Were Celts once 30-40% of Europe's population?

[Tomenable]

This article estimates the number of Celts in year 200 BCE as around 10 million people:

https://periklisdeligiannis.wordpre...e-physical-anthropology-of-the-ancient-celts/

The total population of Europe at that time, is estimated as ca. 25-30 million people:

http://www.arabgeographers.net/up/uploads/14299936761.pdf

https://books.google.pl/books?id=gcGSn0eVs2oC&pg=PA436&lpg=PA436#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://www.ggdc.net/maddison/oriindex.htm

Do you think it is possible that Celtic-speakers were once 30-40% of all Europeans?

What happened to those people, are their descendants still with us in your opinion?

 

[firetown]

Don't forget the Proto-Celtic invasion of the Proto-Basques replacing the entire y-DNA. http://www.firetown.com/2018/02/01/original-basques-not-celtic/ The Proto-Basques lived peacefully for thousands of years. Which is why I am interested how they did it. Less in what became of them. They were self-sufficient. So when people today ask what is wrong with human nature, I like to remind them that the brutal invaders "won". And the women had to go with the new flow.

 

[Sile]

This article estimates the number of Celts in year 200 BCE as around 10 million people:

https://periklisdeligiannis.wordpre...e-physical-anthropology-of-the-ancient-celts/

The total population of Europe at that time, is estimated as ca. 25-30 million people:

http://www.arabgeographers.net/up/uploads/14299936761.pdf

https://books.google.pl/books?id=gcGSn0eVs2oC&pg=PA436&lpg=PA436#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://www.ggdc.net/maddison/oriindex.htm

Do you think it is possible that Celtic-speakers were once 30-40% of all Europeans?

What happened to those people, are their descendants still with us in your opinion?

if all gallic people where celts and all celts where gallic people then yes

 

[firetown]

if all gallic people where celts and all celts where gallic people then yes

Not all Celts were gallic people.

 

[Diviacus]

In 200 BCE, most Gallic people used to speak a Celtic language, so the estimation of 30-40% seems plausible.
Several years ago, I made a rough calculation estimating that the majority of the present French inhabitants had a majority of Celtic language speakers 2,000 years ago.

 

[Maciamo]

It seems plausible to me. After all the descendants of those Celts are all the R1b-P312 (L21, U152, DF27), G2a-L497, I2a1a, I2a2b-L38 and a good deal of the E-V13 and perhaps some J2b2 as well. All Western and Central Europe was Celtic in 200 BCE, except for a good part of Italy, the Basque and the Iberians, who nevertheless shared some DNA (Celtic lineages that lost their Celtic language and culture). The Celts also settled in the Balkans, Ukraine and Anatolia. Considering that Scandinavia and Northeast Europe were always less populous, I'd say that 40% of Europe being Celtic is an underestimation. It might have been as high as 50 or 60%.

 

[Ygorcs]

In my opinion, most of them became a huge part of the population of the Western Roman Empire, so essentially "the Romans" of 300 AD or 400 AD are in large part descended from the Celts, and also many of the continental Germanics, especially those in areas that were until a bit later outside the "core", more ancient area of Germanic culture, which were inhabited even in historically documented Roman times (i.e. Southern Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Northeastern France). I don't see many evidences to claim a wholesale population replacement due to Roman and eventually Germanic conquests. Even in the historically documented case of a mass migration of Germanics into Britain, the estimated pre-Anglo-Saxon element is still reasonably high and in most places outside Southeastern England more than 50% or even 2/3.

As for that estimate, I think it is possible, at least on the lower end of the estimate (30%) - that is not including peoples that aren't consensually considered Celtic but were almost certainly closely related to Celtic "proper" peoples, like Lusitanians and Ligurians. People nowadays tend to forget that historically, actually until around 1850, France was the most populous part of Europe (even more than huge European Russia). Another very populous part of Europe was Italy, including its northern portion which was also heavily Celtic-speaking.

 

[Maciamo]

People nowadays tend to forget that historically, actually until around 1850, France was the most populous part of Europe (even more than huge European Russia). Another very populous part of Europe was Italy, including its northern portion which was also heavily Celtic-speaking.

That's true. According to this list of countries by population in 1500, France had 16 million inhabitants, as much as the much larger Holy Roman Empire or the Vijayanagara Empire of South India, and more than the Ottoman Empire, Aztec Empire or Japan. Japan had half the population of France back then, although now it is twice more populous. Britain only had 3 million people, 5 times less than France, although both have the same population today.

According to this data, in 1300 France even more populous with 17 million, more than all Scandinavia and Northeast Europe combined at the time and nearly twice more than the Holy Roman Empire. 1000 years ago the situation was similar, with France still the most populous region in Europe with 9 million people (against 1.6 million for England and Wales). 2000 years ago, Gaul had about 5 million inhabitants. Only Italy was more populous in Europe with 7 million people.

Since France, Belgium, southern Germany, Austria, Switzerland and northern Italy were all very populous and all had very Celtic populations in 200 BCE, it is fair to assume that a very sizeable share of the European population was Celtic.