Interesting piece on genetics of inhabitants of the British Isles
Seems that most can trace genes to a population that predates the Normans, the Anglo-Saxons, even the Celts.
A United Kingdom? Maybe - New York Times
Nurture vs Nature
Further: it would be interesting to track timing of Celts (brought agriculture?) to the Black Sea Flood of about 7,500 BC
To which we can add comments from
A Life In Books: Harold Bloom: Newsweek Periscope - MSNBC.com
"MY FIVE MOST IMPORTANT BOOKS
Shakespeare, the complete works. I won't say he "invented" us, because journalists perpetually misunderstand me on that. I'll put it more simply: he contains us. Our ways of thinking and feeling—about ourselves, those we love, those we hate, those we realize are hopelessly "other" to us—are more shaped by Shakespeare than they are by the experience of our own lives.
"The Canterbury Tales" by Geoffrey Chaucer. He gives us human beings in the round; human beings that are more than simply names upon the page. With almost every contemporary novel, the characters are names upon the page.
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