Ertach Kernow - Cornwall’s ancient past and its evolving peoples
The Cornish tin industry was represented at the Newquay St Piran’s parade with a large cardboard engine house carried by children. This helped demonstrate that something of Cornwall’s industrial past is being shared in schools and what a fun way to show it. There was also a large chough and the significance of that would have been part of making it. They were lovely to see.
Although Cornwall’s landscape is widely covered with engine houses, it wasn’t until the coming of the industrial age and steam engines in the 18th century that these were constructed. It is perhaps those that lie close to the cliff tops that are the most enigmatic leading to questions about the tunnels spreading out underneath the ocean. Long ago before the seas we see now crashing against our current day coastline the continental shelf beyond our current shores stretched out tens of miles with vast resources contained within lay above the ocean. No doubt one day mining under the ocean using submersibles, an extension of our 19th century miners tunnelling beneath Cornwall’s roiling seas will become commonplace.
As always click the images for larger view
Much archaeology relating to the earlier Stone Ages of the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods now lies beneath the ocean following the rises in sea levels over 8,000 years ago. There have been some finds in Cornwall but most of Cornwall’s ancient monuments date to the Neolithic, late Stone Age period. The Neolithic saw the introduction of farming and animal husbandry and it was these peoples who built many of the ancient monuments still seen here in Cornwall and beyond. This was a time when the natural climate of Britain was some two degrees warmer than today and areas on Bodmin Moor around Rough Tor were being farmed. Those who enjoy walking on the moors will have seen the remains of huts and field enclosures. This was also a period when Cornwall was much more wooded, very different from today as one of the least forested parts of Britain.
There then came a period of great change with new peoples coming to Britain. Recent DNA studies now prove that the existing population of Britain was subsumed by what is known as the Beaker folk with their Bell-Beaker culture. They are named after their bell-shaped type of pottery these people produced and found all over Europe. Bell Beaker peoples came from Europe displacing some ninety percent of the indigenous Neolithic population of Britain. In 2019 there was a fantastic discovery during building work in Crantock. Archaeologists uncovered a small slate lines cist which contained two substantially intact Beaker vessels. Another intact Beaker vessel was also recovered from the site. Discoveries such as these are rare here in Cornwall and help illustrate that Beaker folk had a slighter cultural impact on Cornwall, perhaps not reaching here in large numbers. This also had the
It has been suggested that these incoming peoples had less effect in what would become Cornwall leaving around eighty percent of Cornish people with certain ancient DNA markers which differ from elsewhere in Britain. Very recent research shows that Britain’s ancient peoples were darker skinned and this has left a residual effect on people in some areas like Cornwall where migration had a lesser effect on the population.
Cornwall no doubt had a great effect on the production of copper during the short period known as the Chalcolithic or Copper Age. This age followed the gradual end of the Neolithic and the increased use of copper tools. However, copper although easy to work is a relatively soft metal and in due course after a period of what is believed to be under two hundred years gave way to bronze. The start of the Bronze Age saw two metals copper and tin mixed in a ratio of about ten to one creating an alloy for tools and weapons much stronger than its constituent elements. Although there was substantial copper mining in North Wales it was in Cornwall and Devon that tin was found in greatest quantities in Europe.
The Bronze Age saw the beginning of the construction of hillforts, although some earlier late Neolithic stone enclosures can still be seen on Bodmin Moor and elsewhere in Cornwall. These hillforts and other sites of habitation would later be extended and reused by later peoples of the Iron Age. During this period a number of what we now term cliff castles were built as folk who carried out fishing around estuaries established themselves. The remnants of one of the finest can still be seen at Trevelgue Head at Porth in Newquay.
With today’s growing interest in Cornish identity and the resurgence of language and culture there is greater interest in what might be termed Celtic connections. The DNA evidence showing the earliest markers still existing within the genome of Cornish peoples helps prove changes in culture does not necessarily mean that earlier populations are eradicated. New ideas and ways of living are gradually embraced as Beaker culture evolved with the arrival of what we now term Celtic peoples and their culture.
The geneticist and author Professor Stephen Oppenheimer points out in his ‘The Origins of the British’ that most people believe the aboriginal people of the Anglo-Celtic Isles were Celts. This is clearly not so with more than one wave of immigration including the Beaker folk. Various theories have been expounded over the decades questioning ‘who were the Celts?’ There were the classical Celts written about by Herodotus the 5th century Greek historian naming them Keltoi. Connection between them and those peoples we now name as Celtic is less likely, the name borrowed in more recent centuries by 17th century linguist Edward Lhuyd who first used the term to describe this language group in 1707.
For some time the primary theory was the movement of Celtic culture from central and eastern Europe. More recently this has been challenged with the ‘Celtic from the West’ theory. This hypothesis is being supported by Professor Sir Barry Cunliffe emeritus professor of European Archaeology at Oxford University an expert on early Britain. Cunliffe has written extensively about the origins of the Celtic peoples including in his ‘Britain Begins’.
When trying to unravel the mystery of the peoples we now name Celts a range of tools are being used and the results debated. This obviously includes archaeology which considers artefacts such as pottery sherds and personal ornamentation. Then there is the language as linguists work to resolve the evolution of the various modern Celtic languages back to their proto-Celtic form. Perhaps the ever-growing knowledge, following completion of the Human Genome Project, is in further understanding DNA which is providing more answers. A branch of genetic research known as ‘Ancient DNA’ (aDNA) is revolutionising the study of ancient peoples, solving health issues that persist in humans today such as throwbacks to our Neanderthal ancestors. Most people have around two percent Neandertal DNA.
For the Cornish people the acknowledgement and recognition of them as a national ethnic minority in 2014 was an important event. Huge numbers of Cornish people will have some quantity of DNA markers back to ancient times linked to Cornwall within their genetic makeup. That’s wonderful, but there’s no doubt other markers will show many different national input from around Europe. Yes, recent DNA research has shown that that Cornish folk with a long family history of living in Cornwall do differ from those in England, even as close as Devon, it’s not a Celtic gene. The likelihood is that poor roads and access to the far west of Cornwall over centuries led to isolation and marriage between those living in nearby communities. It was Daniel Defoe who in the early 18th century wrote ‘That all the Cornish gentlemen are cousins’, this would naturally apply lower down the social ladder as well. From personal research people I have known most of my life have turned out to be distant cousins.
Although there is no specific ‘Celtic gene’ and no ancient Cornish DNA connection with the peoples of Scotland, Ireland or Wales many people will have some input from those nations from more recent generations. We must also remember that at one time virtually the whole of Britain spoke the Brythonic Celtic language now just spoken in Wales and Cornwall. Most indigenous English people will have many of the markers from ancient times that match those of Cornish and other Celtic peoples. However the input of Germanic DNA from Anglo-Saxon invasions has had a far greater effect on the population of England.
Here in Cornwall as the population evolves with more people coming from England to live here it’s important to keep our language, dialect and cultural differences alive as well as telling our Cornish history. Cornwall’s Cornish cultural heritage is what really makes us unique and a Celtic nation.
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