Comments by "Iain Mc" (@iainmc9859) on "Celtic History Decoded" channel.

  1.  @rasapplepipe  Although I appreciate your Cornish patriotism it has been administered as part of England since the Norman Conquest and had substantial inroads made into it by the Anglo-Saxons (Wessex) before that. We can't turn back time to a pre-English age, we can in the present day protect and encourage the use of languages and allow for regional devolution and government (it works on the Isle of Man). As to giving back Cornwall to the Cornish if you could just define who the Cornish are, are you talking about the people who live there now or people who own property there now, people who have a Cornish name, where the border would be, the Tamar, the Fowey ? There's also the little matter of how it would finance itself, as it has a large population of rural poor and no industry to speak of other than largely tourism and some agriculture. I'm not against the idea but practicalities would have to be worked out.
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  2. I am not a Viking, I am not a viking, skol, I am not a viking, skol, I am not a skol, I am a skol, I am skol, I skol, I skol, skol, Skol, Skol, Skol, SKol, SKOL, SKOL, SKOL, SKOL !
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  3. Its often forgotten that Britain also had a white slave (political prisoner) trade before its Colonial expansion in the 18th Century. The same thing happened with Jacobites a century later.
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  4. There never was a large diaspora of Normans in Britain. They replaced the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy but not the general population who were derived of Celtic and Germanic stock. There were also previous 'movements' from Britain into Ireland before the Reformation (often called the 'Old English' ) from the Norman period onwards, families like the Burke's and the Fitzgeralds, who were Catholic. You have to be careful of your terminology. Serfdom had effectively disappeared in England by 1500, although tithed labour that replaced it wasn't much different in effect on the poor. Ireland had also tried to carve out kingdoms in Britain during the early medieval period (Dark Ages). The simple truth is there has always being population movement between Britain and Ireland, sometimes peaceful, sometimes less so; as in some places you can see the other shore from the coast on a clear day. When people from a similar genetically mixed stock move from one part of the British Isles (Ireland is part of the British Isles ... but isn't Britain) to another part their genetics is simply indistinguishable, which is where we fall back on History ... which may not be accurate either. The motto of this tale is - Never believe anyone who expounds simplistic viewpoints on Nationality, Ethnicity or who their Ancestors were ... including those companies promising to tell you where your DNA came from.
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  5. Okay, now explain the R1B1s Y chromosome in Central Africa 😊
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  6. Hey, why don't we all just ignore Science and believe a story somebody told you because they reckoned you were gullible. Believe what you want personally but don't try to pass on the unsubstantiated unhistorical nonsense you've been fed. God gave you a brain to think !
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  7. Aye, yer very funny but they must be real 'cos I always cheer for the team they're playing against 😆
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  8. If you want to see a local scaled down version of the octagonal columns go to Dunglass near to Strathblane (park at the church, follow the old railway track eastwards about a kilometer). There's some on the side of Ballagan Glen, almost opposite, as well. Every vlog about giants will inevitably attract some religious zealots/conspiracy theorists that talk about the Nephilim from the Old Testament - just to forewarn you.
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  9. He's fae Fankerton, ootside the Roman Empire.
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  10. Hi Harriet, just acknowledging your response. On the 'Clovis' DNA, sounds like you've had a test done, take the results with a pinch of salt, they like to use terms that are completely inaccurate. Clovis is a term even more woolly than Celtic; its really just a bunch of arrowheads in a particular shape, rather than genes. That 'Clovis' DNA could come from the Eastern Steppes of Russia all the way down to South America. I can recommend a Youtube channel with more info on that, 'Nathanael Fosaaen', an archeologist specialising in the eastern woodlands of the USA.  @harrietharlow9929 
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  11. Bede and the Declaration of Arbroath are primary sources but are hardly primary sources of Scot's genetic ancestory. I'm with you, and Barry Cunliffe, on the importance of the Atlantic Coast Culture and believe that people came into Britain (displacing the Western Hunter Gatherers) along a seaborne western route long before there was much immigration across the Channel, the only thing that hints at this though is that Neolithic culture seems to have drifted south from Orkney and Shetland rather than moving north from what's now eastern England. I can highly recommend 'An Atlas for Celtic Studies' by John T. Koch as the clearest and most archeo-historical book on the spread of Celtic culture and migrations. I really enjoy these vlogs, usually because I'm location spotting Central Scotland from your B-roll, but it would really improve them if you could cut out verbal repetition.
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  12. I think you're getting more traction from the pre-history stuff (mesolithic, neolithic, bronze age, iron age) and Roman, which our local area is hooching with, rather than the medieval period that's covered by multiple websites. Type in 'William Wallace' or 'Bonnie Prince Charlie' to Youtube and they'll be thousands of vids by people that have never set foot in Scotland. Keep it Local ...
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  13. Although I'm a R1b, supposedly with some R1a via genealogy, I really hope there's some Western Hunter Gatherer still knocking about in there. As to the theories: Although logical, there isn't any greater evidence of WHG coming through the matriarchal DNA, as far as I know. So I'm not convinced of the 'kill all the men and take all the women' theory. I still think there's a larger underlying 'failure to reproduce' issue here; whether that is the WHGs were already teetering on the edge of extinction (like our Neanderthal cousins before them) or a viral pandemic carried by the Yamnaya that principally effected the WHGs, or a massive and immensely effective genocide. The genocide theory seems too centralised and too based on a massive cultural investment of all Yamnaya in removing the 'natives'; although possible we're not finding mass war graves (as yet). The 'technological superiority' theory doesn't hold in any way true as better technology always assimilates into earlier cultures after the shock of the new is absorbed, eg: the horse and the gun into Native American culture. Lactose tolerance would also have been assimilated genetically by interbreeding (if people from the two cultures interbred, as did Homo Sapien and Neanderthal before) after a few generations, no surprise that our first herder ancestors developed lactose tolerance. Not convinced that WHGs all committed suicide by drinking milk either. The jury is still out on this ... I'm edging closer to the 'plague' idea though, which might explain why we're not finding inhumations or cremations of WHGs. You die the survivors simply walk away from the body, no ceremony, just fear. If anyone knows of any relatively up-to-date scientific/academic research relating to this mystery, that is publicly available (no space aliens or ancient Atlanteans, thank you) I'd be really interested to know.
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  14. Define 'greatest' ?
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  15. Being a Republican (no, not the USA type) and English born I have some sympathy for Cromwell, being of Irish Catholic descent I have very different views on British colonialism. The reality is that Ethnic, Cultural and Political toleration where not high on the agenda in a pre-democratic age.  @celtichistorydecoded 
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  16. There's an Andy Scott sculpture trail which is well worth a day or twos drive around, all statues being in the Central Belt. When my oldest daughter was three I got an old rusty metal 1970's rocking horse, painted it and turned it into a Kelpie for her, with celtic art knotwork for mane and fetlocks, then made a bridle of seaweed green tasseled cord and stirrups of driftwood. She went on to become an excellent horsewoman and a swimming instructor. How about that for foreshadowing. She never did get that real pony for Christmas though !
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  17. I think he's German, although the ancient Germans and Celts had many cultural overlaps.
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  18.  @thomaslacornette1282  As I said people in Britain, either in the Iron Age or now, don't share much genetic material with those in south central Europe, except for Indo-European, Middle Eastern Agriculturalist, Pastoralist, Urnfield, Beaker etc etc, that makes up the foundations of our pan-European haplogroups. I think we are coming to an agreement that Celticness is a lot more than just being about a small gene pool, it is about language, art, music, social structures, laws ... and these days nationality. Neither is it bound by time or geography. As 'Celtic' is quite possibly an exonym, a generic Greek term for a European that doesn't speak a classical language, being part of the larger barbarian population, and as it also had a renaissance in usage in the Victorian period, I feel a strict definition is not only not possible but also not helpful. Personally, I'm not convinced by tight definitions of 'Celticness' by historians, academics, genealogists or geneticists, although I respect their endeavours. It is and probably always has been a loose term for a disunified but recognisable culture. Maybe it is more readily understood in relation to what it isn't ... classical, germanic, scandinavian, slavic. I'm a Celt (self-identified) ... not born in a 'Celtic' country, not speaking a 'Celtic' language, not living in the Iron Age ... but having a long ancestral history in Britain. A combination of all the immigrants that came to seek shelter in these far north-west european shores.
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  19.  @Ajemone  We may have been fighting the long defeat for 2000 years but the tenacity of the Celt will endure. Anyone that has been to a Celtic music festival or has taken pride in their heritage will know that a spirit of independence endures; but that spirit does not and cannot exist in splendid isolation; it is an interactive part of a vibrant culture looking outwards across the globe. The Insular Celts do not fear the English, we've been slowly civilising them. These Germanic migrants have even come to call Britain home. We have endured, we will survive and we will flourish (there's advantages to being stubborn and proud)... but not by being inward looking. You'll tend to find the nationalist parties in Celtic countries being the most progressive and internationalist and not the least 'conservative'. There is no sense of needing a hegemony of 'celticness' in Scotland, Wales or Ireland ... although I'd be in favour of a loose unofficial confederation of nation states within Britain, rather than the political situation as it stands.
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  20.  @Ajemone  I'll keep voting for it until it happens.
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  21. Unless it was that freckly guy who used to deliver Yak milk to all those yurts ... what was his name again, oh yeah, Gingas Khan .... (sorry, really couldn't resist it).
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  22. Tolerance levels increase with greater exposure, even within the lifetime of an individual. Not just to foodstuffs but also to allergies, bacteria or viruses. So there can't be any surprise that those people that live in an environment well suited to the production of certain foodstuffs become tolerant of it, even at a genetic level, over a few generations. Evolution isn't a steady progression, its episodic, with sudden rushes and lulls. For example, Japanese people were genetically very unsuited to the high levels of salt in processed food that came with American 'culture' after WWll. This created quite a lot of severe ill health, soring levels of high blood pressure. Within two generations this has almost levelled out on a par with western tolerance levels. Another Japanese example, there are some women in Japan, generally older ladies, that catch (by hand) water snakes; a bite from which would kill a westerner within hours, not so these old ladies. You put a young Japanese woman from a city in the same work environment I suspect they'd be in intensive care within the week. Environmental tolerance adaption is a powerful human tool, genetics take a while to catch up. The short version of the above is - survival is probably based on you adapting to the biome you live in, rather than your genetic make up. This, over time, is written into the genetics and probably not the other way round.
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  23. For a Scottish person, he is speaking slowly.
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  24. I have short legs ... they run to catch up in my family 😁
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  25. Yeah, that's my family; there's a rammy going on over there lets get on a boat and join in. I'm directly related to the last Viking king of Dublin, Sitric Silkhair, but the tall, blond or blue eyed bit didn't make it down to me; although my father was a fairly typical pale freckly salt and pepper haired Hebridean type.
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  26. For the same reason that many Scottish tombstones were written in Latin, Gaelic, French and Scots. It was a multilingual society, amongst the aristocracy. There are four different words for waterfall in the area as well - Fall (English), Eas (Gaelic), Linn (French) and Loup (Scots).
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  27.  @celtichistorydecoded  I believe its pronounced Van Houch, with the ch as in loch. Its definitely not a G sound as in gate, its much softer and is more glottal. Pretty easy for a Scottish voice to get around it.
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  28.  @100percentnonofyourbiz  I'm just going by the way my Dutch girlfriend from Amsterdam pronounced it. After your comment I went to youtube ('Dutch Lessons by Thomas' if anyone else wants to listen) to confirm it. Exactly as I stated, Glottal H (lower back of the throat) and a rolled ch as in Scottish loch (which is also back of the throat). Don't know where in Holland you come from ... maybe my explanation wasn't clear enough. Not a hard g as in gate, not an f or a k sound at the end either.
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  29. Scottish Geology, there's a couple of YouTube channels dedicated to it. The British Geological Society also have a wide ranging website and a useful app.
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  30. Scythians - one of your favourite peoples ... never would have guessed 😁 My money's on them being 'Treaty' stones between different tribal groupings, with the rings being settlements and the broken arrow symbolising the end of hostilities, possibly through marriage alliances.
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  31. The same Gallic cavalry were probably garrisoned at Castle Hill on the Antonine Wall between Milngavie and Clydebank. I can just see them now, drinking wine, enjoying a garlic baguette and eating cheese .... what did Groundskeeper Wullie call them ?
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  32. There's something that still doesn't convince me about this R1b gene being specifically EHG/pastoralist. Its so prevalent in western ancient peoples I'm convinced we still have a piece of the DNA jigsaw missing; maybe its just a western bias mindset I can't shrug off.
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  33.  @kifi672  We all have an accent, I live 10 miles away from where Celtic History Decoded was brought up and the accents different (very different). If CHD said letter o instead of number zero I'm sure he'd be the first to admit it was just a slip of the tongue; which is why in continental Europe a diagonal bar is often put through zero so it cannot be mistaken for a capital O.
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  34. Its not that uncommon to have multiple unrelated mutations from different parts of the world, not just for humans but for all lifeforms. That's just evolution in action, sometimes it lasts, sometimes it lessens. Never convinced about the sexual selection arguments though, unless simply being different is a sexual attractor, which I suspect it is.
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  35. The Scots learnt nothing from the Battle of Flodden ... have some patience, don't come down off the bloody hill !
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  36.  @damionkeeling3103  I think you make my point exactly. Outside sources (Greek/Roman) may refer to those that live north west of the 'Civilised' world as being Celtic, rather like the developed world labelled people as 'Eskimo' who lived in the north of the American continent. Its not the term they used for themselves, neither is the term 'Inuit' an acceptable cultural/civilisational term to the people themselves, who view themselves as being smaller distinct units. The name of Vercingetorix's father is neither here nor there. Its the name of an individual through the rather murky lens of Julius Caesar. I am not doubting that people north west of the Greek/Roman world had overlaps of art, language, religion, hierarchy etc. That's not my point at all. I'm not even doubting that Celtic may be a convenient nomenclature for that civilisation at the present time, either in Britain or mainland Europe. My point is was this a name given by outsiders to that whole civilisation. The question remains - at what point through a written Celtic language do a diverse culture/civilisation start to call themselves Celtic (Source & Date).
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  37. Which is the point I made regarding Macbeth; although they were probably a bit more Anglo-Norman-Scottish than the present Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburgs.  @Briton666 
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  38. I know the traditional reason given for Breton 'Celticness' is the advance of the Saxons westward through what is now England, but I think it is no coincidence that Brittany is the furthest peninsular from Frankish incursions into northern Gaul; however I'm still with Groundskeeper Willy's opinion on our Gallic cousins.
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  39.  @hooverbaglegs  I think you're equating Brythonic and British (Insular). Brythonic (P Celtic) and Goidelic (Q Celtic) are linguistic terms not geographically in origin. People who spoke P Celtic (Brythonic) may have had regional dialectical differences, like modern day Swiss German and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern German, but it would have been mutually intelligible, given a chance to get the 'ear in'. If you are saying that British P-Celtic came later than Gaulish then that wouldn't hold true as there is plenty of evidence that Celtic tribes moved from Gaul to Britain, the Belgae being the most obvious example, although the Veneti are perhaps a more appropriate one for the connection between Armorica and Dumnonia (Cornwall) without apparent linguistic difficulties. I'm not saying that any of these languages were fossilised or did not have dialectical differentiation over time or geography. Only that in any one time period they could make themselves understood by their peers, perhaps not immediately by a Brythonic Brigantian to an Anatolian Galatian, but with attunement as a 'lingua franca' as needed.
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  40.  @noahtylerpritchett2682  Sorry Noah, I'm struggling with your meaning, so I don't know if we agree or not. I'm not disagreeing that the Normans had their eyes on Ireland, although the Normans in Britain thought of themselves as English, Scots or Welsh by the C14th. There has always been movement between the islands of Ireland and Britain for economic, political and military reasons; as I said some peaceful, some less so.
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  41.  @EarlDennis-l1l  I think you're talking about Eastern Hunter Gatherers. The population of Ireland were Western Hunter Gatherers overlain by the Agriculturalists from the Middle East and then the descendants of the Pastoralist Yamnaya Culture, who may themselves have been descendants of the Eastern Hunter Gatherers. In other words, the population of Ireland has probably got paler over time due to genetics and climatic conditions.
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  42.  @ezzovonachalm9815  Define 'Celt'. Define 'Druid'. Define 'Civilisation'. Define 'Houses'. As the 'Indo-European hordes' were in Europe in approximately the 4th millennium BCE then that puts your Hallstadt at about the 9th millennium BCE. Approximately 7 millennia before the Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia. Now I'm willing to believe that settlements began earlier than we thought, after all Gobekli Tepe had residents about 9500 BCE, but as Hallstadt A culture only began in about 1200 BCE then that's a long time before it developed from what I'm presuming you see as something like Skara Brae into an actual recognisable culture. If you could just reference your sources ... ?
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  43.  @ezzovonachalm9815  So you have a definition of Celt solely from two classical writers. No definition of Druids, Civilisation or Houses and no effective timeline for your Hallstadt claims. Personally, I'll just stick to Archeological, Linguistic, and Genetic evidence of there being a Northwest European culture, that developed from Indo-European speakers/settlers, spreading out from the northern rim of the Alps; which in some areas was called Gaulish, and developed a larger non-de-plume of 'Celtic' as linguistic similarities, as well as artistic ones, were noted in the C19th. I don't think anyone is stating that 'Celticism' culturally, linguistically, artistically or genetically had a singular source point in the village of Hallstadt. I'm certainly not and I don't think any of the other commenter are specifically stating this either, therefore we are probably, on that point, in agreement.
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  44.  @ezzovonachalm9815  I'm going to presume that English is not your first language. This is the first time you've mentioned Hecataeus of Miletus in a comment relating to this vlog, so I couldn't have read or forgotten it. If you read my response I base the common usage of 'Celtic' on Archaeological, Linguistic and Genetic evidence but also state clearly there was a C19th collectivising of these people as 'Celtic' based on linguistic and artistic grounds. Why did you suddenly drop all mention of Hallstadt ? As you not only do not read my comments, but neither your own, you'll forgive me if I ignore your erratic responses. I suggest you get a better online translator.
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  45. Hang on, go back to the pink map near the end ... there's R1b's in northern Russia and central Africa. I'd love to know why? Not relative to this video but I recently learnt that small parts of mitochondrial dna can be passed down theough the male line and is reseponsible for some genetic abnormalities.
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  46. The majority of Scots say Ji, unless they're trying to sound posh. I'm with you on ancestry testing companies, they talk a lot of rubbish culled from various sources so generally don't waste your money; unless you're prepared to do your own in depth scientific research as to where the haplogroups have drifted from. There's also a lot of genetic 'rinsing' that goes on, where genes just don't pass on. The science of DNA analysis is still in its early days. There's also the risk of putting your DNA on the database of a profit making company, that may also have politic pressure put on them to divulge that info to state agencies - that all sound very conspiracy theorist, which I'm not; but data harvesting does happen without asking our permission.
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  47.  @johnbrereton5229  Sorry Pal, Ah canne understand yer accent, waurs it frae ?
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  48. Aye, he'd be right out there giving the neds a kick in the nads, right after he'd taken £100 aff yer for the privilege. @jamesbailey9140 
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  49.  @veronicalogotheti1162  Thank you for your succinct but historically limited comment. Huns were used as Roman Foederati Auxiliaries. It was the policy of the Roman Empire to recruit troops from not just the lands they conquered but also the borders of the empire and use them as auxiliaries in different areas of the Empire. Roman troops did not all come from Italy, most came from elsewhere, as latterly did their Emperors. By default, they were a mixture of peoples and cultures and would not have all been R1ab, however they still left very little genetic legacy in Britain after they withdrew in 410 AD.
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  50.  @veronicalogotheti1162  Let me just copy and paste from Wikipedia. 'The term foederati had its usage and meaning extended by the Romans' practice of subsidising entire barbarian tribes such as the Franks, Vandals, Alans, Huns and the Visigoths, the last being the best known, in exchange for providing warriors to fight in the Roman armies.' BTW the Roman Empire did not fall in 400 CE. I think you need to do some basic research first before making definitive statements.
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