Ligurians

[Pendragon1962]

Man, I was really hoping we wouldn't have to re-do the same old tiresome arguments here that we have done elsewhere.

Ya'll make me laugh, just write your thoughts and have fun, Mercy !
isn't that what this forum is for ?
Nobody's right in my mind on this stuff.
Me, I believe R-L21+ were the Neolithic people that built the stone circles and mounds, and have been in Great Britain for thousands of years.

Well, no they weren't. Those Neolithic folks were of a different physical type than the Beaker folk who began to enter Britain in the 3rd millennium BC, and apparently L21 isn't old enough to date back to the Neolithic Period.

The Neolithic inhabitants of Britain buried their dead in long barrows, had long (dolichocephalic) skulls, were physically smaller than the Beaker folk, and left different artifacts behind them.

The Beaker folk buried their dead on their sides with their knees flexed and in round barrows. They had round (brachycephalic) skulls, were fairly tall, and their skeletons are accompanied by an easily identifiable and characteristic set of artifacts that distinguish them from the Neolithic inhabitants.

I still believe it R-L21+ is neolithic and I'm sticking to it !

What about the chedder man, they found out he was related to a man right there in the area he was found in Great Britain,  and he was 9,000 years old ?

[vtilroe]

"Ya'll make me laugh, just write your thoughts and have fun, Mercy !
isn't that what this forum is for?"

Genetics is not an entertainment industry. It is the discussion of reality and not a laughing matter!

Oh !, Well forgive me !!!
I didn't mean Genetics, I was talking about the way you all are talking to each other.
Mercy !!
Sound more like kids than adults !

Some adults still talk like kids, and some kids are way beyond their years.  It's a mixed bag.

rms2 was alluding to extended discussions that have taken place on other forums over the course of several years, arguing the same points repeatedly as time and again, new members launched the same ignorant counterpoints without bothering to read previous discussions and stubbornly remain intentionally unenlightened to the fallacies of previous hypotheses and assertions posited by published literature.  He, and others, just wish to move on in the name of progress.

[vtilroe]

Man, I was really hoping we wouldn't have to re-do the same old tiresome arguments here that we have done elsewhere.

Ya'll make me laugh, just write your thoughts and have fun, Mercy !
isn't that what this forum is for ?
Nobody's right in my mind on this stuff.
Me, I believe R-L21+ were the Neolithic people that built the stone circles and mounds, and have been in Great Britain for thousands of years.

Well, no they weren't. Those Neolithic folks were of a different physical type than the Beaker folk who began to enter Britain in the 3rd millennium BC, and apparently L21 isn't old enough to date back to the Neolithic Period.

The Neolithic inhabitants of Britain buried their dead in long barrows, had long (dolichocephalic) skulls, were physically smaller than the Beaker folk, and left different artifacts behind them.

The Beaker folk buried their dead on their sides with their knees flexed and in round barrows. They had round (brachycephalic) skulls, were fairly tall, and their skeletons are accompanied by an easily identifiable and characteristic set of artifacts that distinguish them from the Neolithic inhabitants.

I still believe it R-L21+ is neolithic and I'm sticking to it !

What about the chedder man, they found out he was related to a man right there in the area he was found in Great Britain,  and he was 9,000 years old ?

mtDNA was used for that comparison, and is much easily recoverable from ancient bones.  yDNA is much more fragile, and is virtually unrecoverable with existing techniques.

mtDNA and yDNA represent different lineages that do not correlate very nicely.  yDNA has a completely different story than mtDNA.

I also am related to Cheddar Man, but my mtDNA came way of Poland less than 100 years ago.

[RickA]

In everything I've read about Ligurians I see no citing of them anywhere north of Southern Gaul.     What makes you think they were in Northern and Northwestern Europe?  The Greek authors didn't have much knowledge of Northern Europe.

The Bell Beakers seem like a culture that was more widespread across Western Europe and at an earlier time than the Celtic advances. 

There was an ancient writer who reported that the Ligurians were driven out of Britain by the Celts and went to southern France and (if I recall correctly) northern Italy. I'll have to look up the reference when I get home. It's in David Rankin's book, The Celts and the Classical World, but I cannot remember the exact reference.

Here it is.  I found it in Oppenheimer, of all places.

Oppenheimer is looking for classical references to Celts in the British Isles, and the one he cites happens to mention the Ligurians.  It is from Himilco, a Carthaginian Admiral of the 6th c. BC.  His periplus is now lost, but was quoted by the Roman Avenius in the 4th c. AD.
 
Quoting Oppenheimer "Since the preceding leg of his voyage brought Himilco to the Irish Sea, the next section of his port-by-port periplus (literally his captain's log) presumably sees him moving north through the Irish Sea to the west coast of Scotland:

(now quoting Avenius) "...away from the Oestrimnides under the pole of Lycaeon (in the Northern sky) where the air is freezing, he comes to the Ligurian land, deserted by its people: for it has been emptied by the power of the Celts a long time ago in many battles. The Ligurians, displaced, as fate often does to people, have come to these regions.  Here they hold on in rough country with frequent thickets and harsh cliffs, where mountains threaten the sky."

Now quoting Oppenheimer again:  "Avenius goes on to say that the Ligurians had at first hidden themselves in the interior of this northern land before gaining sufficient courage to migrate south to Ophiussa (Portugal) and then to the Mediterranean and Sardinia."

[Jean M]

This seems to be a mixture of confusion and speculation. For a start the spelling is Avienus. His Ora Maritima is notoriously garbled and confusing. He was presumably puling together bits from old sources which he didn't fully understand, including the 6thC Massiliote Periplus. As Wikipedia puts it "This resulted in a confused amateur's account of the coastal regions of the Mediterranean."

Oppenheimer guessed that "the Oestrimnides" [extreme west] referred to the west coast of Scotland, but other identifications are given in various sources. Wikipedia says that Oestriminis is used in Latin poetry to refer to Portugal, citing the Ora Maritima as its only example, and  giving no source for this identification, which does not arouse high confidence. However it doesn't look as though anybody else can offer a more solid identification. Suggestions of Cornwall  (Miranda J. Green, The Celtic World, p. 22) or the Scilly Isles or islands off the Brittany coast near Brest (Philip Freeman, Ireland and the Celtic World, p. 30) have been made.

 

[Jean M]

Here is the Latin text where the place-name is first mentioned:

[This comes directly after a description of the way from Mediterranean to Atlantic, Pillars of Hercules, Gades (modern Cadiz) etc.]

duro perstrepunt
et prominentis hic iugi surgit caput,
Oestrymnin istud dixit aevum antiquius,                   90
molesque celsa saxei fastigii
tota in tepentem maxime vergis notum.
sub huius autem prominentis vertice
sinus dehiscit incolis Oestrymnicus,
in quo insulae sese exerunt Oestrymnides,                   95
laxe iacentes et metallo divites
stanni atque plumbi. multa vis hic gentis est,
superbus animus, efficax solertia,
negotiandi cura iugis omnibus,
netisque cumbis turbidum late fretum                   100
et beluosi gurgitem Oceani secant.
non hi carinas quippe pinu texere
et acere norunt, non abiete, ut usus est,
curvant faselos, sed rei ad miraculum
navigia iunctis semper aptant pellibus                   105
corioque vastum saepe percurrunt salum.

Translation from  George Smith, The Cassiterides, p.134: 
Here rises the head of the promontory in olden times named Oestrymnin (which this translation identifies as Cape Finisterre) and below the like named bay and isles; wide they stretch and are rich in metals, tin and lead. There a numerous race of men dwell, endowed with spirit and no slight industry, busied all in the cares of trade alone. They navigate the sea on their barks, built not of pines or oak, but wondrous! made of skins or leather.

ast hinc duobus in sacram, sic insulam
dixere prisci, solibus cursus rati est.
haec inter undas multam caespitem iacet,
eamque late gens Hiernorum colit.                    110
propinqua rursus insula Albionum patet.

Two days thence is the voyage to the Holy Island, once so called, which lies expanded on the sea, the dwelling of the Hibernian [Irish] race; at hand lies the isle of Albion.

The poem goes on to say that "of yore the trading voyages from Tartassus reached to the Oestrymninides: but the Carthaginians and their colonies near the pillars of Hercules navigated in this sea, which Hamlico, by his own account, was upon during four months."

[Jean M]

After a further digression comes the bit about the Ligures:

siquis dehinc
ab insulis Oestrymnicis lembum audeat
urgere in undas, axe qua Lycaonis                   130
rigescit aethra, caespitem Ligurum subit
cassum incolarum. namque Celtarum manu
crebrisque dudum proeliis vacua arva sunt
Liguresque pulsi, ut saepe fors aliquos agit,
plerumque dumos. creber his scrupus locis                   135
rigidaeque rupes atque montium minae
caelo inseruntur. et fugax gens haec quidem
diu inter arta cautium duxit diem
secreta ab undis. nam sali metuens erat
priscum ob periclum, post quies et otium                   140
securitate roborante audaciam
persuasit altis devehi cubilibus
atque in marinos iam locos descendere.
post illa rursum quae supra facti sumus
magnus patescit aequoris fusi sinus                   145
Ophiussam ad usque.