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I know culturally and linguistically, Celts and Germans are two different things, however genetically speaking, isn't there a lot of overlap between the two?
I mean after all, the first Celts lived in Austria, almost certainly, the direct descendants of the original practitioners of Celtic language and culture are German-speaking people today right?
In the British Isles, you've seen a gradual process of the people switching from Celtic language to Germanic (English) language and culture over the past couple millennia. Irish, Scottish, and Welsh people of course are still considered Celts, but just the fact that they speak English, coupled with their strong English influence, in my opinion makes them as much a Germanic people as a Celtic people. If it weren't for romantic Celtic nationalism and revivalism, the entire British Isles would likely be English-speaking and culturally Germanic.
So essentially, with some exceptions, what we have seen are northwest and central European populations that originally spoke Celtic languages, and practiced Celtic cultures, gradually become Germanic-speaking and lost their Celtic essence to Germanic, and in France, Spain, etc, Romance culture.
Also I should note the "Anglo-Saxon invasion" theory is largely discredited. Most likely, it was only a small portion of powerful people who settled England who actually came from Germany. Though the people at least in the east of England were always culturally more related to Dutch and Germans than they were to the Celtic west.
The Germanic tribes came from the east and displaced the Celts. The Celts were there first. Essentially, what you have described is what historians believed happened.
No. The Germanic tribes came from the east and displaced the Celts. The Celts were there first.
How did they displace them though? English people today cluster at least as close to Irish people as they do to Germans. I think most of the exchange was not genocidal, but rather Celtic populations gradually Germanizing due to the influence of the new elite from the continent.
Also like I said, Celtic culture began in places like Tyrol and spread throughout Europe. Ireland, Scotland, etc aren't really 'genetically' any more Celtic than anyone else (they largely came from Spain and Portugal originally) they're just the last to hold on to the Celtic culture that used to be common throughout a huge area of Europe.
How did they displace them though? English people today cluster at least as close to Irish people as they do to Germans. I think most of the exchange was not genocidal, but rather Celtic populations gradually Germanizing due to the influence of the new elite from the continent.
I wasn't clear enough in my statement. The Germanic tribes displaced the Celts in Germany. The Celts had already been there for some time before the Germanic tribes came in.
I wasn't clear enough in my statement. The Germanic tribes displaced the Celts in Germany. The Celts had already been there for some time before the Germanic tribes came in.
Ah I get ya. Yeah, didn't Celts mostly originate in Austria and Germanics in Sweden? And would modern Germans essentially be a mix of both? I think Austrians and Bavarians can look dark in the same way Black Irish and Basques can. While Berliners and other northern Germans look more like Danes/Swedes.
Ah I get ya. Yeah, didn't Celts mostly originate in Austria and Germanics in Sweden? And would modern Germans essentially be a mix of both? I think Austrians and Bavarians can look dark in the same way Black Irish and Basques can. While Berliners and other northern Germans look more like Danes/Swedes.
The Romans had a lot to do with the dark hair and eyes in those regions. They didn't venture much North of the Limes Line (without getting their legions beaten up)..
Today, the descendants of the original Celts are primarily Germans and Slavs, while the insular Celts (the Irish, Highland Scots, Manx, etc.) are descendants of the non-genetically 'Celtic' peoples of the Atlantic coast.
The original inhabitants of Britain and Ireland were not Celtic, but part of an ethno-tribal complex that extended from Iberia (Spain/Portugal) north to Denmark. Archaeologically, these dwellers on the Atlantic coast of Europe are identified by their megalithic monuments and tombs. They were 'Celticized' in the Bronze age as central European Celtic cultural influence spread beyond its original tribal homeland in what is today Germany, France, Czech republic, Austria, and so on.
The Celtic culture completely extincted the aboriginal European culture in Britain.
The Germanic peoples originated in southern Scandinavia and spread through migration throughout much of Europe. The Germanic and Latin cultures eventually eclipsed the Celtic culture in continental Europe by the early Iron Age, i.e. the 1st millennium B.C.
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Celtic is a controversial term. I think more than anything it seems to be a culture, and there is controversy as it how much 'Celtic DNA' was actually imported to the British Isles. There was also another Celtic branch originated in Iberia which further complicates the picture.
I know culturally and linguistically, Celts and Germans are two different things, however genetically speaking, isn't there a lot of overlap between the two?
I mean after all, the first Celts lived in Austria, almost certainly, the direct descendants of the original practitioners of Celtic language and culture are German-speaking people today right?
In the British Isles, you've seen a gradual process of the people switching from Celtic language to Germanic (English) language and culture over the past couple millennia. Irish, Scottish, and Welsh people of course are still considered Celts, but just the fact that they speak English, coupled with their strong English influence, in my opinion makes them as much a Germanic people as a Celtic people. If it weren't for romantic Celtic nationalism and revivalism, the entire British Isles would likely be English-speaking and culturally Germanic.
So essentially, with some exceptions, what we have seen are northwest and central European populations that originally spoke Celtic languages, and practiced Celtic cultures, gradually become Germanic-speaking and lost their Celtic essence to Germanic, and in France, Spain, etc, Romance culture.
Also I should note the "Anglo-Saxon invasion" theory is largely discredited. Most likely, it was only a small portion of powerful people who settled England who actually came from Germany. Though the people at least in the east of England were always culturally more related to Dutch and Germans than they were to the Celtic west.
"Celt" and "germanic" (as well as "latin", "slav" or "arab") are ethnic terms based on linguistic-cultural aspects, not genetic ones. Genetic science is a very new thing, that the reason why the people of the world (and Europe of course) have always been classified and defined not by their looks or the genes (which was impossible to do), but the fact that they form a ethnicity in the cultural sense (the true mening of what is an ethnicity: a group of people united under a same cultural pattern, custums, languages, etc. If they present a specific phenotype it a more a consequence of living an mixing genes among together since a long time)
When we say that the Irish or scottish are celts (we should say "were" since they are now of a germanic culture since a few centuries, despite the romantic so-call "celtic rebirth"); it is a cultural meaning: the fact is that Irland, Scotland, Wales, etc used to be peoples of celtic-speaking cultures before being Anglicized (germanized). That all. There is absolutly no reason to make hasardous extrapolations about their genetic identity, as the romatic "celtic" ideology was doing (and a lot of people still buy this nonsense).
The "Celts" were a civilisation that is not at all originary from the British isles, but that was centred and originary around what is now Autria and southern Germany. Nobody knows what was the look or genetic features of those peoples, but they were more likely some sort of mix of various heterogenous phenotypes, due to their original position between northern and mediterranean Europe.
Speaking about "celts" as if they were a "race" or as if they had a known racial specificity is pure romantic speculation, especially when we tak the reference of modern Irish and Scottish people to suppose to be the reference of what is a "genetic celt". The British isles were "celtized" (adopted the celtic languages, culture and civilisation), so they became part of the greater "celtic civilisation" (as well as has been France, northern Italy, Spain and other "celtized" land that were not part of the original "celtic homeland"). Becoming celtic doesn't mean that the population change their genes for the ones of the Celtic people, but it means entering into the cultural celtic civilisation.
Before the arrival of celtic civilisation in western Europe, other peoples were already living there, and had build their own civilisation before they have been changed for the celtic one, which was more advanced (iron age, while the former cultures were of the neolithic technology). Those civilisation we don't know much about them except that they existed and left us huge constructions: the megaliths. But since they didn't had writings and did not appear in the classical litterature (wich was much later), we don't know of what linguistic-cultural group they were part of. Some people think they were not of indo-European language, but could be speakers of languages maybe related to Basque (the only non-indo-European still existing in Europe).
It is very unlikely that the celts from central Europe would had invaded and replaced the existing population of western Europe, changing the genepool for a "celtic" one. Actually today almost all scientits agree to think that their is no indications that the modern populations are specifically related to the original celts. Actually, the more western a place is, the more likely the population would have less genes from the original celts.
In France for exemple, it is more likely that the people of Alsace-Lorraine have more genetic connections with the original celts than the people of Britanny would have, in conctradiction to what Breton nationalists like to think of themselves. Being more towards the west, Brittany was one of the last areas of northern France to enter into the Celtic civilisation (which came from the east). The Breton are more likely to be the descendants of the local neolothic tribes, to which were added the various invaders, immigrants and rules, including the celtic-speaking ones from Great Britain that fled at that Anglo-Saxon invasion in the 5th century and who re-entrered a celtic tongue in the area (which was already romance-speaking at that time). But once again, those "celts" from western Great Britain were certainly not more "genetically celts" than the romance-speaking inhabitants of Armorique (Brittany). They were probably even less (being isolated on an island western extremeity, far from the original celtic homeland), but they were celt by their language.
Now, saying or thinkink that the modern people of Brittany are "celts" has a meaning only for the very small part of the population that still is celtic-speaking. For the others, who are of a latin-speaking culture, but who like to think themselves being of a "celtic race", it is a pure romantized vision with no rationnal reality
the genetic studies have shown that modern Scotish or Irish do not really distinguish themselves strongly from the people of England, contrarily to what the "celtic" myth would let us to think. All British together overlap strongly on the genetic maps with most of the other germanic peoples (norway, Netherlands, northenr Germany), with the exception of southern Germans and Austrians (being from the "celtic homeland"), to who they tend to be more distant... To resume, we have to say that the most distant germanic peoples for the Irish/scotish are precisely those who are more likely having the major amonts of genes coming from the original celts...
On this "genetic map": DE2 and AT represent the "cloud" in wich most Southern Germans and Autrians individual samples have "clustered".
While Ireland (IE) completly overlap with UK, and largely with Netherlands (NL). http://img853.imageshack.us/img853/3...feurope530.jpg
As we can see the different populations from various countries and cultural groups tend to cluster in function of their geographical position more than related to their belonging to their ethno-cultural group.
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