Through a Black Hole into Parallel Universes
- 18 December 2020
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Brill in Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia
- Vol. 26 (2), 413-424
- https://doi.org/10.1163/15700577-12341383
Abstract
The Anglo-Saxon immigration of the 5th-6th centuries AD led to a dual contact situation in the British Isles: with the native inhabitants of the settlement areas in south-eastern England (internal contact zone), and with the Celtic polities outside the Anglo-Saxon areas (external contact zone). In the internal contact zone, social and ethnogenetic processes resulted in a complete acculturation of the natives by the 9th century. By contrast, the external contact zone between Anglo-Saxon and Celtic polities resulted in a cultural and linguistic split right across the British Isles up to the 7th century, and arguably well beyond. The cultural boundary between these two domains became permeable in the 7th century as a consequence of Anglo-Saxon Christianization which created a northern communication zone characterized by a distinct art style (Insular Art). In the early medieval British Isles, contact resulting from migration did not lead to cultural exchange for about two centuries, and it took profound ideological and social changes to establish a basis for communication.Keywords
This publication has 4 references indexed in Scilit:
- The fine-scale genetic structure of the British populationNature, 2015
- Anglo-Saxon Immigration and EthnogenesisMedieval Archaeology, 2011
- Evidence for an apartheid-like social structure in early Anglo-Saxon EnglandProceedings. Biological sciences, 2006
- A Y Chromosome Census of the British IslesCurrent Biology, 2003