Comments by "Luis Aldamiz" (@LuisAldamiz) on "Celtic History Decoded" channel.

@Ajemone - Haplogroup (Y-DNA) C is still present in Europe albeit at very low frequencies. In any case we don't know that was the Aurignacian lineage: most Paleoeuropeans were actually I2, a much more common haplogroup even today. You're probably thinking in the two Pestera cu Oase individuals, which are absolutely anomalous for proto-Aurignacian or Aurignacian era (no extra admixture with Neanderthals that we know of) and are not associated to any material culture (they can't be described as "Aurignacian" therefore). While we don't know what actually happened to them, it's perfectly possible that they were killed because "Aurigancian" people thought of them as "hybrid monsters" in a context in which Neanderthals were definitely not being treated anymore as "fully humans". I say this because the whole Upper Paleolithic settlement of West Eurasia seems to be a long conflict against Neanderthals, beginning by the killing of Shanidar man by ranged projectile, but most notably by the ability of taking all those Neanderthal lands in such a little time, reaching the Pyrenees (52 Ka BP) even before Altai (47 Ka BP). My take is that the out-of-Africa migration happened c. 125 Ka BP in West Asia (when the Neanderthal admixture event happened probably in Palestine, Skhul 5 looks like such kind of hybrid) and c. 95 Ka BP in India and beyond (dates for SE Asia are confusing but mtDNA M strongly suggests a massive demographic explosion from India into SE Asia with little time difference, also maybe as early as 86 Ka BP in Australia). Then c. 70 Ka BP Neanderthals expanded massively in West Asia: it's then when they reached Altai, replacing the Denisovans but also when they reached as far south as Yemen, where Mousterian tools have been found with that chronology. Around 70-60 Ka BP, after the Toba supervolcano catastrophe, a specific population in SE Asia, dominated by mtDNA N and especially its "daughter" R, but also by Y-DNA K2 (ancestor of P1 and its "sons" Q and R in West Eurasia and the Amerinds but also of NO in East Asia and some related Papuan lineages), which probably also included some Y-DNA C, rapidly spread in the SE Asian region (incl. into Papua and gradually also into China). A key branch however migrated westwards to Bengal-Bihar area (where P1 seems to have originated and may also be important re. mtDNA R) and then via the Ganges corridor to Pakistan (approx.), where they matrilocally incorporated some men (Y-DNA IJ, T, probably pre-G and definitely some H as well) but not a single mtDNA lineage (quite notoriously). These people then proceeded westwards into "the Neanderlands" of West Eurasia, maybe via Uzbekistan (more research is needed but there's at least one very old UP site in that country). The next we know is that they reached the Western Alps and Pyrenees c. 52,000 BP. In the meantime they killed Shanidar man and probably many other Neanderthals, who were scarily strong but were now at a disadvantage vs our longer legs and slimmer bodies, aided by ranged weapons (atlatl) and almost certainly also dogs (probably domesticated in SE Asia and soon to appear in the archaeological record in Altai and Belgium). Our lighter constitution and longer legs also helped with better exploitation of the lands (archaeologically documented that Neanderthals exploited smaller territories for every single ecosystem). There were almost definitely some serious Neaderthal Wars, even if they extended in time for 10,000 years or so. While these early West Eurasians were apparently matrilocal and willing to incorporate other H. sapiens (mostly men, not just in Pakistan but also in Egypt), they were strongly biased against Neanderthals and now they had the means to defeat them. Other than Oase, we know of no further Neanderthal admixture in this westward march of our distant ancestors. They may have been kind among them and with other H. sapiens but definitely they were "racist" against Neanderthals, at least in most cases: they rapidly displaced them in most areas and they definitely killed at least one of them (it was no "hunting accident"), and there was no more interspecies sex either, at least not any that had long term consequences. Anyhow, Aurignacians were not the first Homo sapiens to settle Europe, although they were part of that diverse population: the oldest dates for modern human settlement are now as old as 52,000 BP (earlier were rather 49-48,000 BP) and that's 10,000 years before the actual expansion of Aurignacian proper (which was then confined to Istallosko in Hungary). As you may know, there was a massive supervolcano erupting in Naples area approx. at the same time when Aurignacian proper expanded and most Neanderthals and also many modern human cultures collapsed, that's probably how Aurignacian "senso stricto" became the only culture of Europe (barring a handful of Neanderthal pockets).
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@Ajemone Re. Neanderthals, I don't know anything about longer breastfeeding. San (Bushmen) woman breastfeed their kids for 4 years, while my mum thought 6 months was more than enough and my ex (and other women with similar ideas I get to know in my youth, look up "La Liga de la Leche" maybe) believed that at least one year was desirable and that weaning was to be gradual and mostly led by the toddler because of psycho-emotional reasons, because it's not just about food but about love. It's not something written in stone in any case, not for us and probably not for Neanderthals either. I don't know that Neanderthal originated specifically in Italy but surely they did evolve in Europe, although from a pan-Asian complex (of African derivation ultimately) that is being unraveled these days and seems relatively complex and debatable in the fine detail. They and the Denisovans are rather distant relatives, separated from us maybe a million years ago, that's why hybridization was complicated and a reason why we surely treated each other as NOT fully equal. The narrative I'm telling you about how H. sapiens returned to West Asia (and by extension to Europe, etc.) and was not in good terms with Neanderthals is, I believe, based on the archaeological and genetic facts, especially the lack of extra Neanderthal admixture in us, which should be there if our relations were "cozy". Of course in 10,000 years or more there was occasion for all kinds of interactions but overall I think we were not in good terms with the Neanderthals in most of that period and in most of localities. Oase, whatever their story, were the exception, not the rule.
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@Ajemone - Re. Nordicist prejudices, first of all is a bit of idiotic (all such racisms), but notably it's worth observing that Southern Europe is much more diverse than Northern Europe and that each of the three peninsulas has its own peculiarities and are not really that much related to each other (although there's been interaction and admixture, and also with Northern Europe, of course). Re. the Indoeuropean issue, I'd say it's clear that it is strong in Central Europe (especially to the East), Scandinavia (to some extent) and Eastern Europe (obviously, although the Uralic component is also very strong). It's roughly there where Indoeuropeans expanded first and did so quite dramatically with that bubonic plague, etc. It's a false narrative re. Britain and Ireland however, where the genetics are Basque-like at the core and even the English (who are the most Indoeuropeanized, i.e. Germanized, of all) are very much Basque-like anyhow. This biased narrative tries to maximize the "Indoeuropeanness" of Western Europeans by artificially and forcedly distorting the interpretation of the data, artificially exaggerating the Indoeuropean autosomal component by cherry-picking the controls/comparisons and wrongly claims that all R1b is of Indoeuropean origin, when archaeological early Indoeuropeans were generally R1a rather (except Khvalysk and its successor East Yamna, which were R1b but of a very specific sublineage that still exists only in that region of the Lower Volga and is only distantly related to Western European R1b). Western R1b and specifically R1b-S116, which is strongly associated to Bell Beaker expansion (from SW Europe necessarily, i.e. Vasconic background and Vasconic Megalithic continuity anyhow), is not Indoeuropean at the origin: it clearly expanded from what is now France (probably Aquitaine) in three directions (three main subhaplogroups): north to the Islands, east to the Alps and south to Iberia. Was maybe re-expanded a bit by the Celts? Maybe but unclear, but in Iberia it is clearly associated with Vasconic populations such as the first well documented genetic Basque ever (which Nordicists claim was "Indoeuropean" with no justification whatsoever) and in the Islands (where it was only very slightly admixed with Indoeuropean genetics, surely in the frontier area of the Rhine) it must have been pre-Indoeuropean as well, because they show cultural continuity with the pre-existing Megalithic (and other ancient) practices (and it's anyhow almost indistinct with Basque and Iberian genetics). In general this Bell Beaker (plus) process was quite apparently one of replacement of Vasconic 1 (EEF, Anatolian Neolithic, Sardinian-like) peoples by a more Paleo-admixed population resembling Basques (Vasconic 2) but there is general cultural continuity in all the region west of the Rhine, while East of the Rhine (Indoeuropean country by conquest) we observe strong cultural intrusion of these Vasconic 2 (Bell Beaker plus) customs and a mor tenuous genetic intrusion as well in Germany... but not in Moravia, where the Indoeuropean type remains unaffected in spite of quite strong cultural shift. This may be the time when the legends of Loki and Prometheus (same character and probably the same as the Basque male God Sugaar, the snake or dragon) were established and maybe when Morrigan (same as the Basque female Goddess Mari, known to the Greeks as Gaia primarily, name that still translates in Basque as "the matter" and "the potential") became part of the Celtic legends. Re. Italy, it's a more complicated issue: the few mainland samples we have all the way to the Chalcolithic show that Vasconic 1 (EEF) was dominant in the peninsula all the way to the LBA Indoeuropean conquests (Urnfields culture, Celto-Italics). However there's something also very Balcanic-Anatolian (most obviously in Y-DNA J2, which is neither Vasconic nor Indoeuropean) and that I attribute to the Etruscans (the Teresh of the "sea peoples", surely behind the Roman legend of Aeneas, as they were closely related to the Trojans) and more locally in Sicily to the Shekelesh, who were probably Semites from Syria-Lebanon, some sort of proto-Phoenicians. More research is surely needed but my take is that these arrived c. 900 BCE (early Iron Age) and had a major impact (even Rome was surely part Etruscan). This results in greater Caucasus-like affinity of Italians (without the EHG of Indoeuropeans, who otherwise are also Caucasus-like) and the strong presence of Y-DNA J2, which I associate with this "Pelasgo-Tyrsenian" expansion, relatively recent in Italy but much much older in Asia Minor and parts of the Balcans (before 5000 BCE). Sardinia as we know is the last refuge of "purebreed EEF" (Vasconic 1, the Basque-like legacy in terms of vocabulary, toponimy and customs like the mamutzones is massive, I contributed to a book by linguist J.M. Elexpuru on this matter and it is absolutely unquestionable that Sardinians spoke a Basque-like language until Romanization, the evidence is all over the place). More debatable are Ligurians (at both sides of the Western Alps, and by extension Corsica), which I believe must have been also Vasconic of some type (the were under strong Celtic influence but remained distinct and pre-IE anyhow). Another intriguing population would be the Rhaetians in your area, who adopted a variant of the Etruscan alphabet but it's very unclear if they were Tyrsenians or something else. A bit of my interest is also on the vaguely remembered Ausones of South Italy, who seem to have been raiding Greece piratically and could be the same as the Weshesh of the "sea peoples" (sing. of Ausones is Auso, more similar phonetically). In any case it's clear that since the Late Bronze Age and well into the Iron Age, Italy suffered major demographic and even more so ethno-linguistic changes, and it is as such changed ethno-reality that it emerges into history, first with the Etruscan hegemony, then with the astonishingly fast Roman conquest. The Romans may have only retained vague memories of these Vasconic "Aborigines" but they were indeed the natives of Italy just a thousand years earlier. An interesting bit is that Sardinians got actually more Ötzi-like in this LBA-EIA transition, probably because of refugees from mainland Italy. Earlier they were more admixed with WHG.
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@Ajemone - I can't say but to me it's clear that racism is (mostly) a modern emergent phenomenon, caused by the need of the system to justify inequality and exploitation on pseudo-biological basis. Therefore it's been declining in intensity, very clearly so, however stupid people will generally tend to it (it's a clear inverse correlate of IQ score: racist people are dumber on average) because their thought is overly simplistic and emotionally they need to be part of something bigger and supposedly "better" than their own lmitations. But even in such cases actual living together easily overcomes such ideas, a distant perception of exotic blackness (for example) may be treated as stereotype but a constant interaction with black people actually makes us perceive as individual humans with variable geometry and not anymore a stereotype. Now "you" don't hate anymore the black Basque-speaking colleague who cheers along you for Athletic Bilbao... but you are still free to hate the Spanish-peaking white who cheers of Real Madrid (I guess). In the end it's what we perceive as "us vs them" and that's contextual and also ideological. Something we see re. racism is that Antique peoples had no or almost none of it at all, that it was developed by the politics of colonialism and slavery only or mostly: exotism was made grounds for exploitation. Said that there's one thing in what skin color does matter: vitamin D and vitamin B9. That's how whiter colors were generally favored in terms of latitude and diet (blue fish and sun-radiated mushrooms do provide dietary vitamin D). Originally darker colors were selected, not just to prevent sunburn and potential skin cancer, but to prevent birth defects associated with radiation's destruction of vitamin B9 (Australia is the country with most neural tube defects in newborns), later, as people moved to higher latitudes (generally darker, especially in winter), this became less important and instead the need to produce more vitamin D was decisive (hence darker pigmentations were selected against, especially after Neolithic changed our diets, generally for the worse). This is AFAIK the only real effect of "race" in terms that should be considered when not just choosing where to live (you often can't choose) but when supplementing diet, very especially in pregnancy and for infants. Otherwise it will be a growingly intergrated world and the people of the future will tend to be of very mixed global ancestry, growingly so. And we will learn to live with that because "divided we fall".
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@celtichistorydecoded - Thank you very much. 🤩
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Both my grandpas were blond and blue eyed. Neither was North European. The Italian one looked like a blond version of Atila with his partial epicanthic fold.
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@brawndothethirstmutilator9848 - Nope but from Veneto technically but ultimately Romagna. The Tarabini (later Tarabini-Castellani) are known to emerge to history in Ferrara, maybe Comacchio specifically, and serve as knights the Dukes of Ferrara and later Modena, mingling most notably (to my knowledged at least) with the Ponciani of Rome (Papal Guard commander married to Santa Francesca Romana and, generations later, the Italian Chess opening for fame). After Italian unification they migrated to Veneto with their already Austrianized overlords, they never had the guts to cross the Alps, they were Italian after all. So not Tuscany but definitely almost every land around it was involved in the making of my grandpa. I think it's just Indoeuropean legacy, which can be rather attributed to various waves from Italics to HRE Germans, all arriving from beyond the Alps and surely carrying some degree of Uralic ancestry all the way to Yamnaya and Khvalynsk cultures. In other cases I know from Spain, it's probably Native American admixture rather, they're not blond however, rather the opposite.
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