The genetic history of Britain——Who do you think you are?
英国的基因史：你认为自己是谁?
An analysis of Britons' genes confirms some myths and explodes others
对英国人基因的一项分析论证了神话中的虚与实
THE waves of invasion and immigration that have, from time to time, swept over the British Isles have led some to refer to Britons as a mongrel nation. A study just published in Nature by Peter Donnelly of Oxford University and his colleagues shows there is some truth in this, and that the palimpsest of those events is visible in people's genes—or, at least, that it was still discernible in the late 19th century.
外部入侵与移民浪潮时常席卷不列颠群岛，因此，有人将英国称为混血国。牛津大学教授彼得·多纳利与其同事在《自然》杂志上刚发表了一项研究，该研究表明：混血国的说法有一定的真实性，并且这些风云变幻的历史在人们的基因中有所体现(或者，至少在19世纪晚期依然可辨)。
Dr Donnelly's team looked in detail at the DNA of 2,039 Britons from all parts of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, each of whose grandparents had all been born within 80km of each other. They thus, in effect, sampled the distribution of genetic material in the country in 1885 (the average year of the birth of these grandparents), before the large-scale internal population movements of the 20th century had had a chance to confuse the issue. The results divided into 17 genetic clusters, illustrated on the map, which form a pattern that conforms quite well with what an historian might have predicted, but with some interesting wrinkles.
多纳利博士的研究团队对来自大不列颠岛和北爱尔兰岛各个地域的2039名英国人基因进行了详细研究，研究对象的祖父母均出生在距离对方80公里以内的地方。20世纪国内人口出现大规模流动，因此，该团队实际抽取了英国1885年(研究对象祖父母平均出生的年份)的基因材料作为样本分析，以防止出现失真的情况。研究结果分为17个基因群，其分布情况与一位历史学家的预测完全一致，但同时存在一些有趣的难题。
The map is dominated by a DNA cluster that might reasonably be described as “English”. Comparison with continental Europe shows, as might be expected, that this English cluster is related to northern Germany, where the Anglo-Saxons came from—though the admixture is less than 50%, which indicates (again, as expected) that there was much interbreeding between interlopers and natives.
可合理称之为“英格兰人”的基因群在地图上的分布数量最多。对照欧洲大陆后发现，正如所料，此基因群与安格鲁-撒克逊人的来源地德国北部相关联。混血基因范围不到一半，但这(再次如其所料)表明入侵者与本土人之间出现大量通婚现象。
Others kept themselves to themselves. Yorkshire men and women will be gratified to note that the west of their county clusters separately from the rest of England, and Lancastrians similarly horrified that Yorkshire's tendrils extend into much of theirs. Cornwall, too, clusters separately from England. Indeed, as all good Cornish would have suspected, it clusters separately even from Devon (which is itself also genetically different from England).
而其他地域只是内部通婚。约克郡男女得知英国西部的基因群不同于英格兰其他地区后会满心欢喜，而兰开夏郡人则为约克郡人的触手深入自己的地盘感到万分惊骇。康沃尔(英格兰西南部)的基因群也不同于英格兰。的确如此，该郡的基因群甚至不同于德文郡(其基因亦与英格兰不同)，这一点一直为善良的康尔沃人所怀疑。
The whole so-called Celtic fringe, of areas in the west and north of Great Britain that were not invaded by the Saxons, is far more genetically diverse than its mythopoeic appellation suggests. Orkney, which has three clusters of its own, looks Norse. That is no surprise. It was, after all, part of Norway for 600 years. But north and south Wales are different from each other, and mainland Scotland has several clusters (two of which—a consequence, presumably, of the 17th-century plantations organized by King James VI and I—extend into Northern Ireland). The marcher lands between England and Scotland, and between England and Wales, harbor still further indigenous clusters.
所谓的凯尔特郡边缘地带整体包括萨克逊人未曾侵入的大不列颠西部和北部地区，其基因多样性远多于其神话时代名称所指的数量。自身分布有三个基因群的奥克尼郡极像挪威。这不足以为奇。它毕竟在挪威的统治下600年。但威尔士南北部互不相同，同时，苏格兰本土分布着几个基因群(其中两个据推测为17世纪詹姆斯国王一世和六世组织种植园的结果，并蔓延至北爱尔兰)。英格兰分别与苏格兰、威尔士的接界处还分布有土著基因群。
The original Celts occupied a huge swathe of western Europe before the Roman conquest, so perhaps this diversity is not so surprising after all. Indeed, Dr Donnelly's analysis found traces of genetic connections throughout the land with modern Belgium (which is named after a Celtic tribe, the Belgae) and various parts of France—or Gaul, as the Romans knew it. He did not, though, find any traces of the Vikings beyond those in Orkney, even though they held sway for some time over the eastern part of England. Maybe their fearsome reputation for uninvited sexual congress with local maidens was yet another myth.
土著凯尔特人在罗马人征服英国之前占有欧洲西部的大片区域，因此，基因存在多样性也许是情理之中的事情。确实，多纳利博士经此次分析认为，有迹象表明该地区与现今比利时(该名取自凯尔特地区的贝尔格族)以及法国多个地区—罗马人所熟知的高卢—存在基因关联。然而，尽管维京人在一段时间内统治英格兰东部地区，但除奥克尼以外，他没有发现维京人的其他任何迹象。或许，他们与当地少女私下交配这一可怕的名声还是另一个谜。
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