely suggests Duke William
(certainly not a thoroughbred) brought over mixed ancentry Normans.

Ray.