10th February 2009, 11:59 AM
Hi Oddie - I don't go for this 'all of our ancestors' argument. Even kicking out the old Iron Age invasion hypotheses we know that the Romans inter-married with Britons, as did practically every other European group they brought over to serve as auxiliaries. In the last century thousands of Italian ex-PoW settled here after WWII, plus the Windrush West Indian immigrations of the 50's, the Indian sub continent immigrations of the 70's and 80's, and a million smaller family sized immigrations from all over Europe on a pretty constant basis from the year dot (including, apparently, your ancestor the Amesbury Archer).
So when you say 'all of our ancestors' are our immigrant populations from the last few thousand years included? Or do you mean the white supposedly Anglo Saxon population from Schleswig Holstein region? Or perhaps the Normans, who arrived from Norway, via Frannce?
It just that if you are limiting your definition of 'our' to Btitons who can trace their ancestry to the Bronze Age and beyond, then good luck - there are almost certainly a great deal of us - but without large scale genetic testing (and to put the cat amongst the pigeons, possibly even with genetic testing) you aren't going to find us. And even if you do, you still can't equate your own essentially modern belief system to whatever your ancestors believe in. I'm actually in favour or responsible reburial, not out of any religious belief - I don't have any - but out of respect, and if it does go ahead on any scale, I would expect a neutral service, or even more respectful, no service at all.
Or perhaps you meant 'all our ancestors' in a more encompassing fashion, including the whole brotherhood of man, in which case, are you going to try to get mummies sent home too?
So when you say 'all of our ancestors' are our immigrant populations from the last few thousand years included? Or do you mean the white supposedly Anglo Saxon population from Schleswig Holstein region? Or perhaps the Normans, who arrived from Norway, via Frannce?
It just that if you are limiting your definition of 'our' to Btitons who can trace their ancestry to the Bronze Age and beyond, then good luck - there are almost certainly a great deal of us - but without large scale genetic testing (and to put the cat amongst the pigeons, possibly even with genetic testing) you aren't going to find us. And even if you do, you still can't equate your own essentially modern belief system to whatever your ancestors believe in. I'm actually in favour or responsible reburial, not out of any religious belief - I don't have any - but out of respect, and if it does go ahead on any scale, I would expect a neutral service, or even more respectful, no service at all.
Or perhaps you meant 'all our ancestors' in a more encompassing fashion, including the whole brotherhood of man, in which case, are you going to try to get mummies sent home too?