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From: Alan R <>
Subject: [GENEALOGY-DNA] celtic origins
Date: Sat, 2 Sep 2006 15:11:57 +0100 (BST)


It would be fair to say that the traditional view of
Celtic origins is that they probably originated as
part of an undifferentiated group of Indo-Europeans
that moved west (possibly just elites) from the south
Russian/ Ukraine Indo-European homeland at some point
a little after 3000BC. This group probably headed
west to an area of central Europe north of the Alps.
This group at this stage were not Celts as such but
spoke a language that was a western semi-evolved
branch of common Indo-European that was also ancestral
to Italic (Latin etc). At some point (I would guess
c. 2000-1500BC) the language of this group either
evolved into a proto-Celtic group in close
geographical contact with a proto-Italic group or may
not have evolved into an Italo-Celtic dialect that was
ancestral to Celtic, Latin etc. At some point the
group either split into two or contact between the two
groups was greatly lessened, presumably by the Italic
group entering Italy with the Celtic group remaining
north of the alps. Archaeologically, this final split
is most likely to date to the early urnfield period c.
1500BC. From this point on we can talk of a
specifically Celtic homeland with confidence.

The only problen is that, other than the likelyhood
that part of the proto-Celtic area's edges must have
been near the Alps, we have no idea how far north,
west or east its total area occupied. the fact that
it is thought that proto Germanic was limited to
Denmark and the extreme north-coast of Germany in an
isolated area suggests that the area in between the
alps and there (central germany) must have been part
of the proto-Celtic area too. This area and parts of
the neighbouring countries to the east formed the
industrial powerhouse of Bronze Age Europe while the
proto-Germanic area was isolated. It seems from
archaeology (particularly metalwork) that this
proto-Celtic area had a huge influence on the rest of
central and western europe throughout the Bronze Age
and that this may have included linguistic influence.

Once the Celtic core was established, any contact with
or influences from this area would have meant the need
for a common language. As this area was an industrial
powerhouse in the Bronze Age with mich influences
eminating from it, it seems plausible that
proto-Celtic spread with these influences all over
central Europe, western Europe, the British Isles etc.
This could have taken the form of trading networks,
elite contacts, dynastic marriages, trading,
mercenaries, small elite population movements etc over
many centuries leading up to our first historic
evidence of Celts in central and western europe and
the British Isles c. 600BC.

The old idea of several waves of Iron Age Celtic
invaders is no longer thought to be the source of the
initial Celticisation of Europe. Archaeological
evidence suggests much more that local elites who
controlled wealth, access to metal etc slowly gathered
influences from the Proto-Celtic core and this
probably led to Celtic's widespread use as a lingua
franca and language of prestige before locally
spreading down into the rest of the population. It
was more of a spread of language and (barbarian
heroic) culture than blood, although some genes must
have moved. The spread of Celtic is possibly mot
typical and derived from its unique position of being
the language of the elites who controlled Bronze
wealth and trade throughout western and central europe
throught the long Bronze Age.

There were clearly also sporadic movements (some
large)of Celtic speaking people here and there as
attested in classical sources but none of these can
explain the dominance of Celtic at the dawn of history
everywhere from Scotland and Irelkand and Spain in the
north and west to Bohemia in the east and beyond at
the opening of European history c. 600BC.

Alan

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