Re: Celtic Origins

"JMB" <johnmbyrne@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:43d624c8$0$24958$ba620d2c@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> "Doug Weller" <dweller@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
message
> news:0e8ct1tmel4qpumolrutpkq26e96ordaq8@xxxxxxxxxx
> > On Tue, 24 Jan 2006 12:24:22 +0100, in sci.archaeology,
Peter Alaca wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>Brian McEvoy, B, M. Richards, P. Forster
> >>& DG. Bradley (2004)
> >>"The Longue Durée of Genetic Ancestry: Multiple
> >>Genetic Marker Systems and Celtic Origins on
> >>the Atlantic Facade of Europe"
> >>Am J Hum Genet. October 2004; 75(4): 693-702.
> >>
> >> " Celtic languages are now spoken only on the
> >> Atlantic facade of Europe, mainly in Britain and
> >> Ireland, but were spoken more widely in western
> >> and central Europe until the collapse of the
> >> Roman Empire in the first millennium a.d.
> >> It has been common to couple archaeological
> >> evidence for the expansion of Iron Age elites in
> >> central Europe with the dispersal of these
> >> languages and of Celtic ethnicity and to posit a
> >> central European "homeland" for the Celtic
> >> peoples. More recently, however, archaeologists
> >> have questioned this "migrationist" view of Celtic
> >> ethnogenesis. "
> >> [...].
> >> " What seems clear is that neither the mtDNA
> >> pattern nor that of the Y-chromosome markers
> >> supports a substantially central European Iron
> >> Age origin for most Celtic speakers-or former
> >> Celtic speakers-of the Atlantic facade. The
> >> affinities of the areas where Celtic languages are
> >> spoken, or were formerly spoken, are generally
> >> with other regions in the Atlantic zone, from
> >> northern Spain to northern Britain. Although
> >> some level of Iron Age immigration into Britain
> >> and Ireland could probably never be ruled out by
> >> the use of modern genetic data, these results
> >> point toward a distinctive Atlantic genetic
> >> heritage with roots in the processes at the end
> >> of the last Ice Age. "
> >>
> >>For the full, long, abstract with maps and full refs,
> >>see on PubMed http://tinyurl.com/8sxpe
> >
> > I know Barry Cunliffe suggests the possibility that Celtic
originated in
> > what is described above as the Atlantic zone.
>
> Although there are hints of a pre-Celtic language surviving in
Ireland until
> at least the 5th century AD, so I would doubt that the Celtic
languages
> originated here. I'd still be inclined to believe that trade
and commerce
> brought the Celtic language here, and that it slowly replaced
the previous
> languages. By here, I just mean Ireland, not the other areas
included in
> the Atlantic zone).

Would trade and commerce be enough to make a native population
adopt a new language? I would imagine that it would require some
speakers of the new language actually settling in the country.
If those speakers also had power and prestige there would be
greater incentive for the natives to adopt the new language.

In other words, I incline to the old view of the Celts as an
invading warrior aristocracy in Ireland, whose language
gradually dominated and eradicated the old one(s). The speakers
of Celtic need not have been numerous to achieve this, just
powerful. This old view is not inconsist with the latest DNA
evidence.

Or am I missing something?

Alan

--
Alan Crozier
Lund
Sweden


.

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