[Mountainsandh]

Enkidu that's a lot clearer thanks.

[bolgios]

Where did this Basque stuff come from anyway?

[Enkidu]

Originally Posted by Mountainsandh

Enkidu that's a lot clearer thanks.

Don't mention it!
I should say that the monks downplayed the divinity of the Tuatha Dé Dannan so that the literature about them seemed like harmless stories and not texts from a pagan religion. That is, the monks cleverly found a way to preserve the legends.

I say this because sometimes the monks are portrayed as suppressing the native religion, where as in fact they were the ones to save its literature.

[Enkidu]

Originally Posted by bolgios

Whatever about the Basques (whom I have no problem with - lovely people!), the people on this island until recently spoke Irish, which is a Celtic language. If they spoke (speak) a Celtic language, surely they are descended from Celts. Or am I missing something?

Celtic languages passed into Ireland via the mechanisms I outlined above. Trade "Celticised" the natives of Britain, some of whom later moved to Ireland and spread the Celtic language on this island by becoming the elite of society.

[Enkidu]

Originally Posted by bolgios

Where did this Basque stuff come from anyway?

What do you mean exactly?

[dubhthach]

Originally Posted by Enkidu

It's not remotely Tuatha Dé Danann DNA. What is describing is that rather than being a tribe of people, as Irish legends and writings say, the Tuatha Dé Danann were Celtic gods. The were converted into a people or tribe by early Christian monks who wanted to downplay their divinity.

My comment by itself is taken out of context of the original thread, I was specifically in that part of comment responding to the below:

Originally Posted by steddyeddy

I always wondered about the Fir bolg and the Tuatha Dé Danann and were they based on humans or pre human species of hominid. The basque people shared the land with neanderthals for thousands of years and have myths about the basajaun who were huge hairy creatures which lived in the woods. The same could be said of legends of trolls.

The roman philosopher titus lucretius said the following about another race of humans.



I wonder could these myths about the previous inhabitants of some countries contain any truth.

As Enkidu points out I'm talking about how in the context of the "Book of Invasions" and other literature by Christian monks that the Tuatha Dé were secularised as a race of people inhabiting Ireland prior to the arrival of the Irish (The supposed "sons of Míl"). In reality members of the Tuatha Dé bears names that correspond with that of Celtic gods from the rest of Celtic Europe. The prime example is Lugh who is a reflex of proto-celtic Lugus

Tbh there is no proof that Basque is a descendant of language of Mesolithic Europeans. It's a language isolate in a sea of Indo-European languages. As a result this lends itself to concept that it's always been there.

If you look at the whole genome Basques are quite distinctive, they along with Sardinians are obviously quite old populations that have undergone isolation from surrounding populations. One could argue that both of these populations show heavy influence from Neolithic period. This is born out by the fact that Otzi the Iceman (Neolithic) shows strong genetic connection to Sardinians.

[bolgios]

With respect, where exactly is this mixture of mythology, Basques, 'hairy creatures who lived in the woods', and pseudo-DNA studies supposed to lead us?

[slowburner]

Originally Posted by bolgios

With respect, where exactly is this mixture of mythology, Basques, 'hairy creatures who lived in the woods', and pseudo-DNA studies supposed to lead us?

Pseudo-DNA studies

The title of this thread is 'Who were the Celts?'.
Genome analysis (like the study on Otzi's genome) is probably one of the most powerful tools available today for mapping the movement and settlement of distinct populations.

It's not simple stuff, but it's well worthwhile making the effort.

[dubhthach]

Originally Posted by bolgios

With respect, where exactly is this mixture of mythology, Basques, 'hairy creatures who lived in the woods', and pseudo-DNA studies supposed to lead us?

I don't see what is pseudo about it. All of the above is from actual published research papers. For example:

Origins and Genetic Legacy of Neolithic Farmers and Hunter-Gatherers in Europe
Pontus Skoglund(1,*), Helena Malmström(1), Maanasa Raghavan(2), Jan Storå(3), Per Hall()4, Eske Willerslev(2), M. Thomas P. Gilbert(2), Anders Götherström (1,5,*,†,) Mattias Jakobsson(1,5,*,†)

1. Department of Evolutionary Biology, Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
2. Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
3. Osteoarchaeological Research Laboratory, Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
4. Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
5. Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

ABSTRACT

The farming way of life originated in the Near East some 11,000 years ago and had reached most of the European continent 5000 years later. However, the impact of the agricultural revolution on demography and patterns of genomic variation in Europe remains unknown. We obtained 249 million base pairs of genomic DNA from ~5000-year-old remains of three hunter-gatherers and one farmer excavated in Scandinavia and find that the farmer is genetically most similar to extant southern Europeans, contrasting sharply to the hunter-gatherers, whose distinct genetic signature is most similar to that of extant northern Europeans. Our results suggest that migration from southern Europe catalyzed the spread of agriculture and that admixture in the wake of this expansion eventually shaped the genomic landscape of modern-day Europe.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6080/466.abstract

In our genomic analyses, the Scandinavian Neolithic hunter-gatherers (PWC) have a genetic profile that is not fully represented by any sampled contemporary population (Fig. 1), and may thus constitute a gene pool that is no longer intact or that no longer exists. While the origin of the Neolithic hunter-gatherers is contentious, the similar mtDNA haplogroup composition of PWC individuals (8) (Table 1) and Mesolithic- and Paleolithic individuals (7, 29) indicate some continuity with earlier European populations, but resolving this hypothesis will require pre-Neolithic genomic data.

The 5000 year old neolithic farmer that was tested in the above study was closest genetically to the Basques. This points to the Basques being connected to the spread of agriculture. People keep saying that the Irish are basically Basques that adopted a Celtic language and thus aren't really Celts. I don't believe this, especially given the apparent mass replacement of Male lineages (only 10-20% of Irish men are potentially descended from Mesolithic/Neolithic male population).

In the case of Ireland, 80% of Irish men carry a marker on their Y-Chromosome called L21. This is at most 4,000 years old (2,000BC). It originated more then likely on the continent, the evidence pointing to Eastern France/Western Germany. All men who carry L21 are descended from the first man born with this marker.

This points to a massive population replacement on male lineages in Ireland due to population inflow from the continent during the Bronze/Iron ages. With regards to Celtic languages people doing language reconstruction often date the split between Irish, Welsh and Gaulish as before 1,000BC. The Urnfield and Atlantic Bronze age cultures are regarded by some as Proto-Celtic these date from period 1,200BC - 800BC.

Here is a map of modern distribution of L21



It's highest concentration is in areas that are (or were till recently) Celtic speaking. It also shows high concentration in areas such as those which were formerly occupied by the Gauls and the Celt-Iberians. It's brother marker U152/S28 (they belong to same branch of R1b -- P312) has more of a distribution in eastern France/Switzerland/Northern Italy. Some have argued its distribution is due to the spread of La Tene material culture in the period after 300BC.

[slowburner]

Many thanks for that superb post Dubhthach, and my apologies for the confusion caused by quoting you out of context.

[Enkidu]

Originally Posted by dubhthach

Tbh there is no proof that Basque is a descendant of language of Mesolithic Europeans. It's a language isolate in a sea of Indo-European languages. As a result this lends itself to concept that it's always been there.

True, however it's certainly Pre-Indo-European. It's also probably not the descendent of the language of the first farmers, since that was almost certainly Afro-Asiatic. Hence the most likely scenario is that it is descended from the language of some Mesolithic group. Of course there is a chance that it was the language of some Neolithic group that came with the first farmers, but which were not the first farmers themselves.

Either way it's Pre-Indo-European and hence part of what we call "Old Europe", before the horse, chariot and herding.

[bolgios]

Thanks. Could I just ask that any DNA evidence be accompanied by references to where it came from? There's a lot of 'DNA evidence' out there, not all of it serious.

[slowburner]

Originally Posted by dubhthach

Origins and Genetic Legacy of Neolithic Farmers and Hunter-Gatherers in Europe
Pontus Skoglund(1,*), Helena Malmström(1), Maanasa Raghavan(2), Jan Storå(3), Per Hall()4, Eske Willerslev(2), M. Thomas P. Gilbert(2), Anders Götherström (1,5,*,†,) Mattias Jakobsson(1,5,*,†)

1. Department of Evolutionary Biology, Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
2. Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
3. Osteoarchaeological Research Laboratory, Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
4. Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
5. Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

The references are quite clear.

[Mountainsandh]

That's fascinating. So in fact, my Irish husband may well have descended from people not far removed from my ancestors (I'm French, no idea what's in our genes, but we're the brown haired brown eyed reasonably shallow skin types, with that Southern mark in our lower backs ).

[bolgios]

In case of Ireland 80% of Irish men carry a maker on their Y-Chromosome called L21. This is at most 4,000 years old (2,000BC) it originated more then likely on the continent, the evidence pointing to Eastern France/Western Germany.





In that case we are talking specifically about the Belgae branch of the Celts.