DNA analysis techniques have advanced rapidly and, in particular, the techniques for finding and analysing aDNA have improved dramatically. Researchers discovered that DNA survived better, and with much less contamination, in the petrous bone in the ear. The petrous bone is one of the hardest and densest bones in the body, leading to it surviving better than other parts of the body and providing excellent aDNA samples.

That meant it would be possible to analyse the DNA of burials dating from the early Anglo-Saxon period to see where these people really came from. If the analysis worked, we would finally know which idea was correct, the old one of mass migration or the new one of elite takeover.

The most recent large-scale study, which involved the analysis of the aDNA from 350 burials across eastern and southern Britain carbon dated to between the 5^th and 7^th centuries found that 74 per cent of the genetic history of these people comes from continental north-western Europe. There was a marked east-west difference, with the main concentration of people having continental ancestry in the south and along the east coast, and the proportion having a native British ancestry increasing further west and north. There was also no sex difference, indicating that this ancestry derived from whole family groups arriving in Britain rather than Germanic warriors taking native Britonnic women as wives.

So the traditional view that there was really a period of mass movements of populations has been vindicated. It wasn’t a elite takeover. The Anglo-Saxons really did migrate in large numbers to Britain, displacing the native population.