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Maeshowe

Entymology of Maeshowe — discussed with experts

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PeterH P
PeterH May 3, 2005 22:01:13
Replying to BigSweetie

Yes I think the accent is based on Norse and I seem to remember that the DNA survey done in conjunction with "Blood of the Vikings" showed that there was a lot of Norwegian DNA in Orkney.

Norse settlement in Orkney was gradual but complete, but that doesn't mean that the indigenous people were exterminated there or anywhere else. Who are you going to get to work the land if you kill everyone? Landless men from Norway came over by the boatload, killed any men who looked troublesome, bedded the women and put the rest to work. Vikings were great slave traders too so would have exported any surplus human livestock especially to Iceland where Scottish and Irish slaves (thralls) were in great demand. Like white slave owners in cotton belt of USA - you owned the slaves so you could use them, dispose of them or sleep with them - and so the genes mingled.

F follow that cow
follow that cow May 3, 2005 22:29:29
Replying to PeterH

>but that doesn't mean that the indigenous people were exterminated there or anywhere else<

>so i still have to go with the possibility of a friendly and gradual adoption of Viking culture<

Both of the above I am inclined to believe in general terms but
I also believe that for whatever reason, in the case of Orkney, the indigenous Picts were subject to ethnic cleansing.

I can think of no other reason why 99% plus of place names in the Orcades are of Norse origin.

In the Americas and Australasia, for example, although a good deal of genocide took place in the colonization of these lands by Europeans there are still a vast amount of place names attributed to the language of the indigenous people. In the case of Orkney this has not happened. There is a complete lack of anything not of Norse origin. This is the only place in these islands that this has happened. I can see no other reason for this than there were none of the original habitants left on the Orkneys to pass on local information.

However, I am open to reason, and would welcome suggestions as to how this could have come about without a mass annihilation of the local inhabitants.

FTC