Who are the indigenous people in the UK?

Question

I have seen lots of questions on here that refer to an "indigenous" people living in the UK, mostly in relation to immigration.
Given that people have migrated to and from the UK for thousands of years, who exactly does the word "Indigenous" refer to in relation to people in the UK?
For example, my parents were born in London, my mothers parents were Irish and my father can trace his family back to the Huguenots, so am I "indigenous" to the UK?
Do immigrants become indigenous if they stay here long enough?

Answer 1

Technically it's the Welsh and the Cornish who moved West when Julius Caesar and the boys decided to visit. Not to mention the Picts and Scots who one of JC's successors Hadrian built a wall to keep out. After that it was party time with Angles, Saxons, French and whoever coming to say hello.

Answer 2

Hi There's an awful lot of misinformation here in some of the answers I've read to this question. Some one even suggested the true English were the Scots and Irish this is complete rubbish.
I have a book called the Celtic Empire which is the history of the CELTS. The book states that the original Celtic homeland was in Central Europe covering the areas Belgium, France and yet once again Germany. From there a gradual migration into Britain and Ireland and other parts of Europe took place. Even then there were two distinct groups of Celts in Britain speaking different forms of the Celtic Language. 'Brythonic' basically Welsh and Cornish. 'Goidelic' Irish, Gaelic and Manx. Prior to the Celts ( I believe) were the Beaker people so called because of the type of pottery they left behind. Though I'm not certain if these were also of Celtic origin or a different people entirely

Answer 3

Indigenous British

Answer 4

A good resource to look at is the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain project. There is a very good book called "Homo Brittanicus" by Chris Stringer, based on the work of AHOB, which looks at the evidence going back over hundreds of thousands of years for the human habitation of Britain. This shows that over this very long period which has been interspersed with ice ages and land links with continental Europe Britain has been occupied, and then abandoned, or the humans living here died out, several times over.
There has been Continual occupation of Britain only for probably the last 12,000 years. So what then does indigenous really mean, if the original occupants of this country died before the last ice age?
The human race has travelled continually across the globe and back again for hundreds of thousands of years. No community anywhere except perhaps the last few remaining tribes people in the amazon, the highlands of Indonesia etc can really say that they are the original people of any place because of the constant flow of sexual interaction between the peoples of the world.
It is nonsense to say that you are of definite Celtic stock or that you are a roman or such like because we are all of us all those things. If you could trace your ancestry back far enough you might find that you are related to Julius Caesar, but this would be meaningless because in fact most of the population probably is.
In the end "Indigenous" can only mean the group of people living in the area before the new group got there.

Answer 5

Mmm, an puzzling question illustrated by all of the answers above, i.e. we have been invaded and colonised by most civilisations this side of the indian ocean over the last 10,000 odd years or so, BUT someone previously pointed out that technically the first settlers could be thought to have been 'indigenous'.
Many might think the Celts, but they wandered over from eastern europe or possibly asia, and the others mentioned such as the saxons and the britons are all from germany and france respectively.
Someone pointed out that the welsh and the cornish are possibly the closest we have to indigenous people; certainly if language is any indication, this could well be true.
One culture that does not have any such lingistic milestone existant are the picts. They would be most likely to be considered the indigenous people 'north of the border', as they predate both the irish and viking invaders in the 8/9th centuries.
Unfortunately, little or nothing is known of their language, save for some place names and surnames, and much of their art only exists as carved symbols; beautiful but elusive in their purpose and meaning.
Several linguistic scholars have linked all three of these ancient 'indigenous' languages as having many features in common, and in some respects, can see development from one to another. Having tried to digest some of the reading matter available on this subject, I have to say that a fair amount of the material does seem to be based on conjecture and very little on (scarce) evidence. Understandable, I suppose.
So, in answer to the question 'Do immigrants become indigenous if they stay here long enough?', the answer is a vague 'maybe', in that the word 'indigenous' isn't really
relevant any more when applied to a country with as diverse a history of immigration as the UK/GB.
The original question of ' Who are the indigenous people in the UK?' could be simplified by substituting the word 'are' for 'were', as this would make it easier to answer!
In terms of who has the right to call themselves 'British', that does seem to be a contentious issue. My personal view would be that it should be whomever is born here and has lived a substantial part of their life here... but that opinion is by no means cast in stone. I'm certain there are people in circumstances that would prove me wrong, or in a situation that I haven't considered.
Hope this helps...
G.

Answer 6

The UK has been hit with so many waves of immigration over thousands of years, that there are probably not any people alive now who could be called purely indigenous. Obviously the Angles, Saxons and Jutes settled on the eastern and southern coasts of Britain after the Romans left, before that there was a Celtic speaking population who seem to have been smaller, darker haired with a fair percentage of ginger genes. Then another Celtic speaking population arrived from Ireland into Western Scotland and replaced the Britonic Celtic language (Pictish) with Gaelic there. Before the Celts arrived however, there were already people in Britain. The Celts of Europe were described by the Romans as being red/fair haired and big, which suggests the relative smallness and brown hair of Pre-Anglo-Saxon Britons was a characteristic of Pre-Celtic immigrants. I have seen various reports over the last few years about ancient British immigration and genetics, mainly from the BBC, and one of these said the Celtic fringe of the British isles had more in common with Spain/Basques than northern Europe. Also the likes of Stonehenge weren't built by Celts, they only came to Britain a few hundred years BC, and these monuments are much older.
You don't become indigenous by staying longer, but obviously many people who's ancestors mainly turned up about 1500 years ago consider themselves indigenous. To confuse matters even more, probably there are lots of people descended from other immigrants hundreds of years ago such as Romans and associated people (the Roman army and accompanying merchants etc. weren't 100% Italian), Danes, Normans, other Vikings, Jews etc. And who knows what language the Britons spoke before the Celts arrived.
You're probably as British as most people, and chances are you have an ancestor that lived in Britain before the Angles and Saxons arrived. And even if you don't, nobody should be trying to prove they are more British than you.

Answer 7

people that can trace there roots back to the Anglo Saxons or beyond are surely the indigenous people living at present in the UK. I suppose the descendants of modern day immigrants sometime in the future would eventually be classed as indigenous to the UK,probably that will be when we are all fully interbred with each other
Failing all that then the word indigenous should be struck from the English language because there's no country were the inhabitants have been there since the word dot

Answer 8

The first recorded people, Ancient Britains here through the stone age, bronze age and iron age. Had a passsion for blue makeup.

Pushed into Wales, Scotland, Cornwall, Ireland and known a the Celts.

Next Romans

then Vikings,

then Angles, Saxons & Jutes all from Central Europe around Germany.

1066 Normans

Thats the lot, I think.

Answer 9

The UK has White European indigenous people. It has been this way since it was first inhabited, other races have had a mild influence on it genetically, these being mainly from other white European races. The indigenous population represents the people who originally inhabited the country. If the majority of your genetic makeup is related to these people you have indigenous UK heritage. People who migrate here can never be indigenous as the are not connected to the original race that lived here. They can be accepted into modern Britain and be part of it's future but can never be indigenous. That would be like suggesting white migrants to Australia who have lived there for hundreds of years can claim to be indigenous. The indigenous people of Australia will always be the Aborigines no matter what new races have migrated to the country.

Answer 10

The evolution of mankind originates from Africa, this has been theorised for decades and proven of late by DNA. I am Cornish and therefore of Celtic decent. There is a romantic notion of the Celts being the oldest surviving "nationality" in the UK, however, what people fail to remember is that the Celts themselves were largely nomadic/expanding group of peoples; a melting pot of a number of pan European and eastern Asian "nationalities" hence the swarthy complexions for starters. The Celts came to the "UK" and returned to the continent on numerous occasions and were finally driven to the extremities (Ireland, Cornwall, Wales, Isle of Man, Scotland, Brittany etc) by the Romans. The Scots similarly were subject to many visits from our Scandinavian neighbours.

Ultimately for as longs as human kind has had the ability to migrate, we have done so. Always moving on in search of richer hunting/fishing/gathering grounds and later farm land, either by peaceful means or forcefully. Neanderthal are currently believed to be the starting of point man kind, for a while co-existing with and eventually superseded by Cro-Magnon. Both made it into Europe, and so may well have made it to the UK, if this is the case I guess they are the true indigenous people.



A thought that has just occured to me, a mile up the road from me (Carn Brea, Cornwall) is the site of what has been archaeologically proven to to date the first village in the whole of Europe. It is a settlement of a series of round houses dated approximately 3700 BC (stone age), so I guess in terms of civilised and organised peoples, this must make them Cornish at least!

Answer 11

IT''S a fact the WELSH are the indigenous people of this Island, but as usual the english nation of today can't let it rest .They didn't arrive until 1066 and were known as anglo saxons.