New map of haplogroup R1b-L21 (S145)

The probelm though is there is no archaelgoical signs of mass movement from Ireland into Scotland during the early medieval period. The archaelogy is actually continuous from before the 4th century. Also the biggest subgrouping of L21 in Scotland appears to be the "Scots Modal" which is only present in Ireland generally among men bearing non-irish surnames (mostly scottish).

The reason I brought this up was because of the fact that in the 2nd century AD, all of Britain up to the far north appears to be P-Celtic (I'm trying to avoid the term "Pictish" because that's very probably an artifact of the Hadrian's Wall), with P-Celtic tribal names even inside the area of the later Dál Riata. Something must have happened in the following centuries if people switch to a different language.

the main areas for M222 in Scotland are in the Eastern Lowlands which were never "Gaelic speaking" they were Brythonic and then Anglic speaking. The area is the core of the "Scots" language. Likewise it's quite common over the border in North-east England. the Varience calculations tend to point to it been oldest in England followed by Scotland and youngest in Ireland. The Irish M222 has all the signs of a major "founder effect" going on. Interesting enough the core of the M222+ region in Ireland is adjacent to groups who are showing up as L513+ and DF21+. Likewise further east you have specific I2b2 that is associated more with Scotland then the rest of Ireland and shows up in groupings tied to La Tène material culture in Ireland. The north east been where the highest amount of finds have been found.

In general though La Tène material culture finds are nearly all restricted to "Leath Conn" with next to nothing found in Leath Mogha. Interesting enough the vast majority of Ogham stones in Ireland are in Leath Mogha.

These are interesting points I was unaware, however.
 
The reason I brought this up was because of the fact that in the 2nd century AD, all of Britain up to the far north appears to be P-Celtic (I'm trying to avoid the term "Pictish" because that's very probably an artifact of the Hadrian's Wall), with P-Celtic tribal names even inside the area of the later Dál Riata. Something must have happened in the following centuries if people switch to a different language.

Well from recent history we know that a language can collapse in little over 200 years. English in Ireland is a interesting example for the first 500 years it made next to no headway mainly as a native elite still existed. Once this had been destroyed by the end of the 17th century you saw English advancing to been the language of majority by 1800 (just over 50%). Now adays only about 2% of population could be counted as Daily speakers of Irish. Though over 50% of population would have at least some Irish (schooling for you)

Pre-Famine
pre-famine-irish.png


1851
irish-1851-census.png


1871
Irishin1871.jpg


1926 -- Gaeltacht commision report
Gaeltacht_1926.jpg


1956 -- Gaeltacht boundaries
Gaeltacht_1956.jpg


2007 -- report on the future of the Gaeltacht
gaeltacht-2007.png


From a Y-Chromosome point of view we that the above wasn't due to population replacement but via language replacement/dominance. In 1841 there were probably more speakers of Irish then there were Swedish speakers. Or more then Danish, Norwegian and Finish combined.
 
Well from recent history we know that a language can collapse in little over 200 years. English in Ireland is a interesting example for the first 500 years it made next to no headway mainly as a native elite still existed. Once this had been destroyed by the end of the 17th century you saw English advancing to been the language of majority by 1800 (just over 50%). Now adays only about 2% of population could be counted as Daily speakers of Irish. Though over 50% of population would have at least some Irish (schooling for you)

Yes, this sad downfall of the Irish language is definitely a very good analogy. I actually wanted to comment on you mentioning that you learned Irish earlier. :) I find it very ambitious of the Irish to teach the language against all obvious odds, even if the success of this yet remains to be seen. I do wish the Irish good luck with this, however.

From a Y-Chromosome point of view we that the above wasn't due to population replacement but via language replacement/dominance. In 1841 there were probably more speakers of Irish then there were Swedish speakers. Or more then Danish, Norwegian and Finish combined.

The situation in regard for Ireland is even more saddening if you consider that demographically, Ireland never really recovered from the famine (I'm including both the Republic and the North here, for the sake of comparison).

To get back to the 'Picts', one issue that obviously should also be counted in is large-scale illiteracy. I think that this would have been a factor that definitely helped in regard for language change.
 
Yes, this sad downfall of the Irish language is definitely a very good analogy. I actually wanted to comment on you mentioning that you learned Irish earlier. :) I find it very ambitious of the Irish to teach the language against all obvious odds, even if the success of this yet remains to be seen. I do wish the Irish good luck with this, however.



The situation in regard for Ireland is even more saddening if you consider that demographically, Ireland never really recovered from the famine (I'm including both the Republic and the North here, for the sake of comparison).

To get back to the 'Picts', one issue that obviously should also be counted in is large-scale illiteracy. I think that this would have been a factor that definitely helped in regard for language change.

Well I also think it's probably easier to switch languages when they are closely related. When you think about 1800-1500 years ago "Goidelic" and "Brythonic" wouldn't have been hugely dissimiliar. Yes obviously there are the sound changes, but we are still talking about closely related languages. Lot easier to switch between the two then say between Irish and English which we know people did do enmass.

My Great Great Grandfather who was born in the 1820's is down in the 1901/1911 census as been able to speak both Irish and English. His son (my G.Grandfather) who was born in the 1860's could only speak English. As there was no education system until the 1830's and that was mandatory english (for the small minority who attended) the implication is my G.G.Grandfather grew up in a Irish speaking home. He like many other Irish people during the same people intentionally refused to use the language with their children.

Irish is a compulsory subject, you need to pass it to matriculate to university (unless you arrived in country after age of 12), however the teaching of it is remarkably poor in many ways. In my case though I spent the first 5 years of my education in an Irish medium school. Total immersion across all subjects (apart from English obvious) and stuff like Physical education etc.

In 1972 there were only 11 Irish medium (Gaelscoil/Gaelcholáiste) schools at primary level and five at secondary level in the Republic (outside of the Gaeltacht -- irish speaking areas). Now there are 172 at primary level and 39 at secondary level. When you factor in Northern Ireland the total is 298 gaelscoileanna at primary level and 72 schools at post-primary level (gaelcholáistí)

It's only with the unification of Dál Riata and "Pict-land" under Cináed mac Ailpín (Kenneth McAlpin) in 843 under the Kingdom of Alba (Scotland) that we see the demise of Pictish, if anything Dál Riata was in a perilous position many times up until then, having been overrun by Pictish armies (730) and having to acknowledge Pictish kings as overlords.
 
I should have mentioned that I am not using only the data from Busby and Myres, but compare it to other data available here and there and cut out inconsistencies, especially if they are based on a small sample size (under 100). For Switzerland for instance I averaged Busby's data for the whole country because each region only had about 30 samples, which is meaningless and is the best way of having "false hotspots". I also compared the data for other haplogroups and other R1b subclades. There were only 31 samples from the Alpes de Haute Provence, so I am pretty sure that the 19.4% in Busby et al. is a false hotspot. It didn't make sense anyway. Myres didn't have any specific data for that region - only 14 samples for all West France !

I might agree with you, except that one of our earliest French R-L21 Plus Project members has ancestry in that region. It seems a funny coincidence that he appeared and then, a couple of years later, Busby finds a high frequency of L21 in that part of France.

I like your map in general, but I don't think you should dismiss Busby's findings out of hand.
 
The English government in the 19th century applied the "Welsh stick" method on the lands that spoke gaelic/welsh.

Basically, schools used a stick ( beating ) on all children in primary schools, who spoke gaelic/welsh. parents where then fined a fee and reported to government officials. ( CULTURAL GENOCIDE )

Maybe we might see a turnaround as in 2009 the EU gave permission for the welsh parliment to condust business in only welsh is they choose
 
About the origin of R1b-L21, I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the Atlantic Bronze age (c. 1300-700 BC):
Atlantic_Bronze_Age.gif

The atlantic cultures in this map are part of it:
Iberia_Late_Bronze.gif

It has recently been proposed by John Koch (a good summary of his hypotheses is in his book "Celtic from the West": http://books.google.ca/books?id=-g4...ook_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAA) that Celtic Languages originated in the Atlantic Bronze Age (although I would limit this assumption to Q-Celtic languages, perhaps).
 
what areas of europe does L21 mix heavily with L20 ?
 
the main areas for M222 in Scotland are in the Eastern Lowlands which were never "Gaelic speaking" they were Brythonic and then Anglic speaking. The area is the core of the "Scots" language. Likewise it's quite common over the border in North-east England. the Varience calculations tend to point to it been oldest in England followed by Scotland and youngest in Ireland. The Irish M222 has all the signs of a major "founder effect" going on.

Excuse my intrusion but I have to add that variance is sometimes inflated due to a 'multiple effect' caused by abnormally high levels of genetic fitness. This often gives a 'false variance' suggesting older tmrca than really is the case. This fact has played havoc with time estimations and most tmrca estimation are over rather than under-estimated due to this compounding of abnormal population increase (note that this is different to a 'founder effect'). The best way to go about it is to corroborate using other evidence. Frequencies are a very poor indication of entrenchment, I prefer linguistic markers such as toponyms, archaeological evidence and local folklore, customs and as far as Scotland is concerned, stick to the Highlands, it's a better indication of what was long ago. The Scottish highlands and places such as the Orkneys are excellent to look at because they are so isolated. As a general rule I would refrain from inferring dates using variance in the Scottish Lowlands for the reason that there was too much movement in these areas.
 
About the origin of R1b-L21, I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the Atlantic Bronze age (c. 1300-700 BC):
Atlantic_Bronze_Age.gif

The atlantic cultures in this map are part of it:
Iberia_Late_Bronze.gif

It has recently been proposed by John Koch (a good summary of his hypotheses is in his book "Celtic from the West": http://books.google.ca/books?id=-g4...ook_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAA) that Celtic Languages originated in the Atlantic Bronze Age (although I would limit this assumption to Q-Celtic languages, perhaps).

Actually, I did. I n the second post of this thread:

Fantastic. Thanks for uploading this, Maciamo. :cool-v:

EDIT: I must say that this now matches a lot better with the Atlantic Bronze Age (at least, the northern part of it) than the map from the Busby study. What I wonder is, where did the spot in the western Alps / Rhone area go to? Both Busby et al. and much earlier Myres et al. had peaks around there.

Let me say this, I disagree with Koch with the idea that the Celtic languages as a whole originated in the Atlantic region (I also disagree with his opinion that Tartessian was Celtic). What severely speaks against this is the absence of a west-to-east migration that would otherwise explain the extend of Celtic presence in Central Europe. However, I argee with you that Q-Celtic alone is plausible. What I personally prefer is actually a two-core model existing in the Bronze Age: a Q-Celtic region centered on the British Isles and a P-Celtic region in Central Europe.

Something interesting that neither model (the classical Hallstatt/La-Tene model, or by extension, the Urnfield model, and also the Atlantic Bronze Age model) cannot explain is this:

We have large stretches of land (Basque country, Gasogne, the Pyrenees, and then a wide arc from the Roussillon to central-western Andalusia in which in Antiquity non-Indo-European languages are spoken (Basque-Aquitanian, Iberian - note that this statement doesn't change even if you exclude Tartessian). Likewise, we have a non-Celtic, but Indo-European language spoken in Western Iberia (Lusitanian). How could this happen if the same time Britain in Antiquity, no non-Celtic languages whatsoever were spoken?

How is this linguistic diversity in ancient Iberia possible and the linguistic monotony in Britain possible?
 
Re the post above asking where L21 and L20 are found together, France comes to mind.
 
Actually, I did. I n the second post of this thread:
Let me say this, I disagree with Koch with the idea that the Celtic languages as a whole originated in the Atlantic region (I also disagree with his opinion that Tartessian was Celtic). What severely speaks against this is the absence of a west-to-east migration that would otherwise explain the extend of Celtic presence in Central Europe . . .

I don't want to argue with you about Koch's theory, mainly because I don't have the expertise to stand in judgment of it. However, the Bell Beaker phenomenon moved from west to east in about the middle of the third millennium BC, at least according to radiocarbon dates. Whether it moved as the result of migration or as a cultural package is less clear.
 
I don't want to argue with you about Koch's theory, mainly because I don't have the expertise to stand in judgment of it. However, the Bell Beaker phenomenon moved from west to east in about the middle of the third millennium BC, at least according to radiocarbon dates. Whether it moved as the result of migration or as a cultural package is less clear.

Yes, I see your point. I agree with you that Beaker-Bell indeed shows such a pattern, but I personally have my doubts about it's real linguistic identity. One main problem is the huge extend of Beaker-Bell. Beaker-Bell extends into an area where a later on a very significant number of non-Celtic languages (most notably, Proto-Germanic!) are spoken. Beaker-Bell also, for instance, extended into North Africa. There also appears to be too much continuity with previous culture for this to be really Indo-European (consider that the main phases of construction at Stone Henge fall into this period).

Another issue is the linguistic similarity. The Celtic languages are all far too similar to each other to argue that Proto-Celtic was spoken in the late 3rd millennium BC. The great upheavals of the 13th century BC appear to be a much better place for introducing Proto-Celtic in the West. Another issue is the relationship of the Celtic languages towards Proto-Germanic and the Italic languages. It makes much more sense from the contact of that to assume the origin of Celtic somewhere in Central Europe. In that context, I would like to point in both Iberia and in France that some of the highest levels of R1a are found in areas that are probably most Celtic (Cantabria and Auvergne, respectively).
 
Let me say this, I disagree with Koch with the idea that the Celtic languages as a whole originated in the Atlantic region (I also disagree with his opinion that Tartessian was Celtic). What severely speaks against this is the absence of a west-to-east migration that would otherwise explain the extend of Celtic presence in Central Europe. However, I argee with you that Q-Celtic alone is plausible. What I personally prefer is actually a two-core model existing in the Bronze Age: a Q-Celtic region centered on the British Isles and a P-Celtic region in Central Europe.
I too am skeptic about this east-to-west migration. Nay, I believe Celtic languages arrived to Britain and Iberia around the same time (c. 1300 BC),perhaps from Central Europe (an initial Urnfield expansion?). Before this, perhaps an IE language akin to Lusitanian was spoken in atlantic Europe (see, for example, Krahe's "Old European Hidronimy")?
The fact that Brittonic languages are P-Celtic may be ascribed to a (Proto-)Gaulish invasion in the Hallstatt Period, leaving a "Goidelic" substrate in some morphological features. Besides Archaeological evidenve for this, there could also be genetic:
Haplogroup-R1b-S28.gif

Note the large amount of U152 in SE Britain.
Something interesting that neither model (the classical Hallstatt/La-Tene model, or by extension, the Urnfield model, and also the Atlantic Bronze Age model) cannot explain is this:

We have large stretches of land (Basque country, Gasogne, the Pyrenees, and then a wide arc from the Roussillon to central-western Andalusia in which in Antiquity non-Indo-European languages are spoken (Basque-Aquitanian, Iberian - note that this statement doesn't change even if you exclude Tartessian). Likewise, we have a non-Celtic, but Indo-European language spoken in Western Iberia (Lusitanian). How could this happen if the same time Britain in Antiquity, no non-Celtic languages whatsoever were spoken?

How is this linguistic diversity in ancient Iberia possible and the linguistic monotony in Britain possible?
Well, Iberia has a more rugged and diverse landscape, so that is reflected in cultural heterogeneity, as opposed to the more homogeneous cultural tendencies of Britain. Also, it may be of note that the Basque and Iberian languages may ultimately be related...
 
Yes, I see your point. I agree with you that Beaker-Bell indeed shows such a pattern, but I personally have my doubts about it's real linguistic identity. One main problem is the huge extend of Beaker-Bell. Beaker-Bell extends into an area where a later on a very significant number of non-Celtic languages (most notably, Proto-Germanic!) are spoken. Beaker-Bell also, for instance, extended into North Africa. There also appears to be too much continuity with previous culture for this to be really Indo-European (consider that the main phases of construction at Stone Henge fall into this period).

Another issue is the linguistic similarity. The Celtic languages are all far too similar to each other to argue that Proto-Celtic was spoken in the late 3rd millennium BC. The great upheavals of the 13th century BC appear to be a much better place for introducing Proto-Celtic in the West. Another issue is the relationship of the Celtic languages towards Proto-Germanic and the Italic languages. It makes much more sense from the contact of that to assume the origin of Celtic somewhere in Central Europe. In that context, I would like to point in both Iberia and in France that some of the highest levels of R1a are found in areas that are probably most Celtic (Cantabria and Auvergne, respectively).

I'm no expert, but as I understand it, the Celtic languages are one of the older branches of Indo-European, with archaic features not preserved in some of the others. So, I think Proto-Celtic could have existed in the 3rd millennium BC.

R1a is pretty elusive in the West. Trying to tie it to anything, let alone Celtic languages, is like chasing a willow-the-wisp. First, you must begin by assuming some sort of connection between R1a and IE languages, wherever both of them appear. Not a safe assumption, I think.
 
I too am skeptic about this east-to-west migration. Nay, I believe Celtic languages arrived to Britain and Iberia around the same time (c. 1300 BC),perhaps from Central Europe (an initial Urnfield expansion?). Before this, perhaps an IE language akin to Lusitanian was spoken in atlantic Europe (see, for example, Krahe's "Old European Hidronimy")?
The fact that Brittonic languages are P-Celtic may be ascribed to a (Proto-)Gaulish invasion in the Hallstatt Period, leaving a "Goidelic" substrate in some morphological features. Besides Archaeological evidenve for this, there could also be genetic:
Haplogroup-R1b-S28.gif

Note the large amount of U152 in SE Britain.

Well, Iberia has a more rugged and diverse landscape, so that is reflected in cultural heterogeneity, as opposed to the more homogeneous cultural tendencies of Britain. Also, it may be of note that the Basque and Iberian languages may ultimately be related...

It is not clear that U152 (S28) has any special connection to the Celts. It is not well represented in the old Celtic-speaking areas of the British Isles and where it does occur there can be attributed to a later influx of English settlers. Its highest frequency in the British Isles is in the southeast of England, so if it can be attributed to Celts, perhaps it should be chalked up to the relatively late-arriving Belgae. Given its frequency in Germany, some of it might have arrived with the Anglo-Saxons.

U152 also has a strong Italic component. Some of its presence both on the Continent and in the Isles might be attributable to the Romans.

It seems likely to me that Celtic developed as a lingua franca to facilitate communication among mostly IE speakers engaged in the extensive trade networks that stretched from the Atlantic to Central Europe. It doesn't seem likely it was imposed by invading U152s.
 
Here is what Myles Dillon and Nora Chadwick say in their book, The Celtic Realms (p. 214):

If we suppose that the Celts emerge as a separate people about 2000 BC, Goidelic may be a very early form of Celtic, and Gaulish (with British) a later form; and the first Celtic settlements of the British Isles may be dated to the early Bronze Age (c. 1800 BC), and even identified with the coming of the Beaker-Folk in the first half of the second millennium. This was suggested by Abercromby long ago (Bronze Age Pottery ii 99) and more recently by Crawford, Loth and Hubert. It would mean a lapse of time, a thousand years, between the first settlements and the Belgic invasions that Caesar mentions, quite long enough to explain the absence of any trace of Goidelic in Britain outside the areas of later Irish settlement. It would accord well with the archaic character of Irish tradition, and the survival in Ireland of Indo-European features of language and culture that recur only in India and Persia, and, for language, in Hittite or in the Tokharian dialects of Central Asia.
 
It is not clear that U152 (S28) has any special connection to the Celts. It is not well represented in the old Celtic-speaking areas of the British Isles and where it does occur there can be attributed to a later influx of English settlers. Its highest frequency in the British Isles is in the southeast of England, so if it can be attributed to Celts, perhaps it should be chalked up to the relatively late-arriving Belgae. Given its frequency in Germany, some of it might have arrived with the Anglo-Saxons.

U152 also has a strong Italic component. Some of its presence both on the Continent and in the Isles might be attributable to the Romans.

It seems likely to me that Celtic developed as a lingua franca to facilitate communication among mostly IE speakers engaged in the extensive trade networks that stretched from the Atlantic to Central Europe. It doesn't seem likely it was imposed by invading U152s.

I agree in that it has an Italic component, but then again Italic and Celt is probably more closely related than other IE languages. The (proto-Italic?) Terramare Culture (c. 1500-1100 BC) seems to coincide quite well with the highest concentrations of U152 in Italy. L21 may have arisen somewhere along the northwest periphery of the Tumulus/Urnfield Culture, in time for the great upheavals of the late 2nd millenium, when it could have travelled en masse along the Atlantic to the British Isles and northern Iberia, as well as Brittany; ultimately originating the Atlantic Bronze Age and Q-Celtic languages.
Edit: I added an image of the Terramare Culture, as in the Eupedia maps it is for some reason shown to cover all of Italy, when in truth it only occupied a part of the Po Valley.
 

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I'm no expert, but as I understand it, the Celtic languages are one of the older branches of Indo-European, with archaic features not preserved in some of the others. So, I think Proto-Celtic could have existed in the 3rd millennium BC.

If by 'old' you mean relatively conservative, then yes. But, the same might be said about the Italic languages, with which the Celtic languages share a number of sound laws. If you disregard the fact that they are Satem languages, the Baltic languages might be also considered conservative, however.

Anyways, Celtic shares with Germanic, Greek and Italic to have merged the so-called 'palatovelar' series of PIE (k´, g´ and g´h - which become s, z and ʒ-like sounds in the Satem languages) with the plain velar sounds (k, g, and gh).

k´ > k
g´ > g
g´h > gh

This is known to have occured after the early 3rd millennium BC (common Germanic-Baltoslavic forms which predate the Centum/Satem split and must have arisen in Corded Ware times), but before the mid-2nd millennium BC (attestation of Mycenean Greek, the oldest attested Centum language).

One common sound law is the occurence of *p to *kw before *kw. For example:

PIE 'Penk´we'
Latin 'Quinque'
Old Irish 'Coic'

Note that this is an innovation that the Celtic language share not only with the Italic languages, but also with Venetic. Also note that, of course, the P-Celtic languages essentially 'hidden' that feature because they have shifted *kw to *p, which is why the word is 'Pimpetos' in Gaulish, 'Pump' in Welsh and 'Pemp' in Breton.

Another common Italo-Celtic shape is the existence of -ī as a genitive form:

Latin - Dominus; Dominī
Gaulish - Mapos; Mapī
Archaic Irish - Maqqos; Maqqī

(it's interesting that this is attested in Archaic Irish, because this is generally a language, despite attested very late, that is rather close to Proto-Celtic)

There are also common words for gold, silver and tin in the Italic and Celtic languages, but not for iron. Conversely, the word for iron is shared between the Celtic and the Germanic languages, which matches the archaeological fact that iron working arrived in the (Proto-Germanic) Jastorf Culture through contact with the (Celtic) Hallstatt Culture.

It's really one of the main problems which I have with the Atlantic hypothesis is really that it somehow assumes the Celtic languages come out of thin air, woefully ignoring the interrelationship they have with the other branches of Indo-European. If the Celtic languages were really completely distinct from other branches of IE. Such can be seen with the Anatolian languages, which by the way, have retained some features of PIE lost elsewhere, such as the laryngal sounds.

R1a is pretty elusive in the West. Trying to tie it to anything, let alone Celtic languages, is like chasing a willow-the-wisp. First, you must begin by assuming some sort of connection between R1a and IE languages, wherever both of them appear. Not a safe assumption, I think.

I think you are wrong here. As I said, if you look at the distribution of R1a in western Europe, there are peaks in Auvergne and Cantabria. Are these coincidential? I don't really think they are. As for the connection between R1a and the IE languages I think the distribution in Eastern Europe is fairly compelling. For one, R1a has been found (exclusively) in graves of the Corded Ware Culture, and the distribution of R1a in Central-Eastern Europe (including Scandinavia) matches very well to the extend of Corded Ware. There is also a number of shared vocabulary shared by Germanic and Balto-Slavic languages which predates the Centum/Satem split (for example the word for gold). The Corded Ware Culture is very much fitting exactly these conditions for a common pattern.
 
Reply to Asturrulumbo above:

Fair enough.
 

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