The Atlantean Roots of the Irish

bernieduffy

The first episode of Bob Quinn's classic investigation into ancient Irish-Arab roots is on Dailymotion from an authorized source.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xscgzc_atlantean-episode-01-bob-quinn_creation

I wonder if anyone in Ireland relates to his theories today.

tac foley

bernieduffy wrote: »

The first episode of Bob Quinn's classic investigation into ancient Irish-Arab roots is on Dailymotion from an authorized source.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xscgzc_atlantean-episode-01-bob-quinn_creation

I wonder if anyone in Ireland relates to his theories today.

Only those who live in St Brendan's Hospital.

tac

Wibbs

That's a tad dismissive. Sadly the clip is short and not the whole series. I remember it at the time. IIRC there was also a book where he expanded on the notions of the documentary.

So is it possible? It's physically possible anyway if one was to go by sea. In the neolithic there is a culture with clear commonalities, religious customs, design and building techniques that stretched from the Scottish isles through the Boyne*, to western France all the way to northern Spain(I suspect the folks who built the huge Stonehenge complex were well aware of the same culture and likely in contact with it too. IIRC was there not a grave found of a guy from Europe?). That's in the neolithic, over 5000 years ago, before the pyramids of Egypt were even dreamt of(Again IIRC they found a large boat of the coast of PLymouth in the UK that's nearly 6000 years old). I suspect we underestimate all our ancient ancestors at our peril. Shít it now looks like Neandertals and early ones at that made the over the horizon sea voyage to Cyprus hundreds of thousands of years ago. It seems the Flores "Hobbits" made an open sea crossing of one of the most vicious currents found in any straits in the world and they had the brain size of a chimp. For highly sophisticated fully modern humans in North Africa and North Europe to make the journey to each other? It's not so far fetched set against all that.

Much later on in the Irish Christian annals there are hints of further contact with that part of the world(Paging Enkidu ). There is (going on memory)mention of "Brother Monks from Egypt buried near the chapel". Irish monks had some basic knowledge of Hebrew in places. Now that could well have come second or third hand, but may well have come more from the source. Certainly there were Jews recorded here at the turn of the first millennium. That said Jews were great travelers and could be found all over the place before, during and after Roman imperial times, so they're not such a definitive yardstick of direct contact.

Physical evidence includes the discovery in a bog a couple of years ago of an Irish penned psalter bound in middle eastern papyrus, a plant not known for growing locally. Too damn cold If we've found one it's unlikely to be the only one. Again the material may have come second hand along trade routes, but equally may have come along with Egyptian coptic monks fleeing persecution in their neck of the woods. Or just simply coming to check out the scholarship, as Ireland was well enough known for that throughout what had been the Roman empire, so those learned types on the fringes would have been at least somewhat aware of the place. This might also explain how knowledge of Greek here was higher than expected. When John Scottus showed up in Rome, the pope's foremost Greek scholar was flabbergasted that this mad monk from beyond the limits of Roman influence had such a facility for it. It's at least possible it came with Monks from the eastern empire or thereabouts.

Again going on memory I seem to recall that the chap who wrote the documentary made some interesting comparisons between descriptions of Irish monks and their habits(not their clothes:)) and descriptions of Coptic monks. Things like the odd Irish tonsure and staffs that instead of a cross at the top had a tau.

Other north African stuff included bodhrans which are found there and in Ireland but rare elsewhere(other musical links too). Legends some of the Tuareg had about either being from, or trading with an island in the cold north. Also exploring the idea out that in Irish Black people/Africans are called "blue people" and maybe it's not because of not wishing to confuse them with "black man" another word for the devil, but maybe because the north African groups like the Tuareg and Berber trade in and wear vividly dyed indigo blue clothes(that in the case of the light skinned Berber folks can actually dye their skin) and that's why the name stuck as Gaelige.

I reckon it's likely all supposition, with some truth in some of it, but which truth and where is the question?

Like I said and bear in mind I'm running entirely on what passes for my memory here and it's 30 odd years ago. Pity the entire series isn't available. It was very nicely done for an Irish documentary of the time. The theme music instantly took me back.







* the mace head found in the Knowth structure was fashioned in Scotland.

tac foley

Sir -

Para 1 - The present Indonesian archipelago was a continuous and contiguous landmass until around 8000 BC. The inhabitants, including the 'Hobbits' would only have needed to walk, rather than build canoes and white-water it over the Flores Straits.

Para 2 - What evidence do you have for the presence of Jews in turn-of-the-first-Millenium Ireland?

Para 3. - Unconvincing corroborative evidence. Remember that the Gundestrup Cauldron turned out to be Scythian, rather than Scandinavian. The only 'coincidence' there can be found in the first two letters.

Para 4 - I'm too ignorant to make a comment here.

Para 5. - Single-sided drums are hardly proof of a directly genetically-connected humanity - they exist on all continents, even South America. And as you note, 'there are legends'...

I was at Flag Fen in Cambridgeshire this afternoon, looking at decorative clothing adornments, recovered from strata dating to 1300 BC, that originated in Switzerland.

tac - unconvinced by myth and legend

Gee Bag

I woud take the Atlantean series with a pinch of salt, but I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand. There is pretty solid evidence of connections between North Africa and Ireland from late pre-history onward. I would put it down more to cultural influence than the old style idea of mass migrations.

My own favourites are;

(i) During excavations at Navan Fort outside Armagh the skull of a Barbary ape was found which dated from between 600-250 B.C.

(ii) Fadden More Psalter provides clear evidence for the influence of the Coptic church on the spread of Christianity in Ireland. The papyrus is well known, but there are also the stylistic appearance of the cover (battered auld leather which the psalter doesn't really fit properly) is identical to similar coptic book covers. Same goes for Tau crosses, beehive huts and the whole monascitism thing. John Sheehan (UCC) spent a good few years excavating an early monastic site in Kerry called Caherlahillan where they found pottery from Turkey or Syria in secure contexts dating to about 350 AD.

(iii) Recent re-analysis of a crouched burial at Laytown which was presumed to date from the Bronze Age turned out to be a North-African from about the 7th century AD. Isotope analysis of the teeth was used to determine place of origin and the positioning of the burial indicated that the lad wasn't a Christian (usually buried supine i.e. stretached out and lying face upward). The fact that he was buried in a crouched position indicates that he was probably buried by his compatriots.

(vi) Viking Dublin grew to be the most important slave trading centre in the western Viking world by the 1th century. A lot of the slaves were sourced in North Africa. There is a great story about two lads (Bjorn and Harstein, the sons of Ragnar Lodbrok) setting off from Dublin to sack Rome, they 'accidently' sacked the wrong city (Luna) then popped off to Morocco to buy slaves with their loot before finally coming back to Dublin.

As for sea voyages, there is very clear evidence that humans were travelling by boat from very early dates. The Aboriginees got to Australia at least 50,000 years ago and there was definitley no land bridge.

tac foley

Thank you for that post.

It still does not connect the Irish to either Atlantis or to the Arabian peninsula.

I agree that there is circumstantial evidence to suggest that the native Australians arrived there by boats of some kind, but the facts are as I stated - from SE Asia down to what is now New Guinea was a contiguous landmass prior to the melting of the glaciers.

I take issue with your dating Viking Dublin being the centre of the 'western Viking world by the 1th [sic] century. Do you mean the 10th or the 11th century perhaps?

tac

dubhthach

tac foley wrote: »

Para 2 - What evidence do you have for the presence of Jews in turn-of-the-first-Millenium Ireland?

The first mention of Jews in Ireland is the following:

1079.3

Coicer Iudaide do thichtain dar muir & aisceda leo do Thairdelbach, & a n-díchor doridisi dar muir.

1079.3

Five Jews came from over sea with gifts to Tairdelbach, and they were sent back again over sea.

This is from the Annals of Inisfallen, the gifts were for Toirdhealbhach Ua Briain , king of Munster and effective high king of Ireland (grandson of Brian Bóroimhe). From some of what I've read it's generally assumed they were merchants perhaps from Rouen. This is 1079 so basically just after the turn of the 1st millennium.

As for the Fadden More Psalter, I should point out the text itself was written on Vellum. The papyrus was the lining of the leather cover. Of course it shouldn't be surprising that there was trade in goods some of the minerals used to produce the coloured inks in the Book of Kells were sourced in what is now modern Afghanistan.

Wibbs

tac foley wrote: »

Sir - Para 1 - The present Indonesian archipelago was a continuous and contiguous landmass until around 8000 BC. The inhabitants, including the 'Hobbits' would only have needed to walk, rather than build canoes and white-water it over the Flores Straits.

The Flores straits have remained below sealevel for millions of years. The "Hobbits" or their ancestors made it there 800,000 years ago. When early Neandertals made it Cyprus it was well after Cyprus could be reached by any landbridge.

Para 2 - What evidence do you have for the presence of Jews in turn-of-the-first-Millenium Ireland?

TBH I was running from memory but wikipedia backs it up;

"The earliest reference to the Jews in Ireland was in the year 1079. The Annals of Inisfallen record "Five Jews came from over sea with gifts to Toirdelbach [king of Munster], and they were sent back again over sea".[1] They were probably merchants from Normandy. Toirdelbach was the grandson of Brian Boru, a previous High King of Ireland."

Like I said not exactly surprising as Jews had moved through the Roman empire quite extensively, so showing up for definite around 1000 AD is hardly a shock. They seemed to have the New Zealander backpacker gene A remarkably well traveled people.

Para 3. - Unconvincing corroborative evidence. Remember that the Gundestrup Cauldron turned out to be Scythian, rather than Scandinavian. The only 'coincidence' there can be found in the first two letters.

Sure but the psalter was written in old Irish. If the gundestrup cauldron had Norse lettering on it, it's origin would be clear. Or at least it's influence would be.

Para 4 - I'm too ignorant to make a comment here.

TO be fair I'm running on memory here so... Gee Bag notes better connections(I love life I never thought this morning or any other morning I'd ever type the sentence "Gee Bag notes better connections"

Para 5. - Single-sided drums are hardly proof of a directly genetically-connected humanity - they exist on all continents, even South America. And as you note, 'there are legends'...

True again, though I'd put at least some store in legends. Oral traditions can often turn out to have quite accurate realities behind them.

I was at Flag Fen in Cambridgeshire this afternoon, looking at decorative clothing adornments, recovered from strata dating to 1300 BC, that originated in Switzerland.

Which actually proves a point. That what is modern day cambridgeshire had at least trading connections with what is modern day Switzerland.

tac foley wrote: »

It still does not connect the Irish to either Atlantis or to the Arabian peninsula.

Atlantis is not what the programme concerned itself with. The title was a little unfortunate. Though on the Atlantis score. Yes it's a legend, yes it's a hyped up legend, but there is shítloads of evidence to suggest that "Atlantis" was a Minoan outpost on Thera(modern day Santorini) that blew up in a ginormous(technical term) volcanic eruption. That it was a highly advanced island civilisation at the time, and that it was destroyed by a cataclysm. Plato just revved it up for sport and a morality tale for his own times.

I agree that there is circumstantial evidence to suggest that the native Australians arrived there by boats of some kind, but the facts are as I stated - from SE Asia down to what is now New Guinea was a contiguous landmass prior to the melting of the glaciers.

Not quite. The first Aussies we know of (mungo man et al) still had to deal with a sea voyage. New Guinea and Australia were connected, but tey weren't connected to SE Asia.

Gee Bag

tac foley wrote: »

Thank you for that post.

It still does not connect the Irish to either Atlantis or to the Arabian peninsula.

I agree that there is circumstantial evidence to suggest that the native Australians arrived there by boats of some kind, but the facts are as I stated - from SE Asia down to what is now New Guinea was a contiguous landmass prior to the melting of the glaciers.

I take issue with your dating Viking Dublin being the centre of the 'western Viking world by the 1th [sic] century. Do you mean the 10th or the 11th century perhaps?

tac

Hiya Tac

There might be some confusion regarding the use of the term Arab. North Africa didn't become Arabic until after the conquests in the seventh and eight centuries A.D. I don't remember if Bob Quinn's doc made any claims about connections to the Arabian Peninsula. As for Atlantis, I can only tell you about the Irish connections if your a fellow member of the Illuminati.

As for the Aboriginee's getting to Australia, the generally accepted theory is that they would have had to cross the Torres Strait by boat. Some maps are available at the link below. Am I right in thinking you referenced Graham Hancock earlier? That fella is regarded as a complete looper by archaeologists.

http://fieldmuseum.org/sites/default/files/Voris_2000.pdf

The date was meant to be 11th century for Viking Dublin being slave trade centre for the western Viking world.

P.S. heres another link re Flores and Neanderthals on boats with links to relavant journals
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328544.800-neanderthals-were-ancient-mariners.html

dubhthach

Folks should remember that the Arabs only expanded out of the Arabian penisula in the 7th century AD. In a period of 20-50 years they destroyed one empire (Sassanid Persia) and nearly destroyed another (Eastern Roman Empire -- which survived until 1453)

There are two assumptions about connections.

• One that argiculture spread from the ancient near east into Europe eventually arriving in Ireland.
• Irish is a VSO (verb-subject-object) language like for example Semitic, Berber and Austronesian languages

The second observation is interesting as VSO which is also found in Welsh is fairly unusual for an Indo-European language. The assumption been that it's presence in modern Insular Celtic languages is due to the language spoken before the arrival of Celtic languages in Ireland. The theory been that this was a VSO language, ergo potential connections to the ancient near east etc.

Both Hebrew and Arabic as semitic languages are VSO in ordering. English in comparison is generally SVO (Subject Verb object), I'll give an example from wiki to show that:

Irish (VSO): Bhuail sé mé.
Direct Translation (VSO): hit (past tense) he me
English (SVO): He hit me

Gee Bag

dubhthach wrote: »

As for the Fadden More Psalter, I should point out the text itself was written on Vellum. The papyrus was the lining of the leather cover. Of course it shouldn't be surprising that there was trade in goods some of the minerals used to produce the coloured inks in the Book of Kells were sourced in what is now modern Afghanistan.

I was at a talk given by Roly Reid (Head conservator of National Museum) a while back. It appears that the cover for the psalter was reused, as the vellum text does not fit the cover at all well. The stylistic evidence for it being from Egypt was very convincing and the papyrus pretty much confirmed it. However, it couldn't be RC dated because of the chemicals used initially to stabilise it.

Further evidence was provided from illuminated Irish manuscripts showing human and animal figures (the animals used to represent Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) holding books with identical covers. Unfortunatley I don't think there have been any significant publications about the psalter yet (I might be wrong).

There was a pretty good doc on RTE a while back called Treasures of the Bog (awful title) about the psalter which explored the Egyptian connection. You might be able to find it online somewhere.

dubhthach

Gee Bag wrote: »

I was at a talk given by Roly Reid (Head conservator of National Museum) a while back. It appears that the cover for the psalter was reused, as the vellum text does not fit the cover at all well. The stylistic evidence for it being from Egypt was very convincing and the papyrus pretty much confirmed it. However, it couldn't be RC dated because of the chemicals used initially to stabilise it.

Further evidence was provided from illuminated Irish manuscripts showing human and animal figures (the animals used to represent Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) holding books with identical covers. Unfortunatley I don't think there have been any significant publications about the psalter yet (I might be wrong).

There was a pretty good doc on RTE a while back called Treasures of the Bog (awful title) about the psalter which explored the Egyptian connection. You might be able to find it online somewhere.

Reuse wouldn't surprise, for example if we look at the manuscripts that we have containing "old Irish" none of them technically date from the "Old Irish" period (6th to 10th century AD). Instead they are form copies in later manuscripts. A good example as mentioned in another thread is the Táin, the earliest version of "recension 1" is from Lebor na hUidre which dates to the late 11th century/early 12th century. The language though is probably more akin to that of 8th century. The implication been that this earliest know version was a copy of earlier now lost manuscripts.

You often hear accounts from elsewhere in Europe of manuscripts been either "worn out" from use, or been reused (contents scraped from Vellum etc.). Some of the more interesting finds in Europe have been due to such reuse of older manuscripts.

Personally it wouldn't surprise me if religous texts books originating in the Eastern Roman Empire as it existed at that time ended up in Ireland and items such as covers were subsequently reused, after all it was probably a "status item" in it's own right given quality of workmanship etc.

Wibbs

Gee Bag wrote: »

Am I right in thinking you referenced Graham Hancock earlier? That fella is regarded as a complete looper by archaeologists.

+1000, though combing through the multitudes of chaff he does on occasion ask some interesting questions. His answers I take issue with.

P.S. heres another link re Flores and Neanderthals on boats with links to relavant journals
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328544.800-neanderthals-were-ancient-mariners.html

Great link GB. It suggests a level of sophistication among our ancient first cousins that almost defies belief.

Gee Bag

dubhthach wrote: »

Reuse wouldn't surprise, for example if we look at the manuscripts that we have containing "old Irish" none of them technically date from the "Old Irish" period (6th to 10th century AD). Instead they are form copies in later manuscripts. A good example as mentioned in another thread is the Táin, the earliest version of "recension 1" is from Lebor na hUidre which dates to the late 11th century/early 12th century. The language though is probably more akin to that of 8th century. The implication been that this earliest know version was a copy of earlier now lost manuscripts.

You often hear accounts from elsewhere in Europe of manuscripts been either "worn out" from use, or been reused (contents scraped from Vellum etc.). Some of the more interesting finds in Europe have been due to such reuse of older manuscripts.

Personally it wouldn't surprise me if religous texts books originating in the Eastern Roman Empire as it existed at that time ended up in Ireland and items such as covers were subsequently reused, after all it was probably a "status item" in it's own right given quality of workmanship etc.

The thing with the cover is that it was incredibly battered at the time it was deposited in the bog with clear evidence of insects having bored holes through it. If you have gone to the expense of commissioning a manuscript why not splash out a little more for a nice shiny new cover?

I got the impression that the cover was a high status item despite it's condition.

Sorry I can't provide you with any worthwhile links.

dubhthach

Gee Bag wrote: »

The thing with the cover is that it was incredibly battered at the time it was deposited in the bog with clear evidence of insects having bored holes through it. If you have gone to the expense of commissioning a manuscript why not splash out a little more for a nice shiny new cover?

I got the impression that the cover was a high status item despite it's condition.

Sorry I can't provide you with any worthwhile links.

Perhaps the cover had some significance to the religous community, for example an association with the founding saint etc. In which case even though it was battered it itself could have "relic" like qualities. We see for example in later times of course the arrival of the metal "book shrine" (Cumdach) some of which were even "refashioned" at later stages instead of been replaced. I know the Cumdach of the Stowe Missal has one side dating from 14th century to go with the rest dating to the 11th, likewise the Domhnach Airgid (Silver Church) was basically completely reworked in the 14th century (it probably dates originally to 8th century).

As items they themselves obviously took on important near relic like status akin to that of the actual books they were designed to protect.

Gee Bag

dubhthach wrote: »

Perhaps the cover had some significance to the religous community, for example an association with the founding saint etc. In which case even though it was battered it itself could have "relic" like qualities. We see for example in later times of course the arrival of the metal "book shrine" (Cumdach) some of which were even "refashioned" at later stages instead of been replaced. I know the Cumdach of the Stowe Missal has one side dating from 14th century to go with the rest dating to the 11th, likewise the Domhnach Airgid (Silver Church) was basically completely reworked in the 14th century (it probably dates originally to 8th century).

As items they themselves obviously took on important near relic like status akin to that of the actual books they were designed to protect.

Thats pretty much what I was thinking, the cover was as important as the actual manuscript if not more so.

tac foley

Thank you all, gentlemen, for your thoughtful responses - much appreciated. I can go away now, safe in the knowledge that none of you believe that Jesus was really a Meso-American pyramid-building skate-boarding astronaut.

tac

Wibbs

Maybe interesting maybe not in conection with the "Duine Gorm" in Irish. One of the names the Tuareg are described by and give themselves is "the blue people". I seem to also mistily recall that in old Norse Africans are also called blue people. Maybe it made it into Irish from the Vikings? I wonder are there any early old Irish descriptions of Africans?

Gee Bag

Wibbs wrote: »

Maybe interesting maybe not in conection with the "Duine Gorm" in Irish. One of the names the Tuareg are described by and give themselves is "the blue people". I seem to also mistily recall that in old Norse Africans are also called blue people. Maybe it made it into Irish from the Vikings? I wonder are there any early old Irish descriptions of Africans?

I always go for the Vikings being the source of our using duine gorm. In old Norse there was no actual word for black. Hence blackberries were called blueberries, blackbirds were called bluebirds, etc. In Iceland they used the term Blamen (blue men) until quite recently, its not considerd P.C. anymore.

dubhthach

It wouldn't surprise me, there are alot of loan words in Irish from Old-Norse especially around maritime and town/market usage. There is a list here:
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:AT9i15caUHAJ:www.gaeilge.ie/dynamic/file/Loanwords%2520in%2520the%2520Irish%2520language_full%2520text%2520TL.doc+&hl=en&gl=ie&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESgLG_51VVz0ZviT53gAGse7sdhcIciw7gHJ4Z7qvCEiCN7U7-e8DSqGZgcQohgTCASXub5tF7GWjlYh-JeKi7KY4O0GUtzZQcyv67Y-qxe3C8O8vY_mfonHXiT8Tgj4C3xrCqgH&sig=AHIEtbTAlqko2FisrksASYPzZOIBJ2edZw&pli=1 (Word Doc opened in Google Docs)

Interesting I see the below footnote, which is news to me!

Cross is an example of a Latin loanword borrowed into Old English via Old Norse from Old Irish. Interestingly, the original Latin word was later borrowed unchanged into English as crux, apparently from Medieval Latin crux interpretum (commentator’s torment, i.e., a difficult passage in a text).

If usage of Gorm thus comes from Norse, it probably fits in with the fact that it seemed like a natural usage given that Dubh is usually used in following two cases.

• Dubh in names generally implies dark features/hair colour eg. Dubhthach
• Fear Dubh = the devil

Enkidu

It's always been a very interesting hypothesis that Irish was influences by Afro-Asiatic languages since it has a similar word order (VSO as mentioned above). Unfortunately this is almost certainly coincidence as with modern evidence we can see the Celtic languages slowly drift from SVO (a typical Indo-european order.) to VSO. Proto-Celtic was SVO, Gaulish mostly SVO, Primitive Irish half, the first writing in Old Irish mostly VSO. So it's probably just internal changes.

However Carthage and other North African societies probably did trade with Ireland around the time the Celts were arriving and reforming the culture, since Ireland and Britain were sources of tin.
Funnily enough the Greeks had no idea where the tin was coming from:

I cannot speak with certainty, however, about the marginal regions which lie toward the west in Europe…Nor am I certain of the existence of the Cassiterides Islands, from which we get our tin…Moreover, despite all my efforts to research the matter, I have been unable to find anyone who could say that he actually saw for himself that a sea exists on the far side of Europe. In any case, the far edges of the world are the source of the tin and amber that come to us. - Herodotus

Unfortunately most of the journeys to Ireland were in the Carthaginian annals, destroyed by the Romans when they burnt Carthage (thanks Cato!). Some of the Carthaginian accounts of Ireland survive but don't say much besides, Ireland is big and in the Ocean. It does say the people were the called the Hi-erni. This got a few people exicted because it would have been the first contemporary reference to the pre-Celtic people of Ireland, but unfortunately, as I said, the Celts were already arriving, so the Hi-erni could be a Celtic tribe. Of course by the time Rome got to these islands the culture was completely Celtic.

There are deeper Afro-Asiatic roots. The culture that spread agriculture, which Dubhthach mentioned, was almost certainly Afro-Asiatic speaking.

dubhthach

Enkidu wrote: »

There are deeper Afro-Asiatic roots. The culture that spread agriculture, which Dubhthach mentioned, was almost certainly Afro-Asiatic speaking.

Well I don't think there is any proof of that tbh, if we look at the ancient near-East we do see language isolates such as Summerian, so it's quite possible that early agriculture in Europe also spoke a language that has no living descendants/relatives. Most of the argument of course been based around the word ordering, which in general I agree with you on. The only way I would imagine to prove an Afro-Asiatic (Semitic is group in Afro-Asiatic language family) would be to show early loanwords in European language (substratum) that derive from such a root.

Tbh I think we will never know of course as it was well before writing had been developed.

Enkidu

Well I don't think there is any proof of that tbh, if we look at the ancient near-East we do see language isolates such as Summerian, so it's quite possible that early agriculture in Europe also spoke a language that has no living descendants/relatives. Most of the argument of course been based around the word ordering, which in general I agree with you on. The only way I would imagine to prove an Afro-Asiatic (Semitic is group in Afro-Asiatic language family) would be to show early loanwords in European language (substratum) that derive from such a root.

Apologies, in the final line I was discussing a time period long before Celtic. Afro-Asiatic words have been found within Indo-European itself. The "TAUROS" type word for bull and other farming animals and instruments found in many Indo-European languages come from Indo-European itself. However they're not native Indo-European words, but borrowed from some Afro-Asiatic language. The culture that brought agriculture to Europe (who wore sea-shell jewelry) settled as far north as central Ukraine, just over the foothills from the Bug-Dnieper valley region where Indo-European was spoken.

Archaeologically we know agriculture was given to the Indo-Europeans in the valley in a slow process lasting roughly a millennium by this culture that had migrated north from Turkey. Since farming words in Indo-European are often Afro-Asiatic borrowings, it is considered very likely that this culture that brought agriculture to the Indo-Europeans spoke an Afro-Asiatic language.

kolles

Enkidu wrote: »

It's always been a very interesting hypothesis that Irish was influences by Afro-Asiatic languages since it has a similar word order (VSO as mentioned above). Unfortunately this is almost certainly coincidence as with modern evidence we can see the Celtic languages slowly drift from SVO (a typical Indo-european order.) to VSO. Proto-Celtic was SVO, Gaulish mostly SVO, Primitive Irish half, the first writing in Old Irish mostly VSO. So it's probably just internal changes.

However Carthage and other North African societies probably did trade with Ireland around the time the Celts were arriving and reforming the culture, since Ireland and Britain were sources of tin.
Funnily enough the Greeks had no idea where the tin was coming from:

I cannot speak with certainty, however, about the marginal regions which lie toward the west in Europe…Nor am I certain of the existence of the Cassiterides Islands, from which we get our tin…Moreover, despite all my efforts to research the matter, I have been unable to find anyone who could say that he actually saw for himself that a sea exists on the far side of Europe. In any case, the far edges of the world are the source of the tin and amber that come to us. - Herodotus

Unfortunately most of the journeys to Ireland were in the Carthaginian annals, destroyed by the Romans when they burnt Carthage (thanks Cato!). Some of the Carthaginian accounts of Ireland survive but don't say much besides, Ireland is big and in the Ocean. It does say the people were the called the Hi-erni. This got a few people exicted because it would have been the first contemporary reference to the pre-Celtic people of Ireland, but unfortunately, as I said, the Celts were already arriving, so the Hi-erni could be a Celtic tribe. Of course by the time Rome got to these islands the culture was completely Celtic.

There are deeper Afro-Asiatic roots. The culture that spread agriculture, which Dubhthach mentioned, was almost certainly Afro-Asiatic speaking.

"Pre-Celtic" people of Ireland? There is no evidence of a change of people - the culture may have been influenced from the continent but the make-up of the population remained the same: people from the Basque area of spain, as proved by the DNA testing of settled populations.

The Irish and other modern day "Celts" are termed "Atlantic Celts".

Wibbs

kolles wrote: »

the culture may have been influenced from the continent but the make-up of the population remained the same: people from the Basque area of spain, as proved by the DNA testing of settled populations.

That's incorrect I'm afraid, though widely believed). In the last few years the genetics have shown we're most certainly not Basques. We've different forms of the haplogroup R1b.

kolles

Wibbs wrote: »

That's incorrect I'm afraid, though widely believed). In the last few years the genetics have shown we're most certainly not Basques. We've different forms of the haplogroup R1b.

Any evidence of what you say?

Wibbs

To be fair dubhthach is the chappy for this stuff and no doubt he'll be along to explain and laugh at my efforts.

Until then maybe have a read of this. For those on mobile the upshot is "Contrary to previous suggestions, we do not observe any particular link between Basques and Celtic populations beyond that provided by the Paleolithic ancestry common to European populations, nor we find evidence supporting Basques as the focus of major population expansions."

The notion of the Iberian connection has been around for a very long time and there's certainly evidence of cultural back and forth. When genetics came along they noticed that the R1b haplogroup was very common in certain areas. Ireland, Cornwall, Wales(highest amount) and northern Spain/Basque region. This seemed to prove the link. However further study shows a couple of things. 1) the Basques aren't nearly so ancient a people as once thought and still believed by many. The guts of their male line genes are about 4000 years old, older genes extracted from older bones in the area are quite different so there was some sort of interruption event, so they're not a relict population of cro magnon or any of that. 2) Their version of the R1b is a different one to ours.

Broadly speaking the Irish, Welsh, Scots and western English are inter-related, with that relationship dropping off as you go further east in these islands(but still quite close). We're not "Celts*" genetically(the vast majority of English people ain't Saxons either). Basques are basically northern Spanish with a few unique genetic quirks.







*Celts genetically are hard enough to pin down anyway. The various Roman and Greek writers can barely agree with each other as to who or where the Celts are in Europe.

dubhthach

First to post some basic explanations. In population genetics you can look at three distinct "genetic results" these are:

• Y Chromosome -- in men shows male line, Y is only inherited on direct male line eg. you, father, grandfather etc.
• Mitochondrial DNA -- female line, inherited from your mother, grandmother, great-grandmother
• Autosomonal DNA -- all the rest of your nuclear DNA (44 non sex-linked chromosomes)

So for example 10 generations ago I theoretically had 2^10 (power of 10) ancestors eg. 1024 potential ancestors (in reality lot less due to very distant cousins marring eg. two 5th/6th cousins marrying etc.), if average generation-gap is 25-30 years that's about 300 years ago. There's no way I had 1024 ancestors in that generation in reality.

Anyways to use this simple number of 1024 in that generation. I only carry the Y-Chromosome of 1 man (out of theoretical 512) and the Mitochondrial DNA of 1 woman (out of theoretical 512)

In comparison my "autosomal" DNA could potentially contains bits from every one of them. (it gets mixed/recombined each generation).

The first human genome was only sequenced in 2003 it took 13 years and cost about $3billion, now adays you can get your genome sequence for about $10,000 -- the price has plummeted so much that there is a major project called "The 1000 genomes project" which goal is to sequence and release to open access (academia etc.) the genomes of 1,000 people.

Anyways the original studies in early part of this century (2000-2002) looked at the Y Chromosome alone. They noticed that Haplogroup R1b (specifically branch of R1b marked by SNP M269 --- R1b1a2) reached very high levels in western Europe, on order of 80-90% in Ireland and in Spain.

At the time the idea that Basque was a paelothic language survival was extremely popular, basically people said -- "high level of R1b in basque men implies R1b is marker of Cro-Magnon men"

The problem is that 10 years later the technology has moved on, we know alot more about the strucutre of the tree, hundreds of markers marking distinctive branches have been found that spilt up haplogroups (r1b in particular). There has also been studies on continent wide scale showing distrubition of haplogroups. The other major development has been the extracting of viable DNA from ancient remains.

Two things are evident from these.

1. R1b is older in the East, specifically in eastern Anatolia, Armenia and modern Iran. West European R1b lacks genetic diversity -- 110million men in Europe belong to clades of R1b-M269, however dominated by more recent branches (all of circa 4,000 years old)
2. No ancient DNA from before the Copper age belongs to Haplogroup R1b (if remains were male) -- they mostly belong to Haplogroup I or G

Just to show how the understanding of the tree has changed here are some shots of the R* tree over the last 10 years

2003


2005


2009


2011 (only looking at clades below L11 -- two steps below M269)


Going on results of Busby and Myres study about 70% of Irishmen belong to a branch of R1b marked by SNP (binary marker) called L21. At the moment it's calculated that this marker is 3,700-4,000 years old and shows highest genetic diversity in France. In other words 70% of Irishmen are descended from one man (the first to be L21+) who probably lived on the continent during the Bronze Age.

The implication is that there has been mass replacement of male lineages across Europe in the last 4,000 years. Now if we look at female lineages (mitochondrial) there isn't much of a change (going on ancient DNA results). If we look at a persons whole genome (Autosomes) we see that most Europeans contain signs of genetic inflows into their genome. The bulk of an Irish person genome for example is probably quite ancient (70%) however about 30% is made up due to genetic inflow from different groups (biggest chunk probably connected to spread of agriculture during neolithic).

All Indo-European speaking populations in Europe show a common signature on their autosomnal DNA (from 4-10% of it) that isn't found in non-IE speaking populations (Finns and Basques for example). This "signature" (for want of a better word) is found from Ireland in West to India in the east.

Anway's I've got to hit the road now (going to Galway). I'll follow up later with extra.

GhostInTheRuins

I just want to say (Because I doubt I can add anything worthwhile to the discussion), that I absolutely love these kind of threads.

Gee Bag

From the Guardian's website today, the section about Berber ancestry is interesting....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/aug/15/scotland-dna-study-project

A large scale study of Scottish people's DNA is threatening to "rewrite the nation's history", according to author Alistair Moffat.
Scotland, he told the Edinburgh international book festival, despite a long-held belief that its ethnic make-up was largely Scots, Celtic, Viking and Irish, was in fact "one of the most diverse nations on earth".

"The explanation is simple. We are a people on the edge of beyond; on the end of a massive continent. Peoples were migrating northwest; and they couldn't get any further. We have collected them."
He and his colleagues have found West African, Arabian, south-east Asian and Siberian ancestry in Scotland. "The West African ancestry mostly originates in the 18th century, so it is almost certainly to do with the slave trade," he said.
David Lammy, MP for Tottenham, whose immediate ancestors are from the Caribbean, also revealed at the festival this week that DNA analysis had shown he has Orcadian ancestry – also likely to relate to British involvement in the Atlantic slave trade.
One per cent of all Scottish men, said Moffat, have Berber ancestry – why, he says, remains a mystery, though he believes that the penetration of people from the medieval caliphate of Cordoba "must have been immensely important". Moffat said his colleagues had also discovered DNA originating from Roman-period Illyria, the area occupied by modern Croatia, which may relate to Roman occupation of lowland Scotland.

dubhthach

Gee Bag wrote: »

From the Guardian's website today, the section about Berber ancestry is interesting....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/aug/15/scotland-dna-study-project

Certain amount of discussion about this in the Genetic Genealogy community. The problem is that we don't have any details on exact Haplogroups tested for etc.

For Berber's I'm assuming he's talking about a clade of Haplogroup E, however without detail on exact clade markings they tested it's hard to say if there is exact match.

For example lets say he using a specific clade of E to denote Berber ancestry. There is a possibility of course that he's using a SNP further up tree that is shared in both Berber and European E. This was same issue that occurred regarding R1b-M269 which led to people saying that the Irish are actually Basques (it ignored the more recent branch markers -- went for the older common marker)

There is also the fact that they are also in process of selling a book as well as running a DNA testing business (Scotland's DNA / Ireland's DNA / England's DNA). Generally the press always get a very cut down simple story, which doesn't really tell us much.

From a quick read I see most prominent form of Haplogroup E among Berbers is: E-M81 (E1b1b1b1a*)

You will find this in mediterraenean European populations as well as E-M78 (E1b1b1a*) which is a close relative (both share common ancestry under E1b1b1 (defined by L336, M35.1, M243 -- eg. all E-M78+ and E-M81+ men are also L336+, M35.1+, M243+)

I'm not even sure we know how many men they tested for in total, as there result is 1% of the cohort of men tested. It would be nice if they provided a Haplogroup table giving exact breakdown -- no doubt it's in the book.