The Italo-Celtic expansion

Smertrius

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The term "Celt" is often associated with the cultures of Hallstatt and La Tène, but what makes you think that the Central European Bronze-Age cultures from 2000 to 1200 BCE (Unetice, Tumulus, Urnfield) were not related and also (Proto-)Celtic speaking ? If there is a genealogical, cultural and linguistic continuity, we are talking about the same people. It might be more correct to call them Proto-Celts, but that's really just a fine nuance.

I associate the term celt with Hallstatt and La Tène. We need a starting point, i don't say that there is no relation between the central european Bronze-Age and the future Hallstatt and La Tène celts, but with that logic we can go deep in the past and the celtic notion lose all it's sense.
 
The label "Gallo-Italo-Alpine" does not mean that all people who come from Gaul, Italy or the Alps are all R-U152, but the other way round - R-152 come from Gaul, Italy or the Alps. I expressly avoided using ethnic terms such as Celtic, Italic, Rhaetic or Ligurian because each ethnic group is susceptible to be composed to numerous haplogroups. That's why I used only geographic terms to define the geographic region where a particular haplogroup is the more common. The problem is that Italic can either refer to the Italian peninsula or the Italic tribes. I avoided placing the "Italic" at the end (as in "Gallo-Alpo-Italic") so as not to make it sound like the "Italic people" but like "Italy" (a geographic region of Europe).

Same for R-L21. We can't associate it with a particular ethnicity and say things like "i think that R-L21 is celtic".
 
I associate the term celt with Hallstatt and La Tène. We need a starting point, i don't say that there is no relation between the central european Bronze-Age and the future Hallstatt and La Tène celts, but with that logic we can go deep in the past and the celtic notion lose all it's sense.

Actually we can't go that far away. The Celts descend from the Indo-Europeans who came from the Black Sea region around 4500 years ago. I prefer to call them Celts once they have settled in Central Europe, but Indo-Europeans before that.
 
Same for R-L21. We can't associate it with a particular ethnicity and say things like "i think that R-L21 is celtic".

It is Celtic in the sense that the first R-L21 in Central Europe belonged to the early (Proto-)Celtic-speaking branch of the Indo-Europeans who introduced bronze working into Central and Western Europe. Those Proto-Celts who continued westward and crossed the Channel to Britain seem to have belonged primarily R-S116 and its subclade R-L21.

Few historians would contest that (Proto-)Celtic speakers migrated to Britain from Central Europe around the time that bronze technology appeared in the British Isles.

I cannot see how these early Celts were not R1b people. That's why we could very well say that R-S116 and its subclades R-L21, R-U152, R-M167 are all associated with the spread Celtic people, languages and their bronze-age culture.
 
The Celts descend from the Indo-Europeans who came from the Black Sea region around 4500 years ago. I prefer to call them Celts once they have settled in Central Europe, but Indo-Europeans before that.

Wow, that's what i call simplification ! :)
 
It is Celtic in the sense that the first R-L21 in Central Europe belonged to the early (Proto-)Celtic-speaking branch of the Indo-Europeans who introduced bronze working into Central and Western Europe. Those Proto-Celts who continued westward and crossed the Channel to Britain seem to have belonged primarily R-S116 and its subclade R-L21.
Few historians would contest that (Proto-)Celtic speakers migrated to Britain from Central Europe around the time that bronze technology appeared in the British Isles.
I cannot see how these early Celts were not R1b people.

You cannot call them celts, and you don't know which language they spoke.
 
You cannot call them celts, and you don't know which language they spoke.

You can guess it through the evolutive comparison of Celtic with other Indo-European languages. It is undeniable that Celtic is an Indo-European language. Its closest cousin is Italic. Both descend from Proto-Italo-Celtic. Their next of kin is Proto-Germanic. By analysing the spread of bronze-age Indo-European cultures from Eastern to Western Europe (see maps), you get a pretty good idea of when the split happened between each branch. My estimation is that Italic split off from Celtic when Celts moved to the Italian peninsula around 1200 BCE. The split between Italo-Celtic and Germanic might date to 2300 BCE. In other words, the Indo-European R1b people associated with the cultures of Unetice, Tumulus and Urnfield must have spoken Proto-Italo-Celtic. It's hard to envisage another possibility based on archeological and DNA evidence.
 
By analysing the spread of bronze-age Indo-European cultures from Eastern to Western Europe (see maps), you get a pretty good idea of when the split happened between each branch.

Archeology is one thing, and linguistic another thing.
We have 0 epigraphic documents from that time in central Europe, all you are doing is speculations.
If things were so easy, the datation would be already clear and would make consensus among the linguists.
 
My estimation is that Italic split off from Celtic when Celts moved to the Italian peninsula around 1200 BCE. In other words, the Indo-European R1b people associated with the cultures of Unetice, Tumulus and Urnfield must have spoken Proto-Italo-Celtic. It's hard to envisage another possibility based on archeological and DNA evidence.

So according to your estimation the R-L21 peoples who settled in the british iles were Proto-Italo-Celtic speaking people, and not celts.
 
So according to your estimation the R-L21 peoples who settled in the british iles were Proto-Italo-Celtic speaking people, and not celts.

That doesn't make a lot of difference. If you consider that the actual "Celts" were those associated with the cultures of Hallstatt and La Tène, then the Celtisization of the British Isles happened with the later wave(s) who brought R-U152 to Britain and Ireland. But that's a pointless argument as the earlier R-L21 people also developed their own Celtic language - namely Goidelic and Brythonic Celtic.

The way I imagine it (mere supposition) is that Goidelic or Q-Celtic languages were more significantly associated with the older R-L21 migration, whereas the Brythonic languages would be hybrids mixing Goidelic and Gaulish influences.

Gaulish languages, which also includes Galatian from north-west Iberia and Lepontic from northern Italy, are usually associated with the Hallstatt and La Tène expansions, and therefore with R-U152.

England, Wales and Brittany having both R-L21 and R-U152, it is normal that their native Brythonic languages should be intermediary between Gaulish and Goidelic. That's why some linguists categorise Brythonic in the Insular group with Goidelic, but others inside P-Celtic languages along with Gaulish.

Italic languages are also associated with U152. It should be considered as a branch of Celtic, along with Goidelic, Brythonic and Gaulish. In fact Gaulish and Italic languages were mostly intelligible at the time of Julius Caesar. Romans didn't always need interpreters in Gaul. I am sure that communication wouldn't have been so smooth in Ireland or Scotland.

What I mean is that L21 is as Celtic as U152. L21 is just not Hallstatt.
 
Archeology is one thing, and linguistic another thing.
We have 0 epigraphic documents from that time in central Europe, all you are doing is speculations.
If things were so easy, the datation would be already clear and would make consensus among the linguists.

Unfortunately there are always more sceptical people who will reject anything that is logical if they don't have a material proof (like an ancient text). That's why there is no consensus among linguists. Then not all linguists are knowledgeable about archaeology, and even less population genetics.

The division of Europe various subclades of R1b give invaluable insight on when migration happened and on what scale. Until recently it was impossible to guess from archeological evidence if cultures spread by trade or by migration, and if by migration on what scale.

Now it becomes clearer that the Indo-Europeans moved massively into Western Europe (although some people haven't come round the idea yet), and that several waves of Celtic migrations took place from Central Europe to the British Isles, Iberia, Italy and even northern Germany/Scandinavia.
 
The way I imagine it (mere supposition) is that Goidelic or Q-Celtic languages were more significantly associated with the older R-L21 migration, whereas the Brythonic languages would be hybrids mixing Goidelic and Gaulish influences.

Gaulish languages, which also includes Galatian from north-west Iberia and Lepontic from northern Italy, are usually associated with the Hallstatt and La Tène expansions, and therefore with R-U152.

England, Wales and Brittany having both R-L21 and R-U152, it is normal that their native Brythonic languages should be intermediary between Gaulish and Goidelic. That's why some linguists categorise Brythonic in the Insular group with Goidelic, but others inside P-Celtic languages along with Gaulish.

Italic languages are also associated with U152.

Do you realize that you are correlating two completely different things which have nothing to do with each other, explaining linguistic evolutions with Y-DNA ?
Try to do the same with the replacement of indigenous languages by latin. Massive "latin migrations" ?
 
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It should be considered as a branch of Celtic, along with Goidelic, Brythonic and Gaulish. In fact Gaulish and Italic languages were mostly intelligible at the time of Julius Caesar. Romans didn't always need interpreters in Gaul. I am sure that communication wouldn't have been so smooth in Ireland or Scotland.

Interpreters are mentioned several times in De Bello Gallico, if some didn't need them it's probably because they became familiar with the other language or learnt it with time.

I'm french and i can't understand spoken gascon, which is with no doubt closer to french than gaulish was to latin.
 
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What I mean is that L21 is as Celtic as U152. L21 is just not Hallstatt.

NE French and SW Germans (if you consider that germanisation was not too heavy is this region) are probably the closest populations to what the hallsttat and La Tène peoples, and then the celts, were.
Then to my understanding when i look at your map, they don't have the same Y-DNA composition, R-L21 and I2b being the major british hgs (and not even reaching 10% in SWG and NEF) while R-S28 is the principal SWG and NEF hg (and not reaching 10% in the British Isles).
So Y-DNA speaking, the british can't be related to the Hallstatt and LaTène peoples and then can't be called "celts".
 
Unfortunately there are always more sceptical people who will reject anything that is logical if they don't have a material proof (like an ancient text). That's why there is no consensus among linguists. Then not all linguists are knowledgeable about archaeology, and even less population genetics.

Unfortunately there are always too optimistical people who believe that one marker on one chromosome can explain the developpement of cultures and languages.

There is no consensus among linguists because you can't have one.
Btw you're right, from what i see historians and linguists couldn't care less about genetic (and even more about Y-DNA). Maybe the developpement of genetic and the full human Dna sequencing will change that in the future, who knows...
 
Now it becomes clearer that the Indo-Europeans moved massively into Western Europe (although some people haven't come round the idea yet), and that several waves of Celtic migrations took place from Central Europe to the British Isles, Iberia, Italy and even northern Germany/Scandinavia.
They have spread their genes all over Europe and mixed with autochthonous populations. That's why Europeans look different in each part of Europe despite the fairly recent Indo-European migrations.
That's maybe why the massive IE movements were not so massive after all.
 
Do you realize that you are correlating two completely different things which have nothing to do with each other, explaining linguistic evolutions with Y-DNA ?
Try to do the same with the replacement of indigenous languages by latin. Massive "latin migrations" ?

Latin is an Italo-Celtic language. Despite the fact that the Romans had an immense cultural influence over a vast empire for hundreds of years, Latin only survived in parts of the empire that already spoke Celtic or Italic languages originally (although Latin disappeared in some region like southern Germany or Britain during the Germanic invasions). Why do you think that is ? Because the Romans didn't have a centralised compulsory education system like we have nowadays, and people kept speaking their indigenous language alongside Latin. There are records of Celtic dialects being spoken in Gaul as late as the 6th century. After they merged with Latin to form the various dialects of Vulgar Latin that would evolve into Old French, Old Occitan, Old Catalan, Old Castillan, etc.
 
Interpreters are mentioned several times in De Bello Gallico, if some didn't need them it's probably because they became familiar with the other language or learnt it with time.

I'm french and i can't understand spoken gascon, which is with no doubt closer to french than gaulish was to latin.

The Gascon dialect of Occitan is not closer to Parisian French than Gaulish was to Latin. How much do you know about Gaulish and Latin ? Have a look at this comparison.
 
NE French and SW Germans (if you consider that germanisation was not too heavy is this region) are probably the closest populations to what the hallsttat and La Tène peoples, and then the celts, were.
Then to my understanding when i look at your map, they don't have the same Y-DNA composition, R-L21 and I2b being the major british hgs (and not even reaching 10% in SWG and NEF) while R-S28 is the principal SWG and NEF hg (and not reaching 10% in the British Isles).
So Y-DNA speaking, the british can't be related to the Hallstatt and LaTène peoples and then can't be called "celts".

Don't forget that other major migration happened after the Celts. 400 years of Romanisation in Britain only had a moderate impact on the genetic make-up, but DNA studies have demonstrated that the Anglo-Saxon and Norse invasions had a major impact on the Y-DNA lineages in Britain (especially East England and Scotland).

Southern Germany is the crossroads of continental Europe. It was a major Roman settlement (the border with Magna Germania had to be protected by numerous fortified towns). Being just across that border, Germanic tribes settled most heavily in Rhineland than anywhere else except Britain.

Then, most importantly, the Indo-Europeans had to deal with an advanced agricultural society in Central Europe, with better fortifications, better weapons, and above all, a more advantageous landscape allowing for easy retreat into the mountains. The locals therefore resisted better to the Italo-Celtic invasions, as attested by the higher percentage of haplogroup E, T, G and J around the Alps. There is a clear gap between the flatter regions of southern Germany and northern Italy (high in R1b) and the remoter parts of Switzerland (high in G2a, E1b1b, T and J2b).

Megalithic societies of Western Europe were less technologically advanced and had less opportunity to escape the warrior-like Indo-Europeans. Their primitive weapons were no match to the Celtic bronze weapons and shields, or to their cavalry. It was a bit like the Spaniards arriving in the Americas.
 
Unfortunately there are always too optimistical people who believe that one marker on one chromosome can explain the developpement of cultures and languages.

There is no consensus among linguists because you can't have one.
Btw you're right, from what i see historians and linguists couldn't care less about genetic (and even more about Y-DNA). Maybe the developpement of genetic and the full human Dna sequencing will change that in the future, who knows...

Couldn't care less, or aren't up-to-date ? Population genetics based on the Y-DNA was almost inexistent 5 years ago. The main subclades of R1b were only discovered in the last 2 years, and their geographic spread is only becoming clearer now. The problem is not that historians and linguists couldn't care less; they just don't know. How many books about history and linguistics have been published about the Indo-Europeans since January 2009, that included the genetic insight acquired until 2008 ? The only one I know and have read is The 10,000 years explosion, which is in agreement with my views.
 

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