probablyasocialecologist:

There are several potential explanations for the change in composition of the Anglo-Saxon population between the Early Anglo-Saxon Period and the Middle Anglo-Saxon Period, but we think the most likely is that there was an increase in the number of local people adopting an Anglo-Saxon identity through time.

This could have been because being Anglo-Saxon was perceived as higher status than being Romano-British. Alternatively, it could simply have been a consequence of people randomly copying one another. This process, which is known as “cultural drift,” has been shown to be able to account for a number of cultural patterns in recent history.

Regardless of the cause of the change in composition, it is clear from our results that being an Anglo-Saxon was more a matter of language and culture than genetics.

Interestingly, this echoes results obtained in the largest ancient DNA study of Vikings published to date. In this study, a number of individuals who were buried as Vikings were found to be of local ancestry, which suggests that being a Viking was also a linguistic and cultural phenomenon rather than a genetic one.

The Anglo-Saxons and Vikings are often viewed in racial terms, with common biological descent deemed to be a key aspect of both groups. However, the results of our study and the Viking DNA one indicate that shared descent was not a requirement for membership of either group.

Instead, it appears that the Anglo-Saxons were a group of individuals of diverse ancestries who shared a common language and culture. The same holds for the Vikings. The Anglo-Saxons and Vikings were, in other words, strikingly similar to the multiracial societies of contemporary northern Europe.