Re: Tarrendeusant | Forum — The Modern Antiquarian

Tarren Deusant 2

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Tarrendeusant

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arawn9 Jul 30, 2005 16:01:53

Replying to PeterH

I'm aware of the possible dubiousness of using the term 'Celts' before the 18th C. However, it is a modern label that has stuck as a description of the indiginous Britons, and British Celts is less of a mouthful than 'Iron Age Romano British'. It is feasible that the Britons were a Celtic influenced culture, despite modern, personal, theorising. It's accepted that there was no such thing as a Celtic 'race', (other than the links through the pan-European Haplogroup Rb1), with the Celts being more of a common culture than a common blood. The transmigration of Celtic language and religion into Britain is evidence that this culture spread and survived here. Therefore it's not at all wrong to use the term 'British Celts', though there is a degree of deceptiveness involved in using that term. I will continue to use the term.

No 'hard evidence of invasion' does not mean no Celts in Britain. English speaking countries of today speak English because the English actually went and lived there through war or banishment in the past. That obviously doesn't make English speaking Navarro Indians of English descent, but it suggests cultural contact. Is Dr Simon James saying there were never ANY Celts in Britain? Where is the hard evidence for that? Balancing his personal theory with the many others that exist, the balance of probability is that there was a strong Celtic influence in Ancient Britain, even if it wasn't overwhelmed with a race of people called Celts.

PeterH Jul 30, 2005 16:55:08

Replying to arawn9

I think that it really depends on how you define the term "Celt". Narrowly as applied to a fairly local group of people - the Keltoi or as a generic name for Iron Age Europeans - Gauls and Gallitians being names derived from Keltoi? The key thing is that genetic mapping is now showing that 80% of us are descended from the first people to move into Britain after the ice retreated.
Clearly there are common linguistic roots that Britons share with other Europeans. Genetics seems to be indicating that there has been considerable continuity of population since the retreat of the ice with no mass folk migrations. There will have been trade and social intercourse with the mainland and tribal names such as the Parisii of Yorkshire and the Belgae of the south coast indicate some immigration of main land Gauls.
Ditto the famous square barrows of Yorkshire so if there were Celts anywhere in Britain, they were in the east not in the west.
The whole Celtic west phenomenon is what brings me out in a rash and I am reminded of Tolkien' famous line "Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight, which is not so much a twilight of the Gods as a twilight of the reason". Archaeologists always seem to energetically debunk the theories of the previous generation and the migration theories have been under attack since the 1960s. Simon James and Frances Pryor have really attacked the notion of Celtic migration into Britain and other "archaeologists could be said to be suffering from Celtic denial" as Barry Cunliffe has said in defence of his much attacked position. I am currentlr reading and will shortly publish a review of David Miles' "The Tribes of Britain". I do recommend it as it gives what I consider to be a very balanced view of British population movement and continuity from the "Red Lady of Paviland" to the present.