Immigrants ‘pushed out the earliest Britons’

NO ONE living in Britain is truly British, scientists have said, after finding that the builders of Stonehenge were nearly totally replaced by European immigrants.

DNA analysis conducted on hundreds of prehistoric skeletons suggests that neolithic farmers responsible for building Stonehenge and other stone monuments were almost completely displaced by the immigrants. Over a period of several hundred years the newcomers, known as the Beaker people due to their characteristic pottery, took over the British Isles and stamped their genetic identity on the population.

Prof Ian Armit, from the University of Bradford, said: “The analysis shows pretty conclusively that migration of the Beaker people into Britain was more intense and on a larger scale than anyone had previously thought.

“Britain essentially has a whole new population after that period. We still don’t know for sure what caused such a rapid genetic turnover – the available evidence doesn’t necessarily suggest a violent invasion. There might have been environmental problems which caused a population decline among the indigenous population, or the Beaker migrants could have brought new diseases with them.”

The study, looking at DNA from 400 skeletons from across Europe, appears in the latest edition of Nature.