Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Wednesday, 22 December 2021

All in the genes


There is a very interesting report today on the BBC News site about what is clearly a major collaborative study on the changes in late Bronze Age society in Britain that involves significant immigration, genetic adaptation and arguably an important change in language.

Such prehistory is not, as I pointed out recently, my territory at all, but this  is a study describing what appear to be not only key events in their own time, but which have also permanently affected life in the British Isles ever since. This is indeed history in the longue durée. The evidence for change to the genetic make-up of the population is one that is still with, living in our bones.



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