The genetic impact of the spread of peoples from the continent into the British Isles in this period was permanent. British and Irish38 skeletons from the Bronze Age that followed the Beaker period had at most around 10 percent ancestry from the first farmers of these islands, with the other 90 percent from people like those associated with the Bell Beaker culture in the Netherlands. This was a population replacement at least as dramatic as the one that accompanied the spread of the Corded Ware culture. It turns out that the discredited idea of the “Beaker Folk” was right for Britain, although
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