Spain....The Motherland of Celts.

[Treffie]

The discovery, by Bryan Sykes, professor of human genetics at Oxford University, will herald a change in scientific understanding of Britishness.

No it won't

[Catrau]

Don't tell the locals, but the hordes of British holidaymakers who visited Spain this summer were, in fact, returning to their ancestral home.

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Nice tread.
You anglo-saxons tend to confuse Spain with Iberia. Romans did called Hispania to the Iberian Peninsula but nobody uses that anymore except by some people who speak English. There are two countries in Iberia so you shouldn't refer to both using the name of one of them... understand what I mean?

Also that place where Brits go usually on vacations if it is in Spain it isn't land of Celts but of other Iberian peoples if you mean Portugal.. yes even the Algarve was a land of Celtic or Celticised tribes (Conii and Celticos).

[foreverblue]

i thought it was eastern europe/russia

[Lábaru]

Nice tread.
You anglo-saxons tend to confuse Spain with Iberia. Romans did called Hispania to the Iberian Peninsula but nobody uses that anymore except by some people who speak English. There are two countries in Iberia so you shouldn't refer to both using the name of one of them... understand what I mean?

Also that place where Brits go usually on vacations if it is in Spain it isn't land of Celts but of other Iberian peoples if you mean Portugal.. yes even the Algarve was a land of Celtic or Celticised tribes (Conii and Celticos).

the fact is that the study is based on the comparison of populations from the North of Spain with the British Islanders, there is no confusion.

[Catrau]

the fact is that the study is based on the comparison of populations from the North of Spain with the British Islanders, there is no confusion.

Maybe, we can't be sure about that, it is written "coastal Spain".. whatever he means by that, but I use it as example. The fact that I've mentioned is really a fact and people should give attention to it. Certainly you wouldn't like the reverse to happen, also, what I’ve stated is totally true, every line, every word.

[Lábaru]

Maybe, we can't be sure about that, it is written "coastal Spain".. whatever he means by that, but I use it as example, the fact that I've mentioned is really a fact and people should give attention to it. Certainly you wouldn't like the reverse to happen, also, what I’ve stated is totally true, every line, every word.

I read the original study, the Northern Spanish populations were compared with the population of the British Isles, people from Asturias, Cantabria and Basque, that's why no mention of Portugal.

[Catrau]

I read the original study, the Northern Spanish populations were compared with the population of the British Isles, people from Asturias, Cantabria and Basque, that's why no mention of Portugal.

Ok Lábaru up, I believe you. I think I've read it too a long time ago. I understand what you mean. My stand was about that confusion they do about Iberia, the study may have been done in northern Spain but if it was done also in Portugal it wouldn't be much different. For me, as far as I understand, they also speak generally and it is about that reducing generalization that I stand.

Saludos

[Ouistreham]

I have a DVD called Atlantean by Bob Quinn, talking about historical trade routes between Ireland, Spain, and North Africa. He challenges the whole concept of 'Celtic'. I strongly urge members of this forum (especially Os ) to at least check it out. I want some criticism and commentary.

Sounds interesting indeed:

Atlantean was a trilogy of documentary films made by Irish film maker Bob Quinn in 1983. These films dismissed as myth the popular belief in "Celtic" origins of the inhabitants of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Asturias, Brittany and Galicia. Focusing on the role of sailing in Connemara society, where his films were made, Quinn investigated the history of the Atlantic sea lanes from the Baltic Sea and the British Isles as far south as the Mediterranean and North Africa. Quinn suggested that Ireland's first inhabitants came by boat sometime after the end of the last ice age - probably from the warmer, more populous south. As navigation gave rise to coastal settlement over long periods of time, overseas trade and cultural exchanges continued until at least the Vikings. The Irish language, music and art was therefore related to ancient Iberian, Mediterranean and North African culture, in particular the indigenous Berbers of North Africa.

According to Quinn, the idea of "Celtic" origins was probably invented by Christian intellectuals in the Middle Ages eager to affirm a "racial" pan-European identity amongst the unusual inhabitants of the western seaboards.

Bob Quinn developed these ideas into a book: The Atlantean Irish.

The Celtic theory has long been questioned by academics. In recent years, the discovery of mitochondrial DNA has been used as a method to map the historical migration of mankind's genetic groups. Such genetic tests, conducted in Ireland in 2004, confirmed that the theory of Celtic origins in Ireland is genetically unfounded. In earlier tests, Bryan Sykes, genetic scientist and author of bestseller The Seven Daughters of Eve, while analysing European DNA groups identified what he called the "Clan of Tara" – a genetic group that included the coastal peoples of the British Isles, the Atlantic seaboards of continental Europe and the coasts of the Mediterranean. Sykes did not conduct genetic tests in North Africa amongst Berbers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlante...tary_series%29

... except that "the idea of "Celtic" origins was probably invented by Christian intellectuals in the Middle Ages eager to affirm a "racial" pan-European identity" is very debatable. The concept that linguistic kinship and national identity could be related did not really emerge prior to the 18th century.

My personal view is that there is a widespread misunderstanding about the Celtic cultures of North-West Europe. The fact that Celtic languages are still spoken in Ireland, Wales, Scotland and Brittany (as well as until recently in some parts of Western England) doesn't entail that strong an ethnical proximity.

IMveryHO those people are not the hard core of any supposed ancient Celtic culture area. They are the last ones to speak Celtic because they were the last ones to be Celtized.

[Vasconcelos]

Reason those lands kept the Celtic language was because the cultures were never fully replaced by foreign ones like it happened in continental Europe - Roman and Germanic.


I, personally, think that all Celtic cultures had slight differences from each other, but fitted into one large cultural group. There is no "pure celtic", just different variations of a common culture depending on where in West Europe you are.

This is easily noticable in West Iberia, where the Gallaeci and Lusitanian apparently had some cultural overlapping but still spoke different languages, had different architecture (Gallaeci build round buildings - the castros - whereas Lusitanians favoured rectangular ones) and so on. Then there's also the Celtici in Alentejo, which apparently were akin to the Gallaecians and the Turdetani on the Northwestern coast, but not so much to their northern Lusitani neighbours. These where, apparently, more similar to Celtic tribes outside the Iberian peninsula. Basically there's a lot of small differences between celtic tribes in a very small location, there's no reason to belive these slight differences didn't also exist between different Western European regions.

[Germanicus]

Castro de Baroña
Just south of the fishing village of "Porto do Son" there are the 2000-year old ruins of a Celtic fort at "Castro de Baroña". These ruins were only rediscovered in 1933 and are protected as a Spanish "Artistic Heritage" site. Local legend states that any person who sees the image or shape of a lion's head in the Castro de Baroña rock formations will be chosen to join the rebirth of the Celtic Clan of Baroña