Re: The Last of the Neanderthals

"Daryl Krupa" <icycalmca@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1161634382.926666.140620@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Douglas Clark wrote:
Oppenheimer article re book...

http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?search_term=Oppenheimer&id=7817

Douglas Clark:
Re: Oppenheimer being not-quite-reliable, Herodotus did not relate
the homeland of the Celts to the Pyrenees, as Oppenheimer would
have him have done. From the article at the URL above:

"The notion derives from a mistake made by the historian Herodotus
2,500 years ago when, in a passing remark about the "Keltoi,"
he placed them at the source of the Danube, which he thought was
near the Pyrenees."

Herodotus did not refer to "the Pyrenees".
He referred to a city with a similar name, which he said was
near the source of the Danube River.
Oppenheimer was stretching the truth to make it fit an over-extended
foray into "I know more than the experts" territory.

-
Daryl Krupa

Daryl
There is a whole long chapter in Oppenheimer's book on the origins of the
Celts going into every authority eg Strabo, Diodorus Siculus etc. Regarding
Herodotus I will quote a sentence from the book....

......, Herodotus 'misunderstanding of the source [of] the Danube is what
underpins the whole house of cards of the German homeland theory.'

As you say the argument is over where 'Pyrene' is. Oppenheimer says Livy and
Avenius back on the Mediterranean. Simon James would seem to be the
authority Oppenheimer personally consulted to arrive at his deductions.

After reading the article last night I feel that Oppenheimer and Sykes are a
lot closer than I thought. The article gives a broad picture which
Oppenheimer doesnt summarise so clearly in the book.

My interest is in the pre-Roman Germanic incursions into Eastern England.
According to Oppenheimer this is no more than a third of the gene flow which
is not too far distant from Sykes. But the book gives the impression that it
was greater and I am going to reread the relevant sections and diagrams in
the book later today to see if I can resolve it in my mind.

But regarding the Celtic homeland I am quite prepared to accept Oppenheimers
(and Simon James etc) argument for Southwest France rather than Germany. It
fits in better to my untutored brain. Cheers.

And thanks for making me go back to look at this again. We know from
Oppenheimer previously that he is not the most exact thinker and the gaps in
his thought have to be worked out. (He is only a medic). But I get a lot
more out of him than Sykes. Oppenheimer paints and explores a large canvas.





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