Stephen Oppenheimer

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Stephen Oppenheimer is a member of Green College, Oxford and an Honorary Fellow of Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. From 1972 he worked as a clinical paediatrician in countries including Sarawak (Malaysia), Nepal and Papua New Guinea. From 1979 he moved into medical research and teaching, with positions at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Oxford University, the research centre in Kilifi in Kenya, and the University Sains of Malaysia. From 1990-1994 he was University Professor, Chairman and Chief of Clinical Service in the Department of Paediatrics in the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and from 1994-1997 Senior specialist paediatrician in Brunei.

Professor Oppenheimer returned to England in 1996, and began a second career as researcher and popular science writer in prehistory. His books synthesize human genetics with archaeology, anthropology, linguistics and folklore. His books include Eden in the East: The Drowned Continent of Southeast Asia, Out of Eden: The Peopling of the World, (U.S title -The Real Eve: Modern Man's Journey Out of Africa), and The Origins of the British.

1 Works
2 References
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Works

The Origins of the British - A Genetic Detective Story. 2006, Constable and Robinson. ISBN 1-84529-158-1.
Out of Eden. 2004, Constable and Robinson ISBN 1-84119-894-3
The Real Eve. Carroll & Graf; (September 9, 2004) ISBN 0-7867-1334-8
Eden in the East. 1999, Phoenix (Orion) ISBN 0-7538-0679-7

A documentary, The Real Eve, is based on Stephen Oppenheimer's book of the same name.

[edit] East of Eden

This work, published in 1998, focuses on Oppenheimer's hypothesis that modern humans emerged from East Africa in a single major exodus, numbering no more than a few hundred individuals. This lone group of wanderers, he suggests, became the ancestors of all non-Africans and of most North Africans, their descendants having since radiated into a plurality of physical characteristics, languages, ethnicities and cultures today.

[edit] Out of Eden/The Real Eve

In his book The Real Eve, Oppenheimer hypothesizes that Eurasians have South Asian origins, with the founding population of Caucasoids (Western Eurasians) originating in northwest India, while the founding population of Mongoloids (Eastern Eurasians) originated in northeast India/Nepal. Caucasoids spread north and west into Central Asia, West Asia, North Africa and Europe, as well as South into southern India and Sri Lanka, while Mongoloids spread north and east into Siberia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Polynesia, the Americas and Greenland.

[edit] Origins of the British

In his 2006 book The Origins of the British, Oppenheimer argued that neither Anglo-Saxons nor Celts had much impact on the genetics of the inhabitants of the British Isles, and that British ancestry traces back to the Basques instead.^[1] Oppenheimer uses genetic studies to give an insight into the genetic origins of people in the British Isles and speculates on how to match this evidence with linguistic and archaeological data to give insights into the origins of Britain, the Celts and the English.

He makes the case that the geography and culture of Britain stem from two main zones of contact:

The Atlantic fringe from Spain and Portugal to the western British Isles
Continental Europe to Eastern England

He uses the evidence that the Germanic genetic contribution to Eastern England originated before the Anglo-Saxon incursion to suggest that the possibility that inhabitants of the isle of Britain spoke English well before the so-called "Dark Ages".

Oppenheimer derives much archaeological information from Professor Barry Cunliffe's ideas of the trading routes using the Atlantic from Spain, and from the writings of:

Simon James (The Atlantic Celts - Ancient People or Modern Invention? ISBN 0299166740)
Frances Pryor (Britain B.C. : life in Britain and Ireland before the Romans ISBN 0007126921)
John Collis (The Celts : origins, myths & inventions ISBN 0752429132)
Colin Renfrew, (Archaeology and Language - The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins ISBN 0521354323)

The work of the geneticist Peter Forster has strongly influenced Oppenheimer's linguistic theories.

Oppenheimer's main ideas include:

The importance of Cunliffe's Atlantic routes to the settling of Britain.
Since much British genetic material dates to the first settlement of Britain following the ice ages, all subsequent invasions/migrations/immigrations occurred on a relatively small scale and did not replace Britain's population.
Celtic origins derive from southern France and northern Spain.
The Central European theory for Celtic origins has no basis.
Some genetic evidence in support of Renfrew's theory of Indo-European origins comes from farming.
Genetic evidence suggests that the division between the West and the East of England does not begin with the Anglo-Saxon invasion but originates with two main routes of genetic flow — one up the Atlantic coast, the other from neighboring areas of Continental Europe.
Scandinavian influences, stronger than suspected, may outweigh West Germanic influence.
A genetic difference exists between the Saxon areas of England and the Anglian areas. (Oppenheimer suggests that the so-called Anglo-Saxon invasion actually mostly consisted of an Anglian incursion.)
An early introduction of English to Britain might explain the lack of Celtic influence on early English and the genetic split between East and West.
Classical sources differentiate between Gallic/Celtic and Belgae. Some sources suggest the Belgae have a German origin. Various archaeological and linguistic evidence make for a weaker case for Celtic presence in Belgic and Eastern England than in Gallic/Celtic or western Britain.

In Origins of the British (2006), Stephen Oppenheimer states (pages 375 and 378):

By far the majority of male gene types in the British Isles derive from Iberia (Spain and Portugal), ranging from a low of 59% in Fakenham, Norfolk to highs of 96% in Llangefni, north Wales and 93% Castlerea, Ireland. On average only 30% of gene types in England derive from north-west Europe. Even without dating the earlier waves of north-west European immigration, this invalidates the Anglo-Saxon wipeout theory... ...75-95% of British Isles (genetic) matches derive from Iberia... Ireland, coastal Wales, and central and west-coast Scotland are almost entirely made up from Iberian founders, while the rest of the non-English parts of the British Isles have similarly high rates. England has rather lower rates of Iberian types with marked heterogeneity, but no English sample has less than 58% of Iberian samples...

In page 367 Oppenheimer states in relation to Zoë H Rosser's pan-European genetic distance map:

In Rosser's work, the closest population to the Basques is in Cornwall, followed closely by Ireland, Scotland, Spain, Belgium, Portugal, East Anglia and then northern France

Reported work on linguistics suggests Indo-European languages began to fragment some 10,000 years ago. Oppenheimer claims that Celtic split earlier than previously suspected, while English split from Germanic before the end of the Roman period.