Comments by "Iain Mc" (@iainmc9859) on "Celtic History Decoded"
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Thank you for the response. Unfortunately I missed your past tense; however you didn't clearly define the period you referred to, only mentioning tombstones and pottery evidence. You need to cite your sources to assert claims that Romanticism was simply 'Biblical fanatacism', although I'm not sure what you mean by the phrase. (not that this is an exercise in the writing of footnotes). Neither do you define your source for linguists that do not defend the connection of insular P&Q Celtic to Gaulish and other transcontinental Celtic languages. It would also help if your named your 'number one textbook' on Celtic languages.
I take note of your endonymic evidence from western Iberia and southern France, which rather supports my initial comment on the site about 'self-identification' as Celtic, which I agree is largely the result of the Romanticist and Nationalist movements of the 19th century. To this extent we are arguing the same point.
I did use loosely the term Celto-Iberian (meaning the Celts in Iberia) but avoided using the word Celtiberians. It is worth pointing out there was no hard and fast borders between one tribal grouping and another. This was not done out of ignorance, as Celtiberian was a loose heading used in classical times and there is still no definitive agreed list of tribes or tribal borders that fall under the generic modern heading Celtiberian today (did Celtiberians self-define as Celtiberians, probably not); although I think the spirit of the phrase is the fluid mixing of Celtic peoples and the pre-Celtic Iberians. No hard and fast cultural, genetic, linguistic or artistic borders.
In conclusion, I think we are largely making the same point regarding the issue of self-identification issues in contrast to the problems of cultural labelling from outwith (classical sources in this case). Feel free to stick to Celts only coming from southern France and western Iberia. You will hopefully forgive me for erring on the side of a linguistic, artistic, genetic diaspora across Europe that went by different tribal names but had many cultural overlaps, who probably did not define themselves as Celtic, as a useful shorthand, until the 19th century. @jboss1073
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Thank you for your prompt references. I shall certainly try to source them and read over them.
I largely think that we tend to agree in most matters (the modernity of self-identification) although we may differ in the overall cultural overview. Those people of southern France and western Iberia that used the word Celt on their pottery and tombstones didn't develop their culture in either geographical or historical isolation, but as a process of migration of Indo-Europeans that developed many distinct but related hybrid agricultural and pasturalist societies in the pre-classical age.
I do note that you originally said 19th century Romanticism sprung from Biblical fanatacism; which is rather different from Biblical Romanticism. Early 19th century Romanticism certainly did not develop out of a profound biblical or religious belief but out of a rejection, in general, of neo-classicism (artistic and literary) and the 'Ancien Regime', as well as a move towards democracy and universal suffrage. I do however totally accept that you probably meant that the political development of national creation myths came about at the same time as Romanticism; but don't let me put words in your mouth. We wouldn't agree on a strong Biblical fanaticism to these national creation myths, or the literary or artistic movements, although obviously people then as now made reference to the Bible as a cultural keystone of western society. If anything I'd probably say that Romanticism glorified nature itself and not its inferred maker.
Not quite on the same page is my own pet theory, and I would be interested to hear your thoughts on it, that the word celt is derived from what I believe is the ancient Phoenician word for a flat metal ingot about the size of a modern chessboard, generally in the shape of a cow hide, used in trade. I suspect that as, shall we call them Central Europeans, were some of the first iron workers that this may have a linguistic root connection. Let me clarify, I don't mean Celts and Pheonicians are genetically or culturally closely related, (the Celtic/Scythian/Pharaoh's daughter stories are absolutely just creation myths I'm sure) just that as 'Central Europeans' were one of the first proponents of iron smelting that the trade ingot and the people who worked it could be connected, although I haven't found any studies on the subject, and it simply could be a remarkable coincidence. @jboss1073
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According to David Reich, DNA analysis has shown that Western Hunter Gatherers were typically dark skinned, dark haired, and blue eyed.[41] The dark skin was due to their Out-of-Africa origin (all Homo sapiens populations having had initially dark skin), while the blue eyes were the result of a variation in their OCA2 gene, which caused iris depigmentation.[42]
Archaeologist Graeme Warren has said that their skin color ranged from olive to black, and speculated that they may have had some regional variety of eye and hair colors.[43] This is strikingly different from the distantly related eastern hunter-gatherers (EHG)—who have been suggested to be light-skinned, brown-eyed or blue eyed and dark-haired or light-haired.[44]
Two WHG skeletons with incomplete SNPs, La Braña and Cheddar Man, are predicted to have had dark or dark to black skin, whereas two other WHG skeletons with complete SNPs, "Sven" and Loschbour man, are predicted to have had dark or intermediate-to-dark and intermediate skin, respectively.[45][26][b] Spanish biologist Carles Lalueza-Fox said the La Braña-1 individual had dark skin, "although we cannot know the exact shade."[47]
According to a 2020 study, the arrival of Early European Farmers (EEFs) from western Anatolia from 8500 to 5000 years ago, along with Western Steppe Herders during the Bronze Age, caused a rapid evolution of European populations towards lighter skin and hair.[42] Admixture between hunter-gatherer and agriculturist populations was apparently occasional, but not extensive.[48]
Evolution of Upper Paleolithic and Neolithic phenotypes in Eurasia. Dark-skinned western hunter-gatherers resided in Western Europe, and expanded to some extent towards north and eastern Europe.[42]
Some authors have expressed caution regarding skin pigmentation reconstructions: Quillen et al. (2019) acknowledge studies that generally show that "lighter skin color was uncommon across much of Europe during the Mesolithic", including studies regarding the “dark or dark to black” predictions for the Cheddar Man, but warn that "reconstructions of Mesolithic and Neolithic pigmentation phenotype using loci common in modern populations should be interpreted with some caution, as it is possible that other as yet unexamined loci may have also influenced phenotype."[49]
Geneticist Susan Walsh at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis, who worked on Cheddar Man project, said that "we simply don't know his skin colour".[50] German biochemist Johannes Krause stated that we do not know whether the skin color of Western European hunter-gatherers was more similar to the skin color of people from present-day Central Africa or people from the Arab region. It is only certain that they did not carry any known mutation responsible for the light skin in subsequent populations of Europeans.[51]
A 2024 research into the genomic ancestry and social dynamics of the last hunter-gatherers of Atlantic France has stated that "phenotypically, we find some diversity during the Late Mesolithic in France", at which two of the WHG's sequenced in the study "likely had pale to intermediate skin pigmentation", but "most individuals carry the dark skin and blue eyes characteristic of WHGs" of the studied samples.[52]
Cut and Paste from Wikipedia ... although they probably chatted over computers and tested samples like Scientists rather than stood around shipboard water fountains and interjected with a lack of any professional knowledge and training !
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