English and Welsh are races apart

[Gil]

Milesian: i'll answer this in three parts:

1st - The idea of "celt" was different in the Classic Age from nowadays. For example, Strabo called the Teutones Celts while Posidonius called them Germani. The idea was that the gauls did not differ greatly from the romans except a bit on height and hair colour while the germanic tribes were definitely different.

Strabo pointed out that the Teutones were celts, differing "only by being "wilder, taller, and have yellower hair." The Romans who lived in Gaul, he goes on to say, "called them 'Germani' because they wanted to indicate that they were the 'authentic,' the real Celts. (Germani meaning in the local latin-base dialect "authentic). So, one can see that for the common roman or the roman citizen living in a colony, the idea of Celt was of a man of great height, very depigmented and with fair hair. Upon seeing the germanic tribesmen, the romans called them Germani, for they considered them to be the "true" celts.

What this means is that the celts were, in some ways, similar to the germans, but the difference being enough to set them apart.
In the case of the Cimbri, they were probably a mixed culture, hence them being strikingly similar to Germans in looks while having a celtic culture and social structure.

2nd - During the roman times, there were many tribes calling themselves Ambrones, as one can see in Sextus Pompeius Festus, De verborum significatu (Pauli Diaconi, epitoma), ed. of W.M. Lindsay, p. 15):

"Ambrones fuerunt gens quaedam Gallica, qui subita inundatione maris cum amisissent sedes suas, rapinis et praedationibus se suosque alere coeperunt".


According to Plutarch, some Ambrones joined the Cimbri in fighting the romans, and when they shouted their names the ligurian soldiers fighting for Rome recognized it and shouted the same name back.

Some historians explain that fact: the Ligurians were of celtic origin and their celtic name were Ambrones, more of a meaning-name that an ethnic name. Most historians believe (and so do I) that Ambrones comes from amb-er-on , meaning "people of the river", which was used by many celtic tribes both in Gaul and Spain.

[Scoob]

Great info, Manji. So according to this info, from the Roman perspective, there was a continuum:

Romans (presumably: civilized/short/dark-haired) - Celts - Germans (wild/tall/blond)

I've also read translations of Roman accounts that said one Celtic woman could fight 3 Roman soldiers. This sounds like an exagerration, but the point is made: these barbarians were on average more robust than Romans.

19th Century British anthropologists and folklorists seem to have reiterated this continuum from the opposite perspective, when they described the Celtic-speaking peoples of the British isles (the Irish and Welsh more than the Scottish) as short and dark.

[Gil]

Scoob: Yes, one can put it like that but there's just one thing about that last remark: actually they were right but for the wrong reasons

The thing is, (and i'm going into genetics to explain this) the British Isles were inhabited before the celts settled there.
After the Ice Age ended, the humans who had lived so far in the Iberian Peninsula (the group R1b) followed the migration of game to the north and some of them reached what is now the British Isles about 15,000 years ago which at this time was connected to mainland Europe. It is believed they changed from hunter-gatherers to farmers in southeastern Europe about 8,000 years ago and in Britain about 4,000 years ago. As hunter-gathers became farmer’s, permanent settlements ended this great migration period and over time R1b types settled predominately in what is known today as Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium, Denmark, England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland

Around 600 B.C the celts from the continent started trading and even settling in the British Isles. The conventional historical view is that the celtic tribes invaded the British Isles in several waves, displacing the indigenous inhabitants and forcing them into secluded areas. Now, recent genetic studies and archeological findings point in a different perspective, that the local indigenous pre-indoeuropean people were not wiped out but rather mixed with the celtic "invaders". One common conclusion that many studies have achieved is that the Welsh and some Irish, who have the highest percentages of R1b, are the living examples of what the indigenous people might have looked (dark hair, olive to opaque white skin, lithe build, etc).

So, the conclusion is, the very depigmented, ash blonde, very tall englishman is probably descendant of a nordic settler, not a celtic or a indigenous type. As said before, the celts were an intermediate type, having a greater variety of looks, variation that was dependant of the area they lived in.

A final note on the Scottish and women ( ):

1) Though scottish culture is predominantly "celtic", genetic studies point that, on average, they have more Scandinavian influence.

2) While comparing males from England, Scotland and Wales with males from Portugal, Spain and Basque Country, the similarities are enourmous (both on genetic makeup and on phenotype) but females are an exception. The genetic similarity is less marked in women in Britain, who have a genetic makeup closer to that of Northern Europe, possibly because women tended to move to their husbands' homes.

Or perhaps they had a thing for blondes...

[Scoob]

Manji, great info and summary.

One caveat about the Y Chromosome or even mtDNA. It is subject to selective sweeps, drift, and other effects. Modern Y Chromome diversity in populations might give a very skewed view of ancient inhabitants.

http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2005/03...closer-to.html

Some quotes:

Like us, Vernesi et al. (2004) detected a significant difference between the present-day population of Tuscany and the prehistoric one inhabiting the same area (Etruscan), with a gap of 2,500 years between them, finding only two haplotypes in common between both populations. It may be that this phenomenon is more widespread and has occurred in other regions of Western Europe. Data on more prehistoric populations are required in order to confirm this phenomenon. It should also be taken into account that these differences have only been detected in the mtDNA, as currently, the nuclear genome of prehistoric European individuals has not been studied at the population level.

...

However, our data on ancient DNA (as well as those of Vernesi et al. 2004) reveal a discontinuity between prehistoric and present-day populations, which leads us to reconsider the limitations involved in the reconstruction of evolutionary history on the basis of the genetic patterns of present-day populations.

Note than ancient histories, even the Irish Book of Invasions, describe massive wars in prehistory. I'd extrapolate based on known behavior of modern men during invasions, that a general pattern would be near extermination of indigenous males (and with them, their Y Chromosome lineages) and taking native women as wives, by force or of their free will.

Another factor to consider, especially in small, isolated populations (such as the Basques), is genetic drift.

While the relationship between Celtic British populations and Iberian populations is clear from the Y Chromosome evidence, I wouldn't assume that this is 15,000 years old. It might be an artifact of Bronze Age invasions. Folklore states that the Milesians entered Britain and Ireland through Spain.

One factor that perhaps modern historians and geneticists are reluctant to consider as normal or expected (especially since the Bronze Age and prominence of mobile warrior culture) is invasions accompanied by massive genocide as described above. This could happen in a matter of centuries (as it did in the colonial Americans), or even within a generation. This would have strong effects on sparsely populated areas in particular - and weaker effects on urban areas and otherwise heavily populated regions.

[Gil]

Well, the role of wars in defining dominant populations has been at times over emphasised and sometimes put down as irrelevant. I think the main issue is the one you refer in the end, about population density. For example, in the Irish case, if the norseman who occasionally raided their shores would have been organized and had attacked at the same time instead or irregular waves one could have had a scandinavian Ireland today because the local populations were never very high, specially because they kept fighting among themselves.
On other cases like Iberia it's the exact opposite. For example, when the Moors started conquering the southern provinces and advancing north, the local populations were not exterminated simply because the conquerers wanted peasants to work the fields and because theonly threat to their rule were the ruling class. With the visigoths disbanded or killed they couldn't care less about the indigenous, and so they settled more in the Al-Andalus than anywhere on the Peninsula. Of course there were marriages between indigenous and moors, but their degree was less than most people think. Also, when the Reconquista began the knights had no bias at slaughtering vast amounts of mixed people, just on the basis that they were "moorish".
I can tell you that in the case of Portugal, for example, by 1250 the Portuguese Reconquista came to an end as we had conquered all the regions down to the Algarve and our borders with Spain settled to almost how they are today. And what happened to the local populatons? Well, in the major burghs each town had a Mouraria, a ghetto neighbourhood where the moors or converts to Islam could live. They could neither trade nor inhabit outside that neighbourhood, unless they choosed to live in the countryside. What happened was that certain regions of Portugal, specially to the south (Alentejo and Algarve) there is an abundance of darker phenotypes than the rest of the country, probably because they are descendants of those outcast. It's not like I consider them to be less portuguese, only different.
My point is that it's impossible to make definitions applying to a whole country, simply because there is local variance, regional variance and continental variance (not to mention global variance).

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by Scoob

Like us, Vernesi et al. (2004) detected a significant difference between the present-day population of Tuscany and the prehistoric one inhabiting the same area (Etruscan)

Did they extract DNA from Etruscan skeletons, or are they assuming some genetic adscription to the ancient Etruscans?

And, if they have extracted DNA from an ancient Etruscan, which are the results (which group they belonged to)?

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by Manji

On other cases like Iberia it's the exact opposite. For example, when the Moors started conquering the southern provinces and advancing north, the local populations were not exterminated simply because the conquerers wanted peasants to work the fields and because theonly threat to their rule were the ruling class. With the visigoths disbanded or killed they couldn't care less about the indigenous, and so they settled more in the Al-Andalus than anywhere on the Peninsula.

Actually, there was a widespread conversion to Islam of the population. I have discussed this many times.

The only capitulations which are kept (sadly) are those of the Visigothic Dux (or comes?) of Murcia. In those capitulations it is clear how his pact with the Moorish army was to allow the practice of Islam in his lands (therefore we must assume that a number of people had already converted), in exchange for keeping his status and properties. After that, the army left the area and continued its advance. That was the case in most parts.

Also, from the chronicles we know that the Visigothic Bishop Don Oppas (of the family of King Witiza) accompanied the Moorish army in their advance to convince people not to resist them and to open the gates of the cities to the Moors.

Further, many of the "Moorish" new Governors were old Visigothic administrators. Such is the case of the family Banu Qasi, the "Moorish" Governors of Pamplona, who were the descendents of the Visigothic Dux Cassius.

So yes, we are dealing with a case of a change of religion, not a change in population. In some cases not even a change in the ruling people. And in fact, despite the imposition of the Islamic religion, modern historians argue that there was little change in the administration of the Visigothic ruling. The Emir, in fact, married King Rodrigo's widow as a means to have a legal claim over the throne of the old Visigothic Spain. It doesn't make much sense that a conqueror would need to do such a thing, does it?

I can tell you that in the case of Portugal, for example, by 1250 the Portuguese Reconquista came to an end as we had conquered all the regions down to the Algarve and our borders with Spain settled to almost how they are today. And what happened to the local populatons? Well, in the major burghs each town had a Mouraria, a ghetto neighbourhood where the moors or converts to Islam could live.

The "Moorish" population is what was called the "Muladis" (the Muwahladun), i.e. converts to Islam. Even the Mossarabs (Must'arab, Christians living in dhimmitude, i.e. allowed to keep their religion but paying tribute to Islam) were called "Moors" by the Northern Christians. The reason for this was that their habits and dressing ways were in the fashion of Islam.

To further stengthen this point, I will expose a case from an Arabic chronicle. Excuse me if I'm not very exact with this account, but I don't have that information on this computer:

As early as sometime in the IXth-Xth century, a Castilian Count (the lineage which later would become kings of Castile, and much later of Spain) had to cross Islamic held territories to give his sister in matrimony to the Count of Barcelona. Because he was going accompanied by an entourage of armed men, he first held talks with the Islamic Governor of that area, to assure him that it was a peaceful comission and that they would not attack any town or people, and to ensure himself that they wouldn't be attacked. The Moorish Governor agreed.

When the Castilian Count and his entourage arrived near a town (I think it was Calahorra or Tolosa, not sure), they camped in the surrounding area. The Governor wasn't there at the time, and had not told his leutenant about the pact. The Castilians sent an embassy to the town, to explain the reasons why they were there and that they had been allowed to cross the territory. In turn, the "Moors" sent an embassy to judge for themselves. The account of this meeting was written by one of the best known literary figures of Islam at the time, from Portugal, and the document is held in a museum in Paris. The "Moorish" ambassador described the Castilian Count as "of good looking and dark skin".

Now, how could a "Moor" describe an early Spanish count as of dark skin? Two things can be derived from logic here. One, that the "Moor" was only a Moor for his religion, and probably of Visigothic descent. And two, that the early Castilian rulers of the Reconquista were far from being anything Visigothic, but rather indigenous Hispanic.

They could neither trade nor inhabit outside that neighbourhood, unless they choosed to live in the countryside.

Here it was called Morerías. There was also ghettoes for the Jews, known as Juderías in Castille or Calls in Catalonia.

What happened was that certain regions of Portugal, specially to the south (Alentejo and Algarve) there is an abundance of darker phenotypes than the rest of the country, probably because they are descendants of those outcast.

The old inhabitants of much of Alentejo and Algarve, as well as much of Andalucia, were the Turdetani and other Iberid tribes. No one in his right mind should expect these old Mediterranean peoples to look like Scandinavians.

[Gil]

Exactly my point, the Iberian populations were neither displaced nor wiped out, they converted (the majority) to ensure their survival.
In Portugal the jews, like the moors, were allowed to live in Judiarias, specially enclosed areas of towns.
I find it interesting that so many nordicists claim that the Iberians have a great percentage of jewish mixing (indicating the sephardic group of jews) while having no knowledge that King Manuel I of Portugal between 1496 and 1498 expelled almost all jews from Portugal, jews that went to....the Netherlands, among other northern and more liberal (at the time) regions.

[Aeternitas]

Only a small number of Jews that had entered Portugal were allowed to permanently settle down and these were the rich ones. Then the king offered the Jews special conditions to depart. Those who did not and chose to stay were persecuted or made slaves. Some were sent away to an insland on the African coast. During the mentioned years - 1490s and also earlier - a massive explusion of the Jewry took place throughout Europe. Only a few years after they had been expelled from Spain, the Jews were also expelled from Portugal. A law for this was signed, I believe. During this period the Holy Inquisition was also active and its primary targets were the heretics and the Jews. A lot of Jews were persecuted and burned.

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by Manji

Exactly my point, the Iberian populations were neither displaced nor wiped out, they converted (the majority) to ensure their survival.

While this is right, it is also being used as a dangerous weapon today. Neo-converts are using this argument to support that Islam is not a foreign religion in Andalucia, whereas Christianism is an imposed and invading religion there.

Of course this is using a truthful argument with a distorted interpretation.

In Portugal the jews, like the moors, were allowed to live in Judiarias, specially enclosed areas of towns.

Which were the targets of the population's wrath.

I find it interesting that so many nordicists claim that the Iberians have a great percentage of jewish mixing (indicating the sephardic group of jews) while having no knowledge that King Manuel I of Portugal between 1496 and 1498 expelled almost all jews from Portugal, jews that went to....the Netherlands, among other northern and more liberal (at the time) regions.

Well.. http://forum.stirpes.net/showpost.ph...80&postcount=3

There were many times in history in which Jews were persecuted and expelled, not only the 1492 edict of expulsion. King Manuel I of Portugal expelled them on demand of Queen Isabel of Castille, as a conditio sine qua non for his son to marry Queen Isabel's daughter.

However, he knew well that the expulsion of the Jews would have a much strong impact on the economy of the kingdom, and he only opened one harbour in Northern Portugal for Jews to leave the kingdom, and turned a blind eye on those who converted and stayed (mainly in Northern Portugal). But even with those who stayted, the link above shows that the percentages found in Northern Portugal are lower than in The Netherlands and, most important, the strict control over them did not allow them to judaicize the society (as it happened in a certain country).

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

There were many times in history in which Jews were persecuted and expelled, not only the 1492 edict of expulsion. King Manuel I of Portugal expelled them on demand of Queen Isabel of Castille, as a conditio sine qua non for his son to marry Queen Isabel's daughter.

More impact that the 1492 edict in Aragon and Castille (and its sequel in 1496 and 1498 in Portugal), had the general 1391 riots.

These riots were generalized throughout all of the kingdoms in the Peninsula. In Toledo, after a mob of Jews attacked the Cathedral, the people took to the streets and massacred many of them. The Call (Jewry) of Barcelona was almost depleted and many fled later to France. In Sevilla, the massacre was such that when the Inquisition settled in that city one century later, they found no Jews to put to trial. In Valencia, a dominican patron of the region, Saint Vicent Ferrer, was made famous by his anti-semitic preaches which turned the population against the Jews.

Ahh.. those were the times.


P.S.
I read that the English racial theorist H. S. Chamberlain speculated with the possibility that many Visigoths mixed with the Jews. This would have made sense if they were trying to increase their personal wealth, since the lands that the Visigothic nobility received were those that belonged to the Roman administration, and in many cases the Hispano-Roman aristocracy was wealthier and unwilling to mix with the Visigoths.

Though it must be said that Chamberlain's source for this was much unreliable ("he had heard from some other saying..").. as expected.

[Sigel]

Originally Posted by Manji

Now, recent genetic studies and archeological findings point in a different perspective, that the local indigenous pre-indoeuropean people were not wiped out but rather mixed with the celtic “invaders”.

If only a small numbers of Celts ever mixed with the indigenous population one would expect to find linguistic evidence in Ireland and elsewhere, where the Celtic traders were thinly spread.
I have always considered Gaelic to be relatively pure Indo-germanic.
There is also anecdotal evidence in the tales of Cuchulainn (hound of Ulster) of earlier inhabitants of Ireland, where they are described as “dark peoples of the hills who play drums”. Like the Picts, they vanished.
A major problem IMHO is defining what a Celt is. Caesar describes the various Gallic tribes in his ‘Conquest’ but many races have since washed through France and a modern Frenchman is hardly a pure Continental Gallic Celt. So we seem not to have a benchmark against which we can measure the Celtic content of Welsh, Irish and Gaelic Scots.
Perhaps the Bretons offer some chance but, as they are descended from an exiled British population, the question remains.
My own feeling is that the early Celts were quite advanced in metallurgy, agriculture and warfare. They were noted for artistry and ferocity in equal measure. I don’t feel that indigenous British people could have withstood a mass-migration of Celts. Caesar mentions that the coastal tribes, he encountered, were all of European origin.
A similar event occurred at the time of the Anglo-Saxon migrations. That ethnic cleansing was part of the ancient word, is anathema to our academic and political elites, who are striving to find alternative theories to justify their own integrationalist agendas.
All people should take note of how fragile any nation, culture or people can be. What has happened once can easily happen again - history teaches us this at least.

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by Sigel

If only a small numbers of Celts ever mixed with the indigenous population one would expect to find linguistic evidence in Ireland and elsewhere, where the Celtic traders were thinly spread.

As with the case of the Celts in Spain, most of what is called "Celt" belongs to the spread of a cultural movement from Central Europe into the West, with little genetic contribution.

I have always considered Gaelic to be relatively pure Indo-germanic.
There is also anecdotal evidence in the tales of Cuchulainn (hound of Ulster) of earlier inhabitants of Ireland, where they are described as “dark peoples of the hills who play drums”. Like the Picts, they vanished.

They vanished or they were assimilated into other populations?

A major problem IMHO is defining what a Celt is. Caesar describes the various Gallic tribes in his ‘Conquest’ but many races have since washed through France and a modern Frenchman is hardly a pure Continental Gallic Celt. So we seem not to have a benchmark against which we can measure the Celtic content of Welsh, Irish and Gaelic Scots.
Perhaps the Bretons offer some chance but, as they are descended from an exiled British population, the question remains.

The Irish have scored very high in R1b haplogroup. We can safely assume that this is then the type of the old celticized indigenous people of Ireland, and most probably Wales, Cornwall, and perhaps Brittany too.

A similar event occurred at the time of the Anglo-Saxon migrations. That ethnic cleansing was part of the ancient word, is anathema to our academic and political elites, who are striving to find alternative theories to justify their own integrationalist agendas.

Are you talking here of the attempts by the English to rewrite history and ethnology of the Ulster by [falsely] claiming that they are a different population to the rest of Ireland?

All people should take note of how fragile any nation, culture or people can be. What has happened once can easily happen again - history teaches us this at least.

Agreed in that history is a source for learning from the past. Which also answers to your question about my anti-British stances (on some other thread).

[Sigel]