Kinship Realism
Discussion
Charles Small.
- Why do voting maps of Scotland resemble the country’s Iron Age kingdoms?
" I first noticed the pattern when reading Jim Wilson’s work mapping the genetic landscape of the British Isles. His team found, by looking at Scots with ancestry from different regions, that the country is still genetically divided along the borders of the old kingdoms of Pictland, Strathclyde and others. Wilson’s genetic map looks strikingly similar to Scotland’s electoral ones.
It’s one thing to not move around much, and who could blame you in that climate, but why would the modern inhabitants of those ancient kingdoms vote the same way? As a part-Scot myself, I’m open to the idea that we’re uniquely tribal savages. Yet there appears to be something driving this that applies far more generally, something that may change how you view the world.
Consider the image below. On the left, you see genetic clusters corresponding to the ancestral homes of those who volunteered their genomes for study. On the right are the results from a UK parliamentary election."