Proto-Celtic/Celtic ethnogenesis?

[Grace O'Malley]

Study from France, finally!
I expect Gauls to be autosomally close to modern Brits.

Probably Roman contribution was quite big and shifted modern French more south. We have seen in recent Iberian paper how Roman admix was much greater than believed.

Even southern England was affected by this to a degree.

Looking forward to both French and Irish papers

All my wishes have come true. I can't believe we are getting a study like this from France. I agree with your post. I think France like Spain had a big shift from the Roman colonisation.

[SharpFork]

This post from alan on Anthrogenica explains it better than I could.



I think we don't have enough information yet.

I'm not sure I agree with the logic there, we have plenty of language spreading without clear archaeological signs.

Is the degree of difference between Irish Celtic and other continental Irish languages enough to warrant such early dating?

[Grace O'Malley]

I'm not sure I agree with the logic there, we have plenty of language spreading without clear archaeological signs.

Is the degree of difference between Irish Celtic and other continental Irish languages enough to warrant such early dating?

I'm not up with the linguistic debate but there are others that no a lot more than me on that front. I think it is highly likely that Bell Beaker spoke an Indo-European language that developed into Celtic. I've seen a lot on this topic so I'd have to find the relevant posts on various forums. I'm really open on whatever way the chips fall on this and don't have a vested interest as I've come to the conclusion a long time ago that the Irish might not be that Celtic genetically. However they are Celts linguistically and culturally but I think Celt is a very broad term and we might have a very different idea of who Celts were and were not in the future. I might look for more relevant info if this thread still keeps going. What are your opinions on the topic?

[SharpFork]

I'm not up with the linguistic debate but there are others that no a lot more than me on that front. I think it is highly likely that Bell Beaker spoke an Indo-European language that developed into Celtic. I've seen a lot on this topic so I'd have to find the relevant posts on various forums. I'm really open on whatever way the chips fall on this and don't have a vested interest as I've come to the conclusion a long time ago that the Irish might not be that Celtic genetically. However they are Celts linguistically and culturally but I think Celt is a very broad term and we might have a very different idea of who Celts were and were not in the future. I might look for more relevant info if this thread still keeps going. What are your opinions on the topic?

I think Celts as a ethno-linguistic group probably were around the upper Rhine, upper Elbe and upper Danube basin and spread during the transition to iron usage, some areas would have experience Celtiziation during the Hallstatt period(Spain? Britain?) others during the La Tene period(Hungary, Transylvania etc.)

I'm really not sure about Spain, as far as I understood Celtiberians seem to be more recent arrival of Celts and the nature of people such as Lusitanians, Turdetanians and their Celtiness or relation to Indo-European is questioned, for this reason I find the "Celtic from the West" hypothesis a bit weak, because not only it presumes an early Celtic presence in such areas but also has this weird concept of "lingua franca" originating and spreading through mere trade but also leaves us with those large gaps in terms of Celtic presence in Spain, while somehow Celtic spread so much in Central Europe.

Honestly I'm a bit surprised by how much flat out wrong stuff on genetics and anthrpology goes on with Britain and Ireland, I keep hearing about "Basque-Celtic migration/connection" or "Most of the population of the British isles is from the neolithic" etc. and I feel like this theory is not that much better, I mean I even like Barry Cunliffe's work on the topic of Celts but the fact we are not only entertaining such hypothesis without much real support but also entertaining the idea that Celtic is as old as the Bell Beaker culture is simply ridiculous, I feel like it's the same kind of mentality, I don't think such theories can be accepted if they didn't feed into some kind of convenient narrative, even if not particularly nefarious.

I mean what the poster you previously quote theorized is at the very least miles better than what Cunliffe says, a late Bronze Age celtization of Ireland makes much more sense than "Bell Beaker = Celtic".

I think the only real solution to this topic is from a paleolinguistical perspective, genetics may mislead us or maybe make us miss some important in-between steps(for example Celtic branches replacing one another or back-migrations and such)

Small edit: I really want to drive home that the entire concept of Celtic rising as a lingua franca in the Atlantic is so weak and unproven that it makes the theory far weaker than a later Celtic spread, it can be argued that maybe this speech was some Centum IE conglomerate that gave rise to Celtic and maybe even Lusitanian(if it's not Celtic itself) but the idea that a cohesive and homogenous Celtic language would have risen without migrations or strong political bonds over such large areas is extremely questionable. a Bell Beaker Celtic would have given rise to very different branches, as different as Germanic to Italic even.

[TheOldNorth]

I think Celts as a ethno-linguistic group probably were around the upper Rhine, upper Elbe and upper Danube basin and spread during the transition to iron usage, some areas would have experience Celtiziation during the Hallstatt period(Spain? Britain?) others during the La Tene period(Hungary, Transylvania etc.)

I'm really not sure about Spain, as far as I understood Celtiberians seem to be more recent arrival of Celts and the nature of people such as Lusitanians, Turdetanians and their Celtiness or relation to Indo-European is questioned, for this reason I find the "Celtic from the West" hypothesis a bit weak, because not only it presumes an early Celtic presence in such areas but also has this weird concept of "lingua franca" originating and spreading through mere trade but also leaves us with those large gaps in terms of Celtic presence in Spain, while somehow Celtic spread so much in Central Europe.

Honestly I'm a bit surprised by how much flat out wrong stuff on genetics and anthrpology goes on with Britain and Ireland, I keep hearing about "Basque-Celtic migration/connection" or "Most of the population of the British isles is from the neolithic" etc. and I feel like this theory is not that much better, I mean I even like Barry Cunliffe's work on the topic of Celts but the fact we are not only entertaining such hypothesis without much real support but also entertaining the idea that Celtic is as old as the Bell Beaker culture is simply ridiculous, I feel like it's the same kind of mentality, I don't think such theories can be accepted if they didn't feed into some kind of convenient narrative, even if not particularly nefarious.

I mean what the poster you previously quote theorized is at the very least miles better than what Cunliffe says, a late Bronze Age celtization of Ireland makes much more sense than "Bell Beaker = Celtic".

I think the only real solution to this topic is from a paleolinguistical perspective, genetics may mislead us or maybe make us miss some important in-between steps(for example Celtic branches replacing one another or back-migrations and such)

Small edit: I really want to drive home that the entire concept of Celtic rising as a lingua franca in the Atlantic is so weak and unproven that it makes the theory far weaker than a later Celtic spread, it can be argued that maybe this speech was some Centum IE conglomerate that gave rise to Celtic and maybe even Lusitanian(if it's not Celtic itself) but the idea that a cohesive and homogenous Celtic language would have risen without migrations or strong political bonds over such large areas is extremely questionable. a Bell Beaker Celtic would have given rise to very different branches, as different as Germanic to Italic even.

There is a lot of evidence to say that Iberia and Britain were speaking Celtic long before the Hallstatt culture, if it were to spread rather then originate there like is likely, the it probably would’ve been through trade between the Atlantic Bronze Age system and the Urnfields

[TheOldNorth]

We are going to be getting a great study from France which will have Gauls. Gauls will be very similar to Irish and British and they were undoubtedly Celts.



https://anr.fr/Project-ANR-15-CE27-0001

Should be released in 2020 Yay!

Excellent news! I’d love to see the results, personally I think that over the years the celts divided between two main ancestries, continental ‘converted’ celts and Atlantic ‘originally’ celts, which can Ben seen between the divisions between ‘British and irish’ and ‘French and German’ in 23&me, where as ‘broadly northwest european’ represents Germanic.
I say this because the closer it gets to the Germanic homeland, the stronger it and ‘Scandinavian’ becomes, while ‘french And German’ ancestry is centered around the Rhine and northwestern alps

[SharpFork]

There is a lot of evidence to say that Iberia and Britain were speaking Celtic long before the Hallstatt culture, if it were to spread rather then originate there like is likely, the it probably would’ve been through trade between the Atlantic Bronze Age system and the Urnfields

Evidence such as?

No it's ridiculous to say that trade would spread a language and have it maintain a certain cohesiveness for so long.

[Creoda]

Even if Iberians and/or British were speaking some sort of Celtic family language before Hallstatt, so what? The genetic evidence is that both were invaded by people from Central or Central Western Europe from roughly that time on, and not the other way around. Whatever cultural continuity that spanned the Atlantic coast of Europe from North to South was almost certainly provided by those invasions.

[TheOldNorth]

Even if Iberians and/or British were speaking some sort of Celtic family language before Hallstatt, so what? The genetic evidence is that both were invaded by people from Central or Central Western Europe from roughly that time on, and not the other way around. Whatever cultural continuity that spanned the Atlantic coast of Europe from North to South was almost certainly provided by those invasions.

Not really... that’s the whole controversy over the Hallstatt theory to begin with, is that there is little to no genetic evidence for it

[Creoda]

Not really... that’s the whole controversy over the Hallstatt theory to begin with, is that there is little to no genetic evidence for it

Not really what? You can easily use Global25 and compare Bronze Age Iberians with Iron Age Celtiberians, and Bronze Age Britons/Irish with Iron Age (and modern) Britons/Irish to see that both were impacted by a Hallstatt-like population in that interval.