Large-Scale Migration into Southern Britain During the Middle to Late Bronze Age

[Grace O'Malley]

Here's the paper.

https://reich.hms.harvard.edu/sites/...ipt_2021_1.pdf

[Grace O'Malley]

Regarding the question of Celtic languages.

Dr Lara Cassidy, an expert on ancient DNA from Trinity College Dublin, who was not involved with the latest study, called the findings "exciting", adding: "It provides a potential opportunity for language change on the island."

"Could this be the point at which the Celtic languages first enter the islands? I think the data presented here has moved the debate forward, however, it is far from conclusive."

It's not clear whether the migrants introduced this language group to Britain or were speaking just one type of Celtic. The branch of Celtic represented today by Irish and Scottish Gaelic - known as Goidelic - might already have been spoken by the existing inhabitants. Under this scenario, the newcomers may have spoken languages related to Welsh and Cornish - which belong to a different branch of Celtic known as Brythonic.

Co-author Prof Sir Barry Cunliffe, from the school of archaeology at the University of Oxford, told BBC News: "If the Mid-Bronze Age move had any effect at all on language, then the simplest hypothesis would be to see it as a vector for introducing, or strengthening Brythonic,"

"If so, then Goidelic had to have arrived earlier, either with Beakers, or earlier."

"In this period there's convergence of ancestry throughout western and central Europe," said Prof Reich.

"In general, though there were exceptions, northern populations become more genetically similar to southern populations. And the southern populations become somewhat genetically more similar to the northern populations."

He said the exceptions were Scotland and the island of Sardinia, which were not as impacted by this North-South exchange.

Dr Cassidy said the prehistory of Britain and Ireland were closely intertwined, and that it was hard to understand one without the other. She said one of the obvious questions raised by this study was whether Ireland experienced a similar scale of inward migration during or after the Middle-Late Bronze Age.

"Characterising any differences in ancestry between Ireland and Britain during the Early Bronze Age will allow us to better understand the extent and direction of migration in subsequent periods."

She added: "If Ireland shows a similar pattern to Scotland, in that we find little evidence of substantial inward migration following the Early Bronze Age, we have to ask how and when was Celtic language introduced to that island."

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-59741723

[Dunai]

It is really great to see how many more ancient samples (ca. 1000) were added to the collective database. The genetic map of Ancient Europe starts to reveal itself more and more and historians will have to catch up to this hard scientific data much sooner than they would like. Does anyone know which ancient populations of Europe are still a question mark, or we know very little data about? Personally can't wait for all the new custom calculators which some of you more knowledgeable will create.

[Token]

Regarding the question of Celtic languages.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-59741723

Jesus, it seems Cassidy lacks basic knowledge about Celtic languages. The divergence of Goidelic and Brythonic occurred much later, well into the common era. Quotes from Celticist Peter Schrijver:

Although on the face of it the Old Irish of the seventh century and Old Welsh and Breton of the eighth century look very different from one another, almost all of the differences between them had arisen in a relatively short period between the fifth and seventh centuries AD, when masses of sound changes affected both languages. In fact, during the Roman period Irish and British Celtic must have been so similar that Celtic speakers on either side of the Irish Sea had little difficulty in understanding one another’s language.

[...] to all intents and purposes, in the first century AD Irish and British Celtic were one single undifferentiated language.

And Barry Cunliffe is still pushing the Neolithic Celtic stuff together with Koch, I've read the most recent volume of Celtic from the West and these guys are still latched on Atlantic Megalithic builders to explain Celtic. Old age seems to make people more resistant to capitulation.

[Grace O'Malley]

Jesus, it seems Cassidy lacks basic knowledge about Celtic languages. The divergence of Goidelic and Brythonic occurred much later, well into the common era. Quotes from Celticist Peter Schrijver:





And Barry Cunliffe is still pushing the Neolithic Celtic stuff together with Koch, I've read the most recent volume of Celtic from the West and these guys are still latched on Atlantic Megalithic builders to explain Celtic. Old age seems to make people more resistant to capitulation.

There have been different opinions on the Goidelic and Brythonic language split. I agree that the Q/P divide is made much bigger than it is and doesn't mean a different origin source for Goidelic and Brythonic languages. Scientists should consult more with each other as in many cases archaeologists have different views than the geneticists. From what I've read though Koch has now modified his opinions and is in agreeance that France looks more like the place where Celtic language spread and not Iberia.

The language question though might not be very clear. How much was Ireland affected by these migrations? It doesn't appear on the same scale as Southern Britain. When did Celtic languages come to Ireland? Anyway no one can answer these questions yet.

[Token]

It is really great to see how many more ancient samples (ca. 1000) were added to the collective database. The genetic map of Ancient Europe starts to reveal itself more and more and historians will have to catch up to this hard scientific data much sooner than they would like. Does anyone know which ancient populations of Europe are still a question mark, or we know very little data about? Personally can't wait for all the new custom calculators which some of you more knowledgeable will create.

A sampling of Bronze and Iron Age Germans and Scandinavians will be very important for locating the Germanic homeland, there's doubt about whether there was an expansion from Scandinavia which spread Proto-Germanic into northern Germany or if it was the other way around. Unfortunately the German state is wary of archaeogenetics for obvious reasons, so Germany is still very undersampled.

[rothaer]

WTF? Are Jews actually smart or was it just a meme? How many people thought that Celtic came to Britain other than via Northern France?

I think it's more about the question whether the known Celtic language originated in the northwestern Alps region (Southern Germany/Switzerland) and spread to the British Ilsles in the Iron Age or if it spread to there in the Bronze Age (or even Stone Age by Bellbeakers, as some assume). In the two latter cases the source is not assumend to be South Germany and in the Bronze Age case it would likely be France.

While the Bell beaker people that replaced abt. 90% of the gene pool at the British Isles (at abt. 2350 BCE) extremely likely will have brought an IE language, it seems to me impossible that this can have been Celtic. Because the various Celtic languages would have been more diverse, if the common proto language would have been that old. This favoured very much the IA spread. But I admit to not be able to judge that question regarding a LBA spread. It would be good if a linguist could tell something about it.

And admittedly we still lack supporting genetic traces for an IA spread to the British Isles (not knowing if that necessarily would have to be visible...).

[J. Ketch]

It seems very plausible that a similar level of replacement that accompanied Celtic speech into Southern Britain (c.50%), then occurred between British Celts and the native Irish. It looks like the Celtic influence in Ireland mostly came via Wales to Southeastern Ireland (Leinster), not via SW Scotland to Ulster, as I imagined for a long time for some reason. I guess R-L21/M222 from the less Celtic NW Ireland had a later resurgence, after Christ.

[Grace O'Malley]

It seems very plausible that a similar level of replacement that accompanied Celtic speech into Southern Britain (c.50%), then occurred between British Celts and the native Irish. It looks like the Celtic influence in Ireland mostly came via Wales to Southeastern Ireland (Leinster), not via SW Scotland to Ulster, as I imagined for a long time for some reason. I guess R-L21/M222 from the less Celtic NW Ireland had a later resurgence, after Christ.

And Z2961 immediately upstream of M222 in East Yorkshire!

East Coast Pipeline, East Riding of Yorkshire, England, UK
..in Fields 9 to 16 which ran northwards between Boynton and Argham in the East Riding of Yorkshire.
An isolated grave at the northern edge of Field 9 contained Skeleton 5214, an infant aged 3–4 years, dated to 2105±35 BP (SUERC-33543; 343–1 cal BCE). Struck flints within the grave were probably residual. Petrous bone from this individual provided sample I22060 (male).

That's very interesting for people that are M222.

[rothaer]

A sampling of Bronze and Iron Age Germans and Scandinavians will be very important for locating the Germanic homeland, there's doubt about whether there was an expansion from Scandinavia which spread Proto-Germanic into northern Germany or if it was the other way around. Unfortunately the German state is wary of archaeogenetics for obvious reasons, so Germany is still very undersampled.

And the more there is progress in other regions this undersampling gets annoying. The big problem is that quite every such researcher in Germany that could promote a sequencing is financed directly or indirectly by the government. So no one wants to end his carreer by developing an interest in population genetics. There is some work done by the extreme leftist Johannes Krause that also publishes books with openly admitted leftist political agenda, so that kind of "neutralises" his dealing with DNA. But even he is more interested in the DNA of Neanderthals and Denisovans as well as Native Americans and Africans than in Europeans, left alone Central Europeans.

Paradoxically we can just hope for non-Germans sequencing in Germany.