A Race Apart: Insularity and Connectivity

Abstract

This paper seeks to re-examine the long-held view that the Celtic language developed somewhere in west central Europe and was carried westwards to the Atlantic zone, eventually reaching Ireland. An overview of the archaeological evidence for Atlantic connectivity illustrates the longue durée of community interactions along the seaways, beginning around 9000 BC, to the second quarter of the 3rd millennium. At this time mobility increased dramatically and it has been shown clearly that the Maritime Bell Beaker package spread eastwards to impact on and interact with the Battle Axe/Corded Ware tradition. Connectivity was at its most intense during the subsequent Atlantic Bronze Age until, from the 8th century BC, what had been a unified zone began to fragment into a series of regional systems. This broad archaeological scenario, with its firm chronological framework, receives more support from recent DNA studies than does the previous view, which drew heavily on ancient and (now) antiquarian views of Celticness and invasion hypotheses. It is posited that the Celtic language could in fact have emerged in the Atlantic zone and spread eastwards.