In this timely book, Hakim Adi presents a comprehensive history of African and Caribbean people in Britain and the vital role they played in the struggle for equality. The following excerpt, extracted from the first chapter, provides a glimpse into what you can expect from African and Caribbean People in Britain: A History.

An extract from Chapter 1: The Early African Presence

The presence of Africans in Britain during the Roman period has been established by historians for many years. It is therefore correct to say that Africans were present before the settlement, centuries later, of Angles, Saxons and Jutes, although perhaps incorrect to say that these migrant communities are the main ancestors of the modern English.[1] The latest DNA evidence also suggests that the Angles and Saxons played a less important part in the ancestry of the English than had previously been supposed and that African migrants had reached Britain perhaps a thousand years before the Romans. Much of the evidence for an early African presence comes from tooth enamel oxygen isotope evidence, which can be used to determine the geographical source of water drunk by an individual in childhood, but it is evidence that needs to be considered with caution.[2] However, when used with other archaeological evidence it presents interesting questions regarding an early African presence in Britain. There is also even more interesting speculation, such as the possibility that the name of the Isle of Thanet in Kent might be derived from a Phoenician word. Enamel oxygen isotope evidence from human remains again suggests that the area might have received North African migrants in the Bronze Age.[3] There has long been speculation about ancient African populations throughout the Britain Isles both before and after the Roman period and clearly much more research needs to be done to establish the veracity of such claims.[4]

A significant development in understanding this early history was the revelation in February 2018 that those who might be considered some of the first Britons – that is the first to provide genes that can be found amongst some of the modern inhabitants of Britain – had ‘dark to black’ skin, as well as dark hair and blue eyes. Indeed, one newspaper headline boldly proclaimed that according to the latest DNA study ‘the first Britons were black’.[5] The research, conducted by the Natural History Museum, analysed the skeletal remains of Cheddar Man, first discovered in a cave in Somerset in 1903, who is thought to have lived in England some 10,000 years ago amongst a population of only 12,000. The almost complete skeleton of Cheddar Man is the oldest so far discovered of a modern human in Britain. The study showed that migrants who originated in Africa, and came to Britain via western Asia and Europe, maintained darker skin pigmentation for much longer periods than was previously thought and that the development of pale skin pigmentation took place much more recently.

The research into the origins and appearance of Cheddar Man suggests that the population of western European hunter-gatherers of that period almost certainly looked similar to Cheddar Man, with ‘dark to black’ skin. The earliest Europeans, just like the earliest Britons, could also be considered Black people. Notions of Britishness and Englishness once more need to be rethought.[6] The analysis of the skeletal remains of Cheddar Man also demonstrated significant scientific advances. Although the analysis of DNA has been possible for several years, techniques have markedly improved in the twenty-first century and created the possibility for new revelations about the ancient population of Britain in the future.

[1] S. Oppenheimer, The Origin of the British: The New Pre-history of Britain from Ice Age Hunter Gatherers to Vikings as Revealed by DNA Analysis (London: Robinson, 2007).

[2] C. Green, ‘Some oxygen isotope evidence for long-distance migration to Britain from North Africa and southern Iberia, c.1100 BC to AD 800’, 24 October 2015, at http://www.caitlingreen.org/2015/10/oxygen-isotope-evidence.html, accessed 30 January 2018.

[3] J. I. McKinley, M. Lievers, J. Schuster, P. Marshall, A. J. Barclay and, N. Stoodley, Cliffs End Farm, Isle of Thanet, Kent: A Mortuary and Ritual Site of the Bronze Age, Iron Age and Anglo-Saxon Period (Salisbury: Wessex Archaeology, 2014) and Dr Caitlin Green, ‘Thanet, Tanit and the Phoenicians: place-names, archaeology and trading settlements in Eastern Kent’, 21 April 2015, http://www.caitlingreen.org/2015/04/thanet-tanit-and-the-phoenicians.html, accessed 31 January 2018.

[4] See e.g., A. Ali and I. Ali, The Black Celts: An Ancient African Civilization in Ireland and Britain (Cardiff: Punite Publications, 1992) and England Affric: An Ethnological Survey (Cardiff: Punite Publications, 1995) and D. MacRitchie, Ancient and Modern Britons: A Retrospect, 2 vols. (London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co, 1884).

[5] H. Bodkin, ‘Cheddar Man: The first Britons were black, Natural History Museum DNA study reveals’, 8 February 2018, Daily Telegraph, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2018/02/07/first-britons-black-natural-history-museum-dna-study-reveals/, accessed 8 February 2018.

[6] K. Lotzof, ‘Cheddar Man: Mesolithic Britain’s blue-eyed boy’, Natural History Museum website, https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/cheddar-man-mesolithic-britain-blue-eyed-boy.html, accessed 7 February 2017.