There is overlap between the various invaders, and through it all, the Celtic British population remained largely in place. Caledonians, Irish and Picts lived in what is now Scotland. "Leslie emphasises people do not need to move far for DNA to spread a long way. "By comparing DNA in the United Kingdom and Europe, the researchers were able to trace the movements of people into the UK and determine the ancestry of the English.One of the key findings, says Leslie, is that the people in the homogenous area of England shared genetic markers with those from the Saxon area of northern Germany, providing strong evidence for 5th century Saxon invasion. The Romans called them Brittones, so they named the areas they conquered Britannia. Saxons and Vikings were two different tribes of people who are believed to have been dominant in what was to become the United Kingdom later. "In fact the so-called Celtic parts of the UK -- Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and Cornwall -- are some of the most different from each other genetically," says Leslie.His study showed those in the Orkney Islands are the most genetically distinct group in the UK, with clear genetic roots in Norway -- which is not surprising given they are a small isolated population that was once taken over by the Norwegian Vikings. "All it takes is the girl in one village to marry the boy in the next village and for them to have a child who marries the girl in the next village and over generations DNA just moves," he says.The study also challenges the notion of there being a single Celtic Britain. It should really start already around 400 BCE. Both groups of people were Germanic, and there were many similarities between Saxons … This means, if the Viking Age is defined by numerous migrations and piracy (according to most scholars, Viking means ‘pirate’), the Viking Age should start earlier than 793 BCE. "We speculate that that may well be because of the breakdown of geographic barriers.
"It's incredibly surprising we could pull this out. "Saxon genetic markers were not present in the Welsh and Scots, he says.Leslie says the study helps inform an ongoing controversy over what happened to the ancient Britons when the Saxons invaded in the wake of the Romans during the Dark Ages. As well as giving us the English language, the Anglo-Saxons, whose influx began around AD 450, account for 10 to 40 per cent of the DNA in half of modern-day Britons. Saxons vs Vikings .

"It's quite striking the genetic clustering we observe relates so closely to known historical event," he says. 516 Britons under an unknown leader defeat the Angles and Saxons at Mount Badon. It is best to emphasise the differences between the invaders and to do a lot of (pictorial) timeline work. Some of them rallied to save him from an angry mob at the annual council at Marklo (near river Weser, Bremen). Add ‘in between were the Anglo-Saxons and then the Vikings'. In some areas, such as Wales and Cornwall, the invaders hardly changed the language or way of life of the people. "For example you could see Cornwall was separate from Devon and that that separation was almost perfectly along the county boundary," says Leslie. It is unknown how many migrated from the continent to Britain though estimates for the total number of Germanic settlers vary between 10,000-200,000.

After 400 years of Roman rule, Romanised Britons tried to defend the religion and civilisation of Roman Britain against the Anglo-Saxon invaders.During this 1000-year period there was constant shifting of boundaries, boundaries both on the map and in the minds of the people living then. While past studies of this type have been able to use genetics to tell what continent or country people come from, this is the first study to be able to pinpoint people to regions within countries, says Leslie. Before this we cannot accurately use the term ‘England'.By the end of the millennium, 1000 AD, the island was divided into the three recognisable countries of England, Scotland and Wales. In England, Celtic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon and Viking place-names reflected the mixture of peoples now living there, and the main places where they had settled.Even though you need only focus on one set of invaders, you will need to give the children an overview of the whole millennium.