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The genetic history of the British Isles is the subject of research within the larger field of human population genetics. It has developed in parallel with DNA testing technologies capable of identifying genetic similarities and differences between populations. The conclusions of population genetics regarding the British Isles in turn draw upon and contribute to the larger field of understanding the history of humanity in the British Isles generally, complementing work in linguistics, archeology, history and genealogy. Research concerning the most important routes of migration into the British Isles is the subject of debate. Apart from the most obvious route across the narrowest point of the English Channel into Kent, other routes may have been important over the millennia, including a land bridge in the Mesolithic period, and also maritime connections along the Atlantic coasts. In addition, the periods of the most important migrations are also contested. While the Neolithic introduction of farming technologies from Europe is frequently proposed as a period of major population change in the British Isles, such technology could either have been learned by locals from a small number of immigrants, or may have been put into effect by colonists who significantly changed the population. Other potentially important historical periods of migration which have been subject to consideration in this field include the introduction of Celtic languages and technologies (during the Bronze and Iron Ages), the Roman era, the period of Anglo-Saxon influx, the Viking era, the Norman invasion of 1066 and the era of the European wars of religion. There are also similarly many potential eras of movement between different parts of the British Isles. ==Research projects and influential publications== An international watershed in the publication and discussion of genetic evidence for ancient movements of people was that of Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, who used polymorphisms from proteins found within human blood (such as the ABO blood groups, Rhesus blood antigens, HLA loci, immunoglobulins, G6PD isoenzymes, amongst others).〔Cavalli-Sforza (1997)〕 One of the lasting proposals of this study with regards to Europe is that within most of the continent, the majority of genetic diversity may best be explained by immigration coming from the southeast towards the northwest or in other words from the Middle East towards Britain and Ireland. He proposed at the time that the invention of agriculture might be the best explanation for this. Later published studies used mitochondrial DNA to study the female line of descent. It became possible to use Y chromosome DNA to study male descent. As opposed to large scale sampling within the genome, Y DNA and mitochondrial DNA represent specific types of genetic descent and can therefore reflect only particular aspects of past human movement. For Britain, major research projects aimed at collecting more data include the Oxford Genetic Atlas Project (OGAP), which was associated with Bryan Sykes of Oxford University and more recently the ''People of the British Isles'', also associated with Oxford.〔(The People of The British Isles website )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Genetic history of the British Isles」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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