The Irish are Not Celts

[Sumskilz]

CmacQ,

Just to clarify, I was saying that it is easy to correlate genetic evidence with historic records in Latin America precisely for the reasons you state. That of course is in contrast to ancient Ireland where we have so very little to go on. I've also read estimates stating that as high as 90% of Native Americans were wiped out by disease which is something that has no (as far as I know) parallel in Ireland. As far as how many Native Americans were outright killed by the Spanish you get a different story depending on which primary source you read, Las Casas verses Bernal Diaz for example, but I suppose that’s getting off topic.


Riastradh,

I question your conclusions, however that’s not to say that you didn’t bring up an interesting topic that no doubt requires further investigation. I think one issue lies in the fact the term Celt is so vaguely defined. How many of the people that we feel comfortable calling Celts would have called themselves Celts, or Gauls, or Germans for that matter. The categorizations are convenient for modern scholarship but don’t reflect the ancients’ self-identities.


IrishHitman,

I agree, so should Irish culture then be compared to Breton, Cornish, or Welsh culture? How can all the various cross-cultural influences be sorted out? I don’t think modern cultural comparisons are very useful in this case? We probably are served best by archeology and the earliest primary sources.