Take a look at the regions of Europe that had the greatest genetic influence on the people of the U.K.
New research from geneticists and historians at Oxford University uses DNA analysis to identify patterns of immigration from Europe to the U.K. The DNA of longtime British residents—those from family lines that have been in the U.K. since the 19th century—tells a story of the influence of the French, Germans, Danish, and Scandinavian on people in the U.K. today.
The study, which published this week in Nature, analyzed the DNA of more than 2,000 U.K. individuals whose grandparents were born less than 80 km apart in rural Britain. By searching for commonly occurring variations in subjects’ genetic code, the researchers were able to pinpoint geographic regions of genetic similarity. Here’s a map showing the groups they identified:
The fine-scale genetic structure of the British population
Stephen Leslie, Bruce Winney, Garrett Hellenthal, Dan Davison, Abdelhamid Boumertit, Tammy Day, Katarzyna Hutnik, Ellen C. Royrvik, Barry Cunliffe, Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium 2, International Multiple Sclerosis Genetics Consortium, Daniel J. Lawson, Daniel Falush, Colin Freeman, Matti Pirinen, Simon Myers, Mark Robinson, Peter Donnelly & Walter Bodmer
Abstract: Fine-scale genetic variation between human populations is interesting as a signature of historical demographic events and because of its potential for confounding disease studies. We use haplotype-based statistical methods to analyse genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data from a carefully chosen geographically diverse sample of 2,039 individuals from the United Kingdom. This reveals a rich and detailed pattern of genetic differentiation with remarkable concordance between genetic clusters and geography. The regional genetic differentiation and differing patterns of shared ancestry with 6,209 individuals from across Europe carry clear signals of historical demographic events. We estimate the genetic contribution to southeastern England from Anglo-Saxon migrations to be under half, and identify the regions not carrying genetic material from these migrations. We suggest significant pre-Roman but post-Mesolithic movement into southeastern England from continental Europe, and show that in non-Saxon parts of the United Kingdom, there exist genetically differentiated subgroups rather than a general ‘Celtic’ population.
Keywords: Population genetics
Nature 519, 309–314 (19 March 2015)
Copyright © 2015, Rights Managed by Nature Publishing Group
DOI: 10.1038/nature14230 nature.com