Romans and Alpine Celtic

[Lucio Domicio Aureliano]

Hi.

This post is not particulary about EBII, although it has something to do with EB time frame. I just wanted to do know what you guys think about it, anyway if i dont want to cause any trouble so if feel free to move or close the topic if it´s not supposed to be here. Thx
Sorry for my bad english.

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Recent genetic data suggests that ancient Italic tribes, including the Romans, were closely related to the Alpine Celts who founded the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures. In other words, the Romans conquest of Gaul was more like the final part of the unification process of the Italo-Celtic tribes.

Genetic evidence

The S28/U152 SNP was discovered as a subclade of haplogroup R1b about 2 years ago and tests have become more widespread over the last year. The original trend seem to point at a Celtic origin for this haplogroup, with a possible origin in the Black Forest or Switzerland.

R1b-S28 was found in the area of extension of the La Tene culture, along the Rhine, Moselle and Meuse valleys north to Belgium, around the Alps in Eastern France (Lorraine, Vosges, Jura, and maybe as far as Auvergne), and in northern Italy, known as Cisalpine Gaul by the Romans. The haplogroup was also observed at lower frequency in Britain, which is compatible with the establishment of Belgic tribes there prior to the Roman conquest.

But it now appears that R1b-S28 is also the most common subclade of R1b in Italy, even in the south and in Sardinia. It could indeed be the original haplogroup of the Italic tribes, prior to the arrival of the Etruscans, the Greeks and the Phoenicians.

The coalescence age for R1b-S28 haplotypes is around 3,500 years ago, about 1,000 years before the beginning of the European Bronze Age. This makes it possible for a common origin of the Alpine Celts and Italic tribes. Little is known of the Italics before the mythical foundation of Rome in 753 BCE.

In all likelihood, the ancestor of all/most R1b-S28 people lived in the Western Hallstatt culture, around the Black Forest. This happens to be the place where the highest STR diversity is found for this haplogroup, which usually means that it is the place of origin.

Linguistic evidence

This theory is further corroborated by linguistic evidence. Italic and Celtic languages belonged to the same Italo-Celtic family. It is known that at the time of Julius Caesar Gaulish dialects were still mutually intelligible with Latin, meaning that the two linguistic groups had not split so long ago.

Archeological evidence

Archeological evidence suggest that the Italics may not have colonised the Italian peninsula before 1,000 BCE. The nearest and most probable place of origin of the Italics was the Alps region, where the Hallstatt culture (1,200-475 BCE) flourished.

This would explain why Roman helmets and other military equipment, were directly inspired by Alpine Celtic ones.

The Romans became more technologically and culturally advanced than their northern cousins thanks to the influence of their Near-Eastern neighbours, the Etruscans (immediately north of Rome) and the Greeks (to the south). The Romans combined the best elements of Celtic and Greco-Etruscan culture and technology to become a superpower.

The Celts were said to be fiercer warriors than the Greeks, who were themselves stronger than the Persians (they never let themselves conquered, even in the heyday of Darius and Xerxes). Even Alexander the Great feared the Alpine/Danubian Celts, and made sure to secure peace with them before setting off to conquer the Middle East. The Celts invaded Greece a few decades after Alexander's death, and sacked Delphi in 279 BCE. Those were the same Alpine Celts that had sacked Rome in 390 BCE, and besieged it again in 367 BCE.

Until the 3rd century, the Alpine Celts were the strongest military power in Europe, and the fastest expanding culture. The La Tène culture spread well beyond Gaul and Italy, to Iberia, Britain, the Balkans and Anatolia.

If the Romans were in fact close relatives of those Celts, equipped with the Greek advances in agriculture, ship-building, military strategy, and political structure, it is no wonder that they defeated everybody else so easily.

Roman relations with their Alpine Celtic cousins

Many Eastern Gaulish tribes (e.g. Sequani. Aedui) allied themselves to Julius Caesar during the Conquest of Gaul. In fact they had long had good relations with Rome and were the ones who requested Caesar's assistance to fight other tribes. Before Caesar's time the Aedui had attached themselves to the Romans, and were honoured with the title of brothers and kinsmen of the Roman people. Perhaps it is no wonder that the Romans had the hardest time defeating the tribes closest to them, the Suebi and the Belgae.

This also explains why the Romans called the Suebi and other Celts of modern south-west Germany the "Germani". The Latin Germani comes from germanus (from germen, "seed" or "offshoot"). The term was used to mean that they were the genuine Celts (descendants of the Hallstatt and La Tène Celts), as opposed to the other tribes of Gaul. Or it meant that they, Romans, descended from the same "seed" as these Germani from the Black Forest, or saw each others as offshoots of the same tribe.

The Roman provinces of Germania match exactly the regions where R1b-S28 has the highest frequency, around modern Belgium (Germania Inferior), and around the Baden-Württemberg (Germania Superior).

[Publius Aelius Hadrianus]

I think there is much truth to it. The indigenous tribes of Europe seem all to have great or significant Celtic, or Gaelic (Gallic) markers one kind or another. I guess, one cannot truly know europe without the celts and that´s why i am so found of them.

[Watchman]

This would explain why Roman helmets and other military equipment, were directly inspired by Alpine Celtic ones....except for the reasonably lenghty period when their military systems were pretty much wholesale copypasted from the Greeks. And all the stuff they later picked up from the Iberians.

Also, having to fight the Cisalpine Gauls for centuries oughta have been the main practical cause of idea and technology transfer. The Romans made a willingness to adopt useful stuff and ideas from opponents a point of pride, after all.

Even Alexander the Great feared the Alpine/Danubian Celts, and made sure to secure peace with them before setting off to conquer the Middle East. The Celts invaded Greece a few decades after Alexander's death, and sacked Delphi in 279 BCE. Those were the same Alpine Celts that had sacked Rome in 390 BCE, and besieged it again in 367 BCE.Actually I'm pretty sure those were the selfsame Danubian/Pannonian Celts you mentioned earlier, who also weren't quite the same bunch as the ones having a neighbourly feud with the Romans down in Italy. Although I've seen it suggested at least some of the Transalpine mercenaries at Telamon may have earlier taken part in the invasion of Hellas - Celtic mercs got around.

If the Romans were in fact close relatives of those Celts, equipped with the Greek advances in agriculture, ship-building, military strategy, and political structure, it is no wonder that they defeated everybody else so easily.And here I thought the main reason was a massive military manpower reserve combined with a streak of bloody-minded stubbornness a mile wide... as well as the Diadochi having bled themselves dry fighting each other.

[Lucio Domicio Aureliano]

I just want to point that the article is not mine. Neitherway, when it comes to Roman wars, i believe it´s quite clear many of them were anything but easy.
Now if i had to choose i guess the war against Carthage or the Persians were far more difficult that the ones against the diadoch.

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[Aelius Maximus]

It does make sense, i was aware of some studies over the subject nd i believe they are on their way to the truth. Nonetheless, it´s important to point that even though Romans seemed to be genetically closer to celts, they were closer to Greeks from whom they learned a lot. (And the Greeks learned from the Egyptians and so on...All of them were of great importancy).

[Watchman]

Isn't pretty damn near the entire post-Ice Age Europe rather closely related anyway...? It's not like there were too many too large groups of "resettlers" following the retreating ice after all...

[satalexton]

Sounds plausible, So they -are- barbarians afterall =D Not all would like this idea though......

[Taedius]

What's your source?

[Cute Wolf]

The S28/U152 SNP was discovered as a subclade of haplogroup R1b about 2 years ago and tests have become more widespread over the last year. The original trend seem to point at a Celtic origin for this haplogroup, with a possible origin in the Black Forest or Switzerland.

R1b-S28 was found in the area of extension of the La Tene culture, along the Rhine, Moselle and Meuse valleys north to Belgium, around the Alps in Eastern France (Lorraine, Vosges, Jura, and maybe as far as Auvergne), and in northern Italy, known as Cisalpine Gaul by the Romans. The haplogroup was also observed at lower frequency in Britain, which is compatible with the establishment of Belgic tribes there prior to the Roman conquest.

But it now appears that R1b-S28 is also the most common subclade of R1b in Italy, even in the south and in Sardinia. It could indeed be the original haplogroup of the Italic tribes, prior to the arrival of the Etruscans, the Greeks and the Phoenicians.

The coalescence age for R1b-S28 haplotypes is around 3,500 years ago, about 1,000 years before the beginning of the European Bronze Age. This makes it possible for a common origin of the Alpine Celts and Italic tribes. Little is known of the Italics before the mythical foundation of Rome in 753 BCE.

In all likelihood, the ancestor of all/most R1b-S28 people lived in the Western Hallstatt culture, around the Black Forest. This happens to be the place where the highest STR diversity is found for this haplogroup, which usually means that it is the place of origin.

Hmm, as far as the biochemistry lectures I can remember, the haplogroup R1b is inherited through paternal ways in Y chromosome, and R1b frequency is Downstream of U106 are U198/S29/M467, P107, P89.2, L1/S26/DYS439(null), L5, L6, L48/S162. But this could be sightly altered by mutation on climate exsposure and maternal genetics. Made sense that the Romans and the Celts maybe once had same paternal ancestor tribe.

[Ludens]

What's your source?

Yes, could you post the reference or link to were you found this?

The data is interesting but, as Watchman points out, it looks like the author got a bit carried away.

[Macilrille]

The author is a Celtophile obviously, the subject itself hints at that and so does the way it is built and formulated (unless the OP has rewritten it in English with less knowledge of sophisticted and academic versions of it- no slight intended, your English is fine, but the article is not written in the sort of language in which you publish research).

I suspect it all comes down to what Watchman says (though I daresay the Finns/Lapps giving name to your own country seem unrelated to the rest of us) and that someone (read "one of the numerous Celtophiles who seem to be everywhere these days propagating the greatness of Celts") has overinterpreted this common similarity. I need to see much more evidence before I am convinced.

[tarem]

hey Celts were/are a very interesting culture :2thumbsup: however we must consider what the Romans them selves identified with. i mean, you can try and classify them through their genetic bloodline or through their culture which was greatly influenced by the Etruscans first, and later on by the Greeks. and as pointed out before the genetic makup of Europe (even the Mediteranean) has remained largely intact even untill today, so at one point we all probably originated from a handfull of tribes :yes:

[Cambyses]

Surely common genetics only proves that at some point in the past there was shared ancestry. It cannot by itself be taken to mean any cultural or societal similarity - beyond the obvious point of continuous close contact having an influence one upon the other. The similarity of the languages seems a far more interesting point to me, and if true would certainly indicate a stronger bond (more recent and relevant) between the peoples. The Romans were extremely successful at exploiting their geograpical position by taking the best ideas from their various neighbours and adding it to their own identity. A notable failing in some other civilizations. But the side effect of this is that we should not read too much into the presence of later "foreign" cultural influences in the origins of Rome.

However, if such a strong relationship had been true, surely knowledge of it would have survived in the form of myth/religion etc. Yet the Romans almost constantly distanced themselves from the Celts in terms of identity both at the time of their battles and thereafter. They constantly remarked on the differences between the two cultures (if we briefly allow the celts to be considered as one culture) including a focus on the differences in physical size and appearance which would seem extremely relevant in this situation.

[Watchman]

I suspect it all comes down to what Watchman says (though I daresay the Finns/Lapps giving name to your own country seem unrelated to the rest of us):huh: What (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finland#Etymology).
You know you kinda lost me there, also in how that relates to anything.

Anyway, the article quoted in the OP seems to be excessively hung up on some genetic connections that one suspects are as much the product of the Migrations as any prehistoric population drifts, and goes on to draw some rather far-fetched culture-related conclusions from them which is AFAIK pretty much gross bullshit by default.

He(?) also rather cuts corners in apparently lumping the Urnfeld and Hallstatt cultures together, which is kinda dodgy, and seems to assume the connections northern Italy had with the Danubian corridor (and the Hallstatt centers there) somehow automagically results in some kind of close kinship between the later, highly warlike, La Tene phase of Celtic culture and the by that point heavily Mediterranean-influenced Romans...

[seienchin]

Wow... Romans and celts derived from the same source?
Would be cool if it would be true, but honestly I doubt it. They never shared too much culture, technology and mythology.

[Cute Wolf]

:huh: What (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finland#Etymology).
You know you kinda lost me there, also in how that relates to anything.

Anyway, the article quoted in the OP seems to be excessively hung up on some genetic connections that one suspects are as much the product of the Migrations as any prehistoric population drifts, and goes on to draw some rather far-fetched culture-related conclusions from them which is AFAIK pretty much gross bullshit by default.

He(?) also rather cuts corners in apparently lumping the Urnfeld and Hallstatt cultures together, which is kinda dodgy, and seems to assume the connections northern Italy had with the Danubian corridor (and the Hallstatt centers there) somehow automagically results in some kind of close kinship between the later, highly warlike, La Tene phase of Celtic culture and the by that point heavily Mediterranean-influenced Romans...

minor correction, the downstream of R1b in genetic biochemistry point was a subclad in DNA sequence that indicating a single male ancestor which first had this "presistent mutation". I'm rather not sure if it was really a minor nucleic N-base CYS coding that was envolved spontaneously in one person, or a previous signature gene of a certain proto Celt tribes that was only sightly altered. But the strain of S25-S29 was a recent occurence in human history (from the time arround warming trend of climate, 4000 y ago), so they maybe more cloesely related by genetics, than related by culture. This can't be caused just by some Keltoi guy marrying the Romaioi girls and their offspring incorporated into Romaioi society, rather than Keltoi society, but this must be indicating that *Almost* all Romaioi has share a single Celtic male ancestor (Y inherited), if we count their relatively high frequency that we've found even today.

Note : I'm not a native english speaker myself, but maybe this article was a translation, but the genetic coding is genuine result of a genetic research, not just a mere article by some Keltophiles. and here's a link that I've found :
http://hemocromatosis.iespana.es/2001/Haemochromatosis%20gene%20mutations%20in%20a%20clustered%20Italian%20population_%20evidence%20of%20h igh%20prevalence%20in%20people%20of%20Celtic%20ancestry.pdf
EDIT: this paper's result is somewhat ambigous though, if we said that today' s Italian aren't roman at all...

[seienchin]

Besides the cultural thing.
Most of the population of italy werent romans, but greeks, etrurians and samnites etc.
I dont know about the samnites and other tribes but the etrurians had a different language than the romans and different habits.
Does your theory have anything else than genetical researches? (Which are really vague due to testing only small percentages of the population).
And is there a possibility that this is in fact not a celtic genetical structure, but just an italian one which spread over europe in roman empire times? Would make more sense to me.:book::book:

[Cute Wolf]

Besides the cultural thing.
Most of the population of italy werent romans, but greeks, etrurians and samnites etc.
I dont know about the samnites and other tribes but the etrurians had a different language than the romans and different habits.
Does your theory have anything else than genetical researches? (Which are really vague due to testing only small percentages of the population).
And is there a possibility that this is in fact not a celtic genetical structure, but just an italian one which spread over europe in roman empire times? Would make more sense to me.:book::book:

This was the second possibility :wall:

[KARTLOS]

isnt this failing to take into account that the population of italy has massively changed since roman times. YOu have massive depopulation combined with large scale germanic migration.

genetic studies looking at data from modern samples can always be questioned on this basis. To get a true picture it is necessary to extract DNA from bone samples.

[bobbin]

To be honest after the advent of farming most migrations had little effect on the genetic makeup of a region due to the existing sedentury population being significantly larger than the migrant groups.
In the case of Italy even after depopulation there would be millions of people living in the region while the invading germanic peoples would number a few hundred thousand at most and would be arriving over a long period of time.

Concerning the OP I would be very hesitant to link culture and genetics in such a way (the Irish and Basques are genetically very close but in terms of culture miles apart) and to attribute things such as armour styles to it is plain wrong.

[Rahwana]

This was the second possibility :wall:

I think not, the migration genetic intrusion will made their haploid strain no different compared to almost all europeans, but the Italians still exhibit significant difference in their S25-S29 sections. And only some confirmed celts (not germanic gene) has this similarities.

[Lucio Domicio Aureliano]

Here´s the link, unfortunately the author dont give sources.
http://www.eupedia.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25249

Thx

[Cute Wolf]

Oh yeah, that thread doesn't have sources, but the very same author wrote another thread with sources which explains everything :beam: (Please bear in mind that this article is full of genetic biochemistry terms, and the author must assume the targeted original readers has some knowledge on that, if not, you will think you are looking into a mysterious numbers and letters, which was actually DNA sequence and variables)
http://www.eupedia.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25201
http://www.eupedia.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25255

So The Theory of a single male ancestor from Celtic gene is right (the Y-carrier sample was taken from Otzi the Iceman, and compared with certain Romaioi remains). -> conclusion : they are true barbaroi by genetics afterall. :clown:

[Lucio Domicio Aureliano]

Very interest, seems that Romans and Alpine celts are indeed close cousins. Having said that, i believe that Rome´s overwhelming mighty is, in part, due to it´s contact with other civilizations while this was not the case for other celts despite the fact that they had an interesting civilization as well.

[Power2the1]

Theres no small amount of authors/researchers that can track the linguistic origins of both Italic and Celtic to a common root. As these groups went west, one section went into and north of the alps and thus gave rise to the Celtic languages, while the other group went south upon reaching the Alps and gave rise the Italic speaking languages. Not sure if this pertains to the movements of similarly related genetic populations across Europe, but linguistics could certainly play a notable part in supporting the similarity of the Italics and the Celts in some fashion, even if only linguistically.

[KARTLOS]

To be honest after the advent of farming most migrations had little effect on the genetic makeup of a region due to the existing sedentury population being significantly larger than the migrant groups.
In the case of Italy even after depopulation there would be millions of people living in the region while the invading germanic peoples would number a few hundred thousand at most and would be arriving over a long period of time.

Concerning the OP I would be very hesitant to link culture and genetics in such a way (the Irish and Basques are genetically very close but in terms of culture miles apart) and to attribute things such as armour styles to it is plain wrong.

I know that it is something of a mantra to state that migrations have in reality had little genetic impact but that will not always be the case.

following the gothic wars the population of italy had dropped to ~2.5 million.

Then the Lombards migrated en masse into italy ~500 000 of them.

The sheer numbers here combined will have ensured that they would in fact have made a massive difference to the genetic makeup of the the country.

[Cute Wolf]

I know that it is something of a mantra to state that migrations have in reality had little genetic impact but that will not always be the case.

following the gothic wars the population of italy had dropped to ~2.5 million.

Then the Lombards migrated en masse into italy ~500 000 of them.

The sheer numbers here combined will have ensured that they would in fact have made a massive difference to the genetic makeup of the the country.

Excuse me, the sample isn't taken from today italians and today's Frenchmen, their prime sampling include Roman remains, as well as celtic remains from that time, far before the "BI" take place.

[bobbin]

I know that it is something of a mantra to state that migrations have in reality had little genetic impact but that will not always be the case.

following the gothic wars the population of italy had dropped to ~2.5 million.

Then the Lombards migrated en masse into italy ~500 000 of them.

The sheer numbers here combined will have ensured that they would in fact have made a massive difference to the genetic makeup of the the country.

I'm not sure where your getting that figure for the Lombard immagrants but it is huge, most estimates I have seen give a number of around 150000.

[Lucio Domicio Aureliano]

Historians no longer accepts the term "Barbarian invasion" for the new theories discredit te so called mass immigration. On sideline, it´s also interesting to point that those same historians are completely against the arbitrary date set for the end of the western Roman Empire (473 dc).

[Aelius Maximus]

Celtic, Italic and Germanic people are all descended from the same R1b1b2 stock. They split north of the Alps.

The Italic branch went south and mixed with the Terramare people who were I2a, G2a and E-V13. Northern Italians have more Indo-European Celto-Italic blood, while southern Italian have more indigenous blood (the highest being Sardinia, then Basilicata).

The Germanic branch moved north and mixed with the indigenous I1 and I2b people, who had already mixed with R1a migrants from the Corded Ware (Battle Axe) culture. The new hybrid Germanic people retained the highest percentage of aboriginal haplogroup I.

Celtic people split in several groups : the Brythonic went to Britain and Ireland, the Gaulish to France, the Iberian to Spain and Portugal, and the Alpine remained around Austria, Switzerland, southern Germany, Eastern France and Belgium. The Iberian and Gaulish groups mixed with I2b, I2a and E people, the Alpine with I2b and E, and the Brythonic just with I2b people.

It is likely that the language of the aboriginal Europeans influenced the various Celtic, Italic and Germanic dialects. Germanic languages diverted the most from the original European R1b language because it assimilated a very large part of aborigines.

[Elmetiacos]

Linguistically, the Italo-Celtic hypothesis isn't very popular anymore.

[Cute Wolf]

Celtic, Italic and Germanic people are all descended from the same R1b1b2 stock. They split north of the Alps.

The Italic branch went south and mixed with the Terramare people who were I2a, G2a and E-V13. Northern Italians have more Indo-European Celto-Italic blood, while southern Italian have more indigenous blood (the highest being Sardinia, then Basilicata).

The Germanic branch moved north and mixed with the indigenous I1 and I2b people, who had already mixed with R1a migrants from the Corded Ware (Battle Axe) culture. The new hybrid Germanic people retained the highest percentage of aboriginal haplogroup I.

Celtic people split in several groups : the Brythonic went to Britain and Ireland, the Gaulish to France, the Iberian to Spain and Portugal, and the Alpine remained around Austria, Switzerland, southern Germany, Eastern France and Belgium. The Iberian and Gaulish groups mixed with I2b, I2a and E people, the Alpine with I2b and E, and the Brythonic just with I2b people.

It is likely that the language of the aboriginal Europeans influenced the various Celtic, Italic and Germanic dialects. Germanic languages diverted the most from the original European R1b language because it assimilated a very large part of aborigines.

Yeah, save some who understand genetic terms like us, they can't understand all the importance of genetic coding... :clown:

[Publius Aelius Hadrianus]

I´ve been talking with some geneticist friend of mine and presented them these data. They said to me that for what it seems the Romans were indeed close related to alpine celts as is much of Italy. Also that Celts are the key for European genetics (Especially continental Europe but also Great Britain).

[antisocialmunky]

Celts were everywhere and had a massive... blob of maniless, for lack of a better phrase, spanning most of Europe and parts of Asia so its not that surprising that they have a lot of genetic legacy lying around.

[Publius Aelius Hadrianus]

Celts, i believe, are one of the reasons why geneticists agree that Europe is the most homogeneous continent. Especially since, today we know that Celts, Germanic and Italic ppl has a common ancestry.

[bobbin]

The relatively homogenous nature of Europeans has nothing to do with the "Celts" or any other ancient group what so ever, its caused by a population bottleneck some time in the past.

The currently accepted story is the during the last glacial maximum most of the human population of Europe was pushed out by the worsening climate and advancing ice sheets, the remainder were able to survive in various refuges situated in Iberia, the Balkans and the North Black Sea Coast. Thousands of years later when the ice started to retreat these small populations repopulated the rest of Europe resulting in the obsereved genetic homogeneity we see today.

[Frostwulf]

This also explains why the Romans called the Suebi and other Celts of modern south-west Germany the "Germani".The above quote from the article seems odd to me. The Suebi spoke a Germanic language and were from the Jastorf culture (M.Carroll), that doesn't equal Celt.

While I think the idea of using DNA for such questions fascinating and exciting, there does seem to be some problems.

Note : I'm not a native english speaker myself, but maybe this article was a translation, but the genetic coding is genuine result of a genetic research, not just a mere article by some Keltophiles. and here's a link that I've found :
http://hemocromatosis.iespana.es/200...20ancestry.pdf
EDIT: this paper's result is somewhat ambigous though, if we said that today' s Italian aren't roman at all... This article seems to be saying that the Cimbri of Italy and those of Denmark are of the same ancestry because they have the same HFE gene mutation. They specifically call the Cimbri of old "Celtic" because the same HFE gene mutation is found in multiple places including Denmark and also that the Cimbri in Asiago Italy. Historically speaking there were "Celts" in northern Italy since the 600's B.C. and there are many theories as to the origins of the Italian Cimbri.(2001)

On the other side we have this study:
http://vetinari.sitesled.com/cimbri.pdf
In the conclusion they specifically state that the Cimbri of Asiago Italy are significantly differentiated from both the Himmerland Cimbri and the Danes. According to the above article the Danes and the Himmerland Cimbri are very similar. (2007)

Furthermore there is this which was put forth by Eupedia (Maciamo used this article):
http://www.eupedia.com/europe/origins_haplogroups_europe.shtml#R1b

Alpine Celts of Hallstatt are associated with the S28 (a.k.a. U152) mutation, although not exclusively. The Italic branch (also S28/U152) is thought to have entered Italy by 1200 BCE, but there were certainly several succesive waves, as attested by the later arrival of the Cisalpine Celts. The Belgae were another S28/U152 branch, an extension of the La Tène culture northward, following the Rhine, Moselle and Meuse rivers.

R1b-S21 (a.k.a. U106) is found at high concentrations in the Netherlands and northern Germany. Its presence in other parts of Europe can be attributed to the 5th- and 6th-century Germanic migrations. The Frisians and Saxons spread this haplogroup to the British Isles, the Franks to Belgium and France, and the Lombards to Austria and northern Italy. The high concentration of S21/U106 around Austria hints that it could have originated there in the Hallstatt period, or originated around the Black Sea and moved there during the Hallstatt period. In fact, southern Germany and Austria taken together have the highest diversity of R1b in Europe. Besides S21, the three major first level subclades of R1b1b2a1b (L21, S28, M167) are found in this area at reasonable frequencies to envisage a spread from the Unetice to Hallstatt homeland to the rest of western Europe.
The above talking of the U106 shows that there is still allot of guess work going on, but nevertheless it is interesting. There is map of interest on this web site for S21: http://www.ethnoancestry.com/R1b.html#R1bessential

[Rahwana]

This gonna to be interesting, especially considering the lower mutation probability on that section, means that they are gonna to be a close relatives.....

[Uticensis]

The problem with all this is that genetics, when used in an application such as this, is meaningless. There is no Celt gene and no Roman gene, and even if there were, the Romans and Celts had no way of knowing this. Cultural identity, as the vast majority of both modern historians and anthropologists will tell you, is not some primordial thing dictated by our blood or genes. It's a man-made construct. Being Roman meant certain things, it meant being a part of Roman society. It meant acting like a Roman, talking like a Roman, and viewing all those who didn't (such as the Celts) as different.

In the end we are all humans. You go back far enough and everyone descends from a very small group of people. But that has no bearing on how we define our cultures. The whole genetic thing may be useful for studying peoples way back in the murk of prehistoric times, but it is completely useless for understanding Roman, Celtic, or any other culture. Thus, to refute the thesis of that article, the Roman conquest of Gaul was not some unification. It was cultural domination. It was one culture that, whatever was happening on their nucleotides, defined themselves as radically different and had come to impose their culture on a group of people they saw as different (not to mention inferior). The Celts were not their brothers or cousins, but their enemies and later their subjects (until, in the end, the Gallic Celts largely adopted Roman culture).

I think that since the discovery of DNA is relatively new to us, a lot of people want to try to use if for all sorts of applications. It's part of the excitement of having a new and innovative tool. But I also think people will come to realize that there are some things that DNA can't be used for, like determining who is a Celt, who is a Roman, or even who is an Italian or who is a Frenchman. There is so much more to the human condition that genetics just can't get at.

[geala]

I'm very thankful for your post, Uticensis. It describes exactly what I feel. While I appreciate the information of the genetic inconnections of people, I think the whole conclusions from it are often utter crap.

Maybe even the temperature with which babies are confronted on their 3rd to 10th day after birth may explain better why a culture became this or that. Only in old Rome there was this 21,2337 degree celsius, essential to becoming a superpower, a small variation in the clima which the neighboring Celtic-Italic-Greek + Etruscan-influenced cities of same genetic material in Latium lacked totally. Perhaps it was such easy.

[Frostwulf]

While I agree that genetics has nothing to do with culture, these cultures were forged by those who did have particular genes in common, at least to begin with. No there was no Roman gene or 'Celt' gene, but these cultures began with people who possessed particular genes. The Romans began with the Italic tribes who possessed genes that were different then the people who possessed genes that were associated with the 'Celtic' culture. Of course these peoples spread and/or absorbed other peoples in which the gene pool enlarged/changed, but nonetheless there is a genetic connection within the genesis of these cultures.
There is something to be said for the way the genetics research tends to match up with historical/anthropological writings and findings. At this point in the genetic realm I'm not sure how much can be associated with these particular cultures, as I don't believe enough research or interpretation of said research has reached a refined enough level to come up with a solid basis.

[geala]

Do you think there is a combination of genes that points people to specific cultural and political directions? The first thing that you would have to prove were wether genetic differences meant more than brighter/darker skin, different hair colours or lactose intolerance for some or the other. Do you really think that the genes of the Romans were such different from that of the other inhabitants of Latium that it could explain something?

[Mulceber]

Historians no longer accepts the term "Barbarian invasion" for the new theories discredit te so called mass immigration. On sideline, it´s also interesting to point that those same historians are completely against the arbitrary date set for the end of the western Roman Empire (473 dc).

I wouldn't go that far. I have read modern books on the fall of Rome which still argue that it was an invasion, and I agree with them.Yes, the barbarians were getting pushed out of their homelands, but that doesn't make the fall of Rome any less violent, as some historians have tried (foolishly, imo) to argue. Rome didn't fall exclusively because of the barbarians, there were many other economic and political factors as well, but to try to completely take out the invasion-component is rewriting history.

With regard to the Italic-Celtic theory being described, I can agree that perhaps there is some celtic genetic stock, but we should avoid lumping Romans in with the rest of the Italian tribes, because Latin is very different linguistically from the other local Itallic languages. This suggests to me that roughly half their cultural heritage (and thus, their gene pool) was from elsewhere. The people who say culture and genes are not the same thing are right, but ethnic groups often do bear the same genetics, and thus it's fair to bring culture into the conversation. I'm not saying that Vergil, Sallust et al. who argue that they're Trojans are right, just that we should take them seriously when they say they came from a different place than the rest of the Itallic tribes. -M

[Publius Aelius Hadrianus]

As i far as i know the barbarian invasions are nowadays widely discredit by academics or at the very least used with a lot of restraint especially the so called mass imigration which never took place.

[Mulceber]

Depends on what you mean by barbarian invasion. Was there a coalition of germanic/eastern races hell-bent on destroying the Roman Empire? Hell no. Were there a series of tribes with no particular loyalty to each other who felt the need to carve out a space for themselves within the Roman provinces due to their expulsion from their homelands? I would argue yes. Did this lead to the destruction of the Roman Empire? Not on its own, for there were many other social, economic and political forces at work, but it was a considerable factor. -M

[bobbin]

He means barbarian invasion in the terms of a mass migration of people taking control of an area and completely replacing the previous inhabitants as opposed to the common view today of the movement of displaced elites with their subordinates and hangers on into an area and taking over.

Also how is Latin very different from other Italic languages? from what I've read it shared much in common with Oscan, Umbrian and in particular Faliscan.

[Horatius]

It's difference is the Romans conquered and in the end prevailed. I really don't know of much difference either, but I would be very surprised if there was not massive amounts of mixing between Italics and "Barbarians" considering the amount of contact.