Celts

[alanarchae]

Interesting paper. May have something to do with the origin or evolution of the Belgae

I translated some bits. 

https://www.academia.edu/104395820/De_la...llstattien

From the Meuse valley to the banks of the Scheldt...
or the evolution of the concept of the Mosan Hallstattien Group ( Alain Henton 2022)

A re-updated map of the Mosan Group

Over the last two decades, preventive archeology has provided a new material for study: ceramics.

The latter now offers a sufficiently extensive corpus, mixing domestic and funerary contexts,to attempt a new approach to the cultural geography of the early and middle phases of the Early Iron Age for Northern France, Belgium and the Southern Netherlands.

From the point of view of ceramic typology (fig. 2), four more or less related facies (fig. 3) seem to emerge (Henton 2017; 2018).

The first, described as “Scaldian”, is based on domestic and funerary data along the Scheldt and in the Dender and Haine valleys.

For the border area between the Netherlands and Belgium, the relative homogeneity of the assemblages of ceramic furniture from certain necropolises would indicate the existence of a second facies straddling Belgian and Dutch Limburg, extended to the Demer valley and to the Maritime Scheldt, and qualified as “Maas-Demer-Schelde” (MDS).

A third “Hesbignon” ceramic facies stands out in habitats in Hesbaye Liège and its surroundings.
For the sector located between the three previous facies, where the tombs of the Dyle valley are concentrated, most of the ceramic forms constituting the funerary assemblages find their main parallels in the Scaldian and Hesbignon facies.

Other elements, such as variations of lamps, however, testify to contacts with the MDS facies.
The last facies, “Ardennes”, brings together funerary sites from Namurois, the Semois valley, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and Argonne.

The expansion recognized for these four ceramic facies therefore extends over more than 35,000 km2, straddling the northern border of France, a large part of Belgium and the south-east of the Netherlands (fig. 3).

It would correspond to the same cultural entity, based on concordances of ceramic chinaware and funerary rites.

Its delimitation is not taken in the sense of “border”, but rather that of a minimal expansion defined with regard to neighbouring and contemporary groups and/or cultural facies (Henton 2017: 386-388).

In the north, current knowledge does not allow its limit to be extended beyond Dutch Limburg and part of neighboring North Brabant.

The rare typological parallels located beyond this limit, notably at Oss (P.-B., Noord-Brabant), indicate a priori more a zone of influences following the Meuse valley than a real connection to the ceramic facies MDS.

For the north-eastern limit of this facies, if certain funerary rituals and ceramics associate the tombs of the Krefeld region with those of the Meuse valley (downstream of Liège),
it remains difficult to assume its expansion to the limit of the Rhine valley.

This uncertainty applies just as much to the eastern margins of the cultural entity in early-middle Hallstatt/Ha C-D1, coming up against the Laufelder Gruppe (late phase) and subsequently the Hunsrück-Eifel-Kultur (initial phase HEK IA1) .

The southern and south-western limits would be aligned with the valleys of the Moselle, Aisne, Oise and Somme.

Its western border, more assured, corresponds to the right bank of the Scheldt valley, forming the limit with the post Deverel-Rimbury (PDR)/Manche – Merdu-Nord ceramic facies located in the west of Hauts-de-France. and Belgian Flanders.

For the name of this entity, it seems difficult to us to maintain that of the “Groupe des Ardennes” proposed by P. Brun here is more forty years old.

If for the Final Bronze IIIb, the cultural area defined by the ceramic facies maintains an assured geographical link with the Ardennes Massif (Henton 2017; 2018), that of the early-middle Hallstatt/Ha C-D1 extends very far beyond its limits in the direction from the north and northwest.
The area of the “Mosan Group” of E. Warmenbol, comes as close as possible to the mapping proposed for these ceramic facies; three of them being in fact associated with the Meuse valley and its watershed.

The discovery of a Scaldian facies, however, significantly increases the territory of this group towards the west and northwest, with the integration of the Scheldt valley and more than 75% of its basin.

To stick as closely as possible to the archaeological data, it therefore seems appropriate to add a reference to the Scheldt to the name proposed by E. Warmenbol, in the form of “Mosan-Scaldian Group” (GMS).

Chronological and cultural contextualization of the Mosan-Scaldian Group

Chronologically, the “Mosan-Scaldian Group” corresponds to Early-Middle Hallstatt, spanning nearly 250 years from the dawn of the 8th century to the mid-6th century BCE.

For a majority of the closed complexes excavated in our study area, the ceramic typology hardly allows, in the state of knowledge, to refine their chronology below Ha C-D1.

However, the contribution of absolute dating provides some clues as to the emergence of the Scaldian facies in the study area.

If the majority of dates correspond to the “Hallstattian plateau”, centered around 2500-2450 BP, i.e. around 800/700-400 cal BC, a few early dates (habitats of Sint-Gillis-Waas and Quiévrechain, necropolis of Velzeke (De Mulder 2011; Henton 2017) are placed in the last quarter of the 9th century and the first quarter of the 8th century BCE. This corresponds to the Ha C1a of C. Pare (1999) or the ancient Hallstatt C of P.-Y. Milcent ( 2004: 102-104), timed between 800 and 740/720 cal BC.

Absolute dating of tombs at Neerpelt and Louette-Saint-Pierre can be linked to this phase (Warmenbol 2009: 374-375). As for the funerary metal assemblages, if the studies carried out by M. E. Mariën (1958) on those of the necropolises of CourtSaint-Etienne and Havré had made it possible to attribute most of the tombs to Ha C1, P.-Y. Milcent (2012: 142-167) places their furniture in his 1st Iron A1 recent Atlantic, equivalent to the Ha C1b-C2 of Pare, i.e. generally between 740/720-650 BCE.

The numerous typological comparisons made between the domestic ceramic corpus of the Hallstatt Scaldian facies and that of these necropolises would therefore make it possible to place most of the habitat sites in the Scheldt valley in the chronological slice Ha C1b-C2/early Hallstatt.

However, there remains the problem of the middle Ha D1/Hallstatt, a period being little distinguished in funerary complexes, except in Belgian Flanders, by absolute chronology or typology, as at Destelbergen (De Mulder 2011: 355 ).

For the Scaldian facies, no typological break seems, with rare exceptions, discernible in domestic ceramic furniture before the first manifestations of the final Hallstatt china cabinet (Ha D2-3), around the middle of the 6th century BC.

From a cultural point of view, if the funeral metal furniture of the GMS group has initiated debates about its “Atlantic” origins and/or “continental/oriental”, it is clear that it remains just as difficult to characterize this group based solely on its ceramics.

With regard to domestic data (ceramics, architecture of habitats) and indirectly funerary data, the transition from the 401 Final Bronze Age to the First Iron Age in the western part of the Mosan-Scaldian Group would be marked by a cultural break based more likely on an exogenous contribution than by simple endogenous evolution.

We therefore opt for the hypothesis of the establishment, in the valleys of the Scheldt, Haine and Dendre, of a new human group from the dawn of the 8th century BC.

If it is illusory to try to quantify the importance of this "migration", we suppose that even a limited number of "migrants", scattered by family units over a restricted area, could have easily spread over time. generations through simple demographic expansion.

The homogenization of ceramic typology, evident in our opinion from the end of the 8th century, could be an indication of a possible acculturation of populations of Late Bronze Age culture, or even of a syncretism (cultural mix) between the latter and " Hallstattian migrants”.

According to significantly different methods, this scheme could be extended to the Hesbignon and Belgian-Dutch Limburg facies.

Following this reasoning, the question of the origin of these new arrivals, however, still remains unresolved. The Bavarian hypothesis, formulated by M. E. Mariën, remains to be ruled out in view of the manifest typological incompatibility with the ceramics of Bavaria and its margins.

In the neighboring regions of the GMS group, the rare typological parallels offer little more serious clues, with the notable exception of dishes with a large internal rim (type 30300, Henton 2017), the main typo-chronological markers of the group's chinaware.

For the latter, there are indeed some correspondences in the German state of Baden-Württemberg; region where the rest of the dresser differs, however.

The question therefore remains open pending new archaeological data, but also potential data offered by recent advances in isotopic analyzes of bones from funerary sites.

that’s very interesting and does make me wonder about the Belgae

this seems related https://core.ac.uk/reader/132628210

[Sailgios]

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aav4040

For the Iron Age, we document a consistent trend of increased ancestry related to Northern and Central European populations with respect to the preceding Bronze Age (Figs. 1, C and D, and 2B). The increase was 10 to 19% (95% confidence intervals given here and in the percentages that follow) in 15 individuals along the Mediterranean coast where non-Indo-European Iberian languages were spoken; 11 to 31% in two individuals at the Tartessian site of La Angorrilla in the southwest with uncertain language attribution; and 28 to 43% in three individuals at La Hoya in the north where Indo-European Celtiberian languages were likely spoken (fig. S6 and tables S11 and S12).

This trend documents gene flow into Iberia during the Late Bronze Age or Early Iron Age, possibly associated with the introduction of the Urnfield tradition (18). Unlike in Central or Northern Europe, where Steppe ancestry likely marked the introduction of Indo-European languages (12), our results indicate that, in Iberia, increases in Steppe ancestry were not always accompanied by switches to Indo-European languages.

Are these findings and conclusions still valid in 2023?

Yes, but "ancestry related to Northern and Central European populations" doesn't mean Yamnaya-related ancestry, the figures for steppe ancestry are lower than those mentioned in the corpus of the study, Table S15 presents a good breakdown of the results, but since they used Germany_Beaker they are hard to interpret.

Patterson's study modelled them using Ukrainian Yamnaya and the Celtiberian with the highest figure scored 33.8%..however Ukrainian Yamnaya is around 80% Samara Yamnaya + 20% EEF, so that should give around 27% steppe which is essentially in line with G25. Most modern non-Basque Iberians score more than that, indeed most modern Iberians they modelled did score more as well, although it has to be said these models mostly failed because they lacked a North African source which is critical for us today. Still, for reference, the Galician with the lowest score got 32.6%, and the highest 37.7%.


There is very little doubt the EIA period marked a significant change in local populations, what we don't know if this means exclusively Hallstatt, or whether Atlantic Bronze Age in NW Iberian, and/or the Orientalising period in the S/SW had some influence as well.

[pelop]

The Celtic G2 branches are an interesting piece of the puzzle, because they appear everywhere and are more clearly defined by low resolution samples, unlike R1b Bell Beakers.

When the Patterson study came out an obvious uniparental clue was that from the Iron Age period G-L497 started popping up in Britain, a branch which was completely absent in the previous periods. A good question is whether we'll find it in France/Switzerland in even earlier periods (MBA-LBA) or whether it represents a late movement from the core Hallstatt and La Tene areas.

[alanarchae]

I think the rate big genetic (and obviously linguistic too) like the neolithic farmers arriving, CW/bell beaker etc should not cause people to think language and cultural change are ALWAYS spread by huge population turnovers. There are many examples where that clearly is not the case. While I do not doubt that Celtic spread partly through migration and a degree of migration was quite clearly happening through the bronze and iron ages (probably everywhere but to very variable degrees) I think it’s quite clear that there was no huge turnover of earlier bronze age yDNA by new people with very different yDNA - even in high status graves. A constant modest trickle looks the most fitting way of describing what is seen. The proof of that is that the people of high status spawn the most surviving descendants and that most of the former Celtic speaking areas still show very close correspondence to the early bronze age situation in terms of yDNA.

So I think Celtic language and culture spread not just by hostile migration but by more subtle constant mechanism of elite interaction, intermarriage, fosterage, a large mobile supertribal class of learned people, craftsmen etc which existed through the bronze age but was particularly strong and widespread in the later bronze age. I think no model really works that doesn’t include both. Also I think classical history greatly misleads us by pointing out unusual long distance invasions of the Celts into the unknown. The norm was almost certainly that both friendly and hostile relations would be with neighbouring tribes.

[alanarchae]

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aav4040

For the Iron Age, we document a consistent trend of increased ancestry related to Northern and Central European populations with respect to the preceding Bronze Age (Figs. 1, C and D, and 2B). The increase was 10 to 19% (95% confidence intervals given here and in the percentages that follow) in 15 individuals along the Mediterranean coast where non-Indo-European Iberian languages were spoken; 11 to 31% in two individuals at the Tartessian site of La Angorrilla in the southwest with uncertain language attribution; and 28 to 43% in three individuals at La Hoya in the north where Indo-European Celtiberian languages were likely spoken (fig. S6 and tables S11 and S12).
This trend documents gene flow into Iberia during the Late Bronze Age or Early Iron Age, possibly associated with the introduction of the Urnfield tradition (18). Unlike in Central or Northern Europe, where Steppe ancestry likely marked the introduction of Indo-European languages (12), our results indicate that, in Iberia, increases in Steppe ancestry were not always accompanied by switches to Indo-European languages.

Are these findings and conclusions still valid in 2023?

Yes, but "ancestry related to Northern and Central European populations" doesn't mean Yamnaya-related ancestry, the figures for steppe ancestry are lower than those mentioned in the corpus of the study, Table S15 presents a good breakdown of the results, but since they used Germany_Beaker they are hard to interpret.
Patterson's study modelled them using Ukrainian Yamnaya and the Celtiberian with the highest figure scored 33.8%..however Ukrainian Yamnaya is around 80% Samara Yamnaya + 20% EEF, so that should give around 27% steppe which is essentially in line with G25. Most modern non-Basque Iberians score more than that, indeed most modern Iberians they modelled did score more as well, although it has to be said these models mostly failed because they lacked a North African source which is critical for us today. Still, for reference, the Galician with the lowest score got 32.6%, and the highest 37.7%.
There is very little doubt the EIA period marked a significant change in local populations, what we don't know if this means exclusively Hallstatt, or whether Atlantic Bronze Age in NW Iberian, and/or the Orientalising period in the S/SW had some influence as well.

Well the autosomal DNA shift notes in southern Britain took place around 1100-800BC when Britain was firmly in the Atlantic network. As of course was the northern third of so of France. So this large ‘French-like’ shift seen in late bronze age Britain has to be due to the Atlantic Bronze Age northern French. This should not cause surprise because Britain and northern France were very strongly interacting at the time and the Atlantic Bronze French groups (and Belgium too) pretty well occupied the entire channel coast 1100-800BC and indeed for a century or two after. So when people try to link this late bronze age autosomal shift (which didn’t involve much visible yDNA shift) in Britain in a French direction they often overlook the fact that that LBA British-French connection was very much and undeniably within the Atlantic Bronze Age system. It long predates the more central European derived connections of Hallstatt D (which were slight anyway in britain) and La Tene.

So what you see in southern britain in the late bronze age is a genetic impact of the atlantic bronze age system and it’s close links to northern France and Belgium. Iberia’s strongest and closest connected area during the Atlantic bronze age (which was shorter in Iberia - ending about 900BC I think) was with Atlantic France (Vendee and Armorica) and I suspect that is likely where a similar flow of genes around the network would likely have made it into Iberia from. Data is v poor not you’d expect that to cause a rise in steppe genes (the opposite of the effect being connected with France had in southern Britain). Though the effect might have been more muted due to places like Vendee maybe not being particularly high steppe and also the fact Iberia’s participation in the Atlantic network was much briefer (c. 1100-900BC) than Britain and northern/western France (1100-600BC - but arguably with roots in the early and middle bronze age and continuing deep into the iron age).

[Sailgios]

Well the autosomal DNA shift notes in southern Britain took place around 1100-800BC when Britain was firmly in the Atlantic network. As of course was the northern third of so of France. So this large ‘French-like’ shift seen in late bronze age Britain has to be due to the Atlantic Bronze Age northern French. This should not cause surprise because Britain and northern France were very strongly interacting at the time and the Atlantic Bronze French groups (and Belgium too) pretty well occupied the entire channel coast 1100-800BC and indeed for a century or two after. So when people try to link this late bronze age autosomal shift (which didn’t involve much visible yDNA shift) in Britain in a French direction they often overlook the fact that that LBA British-French connection was very much and undeniably within the Atlantic Bronze Age system. It long predates the more central European derived connections of Hallstatt D (which were slight anyway in britain) and La Tene.

So what you see in southern britain in the late bronze age is a genetic impact of the atlantic bronze age system and it’s close links to northern France and Belgium. Iberia’s strongest and closest connected area during the Atlantic bronze age (which was shorter in Iberia - ending about 900BC I think) was with Atlantic France (Vendee and Armorica) and I suspect that is likely where a similar flow of genes around the network would likely have made it into Iberia from. Data is v poor not you’d expect that to cause a rise in steppe genes (the opposite of the effect being connected with France had in southern Britain). Though the effect might have been more muted due to places like Vendee maybe not being particularly high steppe and also the fact Iberia’s participation in the Atlantic network was much briefer (c. 1100-900BC) than Britain and northern/western France (1100-600BC - but arguably with roots in the early and middle bronze age and continuing deep into the iron age).

Since this topic is about Celts, and considering Iberian archaeology regarding them is separate and distinct from the Atlantic Bronze Age (ABA) not only chronologically, but also material and spatially I won't dwell too much on this, but I'll leave a few points.

You're right regarding the Iberian links and its place within the ABA, and I don't think it's a coincidence that the bulk of the Bay of Biscay near the Pyrenees seems to have been largely skipped over, probably because people in the specific area didn't speak IE languages whereas those who were part of the network did and could understand each other with relative ease. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Em5IpaaWEAI22i-.jpg
However, considering this area (in Iberia) appears to have had non-Celtic languages until very late I don't think the ABA and Celtic languages were connected down here.

Secondly, I often see people connecting the genetic influence of ABA in Britain as evidence this could have happened in NW/W Iberia however, as you said, in Iberia this seems to have ended relatively soon, so 'we' were a part of it for a relatively short period of time (~200 years) which would diminish the odds of this shift having taken place. Additionally BA ships would have only carried around 20-people at the maximum, and considering they would have to travel along the coastline we're looking at a distance of over 1000km I can't help but be a bit sceptical this could cause a genetic impact that was anything more than minimal. 
The only possibility is if local populations were very small to begin with, followed by a very strong founder effect and expansion along NW/W Iberia (Galicia, northern half of Portugal, maybe Asturias and Leon) correlated with the settlement pattern we see emerging after the network collapsed around here after the LBA which extends into the Roman period, as well as non-Celtic IE toponymy, theonymy, anthroponymy, etc, evidence (which is basically Lusitanian). As I mentioned, I don't think this impact is impossible, I'm just sceptical it had the scale of Southern England, and was anything more than minor. 

We'll see in the future, I have no preference either way.

[Telemachus]

The Celtic G2 branches are an interesting piece of the puzzle, because they appear everywhere and are more clearly defined by low resolution samples, unlike R1b Bell Beakers.

When the Patterson study came out an obvious uniparental clue was that from the Iron Age period G-L497 started popping up in Britain, a branch which was completely absent in the previous periods. A good question is whether we'll find it in France/Switzerland in even earlier periods (MBA-LBA) or whether it represents a late movement from the core Hallstatt and La Tene areas.

There is an earlier Bronze Age G-L497 from Villard, Lauzet-Ubaye, France (2500-1700 BCE) in addition to the (Czech) Unetice G-L497 (2000-1700 BCE), although there currently aren't any Bronze Age G-L497s from Germany or Switzerland. The haplogroup of the EBA (Southeast) French G-L497 (G-BY27899, TMRCA ~1850 BCE) is the same as that of one of the LIA British G-L497s from the Patterson paper. Of the 18 individuals from the Patterson paper who were assigned a haplogroup and were described as having warrior-like burial goods, 14 were R1b (presumably all or mostly R-L2), three were G2a (all G-L497), and one was E1b1b (along with one female warrior). The bulk of these were "eastern Celts" (modern Czech Republic and Hungary), with two (both R1b) British.

[alanarchae]

Well the autosomal DNA shift notes in southern Britain took place around 1100-800BC when Britain was firmly in the Atlantic network. As of course was the northern third of so of France. So this large ‘French-like’ shift seen in late bronze age Britain has to be due to the Atlantic Bronze Age northern French. This should not cause surprise because Britain and northern France were very strongly interacting at the time and the Atlantic Bronze French groups (and Belgium too) pretty well occupied the entire channel coast 1100-800BC and indeed for a century or two after. So when people try to link this late bronze age autosomal shift (which didn’t involve much visible yDNA shift) in Britain in a French direction they often overlook the fact that that LBA British-French connection was very much and undeniably within the Atlantic Bronze Age system. It long predates the more central European derived connections of Hallstatt D (which were slight anyway in britain) and La Tene.

So what you see in southern britain in the late bronze age is a genetic impact of the atlantic bronze age system and it’s close links to northern France and Belgium. Iberia’s strongest and closest connected area during the Atlantic bronze age (which was shorter in Iberia - ending about 900BC I think) was with Atlantic France (Vendee and Armorica) and I suspect that is likely where a similar flow of genes around the network would likely have made it into Iberia from. Data is v poor not you’d expect that to cause a rise in steppe genes (the opposite of the effect being connected with France had in southern Britain). Though the effect might have been more muted due to places like Vendee maybe not being particularly high steppe and also the fact Iberia’s participation in the Atlantic network was much briefer (c. 1100-900BC) than Britain and northern/western France (1100-600BC - but arguably with roots in the early and middle bronze age and continuing deep into the iron age).

Since this topic is about Celts, and considering Iberian archaeology regarding them is separate and distinct from the Atlantic Bronze Age (ABA) not only chronologically, but also material and spatially I won't dwell too much on this, but I'll leave a few points.

You're right regarding the Iberian links and its place within the ABA, and I don't think it's a coincidence that the bulk of the Bay of Biscay near the Pyrenees seems to have been largely skipped over, probably because people in the specific area didn't speak IE languages whereas those who were part of the network did and could understand each other with relative ease. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Em5IpaaWEAI22i-.jpg
However, considering this area (in Iberia) appears to have had non-Celtic languages until very late I don't think the ABA and Celtic languages were connected down here.

Secondly, I often see people connecting the genetic influence of ABA in Britain as evidence this could have happened in NW/W Iberia however, as you said, in Iberia this seems to have ended relatively soon, so 'we' were a part of it for a relatively short period of time (~200 years) which would diminish the odds of this shift having taken place. Additionally BA ships would have only carried around 20-people at the maximum, and considering they would have to travel along the coastline we're looking at a distance of over 1000km I can't help but be a bit sceptical this could cause a genetic impact that was anything more than minimal. 
The only possibility is if local populations were very small to begin with, followed by a very strong founder effect and expansion along NW/W Iberia (Galicia, northern half of Portugal, maybe Asturias and Leon) correlated with the settlement pattern we see emerging after the network collapsed around here after the LBA which extends into the Roman period, as well as non-Celtic IE toponymy, theonymy, anthroponymy, etc, evidence (which is basically Lusitanian). As I mentioned, I don't think this impact is impossible, I'm just sceptical it had the scale of Southern England, and was anything more than minor. 

We'll see in the future, I have no preference either way.

Agreed. The shortest crossings between France and Britain and Britain and Ireland are minor and well worn long before the bell beaker era. Most importantly, Britain was heavily connected to northern France throughout prehistory and especially in the entire bronze age (beaker, early bronze age wessex/Armorica etc, mid bronze age English channel  ‘maritory’, late bronze age Atlantic bronze age. It’s intensity ebbed and flowed but it was constantly there from 2400BC-iron age. Even through the iron age there is clear evidence of the north coastal French/Belgians and south coastal british to have been in contact and migrating to some degree. Ireland was linked too but likely mostly via Britain. There is little doubt that the southern British and the northern third of France and Belgium likely spoke very similar dialects.  There just is no equivalent of constant linkage with Atlantic Iberia. It was much much briefer (200 years vs 2000)!and unlikely to cause dialect shift. The genetic evidence alone shows the different level of magnitude of geneflow between France and southern  Britain in the late bronze age. The fact it was autosomal rather than a significant yDNA shift is interesting. One possible explanation is both sides of the English Channel was L21 dominated throughout the Bronze Age so make migration is v hard to spot without v detailed resolution of ancient yDNA (which is uncommon).

[alanarchae]

The Celtic G2 branches are an interesting piece of the puzzle, because they appear everywhere and are more clearly defined by low resolution samples, unlike R1b Bell Beakers.

When the Patterson study came out an obvious uniparental clue was that from the Iron Age period G-L497 started popping up in Britain, a branch which was completely absent in the previous periods. A good question is whether we'll find it in France/Switzerland in even earlier periods (MBA-LBA) or whether it represents a late movement from the core Hallstatt and La Tene areas.

There is an earlier Bronze Age G-L497 from Villard, Lauzet-Ubaye, France (2500-1700 BCE) in addition to the (Czech) Unetice G-L497 (2000-1700 BCE), although there currently aren't any Bronze Age G-L497s from Germany or Switzerland. The haplogroup of the EBA (Southeast) French G-L497 (G-BY27899, TMRCA ~1850 BCE) is the same as that of one of the LIA British G-L497s from the Patterson paper. Of the 18 individuals from the Patterson paper who were assigned a haplogroup and were described as having warrior-like burial goods, 14 were R1b (presumably all or mostly R-L2), three were G2a (all G-L497), and one was E1b1b (along with one female warrior). The bulk of these were "eastern Celts" (modern Czech Republic and Hungary), with two (both R1b) British.

The big autosomal shift in the southern british late bronze age seems n the surface to have only a very very slight change in yDNA. However it seems possible to me that the northern French in the whole bronze are were also dominated by L21. So there could have been a big male migration that is simply invisible because of was L21 groups migrating to lands of other L21 groups. It is possible that the occasional non R1b is the only visible trace of the migration even though they were likely a very minor component.

[alanarchae]

The Celtic G2 branches are an interesting piece of the puzzle, because they appear everywhere and are more clearly defined by low resolution samples, unlike R1b Bell Beakers.

When the Patterson study came out an obvious uniparental clue was that from the Iron Age period G-L497 started popping up in Britain, a branch which was completely absent in the previous periods. A good question is whether we'll find it in France/Switzerland in even earlier periods (MBA-LBA) or whether it represents a late movement from the core Hallstatt and La Tene areas.

There is an earlier Bronze Age G-L497 from Villard, Lauzet-Ubaye, France (2500-1700 BCE) in addition to the (Czech) Unetice G-L497 (2000-1700 BCE), although there currently aren't any Bronze Age G-L497s from Germany or Switzerland. The haplogroup of the EBA (Southeast) French G-L497 (G-BY27899, TMRCA ~1850 BCE) is the same as that of one of the LIA British G-L497s from the Patterson paper. Of the 18 individuals from the Patterson paper who were assigned a haplogroup and were described as having warrior-like burial goods, 14 were R1b (presumably all or mostly R-L2), three were G2a (all G-L497), and one was E1b1b (along with one female warrior). The bulk of these were "eastern Celts" (modern Czech Republic and Hungary), with two (both R1b) British.

The big autosomal shift in the southern british late bronze age seems n the surface to have only a very very slight change in yDNA. However it seems possible to me that the northern French in the whole bronze are were also dominated by L21. So there could have been a big male migration that is simply invisible because of was L21 groups migrating to lands of other L21 groups. It is possible that the occasional non R1b is the only visible trace of the migration even though they were likely a very minor component.

[alanarchae]

The Celtic G2 branches are an interesting piece of the puzzle, because they appear everywhere and are more clearly defined by low resolution samples, unlike R1b Bell Beakers.

When the Patterson study came out an obvious uniparental clue was that from the Iron Age period G-L497 started popping up in Britain, a branch which was completely absent in the previous periods. A good question is whether we'll find it in France/Switzerland in even earlier periods (MBA-LBA) or whether it represents a late movement from the core Hallstatt and La Tene areas.

There is an earlier Bronze Age G-L497 from Villard, Lauzet-Ubaye, France (2500-1700 BCE) in addition to the (Czech) Unetice G-L497 (2000-1700 BCE), although there currently aren't any Bronze Age G-L497s from Germany or Switzerland. The haplogroup of the EBA (Southeast) French G-L497 (G-BY27899, TMRCA ~1850 BCE) is the same as that of one of the LIA British G-L497s from the Patterson paper. Of the 18 individuals from the Patterson paper who were assigned a haplogroup and were described as having warrior-like burial goods, 14 were R1b (presumably all or mostly R-L2), three were G2a (all G-L497), and one was E1b1b (along with one female warrior). The bulk of these were "eastern Celts" (modern Czech Republic and Hungary), with two (both R1b) British.

The big autosomal shift in the southern british late bronze age seems n the surface to have only a very very slight change in yDNA. However it seems possible to me that the northern French in the whole bronze are were also dominated by L21. So there could have been a big male migration that is simply invisible because of was L21 groups migrating to lands of other L21 groups. It is possible that the occasional non R1b is the only visible trace of the migration even though they were likely a very minor component.

[Strabo]

Continuing on from my earlier post about north France/Belgium in the EIA, I share another article from the same author (Alain Henton), but this time about the same area in the Urnfield era, or LBA.

https://aprab.org/jet/PreprintHaA1.pdf (Can be found on page 101)

I translated most of the juicy bits but unfortunately the paper would not let me open the maps in a new window so I couldn't share them which sucks, but you can view the maps in the link above on page 106


At the dawn of the Final Bronze Age between Manche and Scheldt.
A late Deverel-Rimbury ceramic facies? ( Alain Henton 2021)

Still for this same study area, extended to the whole of Hauts-de-France and the west of Belgium (Scheldt basin), the only major cultural break currently assured in relation to the Deverel-Rimbury traditions would therefore be located at Ha A2 with the “sudden” appearance of a continental ceramic typology.

The latter, highlighted in recent years, is based on a significant corpus from around forty habitat sites (including nearly fifteen in the Nord – Pas-de-Calais) and a dozen “Champs d’Urnes” type necropolises (the vast majority in Belgian Flanders).

For the middle stage of the Final Bronze Age (Bf IIb-IIIa/Ha A2-B1), two facies (fig.2B) were distinguished for the study area, allowing a first restitution of their typical dressers, based on the main typo-chronological markers highlighted.

The first extends along the Scheldt valley and the territory bordering it on the right bank of the river.

The proposed name, RSFO/Main-Skaldian Swabian facies, denotes the difficulty of untangling the web of cultural interactions characterizing it.

Indeed, two distinct entities (fig.3), although related, seem to emerge in the study of the ceramic corpus.

One takes us towards the Main-Swabian Group, mainly covering the lower Main valley (land of Hesse) and the state of Baden-Württemberg, and the other towards the Rhine-Switzerland-Eastern France Group (RSFO), distributed on the north-eastern third of France and part of Switzerland.

The restored ceramic china cabinet (fig.3A) of this first facies of the middle stage of the Final Bronze Age is quite complex to analyze, particularly following the close double cultural relationship on which it is dependent and the difficulty of clearly dissociating the RFSO affinities from those of Main-Swabian origin.

Nothing excludes that in the future, with the help of an enrichment of the corpus and the provision of absolute dating, this china cabinet could be divided according to cultural and/or chronological criteria.

In order to explain the surprising presence in the Scaldian region of furniture very influenced by the Main-Swabian group, we put forward the hypothesis of a movement of human groups directly originating from the lower Main region, or even from regions further south, via the Rhine and a bypass of the mountainous reliefs of the Eiffel and the Ardennes before reaching the valleys of the Meuse and the Escaut.

To bring part of the corpus closer to that of the area of the RSFO group, we can assume two possible routes of penetration of these populations carrying RSFO ceramics.

The first of these routes would pass through the Aisne and Oise valleys, and the second route would follow the Meuse valley and its tributary the Sambre to the heart of the Escaut basin.

If the clear distinction between Main-Swabian or regional RSFO dresser types still remains problematic, this is also the case for the chronological aspect.

It is clear that we come up against too little representation of absolute dating concerning the habitat sites of the middle stage of the Final Bronze Age.

As for the funerary, a significant number of tombs attributed to the middle stage by ceramics have however been the subject of 14C dating, the vast majority in Flanders.

The ranges proposed individually for most of the tombs do not precisely allow us to chronologically dissociate ceramic forms of Rhineland origin from other RSFO forms.

However, an approach to these datings, using the "sum probability" method, reveals a relative precocity of certain forms from the Main-Swabian area (amphorae, Doppelkoni, garland decorations) and a higher concentration of dates covering mainly the end of the 11th, the 10th and the beginning of the 9th century for certain forms and decorations characteristic of the RSFO repertoire.

Following these data, it would be tempting to imagine an anteriority of the Main-Swabian forms, established along the Scheldt valley from the dawn of Ha A2/Bf IIb.

Such a proposition is, in the current state of knowledge, not contradicted by the data from domestic ceramic assemblages.

As for the RSFO directory in the study area, some early clues (shouldered cups decorated with oblique grooves) would indicate its presence in the Bf IIb/Ha A2 current.

Such high dating would then lead to the idea of a possible “telescoping” with the Main-Swabian newcomers along the banks of the Scheldt valley.

The ceramic typology (shapes and decorations) and certain influences noted in the early chinaware of the final stage (old Bf IIIb/Ha B2) would however make us lean towards a significantly later arrival of the populations affiliated with the RFSO, during the Bf IIIa/ Ha B1 (during the 11th century BC?). 

In both cases, however, the question then arises, without response assured to date, of the impact on ceramic chinaware (fusion between two related facies or parallel evolution?).

Contemporary with the RSFO/MS facies, a second facies seems to emerge on the western edge of the study area.

The still sparse corpus comes, on the one hand, from domestic contexts concentrated in the area between the Lys valley, the Channel coast and the edge of the French Maritime Plain and, on the other hand, from grouped funerary contexts. along the Maritime Scheldt valley and between it and the Belgian-Dutch Maritime Plain.

If, for the ceramic chinaware (fig.3B), the groups represented are similar to those of the Scaldian RSFO/MS facies, some differences were noted, in particular concerning the presence of variants not known in the Scaldian zone.

Among these, if some refer to parallels in the Rhine region, others, such as ovoid pots with or without handles, take us preferentially to the other side of the Channel, to traditional “bucket urns”. Deverel-Rimbury.

If for the fine ceramics, RSFO/MS influences are felt, the coarse ceramics reveal influences from the shores of the English Channel, recalling certain Plain Ware productions.

These influences encourage us to define a culturally mixed facies, of RSFO-MS cultural substrate but with PDR influences.

This cultural mix of ceramic china cabinets opens the way to various interpretations.

If we refer to the traditional diagram proposed for the early and middle stages of the Final Bronze Age for the area bordering both banks of the Channel, the part of the territory on which this facies was revealed is clearly included in the area of the Channel-North Sea complex (MMN).

The latter is characterized by a post Deverel-Rimbury ceramic facies.

In the case that concerns us, would MMN/PDR populations have assimilated the typology of fine tableware used by the neighboring RSFO/MS Scaldian population, without changing all of their traditions for coarse ceramics?

In this diagram, however, it is difficult to explain the very high proportion of “continental” forms characterizing certain coastal sites (e.g. Etaples “Bel Air”).

The second avenue, favored to date, leads us towards the hypothesis of the installation of a few RSFO/MS human groups in the heart of a territory also occupied by MMN/PDR populations (present from Ha A1 or arriving in the same time ?).

Here too several proposals will be checked in the future.

Based on the ceramic typology, we can indeed see the last stage of the westward spread of the Main-Swabian populations, via the Lys valley or along the Maritime Plain.

These populations could have been joined, a few generations later, by RSFO human groups, advancing towards the coast via certain tributaries of the Scheldt, the Somme valley or along the coastal rivers.

In both cases, populations carrying continental ceramics would have occasionally reached the shores of the English Channel.

Contrary to the proponents of a homogeneous MMN/PDR area for the middle stage of the Final Bronze Age, these various hypotheses could be partly supported by the presence, on the English coasts (county of Kent), certain sets of ceramic furniture with a certainly continental appearance. 

[Strabo]

 because people in the specific area didn't speak IE languages 

How do you know that? I thought north central spain and aquitain had a lot of IE toponyms far outwaying non IE ones.

I was under the impression that Navarro-Aquitanian material culture (primarily metal ornaments) spread to the south from northern part of central Pyrenees in the EIA, perhaps with a later LIA coming of Basque ( or perhaps Basque was already there (in navarre), just a holdout from earlier EIA times). It also spread to the north, going beyond the Garonne too. Non IE could of been spoken in the targeted areas, but IIRC the study of names reveals the opposite

Some say the modern Basque country is full of IE names n the Roman era, indicating a late Basque infiltration into the region (in late antiquity?), but if that were the case then Navarro-Aquitanian might not be "local" to the middle/upper Ebro unless it was displaced by LBA onwards by "celticised peoples". I dont think it likely that "celtic package", if that's what the LIA autrigones/Caristi etc are considered would of come through the Hendaye route. Perhaps more likely "Celts"/Indo-Europeanising originating in the LBA  "non Lusitanian" context would of emanated from the Ebro, later manifesting with a more acute "Celtiberian-izing package" perhaps similar to what we see in LIA with the spread of a "Celtiberian package" to the west/south west iberia. 

Of course "Celts"/IE may have come to the Basque country after LBA from unknown (to me) population movements or culture spread from france, but imo if the Navarro-Aquitanians are established by EIA and spread their package widely both north and south of the mountains, its seems that they would be strong barrier to a western route into iberia

[Sailgios]

The map I linked clearly shows toponymic suffixes that are specific to the Franco-Cantabrian area where Basque is present today, despite these being completely absent elsewhere, specifically in areas we know IE languages existed. Even if there were some IE speakers in the western Pyrenees in the past, which is the area that I referred as being skipped during the ABA, they clearly weren't alone and these eventually disappeared. I don't know if they outweighed non-IE ones in this specific area or not.

By contrast Roman Era toponymy in Cantabria, Asturias, Galicia and northern Lusitania was essentially fully IE: partially Celtic, partially non-Celtic, with non-IE toponyms being virtually absent from the record. Leonard Curchin has works on this very subject.

[alanarchae]

The map I linked clearly shows toponymic suffixes that are specific to the Franco-Cantabrian area where Basque is present today, despite these being completely absent elsewhere, specifically in areas we know IE languages existed. Even if there were some IE speakers in the western Pyrenees in the past, which is the area that I referred as being skipped during the ABA, they clearly weren't alone and these eventually disappeared. I don't know if they outweighed non-IE ones in this specific area or not.

By contrast Roman Era toponymy in Cantabria, Asturias, Galicia and northern Lusitania was essentially fully IE: partially Celtic, partially non-Celtic, with non-IE toponyms being virtually absent from the record. Leonard Curchin has works on this very subject.

what is your own theory on the IE (and partly Celtic) nature of Atlantic Iberia? Lusitanian to me looks like an Italic leaning branch of Italo-Celtic that has some vocab that died out in both Italic and Celtic and IE parallels only exist in other IE branches. My view is lusitabisn and related dialects in NW Spain must relate to the earliest branch off (and out of contact with its siblings) branch of Italo-Celtic. So I pretty well am convinced it relates to arrival of steppe beaker in Iberia c.2450BC. There is some Rhenish derived beaker burials  across northern France that seem to be very early - dating as far back as 2550BC. They seem to be on the route from the Lower Rhine to the Lower Loire. I wonder if some of them then headed to Atlantic Iberia following the apparent maritime beaker Portugal/NW Spain to NW France sea route in reverse? 

Another Iberia -western France beaker connection seems to exist in terms of the metallurgy where there seems to be a link between El Aramo mine area in Asturias and western France. 

The date of the first apparent steppe beaker entry to iberia at present is c. 2450BC which is earlier (with just a few outlier exceptions like Kromsdorf) than the beaker dates of most beaker east group or British isies. So an early break off of Lusitanian and related languages kind of fits 

Also, it is possible that the west and north-west distribution of non Celtic IE in Iberia recorded in the late iron age does not reflect the situation 500, 1000 or 2000 years earlier and is a kind of peripheral survival zone and may have been displaced west.