Beakers and P312 - is a model emerging?

[stoneman]

I have one 12 marker match in Estonia out of the 75 men tested. He has to be R1b but which subclade I dont know.

[Mikewww]

I am sure there were many carriers of PIE. The Meditteranean Cardial Ware route, The Danube and Great Rivers route, The Steppes Route maybe even a North African route.

At the point PIE started dispersing, the diverging dialects started becoming derived IE languages. Yes, there were many directions that IE headed.

At this point I don't see how the Cardial Wares fits though. It was too early to have some of the PIE base words and doesn't fit the Mediterranean cultural practices at the time. I'm not saying it is impossible, it just seems highly unlikely to myself based on logic I've learned from David Anthony's writings and others he refers to.

 My interest is the Celtic route and the route of Proto Celtic and Pre Proto Celtic going back to IE and PIE. I believe that once L51 secured the strategic river sources of the Rhine, Rhone , Danube, Loire as indicated on Rich Rocca's map, then greater dispersal was possible includiing for U106, P312 and downstream clades. It took maximum six months, probably less (not hundreds or thousands of years) to get from the source of these rivers or the estuaries.  I believe P312 and L21 was an Atlantic Facade Bronze Age movement, as supported by Cunliffe and Koch. Morbihan was also a strategic hub on the Atlantic Facade and this opened up the continent for what became the Iron Age Celts of Halstatt (U152). I dont believe in the "Lemmings" model where the Celts migrated from SE to NW Europe and walked over the cliffs at Dun Aengus. I believe there were many "reflux" models and backward migrations.

That's definitely a serious alternative to consider. I take it you think U106 (or pre-U106 L11* got from the upper/middle Rhine back over to north and east via rivers and the Baltic. Do I understand you right?

Oh, BTW, I've not following what you mean by "walking over the cliffs" in a SE to NW Europe model?  In other words, I'm not sure how a SE to NW expansion requires it. I wouldn't necessarily think Celts originated in far SE Europe (i.e. the Balkans) anyway but I think I'm missing something of what you are saying.

I am in the biggest beer garden in  Munich, Germany at the moment so it's probably not the best place to research this. I will reply in greater detail tomorrow.

Very good! Coincidentally, our family is going to the local Bavarian Grill tonight.

[IALEM]

The link between Impressed ware-PIE, besides lexical problems, has to deal with the fact that the Mediterranean coast of Spain was populated in historical times by the Non-IE Iberians, while the celts were in Western Iberia, so an additional migration of Non-IE people that pushed Celts to the West should be added to the explanation.
The whole linguistic base for an early Celtic settlement in SW Iberia lies on very weak fundamentals, the fantasmagorical "Lusitanian" language and the hypothesis that Tratessian is a celtic language, both lost causes.

[Heber]

I am sure there were many carriers of PIE. The Meditteranean Cardial Ware route, The Danube and Great Rivers route, The Steppes Route maybe even a North African route.

At the point PIE started dispersing, the diverging dialects started becoming derived IE languages. Yes, there were many directions that IE headed.

At this point I don't see how the Cardial Wares fits though. It was too early to have some of the PIE base words and doesn't fit the Mediterranean cultural practices at the time. I'm not saying it is impossible, it just seems highly unlikely to myself based on logic I've learned from David Anthony's writings and others he refers to.

 My interest is the Celtic route and the route of Proto Celtic and Pre Proto Celtic going back to IE and PIE. I believe that once L51 secured the strategic river sources of the Rhine, Rhone , Danube, Loire as indicated on Rich Rocca's map, then greater dispersal was possible includiing for U106, P312 and downstream clades. It took maximum six months, probably less (not hundreds or thousands of years) to get from the source of these rivers or the estuaries.  I believe P312 and L21 was an Atlantic Facade Bronze Age movement, as supported by Cunliffe and Koch. Morbihan was also a strategic hub on the Atlantic Facade and this opened up the continent for what became the Iron Age Celts of Halstatt (U152). I dont believe in the "Lemmings" model where the Celts migrated from SE to NW Europe and walked over the cliffs at Dun Aengus. I believe there were many "reflux" models and backward migrations.

That's definitely a serious alternative to consider. I take it you think U106 (or pre-U106 L11* got from the upper/middle Rhine back over to north and east via rivers and the Baltic. Do I understand you right?

Oh, BTW, I've not following what you mean by "walking over the cliffs" in a SE to NW Europe model?  In other words, I'm not sure how a SE to NW expansion requires it. I wouldn't necessarily think Celts originated in far SE Europe (i.e. the Balkans) anyway but I think I'm missing something of what you are saying.

I am in the biggest beer garden in  Munich, Germany at the moment so it's probably not the best place to research this. I will reply in greater detail tomorrow.

Very good! Coincidentally, our family is going to the local Bavarian Grill tonight.

Mike,

Both Renfrew model linking PIE to Anatolian Neolithic farmer migrations via Cardial Ware cultures and last weeks Tyler-Smith et Al paper on the extreme Neolithic R1b expansion circa 5 - 10 KBP and last weeks Patterson et Al paper of a Bell Beaker expansion out of Iberia circa 4K BP and the recent Bouckaert et Al paper of a PIE expansion out of Anatolia circa 5K BP all support this model.

Regarding the control of the river sources by L51, yes I believe, once they established this control they could go anywhere, and back again (reflux model) in Europe quickly by river or sea. I dont believe this was a horse led migration. I don't know about U106 because it is not my specific area of interest, but yes it could have gone all the way to the Baltic via the Rhine quickly.

Regarding "walking over the cliffs", if you listen to a lot of arguments on these boards you would believe there were never any backward migrations. That is nonsense. Our curious and proud ancestors were not "Lemmings".

http://dienekes.blogspot.de/2012/08/proto-indo-european-homeland-in.html

1.2 Renfrew's Model: the IE Neolithic Dispersal

"In a book titled Archaeology and Linguistics. The IE puzzle, published in 1987, the archaeologist Lord Colin Renfrew did not limit himself to collect the archaeological evidence now available to deliver the last fatal blow to the traditional theory, but presented a new theory of IE origins, called by its author the IE Neolithic Dispersal, which is based on the observation that the only moment in European prehistory which might coincide with a gigantic change such as the presumed indo-europeanization of Europe is the beginning of farming in the 7th millennium B.C.
Moreover, since farming originated in the Middle East, and archaeology does detect in southern Europe a modest migratory contribution from that direction, associated with the introduction of farming, Renfrew has concluded that these early farmers were the Proto-Indo-Europeans, responsible for the introduction of IE in southern and central Europe, and that the subsequent IE dispersal started from these two areas, along with the dispersal of farming techniques. And since an intrusive contribution is especially evident in the two earliest Neolithic cultures of southern Europe, both dated to the 7th millennium, namely the Balkan complex and the Impresso/Cardial Ware in Western and Central Mediterranean, and to a lesser extent in the Linienbandkeramik (LBK) culture in Germany and Eastern Europe, dated to the 5th millennium, these cultures would represent the first introduction of IE into Europe."

http://www.continuitas.org/intro.html

[Jean M]

The whole linguistic base for an early Celtic settlement in SW Iberia lies on very weak fundamentals, the fantasmagorical "Lusitanian" language and the hypothesis that Tartessian is a celtic language, both lost causes.

Linguists do not agree. Lusitanian looks Italo-Celtic (according to Wodtko 2010. Lusitanian retains the initial p which is dropped in Celtic.) Koch 2010 has lumped together all inscriptions in the SW script, which I suspect is a mistake. Zeidler 2011 points out inconsistencies, such as a strange combination of archaic and unexpectedly young traits. The early ones may indeed be Tartessian. There is no reason why not, on the evidence of the Celtic name of the recorded king of Tartessos. But later ones around the Guadiana are more likely to be the Gaulish-influenced Celtic resulting from Gauls settling there, as reported by Strabo.  

Not that this has anything whatsoever to do with Impressed Ware! Trying to link any IE language to Impressed Ware really is a lost cause.

[razyn]

I haven't read the Zeidler 2011, but Koch 2010 is talking about inscriptions that date from about 800 BC and since.  The oldest ones, Tartessian as may be, are about 5,000 years younger than the 7th millennium BC population movement mentioned in the Cunliffe quote (from the same book) in Heber's post.  And the putative Lusitanian stuff (five inscriptions) in the same book (paper by Wodtko) is either undatable (context lost), or dated between 100 BC and 100 AD.

So Ialem's characterization is a little over the top, linguistic study of the ancient SW Iberian inscriptions isn't a "lost" cause; but it's apparently a different cause.  I don't think there's much doubt that Celtic languages were spoken in the Tagus Valley, long before Italic was.  Is that somehow controversial?  I'm also not saying the first Bell Beakers were Celts, that's somebody else's hobby horse to ride; but Celts settled in and ruled the area in which (per the current mainstream view, anyway) the oldest Bell Beaker pottery has been found.

[alan trowel hands.]

Estonia_______ AvgVar=0.352 __N=10
Poland________ AvgVar=0.278 __N=9
Slovakia______ AvgVar=0.249 __N=11
Ireland_______ AvgVar=0.243 __N=6
Switzerland___ AvgVar=0.228 __N=19
Italy_________ AvgVar=0.226 __N=10
Germany_______ AvgVar=0.203 __N=66
France________ AvgVar=0.200 __N=6
England_______ AvgVar=0.179 __N=26
Netherlands___ AvgVar=0.177 __N=30
Denmark_______ AvgVar=0.161 __N=20 [/font]

Its pretty emphatic that U106 is much older in the NE of Europe than in Germany/Holland/Demark/England.  It seems an open shut case.  If we assume U106 in the NE is around 4-5000 years old then that would fit a pattern of it being holed up there and only arriving extending into the west in the Iron Age.  

However, ther above table record the journey west of U106.  It doesnt record the journey that took it to Estonia and Poland in the first place.  The only conclusion I can see is there is no such trail because the U106 SNP didnt exist when the lineage moved there.  It was still an L11* line when it arrived there and the U106 SNP occurred in-situ in the NE of Europe.  If I recall correctly there is a small L11* concentration along the Baltic is roughly the same sort of area where U106 SNP most likely occurred.

[alan trowel hands.]

I am sure there were many carriers of PIE. The Meditteranean Cardial Ware route, The Danube and Great Rivers route, The Steppes Route maybe even a North African route.

At the point PIE started dispersing, the diverging dialects started becoming derived IE languages. Yes, there were many directions that IE headed.

At this point I don't see how the Cardial Wares fits though. It was too early to have some of the PIE base words and doesn't fit the Mediterranean cultural practices at the time. I'm not saying it is impossible, it just seems highly unlikely to myself based on logic I've learned from David Anthony's writings and others he refers to.

 My interest is the Celtic route and the route of Proto Celtic and Pre Proto Celtic going back to IE and PIE. I believe that once L51 secured the strategic river sources of the Rhine, Rhone , Danube, Loire as indicated on Rich Rocca's map, then greater dispersal was possible includiing for U106, P312 and downstream clades. It took maximum six months, probably less (not hundreds or thousands of years) to get from the source of these rivers or the estuaries.  I believe P312 and L21 was an Atlantic Facade Bronze Age movement, as supported by Cunliffe and Koch. Morbihan was also a strategic hub on the Atlantic Facade and this opened up the continent for what became the Iron Age Celts of Halstatt (U152). I dont believe in the "Lemmings" model where the Celts migrated from SE to NW Europe and walked over the cliffs at Dun Aengus. I believe there were many "reflux" models and backward migrations.

That's definitely a serious alternative to consider. I take it you think U106 (or pre-U106 L11* got from the upper/middle Rhine back over to north and east via rivers and the Baltic. Do I understand you right?

Oh, BTW, I've not following what you mean by "walking over the cliffs" in a SE to NW Europe model?  In other words, I'm not sure how a SE to NW expansion requires it. I wouldn't necessarily think Celts originated in far SE Europe (i.e. the Balkans) anyway but I think I'm missing something of what you are saying.

I am in the biggest beer garden in  Munich, Germany at the moment so it's probably not the best place to research this. I will reply in greater detail tomorrow.

Very good! Coincidentally, our family is going to the local Bavarian Grill tonight.

Mike,

Both Renfrew model linking PIE to Anatolian Neolithic farmer migrations via Cardial Ware cultures and last weeks Tyler-Smith et Al paper on the extreme Neolithic R1b expansion circa 5 - 10 KBP and last weeks Patterson et Al paper of a Bell Beaker expansion out of Iberia circa 4K BP and the recent Bouckaert et Al paper of a PIE expansion out of Anatolia circa 5K BP all support this model.

Regarding the control of the river sources by L51, yes I believe, once they established this control they could go anywhere, and back again (reflux model) in Europe quickly by river or sea. I dont believe this was a horse led migration. I don't know about U106 because it is not my specific area of interest, but yes it could have gone all the way to the Baltic via the Rhine quickly.

Regarding "walking over the cliffs", if you listen to a lot of arguments on these boards you would believe there were never any backward migrations. That is nonsense. Our curious and proud ancestors were not "Lemmings".

http://dienekes.blogspot.de/2012/08/proto-indo-european-homeland-in.html

1.2 Renfrew's Model: the IE Neolithic Dispersal

"In a book titled Archaeology and Linguistics. The IE puzzle, published in 1987, the archaeologist Lord Colin Renfrew did not limit himself to collect the archaeological evidence now available to deliver the last fatal blow to the traditional theory, but presented a new theory of IE origins, called by its author the IE Neolithic Dispersal, which is based on the observation that the only moment in European prehistory which might coincide with a gigantic change such as the presumed indo-europeanization of Europe is the beginning of farming in the 7th millennium B.C.
Moreover, since farming originated in the Middle East, and archaeology does detect in southern Europe a modest migratory contribution from that direction, associated with the introduction of farming, Renfrew has concluded that these early farmers were the Proto-Indo-Europeans, responsible for the introduction of IE in southern and central Europe, and that the subsequent IE dispersal started from these two areas, along with the dispersal of farming techniques. And since an intrusive contribution is especially evident in the two earliest Neolithic cultures of southern Europe, both dated to the 7th millennium, namely the Balkan complex and the Impresso/Cardial Ware in Western and Central Mediterranean, and to a lesser extent in the Linienbandkeramik (LBK) culture in Germany and Eastern Europe, dated to the 5th millennium, these cultures would represent the first introduction of IE into Europe."

http://www.continuitas.org/intro.html

I think that while the idea that LBK was IE has a lot of problems, the notion of Cardial being IE is practically impossible.  Its most likely exit point from Asia was the Levant in boats to the Adriatic. 

However I do like your point that L51* may have been an exploratory phase that secured (IMO by local consent rather than warfare) nodal positions for international metal trading etc.  That could have been very early beaker or immediate pre-beaker period.  It does correspond to what we know of the beaker network c. 2600BC prior to the expansion into northern Europe.  The Ulster border outlier seems odd and personally I think it is more likely to have been a remant lineage that travelled later with P312.  What are the surnames of these Ulster border L51*people?

[Jean M]

I don't think there's much doubt that Celtic languages were spoken in the Tagus Valley, long before Italic was.  Is that somehow controversial?

It is controversial for those (like IALEM) who think that no Indo-European language entered Iberia before the Iron Age movements of the Celts in the last few centuries before the Roman takeover. Tartessian is significant, despite its late date compared with Bell Beaker, because we have evidence of Tartessos (and the language spoken there) prior to the La Tene movements.

This is a complex story. Took me a while to piece it together. As far as I can  make out the sequence is:

1. Stelae People arrive c. 3000 BC, bringing copper-working and probably Proto-Celto-Italic. They start making Bell Beaker a few centuries later. They settle around the Tagus and other places in the peninsula marked with stelae and/or early BB types like Maritime. These are dotted about quite widely. Lusitanian appears to be the descendant of their language.  
2.  Meanwhile other Copper Age people arrive probably near the Pyrenees who are speaking a non-IE language and do not make stealae (ancestors of the Basques). We don't know if the other non-IE language that survived long enough to be written down (Iberian) dates back to the Neolithic or also arrived at this time.
3. After the power switch within BB c. 2425 BC, BB people arrived in central to NE Iberia from what is now France, bringing with them Proto-Celtic, as developed north of the Alps. The descendant of this language appears to be Celtiberian, the most archaic form of Celtic.
4. Phoenicians turn up 8th century BC and start trading with Tartessos. They bring a script, so Tartessian gets written down. It is archaic Celtic.
5. By the time of Herodotus (d. c. 425 BC) Iron Age Gauls had entered Iberia. We know from the complaints of literate cultures (Greek, Roman, etc) that there were La Tène migrations elsewhere between 400 and 200 BC. Strabo refers to Celts in Iberia - in Galicia and around the river Guadiana. These would have brought the P-Celtic by then spoken in Gaul. Kock 2010 refers to signs of this P-Celtic in Tartessian, which is one of the problems with his analysis. The P-Celtic forms presumably date from the La Tène arrivals.

[IALEM]

The whole linguistic base for an early Celtic settlement in SW Iberia lies on very weak fundamentals, the fantasmagorical "Lusitanian" language and the hypothesis that Tartessian is a celtic language, both lost causes.

Linguists do not agree. Lusitanian looks Italo-Celtic (according to Wodtko 2010. Lusitanian retains the initial p which is dropped in Celtic.) Koch 2010 has lumped together all inscriptions in the SW script, which I suspect is a mistake. Zeidler 2011 points out inconsistencies, such as a strange combination of archaic and unexpectedly young traits. The early ones may indeed be Tartessian. There is no reason why not, on the evidence of the Celtic name of the recorded king of Tartessos. But later ones around the Guadiana are more likely to be the Gaulish-influenced Celtic resulting from Gauls settling there, as reported by Strabo.  

Not that this has anything whatsoever to do with Impressed Ware! Trying to link any IE language to Impressed Ware really is a lost cause.

You mean some linguists don´t agree, as you know José Antonio Correa, who was the first proponent of the Celtic character of Tartessian already has changed his mind. If Koch ever produce meaningful translation of Tartessian texts I would be prepared to change my mind, but in the meantime we have just celtic anthroponims and some tentative reconstructions. If Tartessian was a celtic language it would have been translated easily long ago.
As for Lusitanian, it is a case of linguists avid for some novelty and completely ignorant of Roman  Imperial epigraphy.

[IALEM]

I don't think there's much doubt that Celtic languages were spoken in the Tagus Valley, long before Italic was.  Is that somehow controversial?

It is controversial for those (like IALEM) who think that no Indo-European language entered Iberia before the Iron Age movements of the Celts in the last few centuries before the Roman takeover. Tartessian is significant, despite its late date compared with Bell Beaker, because we have evidence of Tartessos (and the language spoken there) prior to the La Tene movements.

This is a complex story. Took me a while to piece it together. As far as I can  make out the sequence is:

1. Stelae People arrive c. 3000 BC, bringing copper-working and probably Proto-Celto-Italic. They start making Bell Beaker a few centuries later. They settle around the Tagus and other places in the peninsula marked with stelae and/or early BB types like Maritime. These are dotted about quite widely. Lusitanian appears to be the descendant of their language.  
2.  Meanwhile other Copper Age people arrive probably near the Pyrenees who are speaking a non-IE language and do not make stealae (ancestors of the Basques). We don't know if the other non-IE language that survived long enough to be written down (Iberian) dates back to the Neolithic or also arrived at this time.
3. After the power switch within BB c. 2425 BC, BB people arrived in central to NE Iberia from what is now France, bringing with them Proto-Celtic, as developed north of the Alps. The descendant of this language appears to be Celtiberian, the most archaic form of Celtic.
4. Phoenicians turn up 8th century BC and start trading with Tartessos. They bring a script, so Tartessian gets written down. It is archaic Celtic.
5. By the time of Herodotus (d. c. 425 BC) Iron Age Gauls had entered Iberia. We know from the complaints of literate cultures (Greek, Roman, etc) that there were La Tène migrations elsewhere between 400 and 200 BC. Strabo refers to Celts in Iberia - in Galicia and around the river Guadiana. These would have brought the P-Celtic by then spoken in Gaul. Kock 2010 refers to signs of this P-Celtic in Tartessian, which is one of the problems with his analysis. The P-Celtic forms presumably date from the La Tène arrivals.

It is not controversial, it is simply not attested at all.

[Jean M]

As for Lusitanian, it is a case of linguists avid for some novelty and completely ignorant of Roman  Imperial epigraphy.

I wouldn't count Wodtko among the ignorant. I recall you pointing out the problem of inscriptions dating from Roman times and agree entirely that care is needed with such. Let's get this straight. Are you saying that the five Lusitanian inscriptions are in fact in Latin? That does not appear to be the case, apart from the Latin introduction of the scribes on L.1.1 and L.2.1.

[Jean M]

It is not controversial, it is simply not attested at all.

What you mean is that Bell Beaker people did not write things down, right? We know that. Deductions about the language they spoke therefore have be based on correlation with the testified distribution of Celtic and Italic languages from the earliest periods when we do get written evidence, including Roman records of the names of tribes and their leaders. Once upon a time archaeologists thought that this distribution could be accounted for by Iron Age La Tene movements. But both in Ireland and Iberia there is

1) insufficient evidence of La Tene arrivals. There is some La Tene material, but patchy.
2) the type(s) of Celtic spoken once we do get linguistic evidence look too archaic for La Tene, or in Iberia a complex patchwork, such as might result from waves of arrivals.  

[Mikewww]

Regarding the control of the river sources by L51, yes I believe, once they established this control they could go anywhere, and back again (reflux model) in Europe quickly by river or sea. I dont believe this was a horse led migration. I don't know about U106 because it is not my specific area of interest, but yes it could have gone all the way to the Baltic via the Rhine quickly. ...

... However I do like your point that L51* may have been an exploratory phase that secured (IMO by local consent rather than warfare) nodal positions for international metal trading etc.  That could have been very early beaker or immediate pre-beaker period.  It does correspond to what we know of the beaker network c. 2600BC prior to the expansion into northern Europe.  The Ulster border outlier seems odd and personally I think it is more likely to have been a remant lineage that travelled later with P312.  What are the surnames of these Ulster border L51*people?

As I indicated in a prior post, an R1b (specifically L11) expansion could have expanded out of the the E/SE France / N/NW Alpine area. There is no doubt this is some kind of hotspot with its mix of P312 subclades and apparently the presence of L51* as well. Something big was happening there, for sure.

However, I still think the key is understand the L11 MRCA for P312 and U106. This one L11+ P312- U106- person is responsible for a very high percentage of R1b in Western and Central Europe... NOT L51* per se as a group. In that sense their frequency matters little (because only one L51* person produced L11) other than it indicates greater R1b diversity (cousins and brothers) where it shows up. I'm not saying L51* is not important. It is, but the key is the L11 MRCA. At some point moving east L23xL11 takes over from L11 but not in Central and Western Europe.

So is the real smoking gun may be ancient (not the modern remnant) L11*?  The TMRCA for all of L11 was not much different than for U106 or P312 so maybe the L11 TMRCA was the clan progenitor of the early and rapid expansion of L11. The pre-U106 L11* lineage and the pre-P312 L11* lineage split and moved quickly under the "U106 in a north of Carpathians" scenario.

I acknowledge, particularly given the way the way some Beaker folks moved over the seas, that an L11* lineage could have passed west to east through the Strait of Skagerrak into the Baltic and to Polish and Estonian coasts. There clearly is more P312* (maybe DF27) and even more L21 than many suspect on the southern tip of the Scandinavian Peninsula. I don't think that an L11* lineage moving east by sea was the most likely way U106 made it to NE Europe, but it is a real possibility to go with from the south/Austria/Hungary type move or from the east/southeast via something like Globular Amphora.

Is it possible that Beakers produced Italo-Celtic IE dialects and pre-Germanic? It seems like this split betwee pre-Italo-Celtic and pre-Germanic was supposed to be very old so I don't know if the Beakers really fit.

I also acknowledge that some of the diverse forms of L11 in Eastern Europe are back migrations related to religious and other historic migrations out of the Rhine Valley area. I'm not a student of this but some view this is how some Ashkenazi Jews reached Eastern Europe. We know that some historical period Germanic expansions reached as far as Romania as well. There is a counter-concern, though, for proposing that all L11 diversity in Eastern Europe relates to back migrations from the general Rhine area. That concern is that diversity should still be higher back in the Rhine area.  I don't really see that but maybe the data is just too limiting.

[Mikewww]

Regarding "walking over the cliffs", if you listen to a lot of arguments on these boards you would believe there were never any backward migrations. That is nonsense. Our curious and proud ancestors were not "Lemmings".

I agree with you in that there could have been and certainly were west to east migrations in prehistoric times as well as historic times. The Beaker folks themselves were all over the place almost seemingly all at once so it is hard to tell with them. We have Celtic movements into and against Greece and all the way into Anatolia to form the Galicians. I'm sure there are more. I don't how large a remnant population they left, though. Most of the R1b from Anatolia seem to be of the R-L23xL11 variety.

Heber, please consider our Celtic ancestors were not likely all good or all bad, like-wise not all strong or all weak. As a caveat keep in mind that I have been called both anti-Irish and anti-Welsh although my paternal lineage is most likely Welsh-Irish. As an equal opportunity guy, I also have some of the English academics from dna-forums who don't like me as well, although I have English blood on the maternal side.

So please consider that our pride might be in our adaptability, ingenuity and perseverance. This is what I consider the true Irish way, not ancient warrior capabilities, although that may be part of the legacy too. Two parts of my Irish ancestry were literally pushed over the cliff by a potato famine, but instead of being lemmings they found a way to get on the ship to America. Another Gaelic lineage was squeezed between English taxes, Anglicans and Catholics. They too found away across the Atlantic. Another lineage was pushed out of Germany by a Protestant-Catholic deal, another from Prague after a failed rebellion. Now, back to Welsh-Irish side, we at one time controlled a great deal of land before Cromwell turned us into a graveyard or paupers. Should I hate Cromwell? I may be related to him, but on the other side of things my Welsh-Norman lineage was not at all kind to the Gaels they took land from centuries before.

Successful warriors or moral missionaries? escaped convicts? That's all history, but they were successful in adapting and ingenious in surviving and thriving. I just want to know the facts as best as I can, good and bad. There is no need to worry about who were the warriors, farmers, etc. What is is what is.

[alan trowel hands.]

Mike - You are tight that Mr L11 was the extraordinary person who somehow created a dynasty that was to have an incredible impact on yDNA in western Europe.  However, even though I am a believer that beakers spread in small numbers and by local consent, I would still feel that Mr L11* must have moved about with L51* for company at first so a L51* trail of cousins of Mr L11* does seem important to me as it may be a remanant of those days.  The location of L11* is a fascinating topic. I would tend to think it has to come from the areas where the L51* cousins are found.  I would say the Alps somewhere if I had to guess. 

[Heber]

Figure 4.21 of Cunliffes Britain Begins shows "By the end of the sixth millennium BC, Neolithic lifestyles (the Danubian Neolithic and the Cardial Ware Neolithic) were reaching north-western France. The discovery of domesticated animals in Mesolithic contexts in Ireland suggests the existence of Maritime routes between the Atlantic coast of France in the century before the Neolithic lifestyle spread to Britain and Ireland."
The map shows exchange networks between Cardial Ware settlements in the Garonne estuary and definite sites in Ireland, Dalky c. 3,900 - 3,800 BC, Kilgreany c. 4,000 BC, Ferristers Cove c. 4,350 BC, Sutton c. 5,500 BC.

http://books.google.de/books?id=IRMkbBd7XOoC&pg=PA130&lpg=PA130&dq=Ferristers+Cove&source=bl&ots=bh_ls4mqYV&sig=0nJPYP--CiRaTICUGROufbdNFgA&hl=en&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Ferristers%20Cove&f=false

[Heber]

Mike - You are tight that Mr L11 was the extraordinary person who somehow created a dynasty that was to have an incredible impact on yDNA in western Europe.  However, even though I am a believer that beakers spread in small numbers and by local consent, I would still feel that Mr L11* must have moved about with L51* for company at first so a L51* trail of cousins of Mr L11* does seem important to me as it may be a remanant of those days.  The location of L11* is a fascinating topic. I would tend to think it has to come from the areas where the L51* cousins are found.  I would say the Alps somewhere if I had to guess.  

L11 and L11* would appear to to have its highest frequency and diversity in the Isles.

https://m.box.com/view_shared/hxp8ie25yv

http://www.4shared.com/photo/jqJQfXYk/R-L23_and_R-L11_Frequency_Maps.html

http://www.4shared.com/photo/TAm6ukWE/r-l11_brothers_and_cousins_map.html

[Mkk]

Mike - You are tight that Mr L11 was the extraordinary person who somehow created a dynasty that was to have an incredible impact on yDNA in western Europe.  However, even though I am a believer that beakers spread in small numbers and by local consent, I would still feel that Mr L11* must have moved about with L51* for company at first so a L51* trail of cousins of Mr L11* does seem important to me as it may be a remanant of those days.  The location of L11* is a fascinating topic. I would tend to think it has to come from the areas where the L51* cousins are found.  I would say the Alps somewhere if I had to guess.  

L11 and L11* would appear to to have its highest frequency and diversity in the Isles.

https://m.box.com/view_shared/hxp8ie25yv

http://www.4shared.com/photo/jqJQfXYk/R-L23_and_R-L11_Frequency_Maps.html

http://www.4shared.com/photo/TAm6ukWE/r-l11_brothers_and_cousins_map.html

First of, are we sure we're not looking at a little brother SNP to p312 and U106?

The highet frequency was in central England, 0.12 out of a sample of 25. That means they found 3 or so people.

[IALEM]

As for Lusitanian, it is a case of linguists avid for some novelty and completely ignorant of Roman  Imperial epigraphy.

I wouldn't count Wodtko among the ignorant. I recall you pointing out the problem of inscriptions dating from Roman times and agree entirely that care is needed with such. Let's get this straight. Are you saying that the five Lusitanian inscriptions are in fact in Latin? That does not appear to be the case, apart from the Latin introduction of the scribes on L.1.1 and L.2.1.

They are indeed latin, and the older ones in Arroyo de la Luz and Lamas de Moledo were already identified as low latin by Emil  Hübner.
Epigraphists are used to find many inscriptions written in a poor Latin, especially in lowly romanized provinces like Lusitania, so that they tend to identify failures in case concordance or words written oddly as simply Low Latin. This was the explanation for the earliest “Lusitanian” inscriptions, and alsocan be used for the Cabeço das Fraguas inscription. Thus BÚA CARBALLO, C. (1999): “Hipótesis para algunas inscripciones rupestres del Occidente peninsular”, en Villar y Beltrán 1999: 309-327. identified two of the “Lusitanian” words as locative adjectives, while A. Pena Graña, Treba y Territorium, Génesis y desarrollo del mobiliario arqueológico institucional de la Gallaecia, Compostela 2004, translated two other words as badly written latin, leaving only some words that by themselves, out of a “Lusitanian” context, can be also easily translated as faulty Latin, like oilam=ouiam, porcom=porcum, taurom=taurum, indi=inde.

Linguists have many different, contradictory, theories. Epigraphists can translate the inscriptions as Low Latin, and additionally, based on epigraphic typology, the earliest inscriptions are dated well into the 2nd Century AD, while Pena Graña dated the Lama Mondoñedo inscription already in the Late Empire.

What can be safely said about the subject?
That previously to the Roman conquest, a Celtic language was spoken indeed in Lusitania (that is supported by plenty of Anthroponims, Theonims and Toponims found in Latin Inscriptions from Lusitania). That Lusitanian language was related to Celtiberian, with small differences in some Toponims and the exclusive use of some Theonims. But the inscriptions don´t show any other language but Latin.

[IALEM]

It is not controversial, it is simply not attested at all.

What you mean is that Bell Beaker people did not write things down, right? We know that. Deductions about the language they spoke therefore have be based on correlation with the testified distribution of Celtic and Italic languages from the earliest periods when we do get written evidence, including Roman records of the names of tribes and their leaders. Once upon a time archaeologists thought that this distribution could be accounted for by Iron Age La Tene movements. But both in Ireland and Iberia there is

1) insufficient evidence of La Tene arrivals. There is some La Tene material, but patchy.
2) the type(s) of Celtic spoken once we do get linguistic evidence look too archaic for La Tene, or in Iberia a complex patchwork, such as might result from waves of arrivals.  

The standard theory put first Celtic migrations into Iberia in Hallstatt C, not La Tène. There is evidence of Celtic Anthroponims in Tartessian writings dated to that, and there are significant archeological changes in the cultures of Western Iberia to trace such a movement.
 If Tartessian was a Celtic language, then given the continuity of archaeological record in Tartessian culture back to at least the 14th century BC Celtic in Iberia could be traced back to that date, that is what Koch try to make, but as even Correa already gave up because there is no possibility of translate Tartessian as Celtic, then all the case is baseless

[Heber]

The whole point of "Celtic from the West" and "Britain Begins" is that it is an alternative to the traditional theory.

"Barry Cunliffe (p. 13–38) argues that the geographical setting of the Proto-Celtic language in the Atlantic Bronze Age, c. 2000–750 BC, is in better agreement with the archaeological data than the traditional opinion. One major argument is seen in the large-scale exchange of goods and ideas in the Bronze Age before the fragmentation and regionalization in the transition to the Iron Age. Another important argument is said to be the lack of archaeological evidence for any considerable immigration into the British Isles. Finally, he asks (p. 34) whether Celtic could have developed between 5000 and 3000 BC in the Atlantic Zone."

"Pursuing previous studies, John T. Koch (p. 185–301) argues that the so-called Tartessian inscriptions reflect a Celtic language. In his analysis, he includes new inscriptions discussed by Amílcar Guerra (p. 65–79), in particular from Mesas do Castelinho (meanwhile also in Tartessian 2. The inscription of Mesas do Castelinho and the verbal complex. Oxford: Oxbow, 2011). Apart from these inscriptions, the presence of Celtic speakers by the time of Herodotus (c. 484–425 BC) or earlier is suggested by personal and tribal names such as Arganthonios (*arganto- 'silver') and Kunetes (*kun-et- 'hound (warrior)')"

http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2011/2011-09-57.html

http://books.google.de/books?id=TJoV6rii1TYC&pg=PT317&lpg=PT317&dq=Iberia++britain+begins&source=bl&ots=SzGKaPsw3l&sig=alehUI2jKfs2ghpAQU3DDDZbTsM&hl=de&sa=X&ei=EYxVUIuZJKrb4QSH-4GQDg&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Iberia%20%20britain%20begins&f=false

[IALEM]

The whole point of "Celtic from the West" and "Britain Begins" is that it is an alternative to the traditional theory.

"Barry Cunliffe (p. 13–38) argues that the geographical setting of the Proto-Celtic language in the Atlantic Bronze Age, c. 2000–750 BC, is in better agreement with the archaeological data than the traditional opinion. One major argument is seen in the large-scale exchange of goods and ideas in the Bronze Age before the fragmentation and regionalization in the transition to the Iron Age. Another important argument is said to be the lack of archaeological evidence for any considerable immigration into the British Isles. Finally, he asks (p. 34) whether Celtic could have developed between 5000 and 3000 BC in the Atlantic Zone."

"Pursuing previous studies, John T. Koch (p. 185–301) argues that the so-called Tartessian inscriptions reflect a Celtic language. In his analysis, he includes new inscriptions discussed by Amílcar Guerra (p. 65–79), in particular from Mesas do Castelinho (meanwhile also in Tartessian 2. The inscription of Mesas do Castelinho and the verbal complex. Oxford: Oxbow, 2011). Apart from these inscriptions, the presence of Celtic speakers by the time of Herodotus (c. 484–425 BC) or earlier is suggested by personal and tribal names such as Arganthonios (*arganto- 'silver') and Kunetes (*kun-et- 'hound (warrior)')"

http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2011/2011-09-57.html

http://books.google.de/books?id=TJoV6rii1TYC&pg=PT317&lpg=PT317&dq=Iberia++britain+begins&source=bl&ots=SzGKaPsw3l&sig=alehUI2jKfs2ghpAQU3DDDZbTsM&hl=de&sa=X&ei=EYxVUIuZJKrb4QSH-4GQDg&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Iberia%20%20britain%20begins&f=false

It is an alternative hypothesis (not really a theory) that has been built around the core idea that Celtic is early in Britain, so the rest of the arguments are forced to fit into this frame of thinking. What I say is that the evidence in Iberia for a very early Celtic language is not there.

[Jean M]

It is an alternative hypothesis (not really a theory) that has been built around the core idea that Celtic is early in Britain, so the rest of the arguments are forced to fit into this frame of thinking. What I say is that the evidence in Iberia for a very early Celtic language is not there.

But Celtiberian is a very early Celtic language. (It has even been argued that it is not quite Celtic.) Even if you abandon the idea of Lusitanian as a Proto-Italo-Celtic language and substitute a variety of Celtiberian in that region, these are archaic forms of Celtic.

[rms2]

The idea that early Celtic was first spread by the Beaker Folk during the Bronze Age is not a new idea to be regarded as oddball or out of the scholarly mainstream. It was suggested by a number of Celticists as long ago as at least the early 20th century.