To those whinging about the cameras not showing the slides, keep watching. Those of us who did discovered that the cameramen got this sorted out after only a few minutes and the slides were shown, when needed, thereafter. My only whinge is not being able to hear the questions, but Prof. Cunliffes answers were clear enough to make this not really matter. An excellent lecture. Many thanks to the poster.
Amazing prescience! A recent excavation near Newgrange has unearthed the charred remains of a male human alongside the crystal lense of a neolithic kodak.
Barry as a child I played up on the headland of Dulas Estuary and the old farmer in his 90s always said the caves we explored on the hillside among the thick hazelnut groves were the last refuge of the Druids. It is a very spiritual place for me.
What is otherwise a very interesting lecture suffers greatly because of the lack of a camera angle which shows the screen displaying the things he refers to. I notice that two cameras were used in shooting the lecture because of the two camera angles used to show the speaker. One would think the people filming it would have had the sense to point one of them at the screen showing the illustrations.
@@MrDeicide1 Upon which map would one find a Gaulish sword? Greek pottery depicting images of Celts plundering? The lecturer took the time to compile images to display accompanying his lecture, one would think that they were of some import. But, then again, 'duh, learn geography, lol, got 'im" is also much more fun to type.
@@MrDeicide1 Terribly sorry. It was not my intent to confuse you. Allow me to remind you of the previous conversation. PagnDad2 voiced his disappointment at the camera person's lack of footage capturing the images which the lecturer took the time to compile with intention of accompanying his lecture. You then replied thusly, "Learn Geography" I found this comment somewhat humorous as the lecturer is discussing far more than simple geographical locations when pointing to his slides, including, but not limited to migratory patterns, clothing, armor, and weapons. My admittedly snide and rather rude comment was pointing out that one's knowledge of geography would do little good in predicting the nature of Celtic spears and whatnot. That, good sir, is "tha fukk i is on about."
My kind sir, How come I was able to present to myself, in my mind, all the locations mentioned? Didn't need a map. The man Said where this was found, what directions migrations took, at which time... Your "far more than simple" is still simple to me... As for the pottery n armor... minor details Most important thing about those - is that they were Found Here as well as There
I guess you don't have much patience. The camera does cut away to what's being projected on the screen several times. Not the swords or the spears, true, but the shields, the helmets, and the chariot burial so far.
If Scotland leaves the U.K. and Ireland is reunified, Wales will probably vote for independence and I hope Cornwall becomes free. We can form the celtic League and leave England behind!
It something like this i guess commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MIGRATIONS.jpg Cunliffe's view is that the arrows should come from the Atlantic TO the Continental areas
The question of Celtic tribes in Denmark is interesting in that one of the tribes of North Jutland was called the Cimbri who predated the Germanic Jutes.
Like the Celts, the Germanic tribes were mobile when their environment could not support them- The Dan and Bard tribes moved from South Svea to Denmark and Poland around 200 AD. Both Celt and Nordic DNA have a large admixture of Yamnaya from the mammoth hunting steppe tribes around 2,000 BC.
The Cimbri were whether Celts nor Germans: they were Ligurs ( Liguri ,λιγυες) Plutarch life of Marius : as his army affronted the Cimbri they began to attack touting "Ambrones ! Ambrones,!" and a ligurian officer said to general Marius " AMBRONES this is the name of our (the Ligurs) whole nation !" The Ligurs were the primitive habitants of Europe after the last glaciation down to the times if the Romans. There were Ligurian equites, and noble families like the gens Ouvfentina, cited by Plinius junior.Albion and perhaps Alba in Scottland are ligurian names.So no wonder that they are signaled in Denmark.A Ligurian mountain tribe is evocked around Massilia (Plutarch :Sertorius, Cn Pompeius) and repeatedly in Lombardy and Piemont (the Taurini, helping the Insubres ( a Ligurian tribe chased from Gallia by the Gauls) to cross the Mountains ( ligur. TAURA) ...
Cimbri most likley another form of todays Cymru (wales) and Cumbria ( england and scotland) which also refers to the people/ land of the Cymru, kumry/ kumri / cumri ... Rydyn ni yma o hyd! WE ARE STILL HERE
My paternal haplotype is the Atlantic Celtic branch of the R1b paternal haplogroup. Regarding the "droopy moustache" that was associated with Ancient Celtic identity, I'm in my mid 30s and almost all of my beard grows in grey except for my mustache and some strips extending from the sides of my lips that still grow in dark. It's as if there was genetic selection along my fatherline for that exact type of mustache, it's a strange thing.
People should stop complaining about the slides because this problem was sorted out after a few minutes. This was an excellent lecture from which I learned a great deal. My main question was this (and I don't know if this was addressed): Cunliffe suggests the people we call "Celts" went back much, much earlier than the migration theories suggest, to the Mesolithic period IIRC. But Proto-Celtic was an Indo-European division which is usually dated to c. 3000 BC, maybe a little earlier. How did this language spread to an existing European population but not the ancestors of the Basques?
They were cimmerian peoples from what is about north Iran. They were driven out , some moved to troy Thrace and epirus later to Italy Spain and Europe spoke the cymri tongue . The Trojan royal lineage goes back to ifeth or japeth son of Noah. About 4390 years ago .
Wild etymology here: "Gael is defined as a member of the Gaelic race", "Gaelic is defined as 'pertaining to the Gaels' "...do you see the runaround logic? "The name ultimately derives from the Old Irish word Goídel/Gaídel, commonly spelled Gaoidheal in pre-spelling reform Modern Irish, but today officially spelled Gaeil (plural) or Gael (singular; the word is spelled Gael in Manx and Gàidheal (singular) and Gàidheil (plural) in Scottish Gaelic). In early modern Irish, the words Gaelic and Gael were spelled respectively Gaoidhealg (Goídelc in Old Irish) and Gaoidheal (singular), Gaoidheil/Gaoidhil (plural)" ...see the letter D's above? What if you just add a D or T to the word Gaelic to make Gaeltic, what word does it sound like? I wonder if that is what the word literally is. "Celtic is a language group" Galatian Gualish Guals Gails Catalonia Cati Catiness Cathness What if these are all Romans variations on the naming of Celtic people? The T and D are interchangeable and the T/D and L moves around. It may all be variations of the word "Keltoi" BUT...the Celts has a simmilar language group so therefore probably more trade with each other and a connection irrelevent to what they call themselves.
@gearoid quirke Ok so the Scythians had a plan to get to Ireland from the other side of Eurasia before anything about it was known. So they first went to Spain, leaving no genetic trace, then made a beeline for Ireland, avoiding the rest of the atlantic coast and making sure under no circumstanced to colonise Britain. And somehow they still end up with northwest European DNA. Or perhaps they are northwest Europeans.
7:26 - WHY ARE WE NOT SEEING HIS SLIDES?????? Surely that was an important part of the content? I like seeing some of him as well, of course, but the visual materials are really more important for grokking the lecture. Sheesh...
Back in the 1990s, there was a series on TLC, (then The Learning Channel), called Ancient Warriors There was an episode about the Celts and it covered everything from Brennus' conquest of Rome to Boudica's Rebellion.
Can you active the automatic subtitles? I've friends from Brazil that want to watch professor Cunliffe's lecture, but they don't have enough knowledge of english for that. Thank you for sharing that with us.
@24:00 the carnix was used in battle, but did they not also used huge harps on wagons? It's a picture I saw somewhere, but don;t know if it was in a scientific illustration or just a comic book. 1:21:06 That is an answer to a long bogging question: Who were the Picts? an indiginous people that spoke Celtic. and probably a Celtic distinct from Irish or British
23:11 , this segment on the war trumpets was very moving. I could imagine the sound of those things , like the low deep roar a dinosaur in pain , drifting across the foggy battle field as we all clash swords in slow motion. It must have been otherworldly.
i understood that many of the great rivers of Europe are Celtic root words... also may German root words are of Celtic origin... & ultimately leading to Sanskrit & Celtic Laws share strong links with ancient Sanskrit/Indian/Aryan Laws
Bon Chance, Sanskrit, Celtic, Germanic, Italic etc. etc. and the cultures and peoples associated all sprang from a single common language, culture and people who lived in the Pontic Steppe. The Indo Europeans. After having tamed the horse and invented wheeled vehicles, they began to spread out in all directions. The Celts are part of the branch that went west into Europe, quite early. The Sanskrit speaking peoples were part of the branch that went into what is now Iran and India much later. But the fact that they both were ultimately born of the same language and culture is the reason for the similarities. It’s the reason all Indo European peoples share many similarities in DNA, culture and language. English “mother”, German “mutter”, ancient Greek “meter”, Sanskrit “matar” etc.
Yes, the celts have lived in south India in the ancient times. They were the nobles from that region!! They are the eastern schythians from south India.
This makes more sense of something I have often wondered. How did Anglesey become the heart of Celtic society as the base of the Druids? If the Celts came from central Europe, why did the druid base end up in such a remote part? But if the Celts developed along the Western edge of Europe then an island in the relative(ish) centre of their lands is logical.
@@CarlosSanchez-my7zg How do you geet that idea???? There is PLENTY of evidence, way more than enough to leave their existence totally beyond doubt. A mass of evidence that encompasses written, archaelogical and 'carved into our landscape'.
@@MetalTimster True, there is no 'evidence', i.e. totally indisputable indications. But there are plenty of very strong indications. French Celts and British Celts share many cultural links, this makes it quite probable that they shared their shamanic beliefs i.e. druids. Julius Caesar, in his 'Commentary on the Gallic War', writes of measures to suppress the druids. This is before the Romans entered Britain. Bas reliefs etc have been found in France showing men dressed as we'd expect druids to be dressed. There is also zero negative evidence. Therefore, on the balance of probability, I and many others believe that druidism was active on the European mainland. btw: on the nature of 'evidence'. Is there any evidence that Mars exists other than a dot in the sky that could be any of a number of things? Have you ever stood on it yourself, or know anyone who has? All we have is claims by people who say that they have looked through telescopes and seen a rock ball, and others who claim to has sent probes there. All we have is hearsay. As Popper showed, there can never be 100% proof of anything. We just have to draw an arbitrary line to mark where strong indications become evidence.
@@CarlosSanchez-my7zg Apart from a long tradition of them in our (Irish) language, literature and culture. They were a definite class of people, documented in the Early Irish Law texts, that is, in primary sources. There is as much evidence for druids as there is for anything else described in primary sources anywhere.
I'm interested to know whether the site where the celts survived and emerged after the last ice age may have been the Ojo Guareña and Mortillano cave systems in Spain. Mortillano cave System is found in Soba and Ruesga municipality and just north of Ojo Guareña. To me this seems like a likely site for people to survive an ice age in this area and there is archeological evidence for people residing in them at least back to the paleolythic era. This location seems to match the map and hypothesis spoken about at 48:30
The Celts did not emerge for a long time after the ice age. The Celts were descendants of the Yamnaya that originated on the Pontic steppes (Ukraine/Russia), around 5 000 years ago (the last ice age ended ~12.000 years ago), and then spread across most of Europa and large parts of Asia Other peoples that descend from the Yamnaya are the Greeks, the Romans the Germanic peoples and even some Iranian and Indian peoples, i.e. all the people speaking the Indoeuropean languages just like the Celts. All these people also share(d) similar religious beliefs.
Celtic nations are a concept very unprecise, because there are many groups of celtic nations through Europe. Cumbria for example can be considered a celtic nation. But the Atlantic celtic nations are those who follow: - Galecia + Portugal - Bretonia (France) - Ireland - Scotland - Wales - Cornwall - Isle of man Also Romans called Scottish celtic tribes as "Caledonians", but we can better say they named themselves as "Galedonians", continuing with the celtic root syllable "Gal" (which means: strong, white, great, power, hard as rock, etc), which we can see in celtic countries through the Atlantic fringe zone like Galia (France), Galicia, PortuGAL (port of the galos, currently Oporto), Glasgow (Gale-s-gow), Glastonbury (Gale-s-ton-bury), Galatians, Galway in Ireland and so on. Nowadays you have the PSG football trainer named with surname "Galtier", just see his face, he is a truly celt !!!
Dear Prof. Cunliffe, I am a fan of your work and enjoy your presentations emensely. Is there any way of delegating to an able student the task of incorporating your over head graphics into this video as you refer to them? Jayne Australia
I’m confused. I think the main idea around 45 minutes in is that Celtic peoples and language is a Neolithic ie “native European language”. Correct me if I’m wrong but there seems to be a mountain of evidence that both the people and language are indo-European from the steppes of Ukraine. I believe they might have the most influence from native Europeans but they certainly are brother peoples to the italic people and cousin people to Germanic and baltoslavic people, and to a lesser extent the more Eastern indo Europeans like Greeks, Armenians, and then Indic and Aryan peoples
You are correct. Dna evidence actually shows a massive replacement of the Neolithic European farmer population by the incoming Indo-European(steppe+some NEF dna picked up along the way) population just before 2000BC. These people fundamentally changed the culture, which is clear to see in the archaeology and brought the bronze age to Britain. If I recall correctly around 80% of the dna of Britain after 2000bc is of eastern european steppe origin
The basic idea of Celrs today is that they evolved out of the combination of Early Farmers whose forefathers arrived north of the Balkans @ 6000 BC, and the later migrants who came out of the Russian and Easr Asian steppes in repeated invasions from 3500 BC on. In other words, Celts developed in situ in Europe over a period of centuries.
Does this mean that early man may have travelled from the americas to Britain and Ireland and therefore give proof that sea travel is far older than the current dates tell us
Just before 38:28 "they pass the wine as through a sieve". I am reminded to Sigmund's words to his son Sinfjotle about the poison ... were there "poisons" which could be eliminated that way?
They have lots of archaeologists at their college, Besides, one of their main things is accepting things on faith, which is also mentioned in the New Testament about how the Christians needed to have faith in things that are not seen, but I don't recall the passage-only really studied the bible in sunday school, years ago.
If anything, archaeology is one of the fortes of BYU. Much Mesoamerican archaeology comes from BYU in attempts at proving Mormonism. Of course, it all has backfired given that archaeology only keeps disproving Mormons to the point that most Mormons are now minimalists who believe that the lack of Hebrews in the archaeological evidence is because they rapidly adopted the cultures of Native Americans surrounding them while admitting that the Hebrews are not the first peoples in the Americas nor the ancestors of Native Americans.
The irish language is very much going through a resurgence in modern Ireland..With Naoinra, Gael Scoileanna, Colaiste very much in demand and waiting lists for the above mentioned .. Irish being studied in Trinity College, UCD etc and smaller PLC colleges...TG4 TV station , Radio Na Gael and Radio Na Life many people now speaking our native language and many more want to learn it so from near extinction to a major revival .....Lots of our young people now speaking our language .
In the years since this video was posted, geneticists have discovered an almost 90% population replacement of Britain in the early Iron Age- precisely when you would have expected a migration of Celts into the Isles. How did earlier geneticists miss that?
"No significant movements of people" doesn't mean that the people who DID move were not significant. The broad brush of genetics not necessarily reflective of the strongest cultural influences.
Excellent lecture, well researched and argued. Still I would not spend 60 thou/year to send my child to a university when it takes 18 minutes before it dawns on the camera person to actually show the pictures Prof Cunliffe refers as an integral part of his lecture.
+beagle8boy I was amused by the "well researched" comment, rather like a teacher's remarks on a student essay. Prof Cunliffe is one of the world experts in this subject. His research is often the original. He also isn't frightened to think outside the box and is open to new ideas. He is probably better known in the UK and Europe. Agree with you re the camera work. Unintelligent.
+Helena McGinty Yeah? And yet he put up that ridiculous Iberian refugium Y DNA theory and a quote from Oppenheimer's book, even though at the time No M269 subclades had been found in Europe prior to Bell Beaker.
A Res There's no contradiction between Celtic languages emerging along the Atlantic fringe and Indo-European coming from Asia. IE moves from A to B, in B it develops into a particular sub-family. The subfamily then spreads eastwards.
@@ARes-ss2hd isn't he saying they were indigenous to what we now know as Britain and Ireland ? Basically people who settled those areas in Neolithic times. They are indigenous because there were no people there. The ice had recently melted.
Ireland had hunter gatherers then neolithic farmers and then Bell Beaker folk whose ancestry seems a base for the Irish. If Celtic grew in western Europe as Sir Barrington Windsor Cunliffe CBE FBA FSA, claims then why were there still strong amounts of vasques, Iberians etc. in West Europe?
Didn't really answer the question: Who were the Celts? He seems to want to make them out to be the indigenous peoples of the Atlantic coast of Europe but that's obviously a quite unsatisfactory theory because Celtic is clearly an Indo-European language, which means that the Celts have to be connected somehow to the IE homeland in the Caucasus. I also don't think we can so easily dismiss the classical Greek and Roman writers who say that the Celts were their barbarian neighbors to the North. In the classical era the Celts must have been dispersed far wider than just along the Atlantic coast. To dismiss the classical writers as know-nothings is extremely arrogant on our part. After all, they were the ones who actually met their neighbors in battle. If they insist that they were all one ethnic people, then that must have been the truth.
Basically, an Indo-European people came to occupy Atlantic Europe, where their dialect of Indo-European evolved into Celtic. In other words, once the Celtic language appears, they stopped being Indo-Europeans and become Celts. So simple.
I agree with you. Thanks, because I kept asking myself “what did I miss here?” I am going to listen to it again but at this point I am still as confused as ever about our friends The Celts.
The one shown on upper right corner in the slide is from the louvre, the one below from the Capitoline Museums, Rome (was also in the Louvre till 1816 :-).
1:43:26 he says he heard Chinese (mandarin?) is the 3rd language spoken in Ireland. As of the 2011 census, 15,166 chinese nationals in Ireland. French 56,430, Spanish 21,640, Romanian 20,625, German 27,342 etc etc
Really interesting, very informative! On a side note: "One of my favourite films, Apocalypse Now. . ." A little factoid about Barry Cunliffe, what great taste!
Only one small mistake... the Manx language is not Cornish....it is Leinster Irish. Any Irish speaker can understand the Manx greeting: "Cead Mile Failte go Ileannan Mannin" (Any Scottish Gaelic speaker would understand it as well.) I grew up beside Mannin Beach in the far west of Ireland.....named after the Pagan Sea God named Manann.....the same God that the Isle of Man is named after. (Manann is also the name of that little gold model Irish boat he described...named after that same Irish God as the Isle of Man.)
“Modern Gaelic preserves many spelled letters that are no longer pronounced, but when pronounced in the ancient Gaulish or ancestral tongue of the Celts and Basques, one finds a striking similarity to the Algonquian language. For example; the Algonquian word for ‘one who takes small fish’ is Amoskeag. In Gaelic Ammo-iasgag means ‘small fish stream’. In Algonquian Ammonoosuc means ‘small fishing river’ and in Gaelic, Am-min-a-sugh means; ‘small river for taking out fish’. In Algonquian Coos and cohas mean ‘pine tree’ and in Gaelic, ghiuthas means ‘pine tree’. Merrimack River in Algonquian means ‘deep fishing’. In Gaelic Mor-riomach means ‘of great depth’. Kaskaashadi another Algonquian name for the Merrimack River sounds similar to Guisgesiadi, which in Gaelic means ‘slow flowing waters’. Nashaway River in Algonquian means ‘land between’ and in Gaelic naisguir means ‘land connecting’. Piscataqua River means ‘white stone’ and in Gaelic, Pioscatacua means ‘pieces of snow white stone’. Seminenal River means ‘grains of rock’, which in Gaelic is semenaill. Quechee matches the Gaelic work Quithe meaning pit or chasm. Ottauquechee River flows through a 162 feet deep gorge is similar to the Gaelic word Otha-Cuithe which means ‘waters of the gorge’. Cabassauk River in Algonquian means place of Sturgeon. The Sturgeon fish have unfortunately fallen victim to environmental degradation. Similar to Gaelic Cabach-sugh. Attilah means blueberries and in Gaelic Aiteal means juniper berries. Munt means people and in Gaelic muintear means people. Monad means mountain and in Gaelic monadh means mountain. The suffix - nock is used in New England to denote hills and mountains. Cnoc in Gaelic means hill or rocky outcrop. Wadjak means on top, in Gaelic the word is uachdar. Monomonock Lake means ‘island lookout place’ and in Gaelic Moine-managh-ach means ‘boggy lookout place’. Pontanipo Pond means cold water and in Gaelic Punntaine-pol means ‘numbingly cold pool’. Natukko means cleared place (land) and in Gaelic Neo-tugha means not covered (by vegetation). Asquam Lake means ‘pleasant watering place’ and in Gaelic Uisge-amail means ‘seasonable waters’.” ~ Steve Hollier
The Mandan a fair red Indian tribe in Canada fled to north America in the 8th century from Wales they were led by Prince Llewellyn. They we're discovered by two Welsh soldiers in the British army, who we're talking in Welsh and the native Indian joined in the conversation ? ? To their suprise .
Where is this lecture being given? From the interest in Celtic history I would surmise Ireland, but I a search does not seem to indicate BYU as any department of Dublin University.
What's wrong with the cameraman? Why isn't the screen showed on which the slides are shown? Barry gives a good lecture, but I'd have liked to seen the slides!!
Well... they do finally start showing some pix at about the 18:00 mark, when he's describing the shields that Celts used and then a few examples of helmets. But I would've liked to see the barbed spears he showed & the swords, as well.
Interesting however why does he keep referring to what he should call Britain/British as English? Several times he confuses the two! Maybe because he is an Englishman?
+johnniemcintyre73 The professor is English. Briton is an old name, which changed to Britannica (Romans) and then Englaland (old Saxon) once the Saxons unified the country. Before then England was made up of four kingdoms, some of which where rules under Dane law (vikings). Modern name is technically England, Britain is a name which comprises of Scotland, Ireland and wales
+johnniemcintyre73 England is just one part of Great Britain (as opposed to little Britain ie Brittany), which in turn is one of the British Isles. They are all different concepts. Unfortunately, many people get them confused
+Arden Dro I understood that England derives from Angleland, i.e. the land the Angles settled as in Anglo Saxon. Of course the Scots (who originated in N Ireland) call the English Sassenachs, from Saxon. Legally we are all British, at least that is what it says on my passport. I consider myself typically British being English, Irish and bit Polish. Most English people do conflate English and British though. Britain though only includes Northern Ireland although I think that the' British isles' includes the whole of Ireland as it refers to Geography rather than nationality.
I admire and respect Prof. Cunliffe and am fascinated by the Celts (or whatever you want to call them), But I have nothing but disdain for the producers of this video. SHOW THE FREAKIN' ILLUSTRATIONS!!!
Interesting but terribly frustrating to continuously see him point at an illustration and refer to ot in detail and at length and we can't see. You've got two cameras going, how about showing the screen.?
1:32:24 Chesterton noted once that "Sul is thought to be Minerva, but the find of a bearded statue suggests the identification is not complete". It seems it is now, what happened to the bearded statue?
Wow, this presentation is so dated and at odds with current research - it's a bit hard to listen to for that reason. Still, I like Cunliffe's style and willingness to think outside of the box. He does present Koch, glottochronolgy, and Renfrew's IE material as more mainstream that they really are.
Renfrew is WRONG about PIE origins. Its homeland is NOT in Anatolia, especially 3000 years before the wheel and wheel-using carts & wagons were invented, so how could Renfrew's half-baked idea make sense since PIE had words for wheel, wagons, etc??? No, the PIE homeland was the area north of the Black Sea, in the Western Steppes. That is almost a consensus among both archaeologists & linguistics, Read David Anthony's wonderful book: The Horse, The Wheel & Migration, for one.
Celtic is a Indo european family of languages so it would have to have come from the East originally. It couldn't be too old if it spread from the west. But it's not an entire new idea. Colin McEvidy and others have said that proto Celtic was spread by the Bell Beaker folks and spread through the Atlantic area and that newer versions of Celtic were spread through the Hallstadt and La Tene cultures back to the Atlantic.
+Popperite I'd say it came by sea if it's oldest in the West, but originating in the East when you go further back. Means it came to Ireland and Spain by way of seafarers through the Mediterranean... from somewhere back east.
+Ozzman Osgood Well, the whole thing seems to have originated in the Alps and places more northern than that. They may have spread through seafaring after that, much like the Bell Beaker folk, who may have been Celtic, but Indo European languages entered Europe from the steppes of Eastern Europe.
+Popperite etc. The idea that there were bell beaker folk rather than the spread of the design is another idea that has been questioned. I first heard this way back in the 60s when the similarity to the spread of modern US culture was held as an example. The fact that in the UK we wear blue jeans and eat big macs does not mean that we there has been a mass migration of people from the US to the UK. Also modern genetic studies, as quoted by prof Cunliffe back this idea up as the people of the British isles are mostly descended from people who moved into the islands when the ice sheets retreated. For a while they could actually walk as the channel was not formed until later. The DNA from a mesolithic skeleton found in Gough's cave in Cheddar Gorge is to be found in present day inhabitants of the area.
+Helena McGinty Sure, but that is too long ago to have anything to do with Celts. When the Ice sheets were retreating or even when the first farmers arrived, there were no Indo-European languages around.
50:00 This has been COMPLETELY OVERTURNED around 2015. While it's probably completely true that 80% or so of Britons have *a link* with the mesolithic populations, just *how strong a link is it* ? Post 2015 work suggests that the Kelts did come from the Atlantic to the UK (and then elsewhere) around 3000BC. They carried with them a strong steppes/indo-european component. Their arrival was actually a very substantial population change. Before the steppes people, the neolithic farmers arrives and also induced a very serious population change. It is true that since then, in the case of Ireland, for example, the population has been pretty stable for the past 5000 years. That's quite impressive. But 5000 years ago it was pretty hectic for a few centuries.
Maybe I'm lucky that I've read a number of Prof Cunliffe's books and lecture materials, along with Prof Sykes, Dr Oppenheimer, Dr Oliver, et al, but I can't agree with what you say. Evidence suggests that there were two main refuges where humans retreated to as the Ice Sheets pushed south and then retreated back several times. One area is around the northern Iberia, and the second was from the Balkans. These were linked to areas of the near East even further back, but one has to remember the coastlines were very different back then as was the population size. And Prof Cunliffe has covered this in his research, but obviously he can't cover his life's work in one lecture. So I see this lecture as but one small part of the journey of the Celts, as sparse populations ended up in the British Isles, becoming separated from Continental Europe as sea levels rose and consumed the great North Sea plain, and then forming and developing into the Celtic peoples who then pushed back out into Europe...as Celts.
Your analysis is based on complete fantasy. The evidence strongly suggests, that if celts ever migrated to the British isles, it was a small token amount, and not anywhere near enough to impact the genetic and culture of British people. The genetics and culture was far more impacted by vikings and anglo saxons.
@@jkjkjkkjkjk hello, i have changed my mind since this comment. i should have said that it was not kelts but bell beaker indo-europeans who were the last massive influx. kelts came much later and may have been not that many but their language became dominant though
@@ogunsiron2 ah, cool, yeah, its certainly an interesting and evolving topic. Its cool to hear more people are becoming aware of the latest developments, like yourself. Nice chatting.
@@jkjkjkkjkjk thanks for the kind comment. my change of mind on this topic was after reading something about Gaul and how the kelts there also were a later minor, later migration and that the really fundamental migration was a few 1000 years before with also bell beaker type of peoples.
Dear Brigham Young University Anthropology Department: please replace your camera person. This lecture was ruined for me by not seeing his slides. Hope the camera guy isn't in film school there; he will never get a job.
The genetic evidence he suggests is very outdated now. The Bell Beaker migration replaced most of the stone age population entirely, although there is no evidence of Celtic invasion during the Hallstatt period or thereabouts.
QUESTION : Why did the concept *SUNUS "son" disappear in Celtic ? Both Q and P and what could be the origin of *MAQQOS /*MAPPOS that seems to be very ancient ?
I come from grandparents residing on the Adriatic coast of north central Italy on my father's side and Hungary on my mother's side. Surprisingly, my DNA markers from my father's line has 92% in common with the people of Wales, 87% in common with the Basques and 87% in common with the people of Catalonia. It completely surprised me, but parallels the Mediterranean/ Atlantic theories of migration. Celtic was a lingua franca not a people. In 10 generations you carry the genomes of 1,024 individuals, in 20 generations, 1,048,576 individuals. In 26 generations you carry the genomes of 67,108,864 individuals. That is greater than the estimated population of the entire Roman Empire at the time of Augustus. To place it in perspective, our species is so mongrelized among the peoples of Europe and beyond, that we can all claim ancient roots to any where we desire.
He actually refers to Colin Renfrew's Anatolian Hypothesis on the origins of Indo-European as if it's what most linguists believe these days when it's a MINORITY OPINION! and probably always will be as it doesn't account for a whole bunch of linguistic, archaeological and especially geographical factors compared to the Kurgan Hypothesis! Nice guy, learned, knows his archaeology but he seems to be woefully misinformed about linguistic factors and expert opinion. And BTW without a 'deep glottochronology' such as Renfrew is prepared to contemplate you couldn't possibly have 'Celtic' as far back as the Neolithic.
2manynegativewaves I think Cunliffe is an intelligent and learned guy, and not a fraud or charlatan of any kind, but I couldn't help gaping a bit at some of the assumptions and misunderstandings he made in this talk. And of course his new take on the origins of the Celts may turn out to be true, or may have more truth in it than the established hypothesis, but it'll take a lot of work to get there. I feel he's joining a lot of dots in this thesis, that aren't actually part of the same picture. I mean clearly there were Bell Beaker migrations into and out of Iberia, there were Atlantic trades and migrations in the Neolithic, there are some puzzling qualities to Celtic language and some puzzling situations with DNA comparisons with central Europe. But to try and draw all this together to arrive at the conclusion that "Celts were Neolithic/Bronze rather than Iron Age, originated in Western Europe not Central and were effectively a lingua franca trading community rather than a particular nation" is going too far and makes too many assumptions IMO. The Kurgan hypothesis is the leading archeological theory underpinning the leading theory within historical linguistics to explain the original Indo-European people. The idea is that the original IEs lived in southern Russia/Ukraine and expanded and migrated in most directions, generating the widespread Indo-European language family. They don't have to have been the Kurgan people but that particular recognisable culture has been suggested as the most likely archeological reference point. There are some minor variations in time and space on this theory, one of which may be slightly more correct. Apart from anything else it's unlikely all the branches of Indo-European split up at the same time, different groups would have moved away over 1000 years or so and that's enough time for the material culture and geographical extent to vary quite a bit. The expansion has been associated with a Neolithic farming expansion in at least some versions of the history; one of the major alternative explanations of the origins of the IEs is Colin Renfrew's Anatolian Hypothesis in which the IEs originated in Anatolia and the reason why they expanded into Europe and Asia is because they picked up the radiating Neolithic farming culture from the Middle East. We certainly do know there are genes in European populations from the Middle East due to a Neolithic farming culture migrating. To identify this migration with the IEs Renfrew has to put the origins of Indo-European languages further back in time and have it develop much more slowly than historical linguists have generally been prepared to contemplate. It's not impossible but there's no direct evidence of it and it requires this general re-think about the speed of language change. I believe Cunliffe mentions a recent paper in which some linguists have proposed a deep time glottochronology for Indo-European that supports Renfrew's theory. cont'd
2manynegativewaves Alternatively we could stick with the Kurgan (or at least Russian steppe) Hypothesis and a later time but have it be a Neolithic farming expansion triggered later than Anatolia, or a Bronze Age expansion, or due to acquiring horse-riding etc. No the Kurgan or original IE people were not 'Celts', we have no reason to suppose any 'Celts' earlier than the Urnfield culture in southern Germany in the late 2nd millennium BC. Celtic is just one branch of IE, and it seems closest to the Italic branch, so it seems likely they had an immediate common ancestor (Italo-Celtic) which would have developed in central to eastern Europe in the early 2nd millennium BC, and then the 'linguistic ancestors' of the Italic-speakers would have separated off and migrated down into central Italy while those of the Celts stayed in central Europe. In both cases of course a large part of the ancestors of the resulting people would have been those who had already been there rather than incoming Indo-European speakers. With the various Celtic expansions in the early to late 1st millennium BC (Celtiberi/Gallaecia in Iberia, Hungary, France, British Isles, north Italy, Yugoslavia>Greece>Turkey (Galatia)) what would have happened would indeed have been "re-starting" in the way you say. I've seen enough evidence to believe that very little Celtic lineage entered into the people of the British Isles, even tho it seems the whole territory came to be Celtic-speaking. As I was arguing with Mr. NDRonin, I don't think that means the invaders didn't bring a Celtic culture with them, that stuck to some extent. But it would have mixed with the native one, especially in the more remote parts e.g. north Scotland. Effectively tho the Celtic invaders would have 'started again' in a new land and would soon have seen themselves as "of this land" rather than some international club of Celtic-speakers. On the other hand the most recent migrations to the Britain e.g. of the Belgae meant that some southern Britons identified enough with Gauls that they helped them during Caesar's conquest (by sheltering fugitives? crossing over to join in the fight? supplying with materials? it's not clear), which led to Caesar coming over to 'punish' them. And the few pieces of Gaulish we have do seem pretty close to ancient Brythonic, ancestor of Welsh. I can only imagine the Celts who became Galatians in Anatolia 're-started' their culture there, since it was so far from where they'd come from and they were surrounded by quite different peoples in a different climate. Similarly we have evidence that the Celtiberi in Iberia did not share much of their ancestry with French Celts, again implying a small band of invaders imposed their culture and language on the pre-existing population.
2manynegativewaves So yeah, I think what we have here is a big historical example of "linguistic ethnic identity" - forming a sense of ethnic identity with others based on a common language, or common group of languages. There doesn't have to be much shared DNA, and even if some elements of cultures are spread there will also be a persistence of the old and a creation of new culture of a distinctive kind. Diehard Celticists will insist there remain common elements everywhere the Celts went, and there are some evidences of that - plaid designs on clothing, pipe music, decoration and artwork, a strong alcohol and feasting culture - but it doesn't mean all these peoples saw themselves as the same people, just because their ancestors spoke - or had been forced to learn - the same language. And the reverse point also holds - a huge number of people who don't speak Celtic languages (speakers of Germanic, Romance languages etc.) have ancestors who did, even if in turn those ancestors had many ancestors who didn't.
jonstfrancis This video is dated 2008. Has the situation changed so radically in 7 years? According to WP he first proposed it in 1987, and there has been plenty of time for criticism to mount. He got support from two glottochronology studies in 2003 and 2011, but felt he had to revise his ideas in 2004. I don't see what's changed in the last 7 years.
What about a new theory ???? - From Karpathian basis ( after the last ice age ) people moved to East ( called SCHYTIANS ) ,, moved to West ( called CELTS )
I do not know Kimkardshians ...but check archaic names ...SAMOS , UR , URU- Solyma , HIERO - Solyma = today JERUSALEM , ARAD , ARPAD =+ many many more..Genesis= GENEZES , Istar = ISTEN , Thothj = TOTH ( they MAKE sense in < EVEN< modern MAGYAR
+Huszar 63 imporetedmusic is joking, There is some woman called Kim Kardashian. I have no idea what she does, if anything, (I am too old to care) but know the name.
To those whinging about the cameras not showing the slides, keep watching. Those of us who did discovered that the cameramen got this sorted out after only a few minutes and the slides were shown, when needed, thereafter. My only whinge is not being able to hear the questions, but Prof. Cunliffes answers were clear enough to make this not really matter.
An excellent lecture. Many thanks to the poster.
Thank you for letting me know. I was about to give up. But really, why was this not sorted out beforehand?!
Certainly, a university professor couldn’t possibly be expected to slow slides during a lecture! Duh, the slides should be shown from the beginning.
In case you're like me and starting to wonder if this comment is a lie around 10 minutes in, they do get it together. But not until the 18 minute mark
Barry Cunliffe is an excellent scholar. His camera man, however, needs to be sacrificed to the gods.
Amazing prescience!
A recent excavation near Newgrange has unearthed the charred remains of a male human alongside the crystal lense of a neolithic kodak.
We only sacrifice criminals - not simpletons.
The camera man takes his orders from Barry Cunliffe .Obviously.
Uu uuuu. Uu. Uuuuuu y y. Uuuu u y uu u Y y yuuvuyuuuuuu u y y uuuu uuuuu
THANK YOU! Terrible camera man!
Barry as a child I played up on the headland of Dulas Estuary and the old farmer in his 90s always said the caves we explored on the hillside among the thick hazelnut groves were the last refuge of the Druids. It is a very spiritual place for me.
Name looks welsh and i believe dulas is in wales so im assuming its in wales somewhere lol@Scotlandview
Ben mcbrady (The Last Druid ) irish druid history aa thet weren't invaded by Romans
What is otherwise a very interesting lecture suffers greatly because of the lack of a camera angle which shows the screen displaying the things he refers to. I notice that two cameras were used in shooting the lecture because of the two camera angles used to show the speaker. One would think the people filming it would have had the sense to point one of them at the screen showing the illustrations.
+PagnDad2 Learn geography
@@MrDeicide1 Upon which map would one find a Gaulish sword? Greek pottery depicting images of Celts plundering? The lecturer took the time to compile images to display accompanying his lecture, one would think that they were of some import. But, then again, 'duh, learn geography, lol, got 'im" is also much more fun to type.
Matthew Pollock
Tha fukk u on about?
@@MrDeicide1 Terribly sorry. It was not my intent to confuse you. Allow me to remind you of the previous conversation.
PagnDad2 voiced his disappointment at the camera person's lack of footage capturing the images which the lecturer took the time to compile with intention of accompanying his lecture.
You then replied thusly, "Learn Geography"
I found this comment somewhat humorous as the lecturer is discussing far more than simple geographical locations when pointing to his slides, including, but not limited to migratory patterns, clothing, armor, and weapons. My admittedly snide and rather rude comment was pointing out that one's knowledge of geography would do little good in predicting the nature of Celtic spears and whatnot.
That, good sir, is "tha fukk i is on about."
My kind sir,
How come I was able to present to myself, in my mind, all the locations mentioned?
Didn't need a map.
The man Said where this was found, what directions migrations took, at which time...
Your "far more than simple" is still simple to me...
As for the pottery n armor... minor details
Most important thing about those - is that they were Found Here as well as There
I took a class with this man, and I will never forget how amazing it was. It'll stick with me forever!
RIP
Why wasn't the camera aimed at the screen?
I don't need to see a man fiddling with glasses and papers, I do need to see what he is referring to.
This man got brains and knowledge hes trying to pass over to inteligent people!!.Maybe you are one of them????????
jose ramirez h
Perhaps you might doubt the evidence if you see it!
@@worldiscoverercanari That's besides the point, you idiot!
That would take the glory off the man.He would not like that! He wants to be the center of attraction!
By far the most interesting videos I've seen on the Celts.
Outstanding. Cannot get enough of this guy, although the camera angles aren’t great, still an unbelievable amount of knowledge in here
Thank you for posting this great presentation, brings to life the story of the Celts.😃
Sure wish the lecture included screen shots of the slides. They did correct that error after the first 19 minutes. Great lecture in spite of that.
damn i hate it when he is showing something and i cant see it
+ELISA STRANGEHUMANBEING i was thinkig the same lazy camera guy
I guess you don't have much patience. The camera does cut away to what's being projected on the screen several times. Not the swords or the spears, true, but the shields, the helmets, and the chariot burial so far.
relax, it's probably a student running the camera.....a little tolerance
ELISA STRANGEHUMANBEING Google the descriptions to find images.
USELESS!
Very informative, however would love to see these talks with closed captions...
Cornish is spoken in Cornwall again. That language came back from the dead.
CORNISH CANNOT BE KILLED!
NotOrdinaryInGames Da Iawn pawb!
Fi Godwn Ni Eto!
Klingon came back from non-existance. Top that.
If Scotland leaves the U.K. and Ireland is reunified, Wales will probably vote for independence and I hope Cornwall becomes free. We can form the celtic League and leave England behind!
@Jeremy Kirkpatrick . . . Hooray !!
@Jeremy Kirkpatrick ...hooray!
stumbled on this accidently ... I am glad I did as it is very interesting!
I wish I could see the big thick black arrows Barry talks about at 7:50!
It something like this i guess commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MIGRATIONS.jpg Cunliffe's view is that the arrows should come from the Atlantic TO the Continental areas
The question of Celtic tribes in Denmark is interesting in that one of the tribes of North Jutland was called the Cimbri who predated the Germanic Jutes.
So you think Scandinavians maybe Celts?
Like the Celts, the Germanic tribes were mobile when their environment could not support them- The Dan and Bard tribes moved from South Svea to Denmark and Poland around 200 AD. Both Celt and Nordic DNA have a large admixture of Yamnaya from the mammoth hunting steppe tribes around 2,000 BC.
The Cimbri were whether Celts nor Germans: they were Ligurs ( Liguri ,λιγυες) Plutarch life of Marius : as his army affronted the Cimbri they began to attack touting "Ambrones ! Ambrones,!" and a ligurian officer said to general Marius " AMBRONES this is the name of our (the Ligurs) whole nation !" The Ligurs were the primitive habitants of Europe after the last glaciation down to the times if the Romans. There were Ligurian equites, and noble families like the gens Ouvfentina, cited by Plinius junior.Albion and perhaps Alba in Scottland are ligurian names.So no wonder that they are signaled in Denmark.A Ligurian mountain tribe is evocked around Massilia (Plutarch :Sertorius, Cn Pompeius) and repeatedly in Lombardy and Piemont (the Taurini, helping the Insubres ( a Ligurian tribe chased from Gallia by the Gauls) to cross the Mountains ( ligur. TAURA) ...
@@ezzovonachalm7534 very interesting 🧐
Cimbri most likley another form of todays Cymru (wales) and Cumbria ( england and scotland) which also refers to the people/ land of the Cymru, kumry/ kumri / cumri ...
Rydyn ni yma o hyd! WE ARE STILL HERE
My paternal haplotype is the Atlantic Celtic branch of the R1b paternal haplogroup. Regarding the "droopy moustache" that was associated with Ancient Celtic identity, I'm in my mid 30s and almost all of my beard grows in grey except for my mustache and some strips extending from the sides of my lips that still grow in dark. It's as if there was genetic selection along my fatherline for that exact type of mustache, it's a strange thing.
People should stop complaining about the slides because this problem was sorted out after a few minutes. This was an excellent lecture from which I learned a great deal. My main question was this (and I don't know if this was addressed): Cunliffe suggests the people we call "Celts" went back much, much earlier than the migration theories suggest, to the Mesolithic period IIRC. But Proto-Celtic was an Indo-European division which is usually dated to c. 3000 BC, maybe a little earlier. How did this language spread to an existing European population but not the ancestors of the Basques?
The Celtic people never called themselves Celts. The Greeks referred to them as Keltoi and later the Romans called them Celts.
They were cimmerian peoples from what is about north Iran. They were driven out , some moved to troy Thrace and epirus later to Italy Spain and Europe spoke the cymri tongue . The Trojan royal lineage goes back to ifeth or japeth son of Noah. About 4390 years ago .
Wild etymology here:
"Gael is defined as a member of the Gaelic race", "Gaelic is defined as 'pertaining to the Gaels' "...do you see the runaround logic?
"The name ultimately derives from the Old Irish word Goídel/Gaídel, commonly spelled Gaoidheal in pre-spelling reform Modern Irish, but today officially spelled Gaeil (plural) or Gael (singular; the word is spelled Gael in Manx and Gàidheal (singular) and Gàidheil (plural) in Scottish Gaelic). In early modern Irish, the words Gaelic and Gael were spelled respectively Gaoidhealg (Goídelc in Old Irish) and Gaoidheal (singular), Gaoidheil/Gaoidhil (plural)"
...see the letter D's above? What if you just add a D or T to the word Gaelic to make Gaeltic, what word does it sound like? I wonder if that is what the word literally is. "Celtic is a language group"
Galatian
Gualish
Guals
Gails
Catalonia
Cati
Catiness
Cathness
What if these are all Romans variations on the naming of Celtic people? The T and D are interchangeable and the T/D and L moves around. It may all be variations of the word "Keltoi"
BUT...the Celts has a simmilar language group so therefore probably more trade with each other and a connection irrelevent to what they call themselves.
@gearoid quirke Scythia is in eastern Europe. Also what you are saying is unsubstantiated.
@gearoid quirke and you honestly think that's plausible?
@gearoid quirke Ok so the Scythians had a plan to get to Ireland from the other side of Eurasia before anything about it was known. So they first went to Spain, leaving no genetic trace, then made a beeline for Ireland, avoiding the rest of the atlantic coast and making sure under no circumstanced to colonise Britain.
And somehow they still end up with northwest European DNA.
Or perhaps they are northwest Europeans.
7:26 - WHY ARE WE NOT SEEING HIS SLIDES?????? Surely that was an important part of the content? I like seeing some of him as well, of course, but the visual materials are really more important for grokking the lecture. Sheesh...
Wonderful lecture! Thank you for sharing this.
Great lecture, and great Q&A session, after.
Back in the 1990s, there was a series on TLC, (then The Learning Channel), called Ancient Warriors There was an episode about the Celts and it covered everything from Brennus' conquest of Rome to Boudica's Rebellion.
Do you know whether it is still available?
@@lisasternenkind6467 I don't know. Maybe you can find it here on UA-cam.
Can you active the automatic subtitles? I've friends from Brazil that want to watch professor Cunliffe's lecture, but they don't have enough knowledge of english for that.
Thank you for sharing that with us.
Brilliant lecture, thank you!
@24:00
the carnix was used in battle, but did they not also used huge harps on wagons?
It's a picture I saw somewhere, but don;t know if it was in a scientific illustration or just a comic book.
1:21:06
That is an answer to a long bogging question: Who were the Picts? an indiginous people that spoke Celtic. and probably a Celtic distinct from Irish or British
Great lecture, to bad the video does not show what the audience is seeing on the slides!
23:11 , this segment on the war trumpets was very moving.
I could imagine the sound of those things , like the low deep roar a dinosaur in pain , drifting across the foggy battle field as we all clash swords in slow motion. It must have been otherworldly.
There is a documentary on Celts available here in UA-cam where someone plays one of those instruments (reconstructed)
i understood that many of the
great rivers of Europe are
Celtic root words...
also may German root words
are of Celtic origin...
& ultimately leading to Sanskrit
& Celtic Laws share strong links
with ancient Sanskrit/Indian/Aryan
Laws
That's Indo-European.
Bon Chance, Sanskrit, Celtic, Germanic, Italic etc. etc. and the cultures and peoples associated all sprang from a single common language, culture and people who lived in the Pontic Steppe. The Indo Europeans. After having tamed the horse and invented wheeled vehicles, they began to spread out in all directions. The Celts are part of the branch that went west into Europe, quite early. The Sanskrit speaking peoples were part of the branch that went into what is now Iran and India much later. But the fact that they both were ultimately born of the same language and culture is the reason for the similarities. It’s the reason all Indo European peoples share many similarities in DNA, culture and language. English “mother”, German “mutter”, ancient Greek “meter”, Sanskrit “matar” etc.
Yes, the celts have lived in south India in the ancient times. They were the nobles from that region!! They are the eastern schythians from south India.
This makes more sense of something I have often wondered. How did Anglesey become the heart of Celtic society as the base of the Druids? If the Celts came from central Europe, why did the druid base end up in such a remote part?
But if the Celts developed along the Western edge of Europe then an island in the relative(ish) centre of their lands is logical.
There is no actual evidence of druids.
@@CarlosSanchez-my7zg How do you geet that idea???? There is PLENTY of evidence, way more than enough to leave their existence totally beyond doubt. A mass of evidence that encompasses written, archaelogical and 'carved into our landscape'.
There is no evidence, archaeological or historical, of druids among the continental celts. They were apparently unique to the Britons.
@@MetalTimster True, there is no 'evidence', i.e. totally indisputable indications. But there are plenty of very strong indications.
French Celts and British Celts share many cultural links, this makes it quite probable that they shared their shamanic beliefs i.e. druids.
Julius Caesar, in his 'Commentary on the Gallic War', writes of measures to suppress the druids. This is before the Romans entered Britain.
Bas reliefs etc have been found in France showing men dressed as we'd expect druids to be dressed.
There is also zero negative evidence.
Therefore, on the balance of probability, I and many others believe that druidism was active on the European mainland.
btw: on the nature of 'evidence'. Is there any evidence that Mars exists other than a dot in the sky that could be any of a number of things? Have you ever stood on it yourself, or know anyone who has? All we have is claims by people who say that they have looked through telescopes and seen a rock ball, and others who claim to has sent probes there. All we have is hearsay. As Popper showed, there can never be 100% proof of anything. We just have to draw an arbitrary line to mark where strong indications become evidence.
@@CarlosSanchez-my7zg Apart from a long tradition of them in our (Irish) language, literature and culture. They were a definite class of people, documented in the Early Irish Law texts, that is, in primary sources. There is as much evidence for druids as there is for anything else described in primary sources anywhere.
Very interesting, but we are not shown the maps that he is discussing.
Later on in the video they show maps
he is telling us that he is telling us the wrong story, Which makes it difficult to decipher Which is which
Why doesn't the Camera man not move his camera?
sometimes, it is copyright issues that prevent camera reproduction of visual productions
@clarifficness , Thankyou
maybe there is no camera man... think on that for a sec..
he's an idiot
I'm interested to know whether the site where the celts survived and emerged after the last ice age may have been the Ojo Guareña and Mortillano cave systems in Spain. Mortillano cave System is found in Soba and Ruesga municipality and just north of Ojo Guareña. To me this seems like a likely site for people to survive an ice age in this area and there is archeological evidence for people residing in them at least back to the paleolythic era. This location seems to match the map and hypothesis spoken about at 48:30
Confused by this...the peoples we now refer to as Celts would not yet have existed at the end of the last ice age.
The Celts did not emerge for a long time after the ice age. The Celts were descendants of the Yamnaya that originated on the Pontic steppes (Ukraine/Russia), around 5 000 years ago (the last ice age ended ~12.000 years ago), and then spread across most of Europa and large parts of Asia Other peoples that descend from the Yamnaya are the Greeks, the Romans the Germanic peoples and even some Iranian and Indian peoples, i.e. all the people speaking the Indoeuropean languages just like the Celts. All these people also share(d) similar religious beliefs.
@@NotSureEither the professor said in the lecture the Celts were already on the Atlantic coast in the 7th century B.C.
@@NotSureEither except the whole point of this video is to counter the Yamnaya origin theory.
Fantasic lecture 16 years ago! And then Yamnaya culture's DNA was analyzed and all hell broke loose
If you can wait 18 minutes you'll see the pictures. It must have been considerably warmer in Britain in those days.
Great lecture. Thank you Professor Cunliffe.
Really awfluly good , just a shame I can't hear the questions at the end
A great and interesting lesson indeed. Thanks for loading this!
Who were the Celts... were.? We are still here . There are five to seven Celtic nations today ..
Celtic nations are a concept very unprecise, because there are many groups of celtic nations through Europe. Cumbria for example can be considered a celtic nation. But the Atlantic celtic nations are those who follow:
- Galecia + Portugal
- Bretonia (France)
- Ireland
- Scotland
- Wales
- Cornwall
- Isle of man
Also Romans called Scottish celtic tribes as "Caledonians", but we can better say they named themselves as "Galedonians", continuing with the celtic root syllable "Gal" (which means: strong, white, great, power, hard as rock, etc), which we can see in celtic countries through the Atlantic fringe zone like Galia (France), Galicia, PortuGAL (port of the galos, currently Oporto), Glasgow (Gale-s-gow), Glastonbury (Gale-s-ton-bury), Galatians, Galway in Ireland and so on. Nowadays you have the PSG football trainer named with surname "Galtier", just see his face, he is a truly celt !!!
@@ingmigueleduardo7 fascinating info 👍
thankfully, at some point the cameraman decided to be generous and give us a view of the slides...
22:48 Ravens being "Celtic Walkyries" might add weight to the Gaulish Druid theory of Odin's identity?
Why on earth are they not filming the projector in order to understand...
That's SIR Barry Cunliffe to you!
Is there a different angle of this lecture that shows the power point images?
Dear Prof. Cunliffe,
I am a fan of your work and enjoy your presentations emensely.
Is there any way of delegating to an able student the task of incorporating your over head graphics into this video as you refer to them?
Jayne
Australia
*immensely
Why don’t the technical guys show the slides ????
I’m confused. I think the main idea around 45 minutes in is that Celtic peoples and language is a Neolithic ie “native European language”. Correct me if I’m wrong but there seems to be a mountain of evidence that both the people and language are indo-European from the steppes of Ukraine. I believe they might have the most influence from native Europeans but they certainly are brother peoples to the italic people and cousin people to Germanic and baltoslavic people, and to a lesser extent the more Eastern indo Europeans like Greeks, Armenians, and then Indic and Aryan peoples
You are correct. Dna evidence actually shows a massive replacement of the Neolithic European farmer population by the incoming Indo-European(steppe+some NEF dna picked up along the way) population just before 2000BC. These people fundamentally changed the culture, which is clear to see in the archaeology and brought the bronze age to Britain. If I recall correctly around 80% of the dna of Britain after 2000bc is of eastern european steppe origin
I believe he addresses this around 1:30:00.
The basic idea of Celrs today is that they evolved out of the combination of Early Farmers whose forefathers arrived north of the Balkans @ 6000 BC, and the later migrants who came out of the Russian and Easr Asian steppes in repeated invasions from 3500 BC on. In other words, Celts developed in situ in Europe over a period of centuries.
Why did the camera person leave out the visuals?
Does this mean that early man may have travelled from the americas to Britain and Ireland and therefore give proof that sea travel is far older than the current dates tell us
Red ochre people... Ties into solutrean findings between mid Atlantic North America and modern day France.
Just before 38:28 "they pass the wine as through a sieve".
I am reminded to Sigmund's words to his son Sinfjotle about the poison ... were there "poisons" which could be eliminated that way?
Kind of strange that Mormons for all their lack of archaeological evidence have an archaeologist at one of their colleges.
They have lots of archaeologists at their college, Besides, one of their main things is accepting things on faith, which is also mentioned in the New Testament about how the Christians needed to have faith in things that are not seen, but I don't recall the passage-only really studied the bible in sunday school, years ago.
If anything, archaeology is one of the fortes of BYU. Much Mesoamerican archaeology comes from BYU in attempts at proving Mormonism. Of course, it all has backfired given that archaeology only keeps disproving Mormons to the point that most Mormons are now minimalists who believe that the lack of Hebrews in the archaeological evidence is because they rapidly adopted the cultures of Native Americans surrounding them while admitting that the Hebrews are not the first peoples in the Americas nor the ancestors of Native Americans.
I like it when somebody knows the truth about the mormons and their lies!
would have been nice to have a second camera on the slides. Please re-edit and put them in in the form of photos showing what he is talking about.
It would be nice to be able to see the slides he was showing. Poorly done video, but a fascinating talk.
Mais ferme ta gueule.
The irish language is very much going through a resurgence in modern Ireland..With Naoinra, Gael Scoileanna, Colaiste very much in demand and waiting lists for the above mentioned ..
Irish being studied in Trinity College, UCD etc and smaller PLC colleges...TG4 TV station , Radio Na Gael and Radio Na Life many people now speaking our native language and many more want to learn it so from near extinction to a major revival .....Lots of our young people now speaking our language .
In the years since this video was posted, geneticists have discovered an almost 90% population replacement of Britain in the early Iron Age- precisely when you would have expected a migration of Celts into the Isles. How did earlier geneticists miss that?
"No significant movements of people" doesn't mean that the people who DID move were not significant. The broad brush of genetics not necessarily reflective of the strongest cultural influences.
I note no claim that the movement wasn't linguistically significant.
find a better camera man Prof! He doesn't show us anything till 18 mins. into the lecture!
Excellent lecture, well researched and argued. Still I would not spend 60 thou/year to send my child to a university when it takes 18 minutes before it dawns on the camera person to actually show the pictures Prof Cunliffe refers as an integral part of his lecture.
+beagle8boy I was amused by the "well researched" comment, rather like a teacher's remarks on a student essay. Prof Cunliffe is one of the world experts in this subject. His research is often the original. He also isn't frightened to think outside the box and is open to new ideas. He is probably better known in the UK and Europe. Agree with you re the camera work. Unintelligent.
+Helena McGinty Yeah? And yet he put up that ridiculous Iberian refugium Y DNA theory and a quote from Oppenheimer's book, even though at the time No M269 subclades had been found in Europe prior to Bell Beaker.
+A Res I have this blood in my family of Iberian but my family can't sit still.
Blood? Simple solution, stop cutting up Iberians
Pity that the maps used wernt able to be seen by viewers.
That means an origin for the Gaelic languages not from central or northern Europe, but from settlers who migrated by sea to the western coastlands.
+Ozzman Osgood If you believe Cunliffe then the IndoEuropeans must be from Atlantis
A Res There's no contradiction between Celtic languages emerging along the Atlantic fringe and Indo-European coming from Asia. IE moves from A to B, in B it develops into a particular sub-family. The subfamily then spreads eastwards.
@@ARes-ss2hd isn't he saying they were indigenous to what we now know as Britain and Ireland ? Basically people who settled those areas in Neolithic times. They are indigenous because there were no people there. The ice had recently melted.
I did read, many years ago, that the closest language to Gaedhlic is Sanskrit
Ireland had hunter gatherers then neolithic farmers and then Bell Beaker folk whose ancestry seems a base for the Irish. If Celtic grew in western Europe as Sir Barrington Windsor Cunliffe CBE FBA FSA, claims then why were there still strong amounts of vasques, Iberians etc. in West Europe?
1:1:38 I thought Colin Renfrew's theories had been discounted?
It's an old lecture, back then it was still not completely disproven as it is now
Didn't really answer the question: Who were the Celts? He seems to want to make them out to be the indigenous peoples of the Atlantic coast of Europe but that's obviously a quite unsatisfactory theory because Celtic is clearly an Indo-European language, which means that the Celts have to be connected somehow to the IE homeland in the Caucasus. I also don't think we can so easily dismiss the classical Greek and Roman writers who say that the Celts were their barbarian neighbors to the North. In the classical era the Celts must have been dispersed far wider than just along the Atlantic coast. To dismiss the classical writers as know-nothings is extremely arrogant on our part. After all, they were the ones who actually met their neighbors in battle. If they insist that they were all one ethnic people, then that must have been the truth.
Basically, an Indo-European people came to occupy Atlantic Europe, where their dialect of Indo-European evolved into Celtic. In other words, once the Celtic language appears, they stopped being Indo-Europeans and become Celts. So simple.
Atlantic , GALICIA NORTH SPAIN , EUROPE
@@quqbalam5089 here in GALICIA THERE WASN'T INDO EUROPEAN , what a lack of culture
I agree with you. Thanks, because I kept asking myself “what did I miss here?” I am going to listen to it again but at this point I am still as confused as ever about our friends The Celts.
Agree.
Also just found this. I too am greatly disappointed at having no view of his visuals!!
Good talk - but the Dying Gaul sculpture is in the Vatican Museum, not the Louvre!
The one shown on upper right corner in the slide is from the louvre, the one below from the Capitoline Museums, Rome (was also in the Louvre till 1816 :-).
Very insightful. Thank you.
Thanks 4 uploading this high quality discussion of who the Celts were/are.
1:43:26 he says he heard Chinese (mandarin?) is the 3rd language spoken in Ireland. As of the 2011 census, 15,166 chinese nationals in Ireland. French 56,430, Spanish 21,640, Romanian 20,625, German 27,342 etc etc
Really interesting, very informative!
On a side note:
"One of my favourite films, Apocalypse Now. . ."
A little factoid about Barry Cunliffe, what great taste!
Only one small mistake... the Manx language is not Cornish....it is Leinster Irish.
Any Irish speaker can understand the Manx greeting: "Cead Mile Failte go Ileannan Mannin" (Any Scottish Gaelic speaker would understand it as well.)
I grew up beside Mannin Beach in the far west of Ireland.....named after the Pagan Sea God named Manann.....the same God that the Isle of Man is named after.
(Manann is also the name of that little gold model Irish boat he described...named after that same Irish God as the Isle of Man.)
“Modern Gaelic preserves many spelled letters that are no longer pronounced, but when pronounced in the ancient Gaulish or ancestral tongue of the Celts and Basques, one finds a striking similarity to the Algonquian language.
For example; the Algonquian word for ‘one who takes small fish’ is Amoskeag. In Gaelic Ammo-iasgag means ‘small fish stream’.
In Algonquian Ammonoosuc means ‘small fishing river’ and in Gaelic, Am-min-a-sugh means; ‘small river for taking out fish’.
In Algonquian Coos and cohas mean ‘pine tree’ and in Gaelic, ghiuthas means ‘pine tree’.
Merrimack River in Algonquian means ‘deep fishing’. In Gaelic Mor-riomach means ‘of great depth’.
Kaskaashadi another Algonquian name for the Merrimack River sounds similar to Guisgesiadi, which in Gaelic means ‘slow flowing waters’.
Nashaway River in Algonquian means ‘land between’ and in Gaelic naisguir means ‘land connecting’.
Piscataqua River means ‘white stone’ and in Gaelic, Pioscatacua means ‘pieces of snow white stone’.
Seminenal River means ‘grains of rock’, which in Gaelic is semenaill.
Quechee matches the Gaelic work Quithe meaning pit or chasm.
Ottauquechee River flows through a 162 feet deep gorge is similar to the Gaelic word Otha-Cuithe which means ‘waters of the gorge’.
Cabassauk River in Algonquian means place of Sturgeon. The Sturgeon fish have unfortunately fallen victim to environmental degradation. Similar to Gaelic Cabach-sugh.
Attilah means blueberries and in Gaelic Aiteal means juniper berries.
Munt means people and in Gaelic muintear means people.
Monad means mountain and in Gaelic monadh means mountain.
The suffix - nock is used in New England to denote hills and mountains. Cnoc in Gaelic means hill or rocky outcrop.
Wadjak means on top, in Gaelic the word is uachdar.
Monomonock Lake means ‘island lookout place’ and in Gaelic Moine-managh-ach means ‘boggy lookout place’.
Pontanipo Pond means cold water and in Gaelic Punntaine-pol means ‘numbingly cold pool’.
Natukko means cleared place (land) and in Gaelic Neo-tugha means not covered (by vegetation).
Asquam Lake means ‘pleasant watering place’ and in Gaelic Uisge-amail means ‘seasonable waters’.”
~ Steve Hollier
The Mandan a fair red Indian tribe in Canada fled to north America in the 8th century from Wales they were led by Prince Llewellyn. They we're discovered by two Welsh soldiers in the British army, who we're talking in Welsh and the native Indian joined in the conversation ? ? To their suprise .
Fantastic... thank you for this.
Where is this lecture being given? From the interest in Celtic history I would surmise Ireland, but I a search does not seem to indicate BYU as any department of Dublin University.
Brigham young university
the Celts were described as
tall beautiful passionately wildly brave
Your screen name is wrong: in French it is "BONNE CHANCE" (meaning good luck).
Lecture starts at 3:40.
little did I know I'd be watching this on Paddy's day too
What's wrong with the cameraman? Why isn't the screen showed on which the slides are shown? Barry gives a good lecture, but I'd have liked to seen the slides!!
Well... they do finally start showing some pix at about the 18:00 mark, when he's describing the shields that Celts used and then a few examples of helmets. But I would've liked to see the barbed spears he showed & the swords, as well.
Interesting however why does he keep referring to what he should call Britain/British as English? Several times he confuses the two! Maybe because he is an Englishman?
johnniemcintyre73 probably because of brittany / breton in western france.
+johnniemcintyre73 The professor is English. Briton is an old name, which changed to Britannica (Romans) and then Englaland (old Saxon) once the Saxons unified the country. Before then England was made up of four kingdoms, some of which where rules under Dane law (vikings). Modern name is technically England, Britain is a name which comprises of Scotland, Ireland and wales
+johnniemcintyre73 England is just one part of Great Britain (as opposed to little Britain ie Brittany), which in turn is one of the British Isles. They are all different concepts. Unfortunately, many people get them confused
+Arden Dro I understood that England derives from Angleland, i.e. the land the Angles settled as in Anglo Saxon. Of course the Scots (who originated in N Ireland) call the English Sassenachs, from Saxon. Legally we are all British, at least that is what it says on my passport. I consider myself typically British being English, Irish and bit Polish. Most English people do conflate English and British though. Britain though only includes Northern Ireland although I think that the' British isles' includes the whole of Ireland as it refers to Geography rather than nationality.
Definition of polite= answering a question you just answered as if you didnt just answer the same question
I admire and respect Prof. Cunliffe and am fascinated by the Celts (or whatever you want to call them), But I have nothing but disdain for the producers of this video. SHOW THE FREAKIN' ILLUSTRATIONS!!!
Interesting but terribly frustrating to continuously see him point at an illustration and refer to ot in detail and at length and we can't see. You've got two cameras going, how about showing the screen.?
Very interesting Professor. Not dry or boring but FASCINATING info:-)
1:32:24 Chesterton noted once that "Sul is thought to be Minerva, but the find of a bearded statue suggests the identification is not complete".
It seems it is now, what happened to the bearded statue?
Wow, this presentation is so dated and at odds with current research - it's a bit hard to listen to for that reason. Still, I like Cunliffe's style and willingness to think outside of the box. He does present Koch, glottochronolgy, and Renfrew's IE material as more mainstream that they really are.
+Sean Kennedy The talk is clearly dated "March 17, 2008".
Renfrew is WRONG about PIE origins. Its homeland is NOT in Anatolia, especially 3000 years before the wheel and wheel-using carts & wagons were invented, so how could Renfrew's half-baked idea make sense since PIE had words for wheel, wagons, etc??? No, the PIE homeland was the area north of the Black Sea, in the Western Steppes. That is almost a consensus among both archaeologists & linguistics, Read David Anthony's wonderful book: The Horse, The Wheel & Migration, for one.
Great lecture but bad recording. Not one of his pictorial references were shown.
Celtic is a Indo european family of languages so it would have to have come from the East originally. It couldn't be too old if it spread from the west. But it's not an entire new idea. Colin McEvidy and others have said that proto Celtic was spread by the Bell Beaker folks and spread through the Atlantic area and that newer versions of Celtic were spread through the Hallstadt and La Tene cultures back to the Atlantic.
+Popperite I'd say it came by sea if it's oldest in the West, but originating in the East when you go further back. Means it came to Ireland and Spain by way of seafarers through the Mediterranean... from somewhere back east.
+Ozzman Osgood Well, the whole thing seems to have originated in the Alps and places more northern than that. They may have spread through seafaring after that, much like the Bell Beaker folk, who may have been Celtic, but Indo European languages entered Europe from the steppes of Eastern Europe.
+Popperite etc. The idea that there were bell beaker folk rather than the spread of the design is another idea that has been questioned. I first heard this way back in the 60s when the similarity to the spread of modern US culture was held as an example. The fact that in the UK we wear blue jeans and eat big macs does not mean that we there has been a mass migration of people from the US to the UK. Also modern genetic studies, as quoted by prof Cunliffe back this idea up as the people of the British isles are mostly descended from people who moved into the islands when the ice sheets retreated. For a while they could actually walk as the channel was not formed until later. The DNA from a mesolithic skeleton found in Gough's cave in Cheddar Gorge is to be found in present day inhabitants of the area.
+Helena McGinty Sure, but that is too long ago to have anything to do with Celts. When the Ice sheets were retreating or even when the first farmers arrived, there were no Indo-European languages around.
+Popperite Welsh people sound like Indian people when speaking English. Maybe because Welsh stems from Indo European language?
good lecture but, disappointing that we cannot see the slides he is referring to
50:00
This has been COMPLETELY OVERTURNED around 2015.
While it's probably completely true that 80% or so of Britons have *a link* with the mesolithic populations, just *how strong a link is it* ?
Post 2015 work suggests that the Kelts did come from the Atlantic to the UK (and then elsewhere) around 3000BC. They carried with them a strong steppes/indo-european component. Their arrival was actually a very substantial population change.
Before the steppes people, the neolithic farmers arrives and also induced a very serious population change.
It is true that since then, in the case of Ireland, for example, the population has been pretty stable for the past 5000 years. That's quite impressive. But 5000 years ago it was pretty hectic for a few centuries.
Maybe I'm lucky that I've read a number of Prof Cunliffe's books and lecture materials, along with Prof Sykes, Dr Oppenheimer, Dr Oliver, et al, but I can't agree with what you say. Evidence suggests that there were two main refuges where humans retreated to as the Ice Sheets pushed south and then retreated back several times. One area is around the northern Iberia, and the second was from the Balkans. These were linked to areas of the near East even further back, but one has to remember the coastlines were very different back then as was the population size. And Prof Cunliffe has covered this in his research, but obviously he can't cover his life's work in one lecture. So I see this lecture as but one small part of the journey of the Celts, as sparse populations ended up in the British Isles, becoming separated from Continental Europe as sea levels rose and consumed the great North Sea plain, and then forming and developing into the Celtic peoples who then pushed back out into Europe...as Celts.
Your analysis is based on complete fantasy. The evidence strongly suggests, that if celts ever migrated to the British isles, it was a small token amount, and not anywhere near enough to impact the genetic and culture of British people. The genetics and culture was far more impacted by vikings and anglo saxons.
@@jkjkjkkjkjk hello, i have changed my mind since this comment. i should have said that it was not kelts but bell beaker indo-europeans who were the last massive influx. kelts came much later and may have been not that many but their language became dominant though
@@ogunsiron2 ah, cool, yeah, its certainly an interesting and evolving topic. Its cool to hear more people are becoming aware of the latest developments, like yourself. Nice chatting.
@@jkjkjkkjkjk thanks for the kind comment. my change of mind on this topic was after reading something about Gaul and how the kelts there also were a later minor, later migration and that the really fundamental migration was a few 1000 years before with also bell beaker type of peoples.
Is there any other video of him giving this lecture or a similar one where I can see the slides?
Dear Brigham Young University Anthropology Department: please replace your camera person. This lecture was ruined for me by not seeing his slides. Hope the camera guy isn't in film school there; he will never get a job.
Mais ferme ta gueule.
why aren't the slides filmed
Cunliffe is the go to expert on the Celts. His atlas 'The Celtic World' is a gem. Cheers, Barry!!
Pity we can't hear the questions and comments from the attendance...
The genetic evidence he suggests is very outdated now. The Bell Beaker migration replaced most of the stone age population entirely, although there is no evidence of Celtic invasion during the Hallstatt period or thereabouts.
How can we learn without seeing the screen also??? Now I can't watch this.
Irish is taught throughout our education system it won't die out...many people are fluent just don't use it day to day...
QUESTION : Why did the concept *SUNUS "son" disappear in Celtic ? Both Q and P and what could be the origin of *MAQQOS /*MAPPOS that seems to be very ancient ?
I come from grandparents residing on the Adriatic coast of north central Italy on my father's side and Hungary on my mother's side. Surprisingly, my DNA markers from my father's line has 92% in common with the people of Wales, 87% in common with the Basques and 87% in common with the people of Catalonia. It completely surprised me, but parallels the Mediterranean/ Atlantic theories of migration.
Celtic was a lingua franca not a people. In 10 generations you carry the genomes of 1,024 individuals, in 20 generations, 1,048,576 individuals. In 26 generations you carry the genomes of 67,108,864 individuals. That is greater than the estimated population of the entire Roman Empire at the time of Augustus. To place it in perspective, our species is so mongrelized among the peoples of Europe and beyond, that we can all claim ancient roots to any where we desire.
I am what is called German Austrian. My DNA is made up of 79% Germanic and 21% Celtic origin.
Who was Edward Llyud ?? What was his relationship to the term 'Celts' ?
He actually refers to Colin Renfrew's Anatolian Hypothesis on the origins of Indo-European as if it's what most linguists believe these days when it's a MINORITY OPINION! and probably always will be as it doesn't account for a whole bunch of linguistic, archaeological and especially geographical factors compared to the Kurgan Hypothesis! Nice guy, learned, knows his archaeology but he seems to be woefully misinformed about linguistic factors and expert opinion. And BTW without a 'deep glottochronology' such as Renfrew is prepared to contemplate you couldn't possibly have 'Celtic' as far back as the Neolithic.
2manynegativewaves
I think Cunliffe is an intelligent and learned guy, and not a fraud or charlatan of any kind, but I couldn't help gaping a bit at some of the assumptions and misunderstandings he made in this talk. And of course his new take on the origins of the Celts may turn out to be true, or may have more truth in it than the established hypothesis, but it'll take a lot of work to get there. I feel he's joining a lot of dots in this thesis, that aren't actually part of the same picture. I mean clearly there were Bell Beaker migrations into and out of Iberia, there were Atlantic trades and migrations in the Neolithic, there are some puzzling qualities to Celtic language and some puzzling situations with DNA comparisons with central Europe. But to try and draw all this together to arrive at the conclusion that "Celts were Neolithic/Bronze rather than Iron Age, originated in Western Europe not Central and were effectively a lingua franca trading community rather than a particular nation" is going too far and makes too many assumptions IMO.
The Kurgan hypothesis is the leading archeological theory underpinning the leading theory within historical linguistics to explain the original Indo-European people. The idea is that the original IEs lived in southern Russia/Ukraine and expanded and migrated in most directions, generating the widespread Indo-European language family. They don't have to have been the Kurgan people but that particular recognisable culture has been suggested as the most likely archeological reference point. There are some minor variations in time and space on this theory, one of which may be slightly more correct. Apart from anything else it's unlikely all the branches of Indo-European split up at the same time, different groups would have moved away over 1000 years or so and that's enough time for the material culture and geographical extent to vary quite a bit.
The expansion has been associated with a Neolithic farming expansion in at least some versions of the history; one of the major alternative explanations of the origins of the IEs is Colin Renfrew's Anatolian Hypothesis in which the IEs originated in Anatolia and the reason why they expanded into Europe and Asia is because they picked up the radiating Neolithic farming culture from the Middle East. We certainly do know there are genes in European populations from the Middle East due to a Neolithic farming culture migrating. To identify this migration with the IEs Renfrew has to put the origins of Indo-European languages further back in time and have it develop much more slowly than historical linguists have generally been prepared to contemplate. It's not impossible but there's no direct evidence of it and it requires this general re-think about the speed of language change. I believe Cunliffe mentions a recent paper in which some linguists have proposed a deep time glottochronology for Indo-European that supports Renfrew's theory.
cont'd
2manynegativewaves
Alternatively we could stick with the Kurgan (or at least Russian steppe) Hypothesis and a later time but have it be a Neolithic farming expansion triggered later than Anatolia, or a Bronze Age expansion, or due to acquiring horse-riding etc.
No the Kurgan or original IE people were not 'Celts', we have no reason to suppose any 'Celts' earlier than the Urnfield culture in southern Germany in the late 2nd millennium BC. Celtic is just one branch of IE, and it seems closest to the Italic branch, so it seems likely they had an immediate common ancestor (Italo-Celtic) which would have developed in central to eastern Europe in the early 2nd millennium BC, and then the 'linguistic ancestors' of the Italic-speakers would have separated off and migrated down into central Italy while those of the Celts stayed in central Europe. In both cases of course a large part of the ancestors of the resulting people would have been those who had already been there rather than incoming Indo-European speakers.
With the various Celtic expansions in the early to late 1st millennium BC (Celtiberi/Gallaecia in Iberia, Hungary, France, British Isles, north Italy, Yugoslavia>Greece>Turkey (Galatia)) what would have happened would indeed have been "re-starting" in the way you say. I've seen enough evidence to believe that very little Celtic lineage entered into the people of the British Isles, even tho it seems the whole territory came to be Celtic-speaking. As I was arguing with Mr. NDRonin, I don't think that means the invaders didn't bring a Celtic culture with them, that stuck to some extent. But it would have mixed with the native one, especially in the more remote parts e.g. north Scotland. Effectively tho the Celtic invaders would have 'started again' in a new land and would soon have seen themselves as "of this land" rather than some international club of Celtic-speakers.
On the other hand the most recent migrations to the Britain e.g. of the Belgae meant that some southern Britons identified enough with Gauls that they helped them during Caesar's conquest (by sheltering fugitives? crossing over to join in the fight? supplying with materials? it's not clear), which led to Caesar coming over to 'punish' them. And the few pieces of Gaulish we have do seem pretty close to ancient Brythonic, ancestor of Welsh.
I can only imagine the Celts who became Galatians in Anatolia 're-started' their culture there, since it was so far from where they'd come from and they were surrounded by quite different peoples in a different climate. Similarly we have evidence that the Celtiberi in Iberia did not share much of their ancestry with French Celts, again implying a small band of invaders imposed their culture and language on the pre-existing population.
2manynegativewaves
So yeah, I think what we have here is a big historical example of "linguistic ethnic identity" - forming a sense of ethnic identity with others based on a common language, or common group of languages. There doesn't have to be much shared DNA, and even if some elements of cultures are spread there will also be a persistence of the old and a creation of new culture of a distinctive kind. Diehard Celticists will insist there remain common elements everywhere the Celts went, and there are some evidences of that - plaid designs on clothing, pipe music, decoration and artwork, a strong alcohol and feasting culture - but it doesn't mean all these peoples saw themselves as the same people, just because their ancestors spoke - or had been forced to learn - the same language. And the reverse point also holds - a huge number of people who don't speak Celtic languages (speakers of Germanic, Romance languages etc.) have ancestors who did, even if in turn those ancestors had many ancestors who didn't.
Matthew McVeagh Renfrew's hypothesis was more popular then than it is now.
jonstfrancis This video is dated 2008. Has the situation changed so radically in 7 years? According to WP he first proposed it in 1987, and there has been plenty of time for criticism to mount. He got support from two glottochronology studies in 2003 and 2011, but felt he had to revise his ideas in 2004. I don't see what's changed in the last 7 years.
Brilliant presentation. I am curious how much migration from mainland Europe through Doggerland would have played?
The land bridge dissapeared roughly 8,000 years ago, humans have been in (Scotland) for roughly 10,000 years.
What about a new theory ???? - From Karpathian basis ( after the last ice age ) people moved to East ( called SCHYTIANS ) ,, moved to West ( called CELTS )
Zoltan Juhasz No because the Kimkardashian's were already around there.
I do not know Kimkardshians ...but check archaic names ...SAMOS , UR , URU- Solyma , HIERO - Solyma = today JERUSALEM , ARAD , ARPAD =+ many many more..Genesis= GENEZES , Istar = ISTEN , Thothj = TOTH ( they MAKE sense in < EVEN< modern MAGYAR
Zoltan Juhasz After the last Ice age is a bit too early for an Indo European language. And Skythian was not a Celtic but an Iranian language.
+Huszar 63 imporetedmusic is joking, There is some woman called Kim Kardashian. I have no idea what she does, if anything, (I am too old to care) but know the name.
Can anyone recommend any other videos covering the "Western Origin" of celts?