Historical facts

Maciamo

Veteran member
Admin
Messages
9,948
Reaction score
3,228
Points
113
Location
Lothier
Ethnic group
Italo-celto-germanic
The concept of this thread is to cite a few interesting or surprising historical facts about any period of history.


- Charlemagne

Roland and Ronceveaux

Contrarily to idées reçues, it was not the Muslims of Spain who defeated the troops of Charlemagne at the Battle of Roncevaux Pass, but the Basque people. Charlemagne had in fact been invited by the wali of Barcelona, Sulaiman Ibn Yakzan Ibn al-Arabi,, to help him fight the Emir of Cordoba. Very unusually for this time of deep religious conviction, the lord protector of Christianity was helping Muslim governor against its own Muslim prince.

The battle became famous through the Song of Roland, composed centuries later. Because of this song, there is a common misconception that Roland (who died in the battle) was the nephew of Charlemagne. This isn't true. They were not even related. Roland (or Hruoland, in fact) was the governor of Brittany.

Emperor

It is not known whether Charlemagne planned his coronation as Emperor of the Occident. It is more likely that Pope Leo III crowned him emperor to his own surprise, so as to make of the Frankish leader the official protector of the Church. The records mention him as "Roman Emperor", and Charlemagne was indeed seen as the heir of the Western Roman Empire by both the Catholic Church and by the Muslim world. Only the Byzantines refused to ackowledge him as such, as they saw him as a rival to their own power.


- French Revolution

The Bastille

14 July 1789 is one of the most important dates in French history. It is when the Parisian populace took the Bastille, marking the real start of the French Revolution. The Bastille was an enormous prison seen as the symbol of totalitarian power and arbitrary justice. What few people know, and few people knew even at the time, is that the Bastille was almost empty. It had only 4 prisoners, all petty criminals, and not a single political prisoners. Far from being a hellish place with prisoners attached by chains in dark and humid cells, the cells we actually quite spacious and comfortable. One prisoner reported that the food was not bad and that he could get as much paper and ink as he wanted to write. The prison even had a nice library !

The Terror

The practice of displaying severed heads on top of a pike or pitchfork started with the French Revolution. The governor of the Bastille was one of the first victims of this macabre practice.

During the Terror (September 1793 to July 1794), 18,500 to 40,000 people died, including about 16,000 guillotined.
 
- Ancient Europe

Wine

The Greeks and Romans put water in their wine. The Celts didn't, which was seen as a barbaric practice by the Gallo-Romans.

Human sacrifices

The Celts practised human sacrifice to the gods, typically near water (lake, river, spring). They also decapitated the defeated after a battle, took the heads back home as trophies, and exposed the headless bodies hanging on wooden frames.

Sometimes, they replaced humans by huge amphoras of wine, and simulated the decapitation by cutting off the top of the amphora with a sword. The spilling wine would represent the blood.

Celtic culture vs genes

A common Celtic culture originating from the south-west of Germany spread to half of Europe, to the British Isles, around France, Switzerland and southern Germany, in northern Spain, and as far as Anatolia via the Danube region. They spoke a similar language, shared a same religion and beliefs, had traditions, the same arts and techniques.

However, DNA tests have not been able to find any common genes between the various areas once settled by the Celts, which leads to think that the cultures spread across a variety of ethnic groups.

The Romans did not refer to the Britons as Celts, probably because they looked different to them. For instance, continental Celts buried their war leaders with their chariots, a tradition virtually unknown in Celtic Britain.

Celtic technology

Before the Roman Conquest, the Celts were as developed as the Greeks and Romans. They invented the chainmail, and had swords and shield at least as strong as the Romans. The decoration of the weapons, chariots and artifacts was superior to those of many Mediterranean cultures.

The Celts traded actively with the Mediterranean world, exchanging notably their iron tools and weapons for wine and pottery.

Their defeat against the Romans was mainly due to the fact that they were disunited against the Roman ennemy, and victims of internal tribal struggles. Well before Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul, the Celts had plundered Rome (390 BCE), and sacked Delphi (279 BCE).
 
Catholic saints are typically depicted with an aureola above the head. Originally the aureola had no religious meaning; it was just a disk place above sculptures to protect them from pigeons' defecations. It is only later that it was associated with the protection of the Holy Ghost.
 
Celtic technology and wealth

Recent studies have shown that the Celts were more advanced than the Romans in some scientific and economic aspects. Pre-Roman Celtic calendars were much more accurate than the Roman one. In fact, they were possibly more accurate than the Gregorian calendar in use nowadays.

The Celts were also immensely rich. We now know that Julius Caesar's main reason to conquer Gaul was to lay hands on Celtic gold. Over 400 Celtic gold mines were found in France alone. The Romans had little gold on their home territory, so the conquest of Gaul was a tremendous boost to their power. This is what allowed Julius Caesar to become so powerful politically - more than the generals who conquered any other part of the Roman Empire. It is estimated that Caesar massacred 1 out of 10 million of Celts in Gaul, and put another million into slavery. In modern terms, this would be called a genocide.

The Celts also preempted the Romans in their construction of a road network across the European continent. The Celtic world was very decentralised compared to the Roman one, but at least a dozen Celtic towns possessed high stone walls rivalling those of Rome at the time. The longest were 5km long.

Ancient Celtic society gave much more freedom and power to women than the Greeks and Romans did. Greco-Roman housewives were prohibited to do business and mostly sequestrated in their home under the supervision of male family members. Celtic women could sometimes become powerful tribe leaders.
 
The Vandals

Nowadays the term "vandalism" means "wantonly destructive act". The term comes from the name of the East Germanic tribe that was pushed by the Huns into the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, and that finally settled in North Africa.

But were these people really so violent or barbaric to deserve to be remembered the way they are ? Many historians now believe that it was not the case.

It is true that the arrival of over a hundred thousands Vandals in Gaul caused great upheaval, as can be expected from such a large population movement inside a foreign land. This was not specific to the Vandals, but to any invaders. The Vandals did not have the choice, and pay a heavy price for escaping from the Huns. The allied Frankish and Roman armies killed one third of their population, who escaped southward. The Vandals were then attacked by the Visigoths in south-west France, and moved to Spain.

Despite being Christians, the Romans hated the Vandals more than the pagans. The reason is that the Vandals were not adept of Catholicism but Arianism, a version of Christianity ruled as heretic by Rome in 325.

Unable to remain peacefully in southern Spain (in Andalusia, which was probably named after the Vandals), King Geiseric ordered the construction of hundreds of ships and led his people across the Mediterranean to North Africa, then the breadbasket of the Western Roman Empire. The Romans were completely taken aback by this move, so that the Vandals did not meet any resistance in this prosperous, peaceful and remote part of the empire. They advanced as far as Carthage, one of the most important cities in the empire, and took the city without a fight.

Contrarily to popular beliefs, the Vandals did not destroy the cities they took, but preserved them and ruled peacefully over them. Many North Africans displeased with the corrupt Roman administration even greeted the new Vandal rule.

Geiseric gave freedom of religion to the Catholics, while insisting that the regime's elite follow Arianism. The common folk had low taxes under his reign, as most of the tax pressure was on the rich Roman families and the Catholic clergy.

It is interesting to note that the incidence of fair hair and eyes is still more common in some pockets of North Africa (e.g. at the border of Morocco and Algeria => see maps) than in southern Europe, due to Vandal settlements.

The only event that would have earned the Vandals their bad reputation is the sack of Rome in 455. The Vandals had previously signed a peace treaty with Emperor Valentinian III, who offered his daughter's hand in marriage to Geiseric's son. The assassination of Valentinian III by Petronius Maximus to usurp the throne caused Geiseric to bring his troops to Rome to avenge his father-in-law. Although they did pillage Rome, the Vandals did not destroy any building, as requested by Pope Leo I.

Although the Roman Empire disappeared, the Catholic Church continued to exist and prospered afterwards. As heir of the Christian Roman Empire, it is not surprising that the Catholic Church rewrote history from its biased point of view, describing the Vandals as destructive barbarians. Historians are now rediscovering that the Vandalic rule in North Africa was in fact one of exemplary rule (compared to the power in Rome at the time, at least) and refinement in the arts, such as poetry.
 
A 9th-century Pope is said to have been a woman under the name of John (or Joan). She is said to have fooled everyone by wearing men's clothing. She got busted when she got pregnant and gave birth in the street while wearing her papal garments. The Catholic Church now refutes the existence of Pope Joan as a lie invented by heretics to discredit the Church. What else could they say ?
 
I would like to cast away a few common historical misconceptions here.

The Spanish colonisation of the Americas

Contrarily to what many people think, it took a long time (many centuries) for the Spaniards to convert the native Amerindian population to Christianity and to establish Spanish as the dominant language. Although the Spaniards set out immediately to convert the locals, the language barrier was immense. There were approximately 2000 languages in the Americas around 1500, and 493 were studied by Spanish linguists. In the 16th century, missionaries had no other choice but to learn Amerindian languages if they had any chance to spread their faith effectively.

The linguistic conversion took even longer, and is far from complete to this day. There are still 6 million Mexicans who speak indigenous languages, and over 10 million Quechua speakers in the former Inca empire, although these were two of the first regions to be conquered by the Spaniards.

The Spanish language spread little by little through the Spanish-born administrators of the colonies, through the work of missionaries and schooling, but most importantly through inter-racial marriages. A popular image of the Spanish colonists is that of the blood-thirsty conquistador who massacred natives who refused to accept the Bible or Spanish dominion. Although true in some places during some decades,, this phenomenon has been vastly exaggerated. In fact, the Spaniards were much more likely to take native brides and recognise their offspring from such unions than the English, French or Dutch colonists. Almost all of the famous conquistadors took Amerindian wives and had mestizo children (e.g. Cortes, Pizarro, Alvarado, Benalcazar).

This was a common practice among Spanish colonists because the Spanish immigrants were overwhelmingly male, but also because it was seen as an acceptable practice. This is why Latin America has so much more mestizos than the former British colonies, anywhere in the world. It was this way that the Spanish language spread, more than by any other way, before the advent of compulsory education in the 20th century. Had the Spaniards refused to intermarry with the natives, Spanish might well have not survived the independence of the colonies. Spanish was indeed quickly forgotten in the Pacific colonies ceded to the United States in 1898 (namely the Philippines, Guam and the Marianas), a sure sign that the language was not yet established after 300 years of colonisation. The same thing happened with Dutch in Indonesia.


Is Japan really an old civilisation ?

I often hear Americans say that Japan and China are such an old civilisations, with thousands of years of history. I have explained earlier than China is not as old a civilisation as is often thought. Let's concentrate on Japan here.

Firstly, it is arguable whether Japan is a civilisation at all. It should be considered part of the Chinese Civilisation (or in more politically correct way, "East Asian Civilisation") as everything required to acquire the status of civilisation (agriculture, writing) ultimately came from China (some via Korea).

The Japanese culture developed very late by Eurasia standards. Agriculture didn't reach Japan until about 1000 BCE (in Kyushu), did not become intensive until the Yayoi period (500 BCE-300 CE) and didn't spread to the north of Honshu and Hokkaido until the Edo period (1603-1868). Writing was not formally adopted by the Japanese until about year 500, in the form of Chinese characters. This is also when the first organised governments emerged, around Nara (from 456), until the first permanent capital was established in present-day Kyoto in 794.

In every regard Japan is a young country and a young culture. Agriculture in Mesoamerica started 10,000 years ago (like in the Near East), and had become intensive 7,000 years ago, preceding Japan by about 5,000 years. The Maya and the Zapotec had already built an elaborate empire and flourished by the time the Yamato people unified and established their first capital. Yet, Central American civilisations are seen as recent by Eurasian standards. Their apogee came a thousand years after the zenith of Classical Greece, and 3,000 years after the Great Egyptian Pyramids, to which the Maya pyramids are often (always ?) compared.

Let's now compare Japan to supposedly "younger" parts of Europe, like Britain or Germany. Agriculture reached Germany 6,500 years ago, Britain 5,000 years ago, and Japan 3,000 years ago. Writing was commonly used 2000 years ago in Roman Britain and Germania, although it had been in use before occasionally. The Japanese also imported their script from their powerful neighbours, but were forced to adapt it to their very different grammar and phonetics. Developed around 800 CE, the Japanese Kana syllabaries took a few centuries to become established. It can be said without exaggerating that Japanese language could not be written properly until about 1000 years after Celtic and Germanic languages.
 
Last edited:
Catholic saints are typically depicted with an aureola above the head. Originally the aureola had no religious meaning; it was just a disk place above sculptures to protect them from pigeons' defecations. It is only later that it was associated with the protection of the Holy Ghost.

Aureola most likely was invented few times through history. Was always used as a symbol of importance and holiness. Even ancient Egyptians use it in some form.
Here is a brief history of aureola.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_(religious_iconography)

At some point someone tilted it over a head of statue and invented a second meaning (double use) for halo, as protection against pigeons poop.
 
- French Revolution

The Bastille

14 July 1789 is one of the most important dates in French history. It is when the Parisian populace took the Bastille, marking the real start of the French Revolution. The Bastille was an enormous prison seen as the symbol of totalitarian power and arbitrary justice. What few people know, and few people knew even at the time, is that the Bastille was almost empty. It had only 4 prisoners, all petty criminals, and not a single political prisoners. Far from being a hellish place with prisoners attached by chains in dark and humid cells, the cells we actually quite spacious and comfortable. One prisoner reported that the food was not bad and that he could get as much paper and ink as he wanted to write. The prison even had a nice library !

.

lol, yep, the Bastille was a prison for elite, the upper class. As you mentioned they were kept in great living conditions. I think the people attacked Bastille because of a weapon and food cash located there, for small garrison of soldiers and high class prisoners.
 
A 9th-century Pope is said to have been a woman under the name of John (or Joan). She is said to have fooled everyone by wearing men's clothing. She got busted when she got pregnant and gave birth in the street while wearing her papal garments. The Catholic Church now refutes the existence of Pope Joan as a lie invented by heretics to discredit the Church. What else could they say ?

My common sense radar is telling me it's not truth.
If it were, the Vatican officials and top bishops would be so ashamed (at the time) that the last thing they would want is the truth to get out. The female pope would die "naturally during the sleep at night", and new pope would be elected soon after. The end of story. What happens in Vatican, stays in Vatican.
What the bishops gain by exposing the truth to the public? To show how blind and stupid they were?
For her to give birth in the street still in papal cloths, not plausible, conspiracy theory like.
 
@Maciamo

I read your post about the china,
(replace ** by WW)
**w.eupedia.com/forum/showthread.php?t=43752
very good, a perfect demonstration against a legend.

And about historical link to mesopotamia to Europe, exist this exellent site creat by a serious historian, without (on the face of it) politic leanings
**w.buildinghistory.org/distantpast/neolithic.shtml

And personally I would say rather "link to north Eurasia to m?sopotamia...". Because the white skins is a sp?cificity of North peoples (because climate of course) and so, they come of the North, not of the South in first. If this had been a flow South > North, skin peoples of the Middle East would have been rather black than white. But deserts have played in reducing the flow from that direction.

Off course a lot things come of Mesopotamia (agriculture, first civilisations,etc), but where did the Sumerians? for example? And, on the face of it, they are not Semites, knowing that in this region there were only Europeans or Semites peoples... And the white skin and appearance of Egyptians? And the general white skins of those regions? Of North definitely. Well before the demographic/cultural/linguistic/civilization emergence of Indo-Europeans. Of proto-Indo-Europeans? Maybe... But but we shall call simply them "North Eurasia peoples".

Regards
 
How the Europeans helped spread American and Asian languages

The Europeans did not only spread their own languages in their colonies, but also contributed to the survival and expansion of some native languages. It took over three centuries for the Spaniards and Portuguese to diffuse Spanish and Portuguese around all their American colonies. In the meantime they relied on well-established native tongues as lingua franca. Christianity was spread principally though native Amerindian languages, not in Spanish or Portuguese. The languages that benefited the most of their alliance with the new colonists are Quechua in the Andes, Guarani (and the closely related Tupinamba) in Paraguay and Brazil, and Nahuatl in Mexico. All three are still spoken and owe their survival (as opposed to many other native tongues) to their role in colonial history.

The Dutch failed to propagate their language in their worldwide colonies, except in South Africa where they settled in large numbers. The Dutch took over most of the Portuguese colonies in Asia. Portugal and Spain were united under a single monarchy between 1580 and 1640, when the Dutch proclaimed their independence from Spain and captured the Portuguese trading posts in Asia. Such was the Dutch animosity towards the Iberians that they preferred using the completely alien tongues of the indigenes as lingua franca than to resort to using Portuguese, which was already widely understood by Asian traders. This is how Bahasa Melayu (Malay) became the dominant language in Indonesia, under 300 years of Dutch rule. It is now the official and most spoken language in both Malaysia and Indonesia.
 
Last edited:
Celts were assimilated by Romans and then by Germans .
Before the Roman Conquest, the Celts were as developed as the Greeks....
:annoyed:
Where are the ancient cities of Celts? The temples? Sculptures?
They were not like the Greeks or Romans.
Roads, science, architecture, sculpture, art of war, philosophy, = Greece or Rome.
Greece is the mother of Europe. Greece>>>> Romans>>> Celts, Germans.
We can say that their languages have been deleted from Europe ...
Currently the Anglo-Saxons have half the world. Maybe I exaggerate ...
Germans destroyed the Roman Empire and then they founded kingdoms in Europe.
Their Kings possessed Europe for years
i think the Irish are the real Celts who were not assimilated.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Invasions_of_the_Roman_Empire_1.png
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/Celtic_Nations.svg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Omar ibn Hafsún


Origins

Hafsún Ben Omar was born in the region Parauta, Spanish town located east of the province of Malaga, Andalusia, Genal Valley, one of the stocks that make up the region of the Sierra de Ronda, probably in the place known The Torrepilla "Parauta people today, in a family of aristocratic landowners Muslims of Gothic, one of whose grandparents had converted to Islam. Thus, by birth was muladí Omar (name given to the descendants of Hispanic converts to Islam Goths) was not Mozarabic (those of Spanish-Goths who remained Christians), despite his conversion to Islam; time from which may be referred to convert (from an Islamic perspective) or Renegade (from a Christian perspective).

According to historian D. Isidro Garcia Cigüenza, the origin of the name of Omar was Hafs and it added the term "one" that was distinctive among the Arab nobility, being set Hafsún surname.

Omar's mother does not know anything, the father know that he died under the claws of a bear, and his brothers, one named Ayyub and the other Ya `far. Born in the house that her parents were in the village of Parauta, near Ronda, although this statement about his birthplace into discussion with the neighbors for purely topographical Júzcar: the farmhouse was known as the farmstead and Torrichela found near the castle AUTH, which is now known as Parauta, currently owned at the end of Júzcar, hence the controversy.

Life as a fugitive

The origin of how Omar became a rebel, as recorded by the writer Jorge Alonso Garcia, is an incident that happened when he discovered that a Berber shepherd was stealing his grandfather's cattle, Ya `far ibn Salim. Omar confronted him, killing him. After the murder, Omar went into hiding in the mountains of Alto Guadalhorce (Los Gaitanes), taking refuge in the ruins of an old castle that will be the impregnable Bobastro, since he knew he would be persecuted by vigilantes Berbers.

With other fugitive as he began to steal the hearts of Rayya and Takoronna until he was captured by the wali of Malaga, which, ignoring the murder, just hit. He decided to escape to North Africa, settling in as an apprentice tailor Tahart until, encouraged by another muladí decided to return in 880 taking advantage of the growing internal chaos of Al-Andalus.

Lordship of Bobastro

With the support of his uncle Muhad brought together a game of Mozarabic and even Berbers muladíes unhappy with the ruling Arab aristocracy, and showing signs of what later would be tested in many battles, that is their great feats of military strategist Omar, as a first step to strengthen and improve the defenses of the castle Bobastro in the northern province of Malaga, making it virtually impregnable, as show over more than forty years resisted the stakes of the Umayyads.

His hosts were very powerful and numerous, and fought bravely in clear defiance against the power of the emirs of Córdoba. His soldiers affectionately called him "Captain of the big nose." Wherever he went, people cheered Omar and his men, so the Emir of Córdoba, Muhammad I forgave him and took him as a bodyguard for his service with General Hashim ibn Abd al-Aziz took part in fierce battles , like Pancorbo, where he demonstrated his bravery against the enemy.

But far from obtaining recognition of their worth and that of his men, Omar was belittled and insulted by high representatives of the emirate, even to a lack of food or, failing that, when it did arrive, it did not meet the minimum conditions. Rebelling against the emir, conquered a large territory.

Omar military supremacy showed unstoppable this great military deployment took him to grab strengths and AUTH, Comares and Mijas.

Amir Al-Mundhir, son of Muhammad, he sent his army, but only recovered Iznájar, at 888, so the emir in person decides to go in front of his troops and lay siege where muladíes Archidona surrender Mozarabic defenders being executed. The same applies Priego is also recovered by the Umayyads.

After these victories the emir Bobastro besieged, Ibn causing Hafsún sign a pact with the king to surrender in exchange for amnesty, but broke the truce when the emir and retired, so he returned to Al-Mundir siege sick and dying, was succeeded by his brother Abdallah.

During the emirate of internal rebellions Abdallah Al-Andalus followed, Omar ben Hafsún took the opportunity to sign alliances with other rebels and take Estepa, Osuna and Ecija in 889, conquering Baena massacring its supporters for what the rest Priego Subbética of surrender without a fight and his troops made raids near the capital, Córdoba. It was a big state, from Elvira and Jaen in the west and east to the region of Seville, and as far as Cordoba.

At the height of his power, Omar Ben Hafsún dominated provinces of Malaga and Granada (where the emirate had to recognize officially as governor) and had close relations with rebels in Jaén. In their struggle against the Umayyads supported him on all the Berbers and the Mozarabic.

He also established contacts with Ifriquiya (Tunisia, Libya), first with the Aghlabids and then the victors, who were Shiite Fatimid although the population was Sunni doctrine and Badajoz and Saragossa. At the same time a Christian bishop installed in Bobastro and built there a church converted to Christianity in the year 899, adopting the name of Samuel, and also seeking recognition of their status by the Asturian King Alfonso III.

The emirate achieved largely isolate forming a coalition with the Banu Qasi, a family in the Upper muladí. Abdallah defeated him May 16 at Poley year 891 (the Arabic name of Aguilar de la Frontera, located in the southern province of Córdoba) and began his decline. Supporters played down his baptism, but continued the fight from his fortress of Bobastro, until his death in 917. Your child could hold Bobastro Suleyman against Rahman III to 928. The rebellion was suppressed and Hafsún clan had to go into exile. His daughter, Santa Argentea, is remembered in the Catholic Church as a virgin and martyr.

P1040442.JPG

This sculpture is made of cedar and was gilded and painted, has a height of 80cm and as was done in the thirteenth century. Santa Argentea represents, in the town of Ardales (Málaga). Was blessed in May 2008.
 
Last edited:
Celts were assimilated by Romans and then by Germans .
:annoyed:
Where are the ancient cities of Celts? The temples? Sculptures?
They were not like the Greeks or Romans.
Roads, science, architecture, sculpture, art of war, philosophy, = Greece or Rome.
Greece is the mother of Europe. Greece>>>> Romans>>> Celts, Germans.
We can say that their languages have been deleted from Europe ...
Currently the Anglo-Saxons have half the world. Maybe I exaggerate ...
Germans destroyed the Roman Empire and then they founded kingdoms in Europe.
Their Kings possessed Europe for years
i think the Irish are the real Celts who were not assimilated.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Invasions_of_the_Roman_Empire_1.png
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/Celtic_Nations.svg


the greeks and the romans did see the celts as barbarians, because of their practices, they did though consider them great craftsmen as they were, and they were trading with them....celtic ornaments were found in ancient greece, and vice versa...there used to be a greek settlement even here in dublin and greek merchants were visiting ireland since the ancient times....in fact dublin, or a region near dublin was know to ancient greeks, and it was named as eblana...(εβλανα)
 
A 9th-century Pope is said to have been a woman under the name of John (or Joan). She is said to have fooled everyone by wearing men's clothing. She got busted when she got pregnant and gave birth in the street while wearing her papal garments. The Catholic Church now refutes the existence of Pope Joan as a lie invented by heretics to discredit the Church. What else could they say ?

The story of Pope Joan is an older myth that fairly recently has been resurrected by those who desire that females be admitted into the priesthood.
The story kind of gives itself away (I think that it was intended to do so.) when one reads about the circumstances of how she was discovered to be a woman. There are various versions, but each has her not having her "water break", but actually giving birth. Without bringing in Obstetricians for expert testimony, we can pretty safely go with stating that this type of event would be extremely rare. Anyone in that condition could have pleaded or feigned illness and confined herself to a bedroom somewhere with trusted servants. At least there would have been a chance to hide the baby then.


The point in the other post about the Basques was a good one to bring up. They had thought that they were getting support, but found out that it was more likely that they would be incorporated into the Frankish empire. That did not sit well with them.
The assault on the rear guard commanded by Roland went down in historical myth as a defense against a Moslem army. The facts are actually even more interesting me. The fiercely independent people have been able to maintain at least a degree of either independence or autonomy for most of there history.
 
- Ancient Europe

Celtic culture vs genes

A common Celtic culture originating from the south-west of Germany spread to half of Europe, to the British Isles, around France, Switzerland and southern Germany, in northern Spain, and as far as Anatolia via the Danube region. They spoke a similar language, shared a same religion and beliefs, had traditions, the same arts and techniques.

However, DNA tests have not been able to find any common genes between the various areas once settled by the Celts, which leads to think that the cultures spread across a variety of ethnic groups.

The Romans did not refer to the Britons as Celts, probably because they looked different to them. For instance, continental Celts buried their war leaders with their chariots, a tradition virtually unknown in Celtic Britain.

).

I am a little confused on this one. Many of the threads and posts here refer to certain DNA markers being associated with movements/settlements of Celts. The migrations of groups speaking Italo-Celtic and carrying the L21 and U152? markers have been described in great detail here.
This post seems to contradict much of what has been presented. It appears to be from the "cultural diffusion" school of thought. Was it intended to spur discussion on that subject?
 
I am a little confused on this one. Many of the threads and posts here refer to certain DNA markers being associated with movements/settlements of Celts. The migrations of groups speaking Italo-Celtic and carrying the L21 and U152? markers have been described in great detail here.
This post seems to contradict much of what has been presented. It appears to be from the "cultural diffusion" school of thought. Was it intended to spur discussion on that subject?
This isn't contradictionary at all. Languages and archaeological cultures can spread without a population replacement (or more broadly, spread of genetic markers). Likewise, consider that the Basques, which do not speak an Indo-European language at all are mostly R1b. On the other hand, it seems likely that the bearers of the Hallstatt / La-Tene Cultures were R1b-U152, but conversely said marker probably wasn't exlusive to them.

Also, there's the possibility (even the likelihood, see below) that the Pre-Celtic population in many areas already spoke a Italo-Celtic (or "Para-Celtic" as some people say) language, and hence easily adopted a Celtic language: we know of at least two of such languages (although they are poorly attested), namely Ligurian in southern France and northwestern Italy, and Lusitanian in western Iberia.
 

This thread has been viewed 61253 times.

Back
Top