The Gentle, Folksy, Genocidal Beaker Folk

So the votes are in on the Beaker occupation of the British Isles. And, let's be frank, it ain't pretty.

Turns out that the arrival of the Beaker Folk coincided with an abrupt decline in the population of the indigenous people. I say "coincided" as the scientists are careful not to say the Beaker Folk just wandered in and ate them all. Perhaps, like the European colonisation of the New World, it was just an unfortunate importation of new diseases the original inhabitants had no immunity to.

And, of course, a fair amount of genocide.

"Yeah, we wiped out the energy of our entire race and got invaded.
But at least the Sun God was satisfied with our work."

What it all means is that we are all the descendants of immigrants. Not one of us can seriously claim to be mostly descended from the people who walked across from the continent in the days when a prehistoric Nigel Farage was wondering how he was going to take control of the border with Doggerland. So anybody who says immigrants should go back where they came from, should start checking the flights to Poland.

I have to take issue with the comments that the pre-Beaker people were the ones who "built Stonehenge", however. I mean, yes. They started it. But if their population was declining from 3,500 on, then they weren't building Stonehenge III were they? Unless that was what wore them out. There are many mysteries to solve as now the dating suggests that either a weakened, depopulated Great British population still managed to build a huge stone monument, or in fact the Beaker Folk rocked up from the Continent. mopped up the locals, rolled up their sleeves and started shifting giant sarsens around - all in a century or two.

So there are many mysteries yet to sole. So I can keep making stuff up with ritual effect. Bradford University's Ian Armit's comments worry me though...

"In the centuries after the Beaker burials the DNA shows that the earlier Britons did not just come slipping back out of the woods."

Does he mean... they're still there?

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Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you. From Amazon, Sarum Bookshop, The Bible Readers Fellowship and other good Christian bookshops. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. By the creator of the Beaker Folk.