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National Geographic and Celts
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gorseddphungus
185 posts

Re: Comparative archaeology
Mar 12, 2006, 09:29
The report you are referring to is the genetic studies done which showed how the Irish and the Welsh had common genetic links with the Basques. If we accept this study (that I think was based on the mother's side of genetics, and that is why some dispute the results), it would mean that those regions got a fairly minimum amount of IE migrants therefore retaining at least a mesolithic stock.

However, most of southern england, cumbria, etc also have genetic similarities with those people. the 'Celticness' of many in southern England was found to be the same as the Scots for instance. Again, many disputed the way the studies were made, following only the mother's line of the equation.

Then again, all Europeans HAD a 'basque' (ie Paleolithic) origin, it's just that the mountain pastoralists in the western Pyrenees and quite possibly all throughout mountainous Northern Spain kept their populations apart from other Indoeuropean migrations longer than anyone else.

Needless to say, the Indoeuropeans also had a Paleolithic origin, just that they stayed in Eastern Europe until the Bronze Ages before they moved across westwards, reaching almost everywhere.

To complicate things further, the isolated Galicians in the world's Lands End received the largest input of IE/Keltic elements, still visible today. And even the people round the Basques, are more IEized and far less Iberian (these also being pre-IE populations) than the rest.

hope it wasn't too jumbled up and confusing
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