Pre-Celtic

Short description: Period of prehistory in parts of Europe and Anatolia

The pre-Celtic period in the prehistory of Central Europe and Western Europe occurred before the expansion of the Celts or their culture in Iron Age Europe and Anatolia (9th to 6th centuries BC), but after the emergence of the Proto-Celtic language and cultures. The area involved is that of the maximum extent of the Celtic languages in about the mid 1st century BC. The extent to which Celtic language, culture and genetics coincided and interacted during this period remains very uncertain and controversial.

Diachronic distribution of Celtic peoples:

6th century BC, core Hallstatt territory

275 BC, maximum Celtic expansion

Lusitanian area of Iberia where Celtic presence is uncertain

## Contents

* 1 History
* 2 Languages
* 3 Archaeology
* 4 See also
* 5 References
* 6 Bibliography

## History

When the Celts were first recorded about 600 BC, they were already widespread across Iberia, Gaul, and Central Europe.[citation needed] In Ireland, the Book of Invasions gives a legendary account of the arrival of incoming peoples.

## Languages

Proto-Celtic is mainly dated to approximately 800 BC, coincident with the Hallstatt culture, while the earliest possible divergence of pre-proto-Celtic dialects from Proto-Indo-European is mainly dated to between 3000 BC and 2000 BC.

In continental Europe, pre-Celtic languages of the European Bronze Age may be taken to comprise two distinct groups.

* Non-Indo-European languages (i.e. pre-Indo-European languages); these include Aquitanian (precursor of the Basque),[1][2] Rhaetic, Etruscan,[3] Iberian, which may be related to Basque but is still unclassified, and Paleo-Sardinian (there is evidence suggesting that may have had connection to the reconstructed Proto-Basque and to the Iberian language). Some scholars group Etruscan, Rhaetic and Lemnian together in the hypothetical Tyrrhenian language family, which may have originated in the Aegean Sea or during the Neolithic north of the Alps.[4][5][6][7] Conversely, the Lemnian language could have arrived in the Aegean Sea during the Late Bronze Age, when Mycenaean rulers recruited groups of mercenaries from Sicily, Sardinia and various parts of the Italian peninsula.[8]
* Indo-European dialects, such as Illyrian, possibly Lusitanian, the Proto-Italo-Celtic dialects, Belgian and "Old European".[9] However, Lusitanian and Belgian may turn out to be Celtic, while Old European may turn out to be either Celtic or non-Indo-European. The very existence of Indo-European in Western Europe before the arrival of the Celts is highly speculative.

It has been suggested that results of large-scale genetic surveys, undertaken since the late 20th century, show that the present-day speakers of pre-Indo-European languages may not solely represent relict populations. For instance, Basques show a dominance of the Y-DNA Haplogroup R1b,[10] which a majority of scholars now propose spread through Europe relatively recently, from the Eurasian steppe and/or southwest Asia in the late Neolithic period or early Bronze Age (4,000 to 8,000 years ago).[11][10][12][13][14][15] R1b replaced nearly all indigenous male lineages in Iberia from 4500 to 4000 BC.[16] However, present-day Basques also harbor some very rare and archaic lineages, such as the Paleolithic mitochondrial DNA Haplogroup U8a, and autosomal genetic analysis (the whole genome, not just Y-DNA) has shown that a majority of their ancestry derives from Neolithic farmers and Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, pre-dating the arrival of speakers of Indo-European languages.[11][17][18][19]

## Archaeology

A simplified map of archaeological cultures of the late Bronze Age (c. 1200 BC):

Terramare culture

central Urnfield culture

northern Urnfield culture

Lusatian culture

(in central Europe) Knovíz culture

Danubian culture

Atlantic Bronze Age

Nordic Bronze Age

In the later Celtic areas there were many disparate archaeological cultures.

## See also

* Neolithic Europe
* Old European culture
* Bronze Age Europe
* Old European hydronymy
* Pre-Germanic
* Vasconic substratum hypothesis
* Atlantic (Semitic) languages
* Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula
* Prehistoric Britain
* Bronze Age Britain
* Prehistoric Ireland
* Paleolithic continuity theory
* Italo-Celtic
* Goidelic substrate hypothesis
* Magdalenian

## References

1. ↑ Trask, R. L. (1997). The History of Basque. p. 9. Citing Bertranpetit and Cavalli-Sforza: "Basques represent descendants of Paleolithic and/or Mesolithic populations and non-Basques later arrivals, beginning with the Neolithic."
2. ↑ Hualde, José Ignacio; Ortiz de Urbina, Jon (2003). A Grammar of Basque. p. 7.
3. ↑ Pallottino (1955). p. 52. "[The Etruscans]...an ethnic island of very ancient peoples isolated by the flood of Indo-European speakers."
4. ↑ Facchetti, Giulio M.; Negri, Mario (2003). Olschki, Leo S.. ed. "Creta Minoica: Sulle tracce delle più antiche scritture d'Europa". Biblioteca dell'Archivum Romanicum. Serie II: Linguistica 55. ISBN 8822252918.
5. ↑ Bonfante, Larissa (1990). Etruscan. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-07118-6.
6. ↑ De Simone, Carlo (2009). "La nuova iscrizione tirsenica di Efestia". Tripodes 11: pp. 3–58.
7. ↑ Steinbauer, Dieter H. (1999). Neues Handbuch des Etruskischen. St. Katharinen: Scripta Mercaturae Verlag.
8. ↑ De Ligt, Luuk (2008–2009). "An 'Eteocretan' Inscription from Praisos and The Homeland of The Sea Peoples". Talanta 40–41: 151–172. http://www.talanta.nl/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/TAL-40-412008-2009-pag-151-172-DeLigt.pdf.
9. ↑ Kitson, P.R. (November 1996). "British and European River Names". Transactions of the Philological Society 94 (2): 73–118. doi:10.1111/j.1467-968X.1996.tb01178.x.
10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Balaresque, Patricia; Bowden, Georgina R.; Adams, Susan M.; Leung, Ho-Yee; King, Turi E.; Rosser, Zoë H.; Goodwin, Jane; Moisan, Jean-Paul et al. (2010). Penny, David. ed. "A Predominantly Neolithic Origin for European Paternal Lineages". PLOS Biology (Public Library of Science) 8 (1): e1000285. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1000285. PMID 20087410.
11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Haak, Wolfgang; Lazaridis, Iosif; Patterson, Nick; Rohland, Nadin; Mallick, Swapan; Llamas, Bastien; Brandt, Guido; Nordenfelt, Susanne et al. (2015). "Massive migration from the steppe is a source for Indo-European languages in Europe". Nature 522 (7555): 207–11. doi:10.1038/NATURE14317. PMID 25731166. PMC 5048219. Bibcode: 2015Natur.522..207H. http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/02/10/013433.
12. ↑ "Y-DNA Haplogroup R and its Subclades". International Society of Genetic Genealogy. http://www.isogg.org/tree/ISOGG_HapgrpR.html.
13. ↑ Arredi, B.; Poloni, E. S.; Tyler-Smith, C. (2007). "The Peopling of Europe". in Crawford, M.. Anthropological Genetics: Theory, Methods and Applications. Cambridge University Press. [page needed]
14. ↑ Myres, Natalie; Rootsi, Siiri; Lin, Alice A; Järve, Mari; King, Roy J.; Kutuev, Ildus; Cabrera, Vicente M; Khusnutdinova, Elza K et al. (2010). "A major Y-chromosome haplogroup R1b Holocene effect in Central and Western Europe". European Journal of Human Genetics 19 (1): 95–101. doi:10.1038/ejhg.2010.146. PMID 20736979.
15. ↑ Sjödin, Per; François, Olivier (2011). Lalueza-Fox, Carles. ed. "Wave-of-Advance Models of the Diffusion of the Y Chromosome Haplogroup R1b1b2 in Europe". PLOS ONE 6 (6:e21592): e21592. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0021592. PMID 21720564. Bibcode: 2011PLoSO...621592S.
16. ↑ McIntosh, Bennett (2019). "Replacement of Iberian Men 4,000 Years Ago Raises Fresh Questions". Harvard Magazine. https://harvardmagazine.com/iberia-men-19.
17. ↑ Allentoft, Morten E.; Sikora, Martin; Sjögren, Karl-Göran; Rasmussen, Simon; Rasmussen, Morten; Stenderup, Jesper; Damgaard, Peter B.; Schroeder, Hannes et al. (2015). "Population genomics of Bronze Age Eurasia". Nature 522 (7555): 167–172. doi:10.1038/nature14507. PMID 26062507. Bibcode: 2015Natur.522..167A. https://depot.ceon.pl/handle/123456789/13155.
18. ↑ Mathieson, Iain; Lazaridis, Iosif; Rohland, Nadin; Mallick, Swapan; Patterson, Nick; Alpaslan Roodenberg, Songul; Harney, Eadaoin; Stewardson, Kristin et al. (2015). "Eight thousand years of natural selection in Europe". bioRxiv: 016477. doi:10.1101/016477. http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/03/13/016477.
19. ↑ González, A. M.; García, O.; Larruga, J. M.; Cabrera, V. M. (2006). "The mitochondrial lineage U8a reveals a Paleolithic settlement in the Basque country". BMC Genomics 7: 124. doi:10.1186/1471-2164-7-124. PMID 16719915.

## Bibliography

* Thompson, T. (2006). Ireland's Pre-Celtic Archaeological and Anthropological Heritage. Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press.
* Waddell, J. (1991). "The Celticization of the West: an Irish Perspective". in Chevillot, C.; Coffyn, A.. L'Age du Bronze Atlantique: Actes du 1er Colloque de Beynac. Beynac. pp. 349–366.
* Waddell, J. (1991). "The Question of the Celticization of Ireland". Emania 9: 5–16.
* Waddell, J. (April 1995). "Celts, Celticisation and the Irish Bronze Age". in Waddell, J.; Shee Twohig, E.. Ireland in the Bronze Age: Proceedings of the Dublin Conference. pp. 158–169.

* v
* t
* e

Language families of Eurasia

Europe|

* Indo-European
* Uralic
* Basque
* Iberian
* Tartessian
* Paleo-Corsican
* Paleo-Sardinian
* Camunic
* Elymian
* Ligurian
* North Picene
* Sicani
* Tyrsenian
* Eteocretan
* Eteocypriot
* Minoan

West Asia|

* Afroasiatic
* Hurro-Urartian
* Hattic
* Kassite ?
* Kaskian ?
* Philistine ?
* Sumerian
* Proto-Euphratean ?
* Elamite

Caucasian|

* Kartvelian
* Northeast Caucasian
* Northwest Caucasian

South Asia|

* Indo-European
* Dravidian
* Nihali
* Burushaski
* Kusunda
* Harappan ?

East Asia|

* Austroasiatic
* Sino-Tibetan
* Hmong–Mien
* Kra–Dai
* Austronesian
* Japonic

Indian Ocean rim|

* Great Andamanese
* Ongan
* Kenaboi
* Enggano

North Asia|

| Altaic ?|

* Turkic
* Mongolic
* Tungusic
* Koreanic ?
* Japonic ?

|

"Paleosiberian"|

* Koreanic
* Ainu
* Nivkh
* Chukotko-Kamchatkan
* Yukaghir
* Yeniseian

Other North Asia|

* Uralic
* Ruanruan ?
* Eskimo–Aleut

Proposed groupings|

* Alarodian
* Altaic
* Borean
* Nostratic
* Dené–Caucasian
* Eurasiatic
* Dené–Yeniseian
* Dravido-Korean
* Elamo-Dravidian
* Ibero-Caucasian
* Indo-Hittite
* Indo-Pacific
* Indo-Semitic
* Indo-Uralic
* Pontic
* Karasuk
* Turanian
* Eskimo–Uralic
* Ural–Altaic
* Uralic–Yukaghir
* Uralo-Siberian

| Arunachal|

* Greater Siangic
* Siangic
* Digaro
* Miju
* Hrusish
* Kho-Bwa

|

Southeast Asia|

* Andamanese
* Austric
* Austro-Tai
* Austronesian–Ongan
* East Asian
* Sino-Austronesian

Substrata|

* Atlantic
* Pre-Celtic
* Pre-Germanic
* Pre-Goidelic
* Pre-Greek
* Vasconic
* Pre-Vedic
* Pre-Finno-Ugric

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