Book review: Blood of the Isles
Blood
of the Isles. Brian Sykes. Bantam Press, London, 2006. pp 306. £11.99.
ISBN 0-593-05653-1.
Bandolier,
being of a certain age, well remembers the time when a choice had to be made,
between Arts on the one side and Sciences on the other. That was the way it was
then, torn between the siren call of history and the compelling demands on
modernity. What tipped the balance was a book that told the story of the
discovery of the structure of DNA – the Double Helix, by Francis Crick
and James Watson. Just as interesting were other newly emerging disciplines,
biochemistry for instance, the story of how organic life worked. Anyone could
read history: you needed the new knowledge to read the genes.
What
goes around comes around. Now it is the genes that are re-writing history, and
telling us more than archaeology or the study of ancient texts ever could. It
is the new discipline of genetic archaeology that Brian Sykes records,
specifically the genetic archaeology of those of us who live in, or have come
from, the British Isles.
We
are each different from one another in many ways, culturally and genetically.
Sykes, though, tells the story of the boring bits of DNA: the useless 400 base
pairs in the 17,000 or so that make up mitochondrial DNA that we get only from
our mothers, and the outwardly unremarkable sequence of bases TAGA that trips
up the copying mechanism of the Y-chromosome. From specific changes in these we
learn of our maternal and (for men) paternal genetic history.
Sykes
and his team have conducted a genetic survey of the British Isles. His book
examines the legends and history of the Isles, and relates it to the evidence
from genetic archaeology. If you want to know the answer, this review
isn't going to tell you. Just buy the book and read it for yourself: it
will probably surprise, but then read Francis Pryor's books, Britain BC,
and Britain AD to fill some of the gaps from more muddy archaeology, when more
of it comes together.
The
surprising thing is how readable this book is. Bandolier devoured it in one go
on holiday in Spain, a serendipitous happenstance. Just like the story of the
discovery of the structure of DNA, Sykes' book could well be a milestone.
There are many reasons to read it, science and history being only two. Get it
for any thinking youngster. Genetic archaeology has real importance in how we
think about ourselves, and others.
