vellaunos

The Route of My Fathers

The map above represents the route that my forefathers generally travelled between c5000 BC and c2000 BC. (By “forefathers”, I mean my patrilineal ancestors exclusively.) In terms of successive Y-DNA haplogroups, the following sequence of clades evolved along this route: R1b-P297 > R1b-M269 > R1b-L23 > R1b-L51 > R1b-L151 > R1b-P312 > R1b-L21.

A few years ago, I found out through testing done by 23andMe that my Y-DNA haplogroup is R1b-L21. This haplogroup is sometimes referred to as the “Atlanto-Celtic” haplogroup because it is by far the most common Y-DNA haplogroup among speakers of the modern Insular “Celtic” languages which developed along the Atlantic coasts of western Europe.

As far as I know, the earliest definite culture whose male members belonged to Y-DNA haplogroup R1b is the Samara Culture which flourished in the area of the Samara bend along the Volga River in eastern Russia around 5000 BC. The particular clade of R1b found in this culture is R1b-P297.

Derived from the Samara Culture, the Khvalynsk [c4900 to c3500 BC] and Repin Cultures represent the westwards expansion of the people of my R1b forefathers through the Pontic Steppe. The culmination of this westward expansion was the great Yamnaya Culture [c3300 to c2600 BC] which spanned from the southern Ural Mountains in the east to the Carpathian Mountains in the west. The prevailing Y-DNA haplogroups in the Khvalynsk, Repin and Yamnaya Cultures were R1b-M269 and R1b-L23.

Further westward expansions from the Pontic Steppe during the first half of the third millenium BC brought my Yamnaya forefathers up the Danube River valley into central Europe. By the middle of the third millennium BC, the people of my R1b forefathers encountered the people of the Corded Ware Culture in what is now southern Germany. By this time, the R1b-L51 clade had appeared.

As the people of my R1b ancestors expanded westwards across the Pontic Steppe, their R1a relatives also expanded westwards through the forested zone immediately north of the steppes (through what are now the Russian heartland and Belarus). Arriving in central Europe via what is now Poland, they were at least partly responsible for the appearance of the Corded Ware Culture [c2900 to c2350 BC]. This culture and its derivatives (Middle Dnieper, Fatyanovo-Balanovo) quickly expanded eastwards among the R1a folks, ultimately contributing to the appearance of the Abashevo Culture [c2500 to c1900] in the region of the Volga River which in turn contributed to the development of the Sintashta Culture (Indo-Iranians) and the Srubnaya Culture (Cimmerians).

Largely contemporaneous with the Corded Ware Culture was the somewhat-enigmatic Bell Beaker Culture [c2800 to c2300 BC]. The origins of this culture are disputed – it may have originated in Iberia – but it extended over most of western Europe and much of central Europe, overlapping considerably with the Corded Ware Culture in central Europe.

When the people of my R1b forefathers moved up the Danube River valley into central Europe towards the middle of the third millennium BC, they seemingly adopted the Bell Beaker Culture. Some of these Bell Beaker R1b-L51 folks subsequently expanded further northwards and mixed with the R1a people of the Corded Ware Culture in north-central Europe, thereby forming the basis of the Germanic peoples (among whom the R1b-U106 clade eventually developed).

The R1b-P312 clade eventually developed among the Bell Beaker R1b-L51 folk who remained in central Europe. Some of these R1b-P312 folks subsequently migrated with the Beaker Culture into northwestern Europe (the Low Countries, northern France, Great Britain, Ireland). Soon thereafter, the R1b-L21 subclade appeared among these R1b-P312 folk of northwestern Europe. Meanwhile, the R1b-U152 subclade appeared among the central European R1b-P312 folk, as well as the Unetice Culture [c2300 to c1600].

It is my view that the separation between “Celtic” and “Celtoid” that I wrote about in my article “Celtic and Celtoid” – https://vellaunos.ca/2021/03/26/celtic-and-celtoid/ – coincides with the separation between the two major subclades of R1b-P312, namely R1b-U152 (“Celtic”) and R1b-L21 (“Celtoid”). In this view, the successive cultures in Central Europe from the Unetice Culture onwards – including the Tumulus Culture [c1600 to c1200 BC], the Urnfield Culture [c1300 to c750 BC], the Hallstatt Culture [c800 to c450 BC] and the La Tène Culture [c450 BC to Roman conquests] – were all Celtic cultures, while the Celtoid peoples were part of the distinctly separate Atlantic Bronze Age [c1300 to c700 BC].

(R1b-U152 is said to be “Italo-Celtic” but I am calling it “Celtic” with respect to the cultures of central Europe because of my opinion that the Italic peoples were established quite apart from the central European Celts in an area including Hungary, Croatia and northern Serbia, from where they eventually migrated into Italy.)

After migrating westwards through the Pontic Steppe from eastern Russia, and migrating up the Danube River valley into central Europe, my forefathers finally migrated into northwestern Europe somewhere around 2000 BC and they remained in this region for over three and a half millennia, until one of them decided to venture out over the ocean and settle in a new world…

By the way, here’s a very good web page about Haplogroup R1b: https://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_R1b_Y-DNA.shtml

And here’s a remarkable “Prehistory Atlas” showing the movements and distributions of various cultures in the Old World throughout prehistory up to the Middle Ages: https://indo-european.eu/maps/

(By clicking on each map on the main page, you arrive on the page for that particular time period on which you can access the full map as well as maps showing the location of sites where Y-DNA and mtDna have been identified.)

A Cladogram of the Celtic and Celtoid Languages

The cladogram above represents my understanding of the development and relationships of the Celtic and Celtoid languages. A few comments on this…

I have indicated four distinct Continental Celtic languages (Gaulish, Cisalpine Gaulish, Belgic and Galatian), but these may have been dialects of a single language rather than distinct languages. There is simply not enough evidence to know for sure.

You won’t find Lepontic in this cladogram because I don’t believe that Lepontic was a Celtic language. Although I have thought of it as an Osco-Umbrian language, I now prefer to think it might have been an Illyric language.

The grey branch labeled “Vindonian” represents a Continental Celtoid conlang that I have been developing. Vindonian would hypothetically have been spoken among the Celtoid peoples that lived in northwestern France before the westward expansions of Celtic from Central Europe, and would be the sister language of the Brittonic and Goidelic languages.

Celtic and Celtoid

In recent years, certain eminent authorities have advanced the theory that the “Celtic” language developed in the Atlantic region of Western Europe and subsequently spread eastwards. This theory is opposed to the generally held view that the Celtic language developed in Central Europe and expanded from there.

The latter view is entirely correct, but the other view is not entirely wrong. In fact, the Atlantic region of Western Europe was the area in which the Celtoid (rather than Celtic) language developed.

My view is that the Insular “Celtic” languages are an offshoot of Celtic rather than being Celtic; I use the term Celtoid rather than Celtic for these Insular “Celtic” languages. Given the eccentric particularities of the Celtoid languages (VSO word order, initial consonant mutations, conjugated prepositions, etc.) which are not found in any other Indo-European language, it is simply bizarre to believe that these languages could belong in the same group as the Celtic language which was centered in Central Europe between the relatively typical Indo-European Italic and Germanic languages.

Some researchers have tried their best to prove some kind of linguistic unity between Celtic and the Celtoid languages, even going so far as to find Insular “Celtic” features in Gaulish texts that no one really understands properly. I can understand that this mission is dear to the hearts (for some reason), but it’s wrong.

Speaking of a lack of unity, comparing Gaelic and Brittonic reveals many more differences than similarities, particularly in terms of vocabulary. Surely these two can’t equally be derived from Proto-Celtic in the same way that East Germanic, North Germanic and West Germanic are derived from Proto-Germanic.

By the way, it is important to bear in mind that only the “Continental Celts” were called Celts in Antiquity. No ancient writer ever called the peoples living in the British Isles “Celts”. In fact, it was only in the Early Modern Era that the Gaelic and Brittonic peoples started calling themselves “Celts”.

Here’s how I see the development of the Celtic and Celtoid languages:

The origins of the Celts are in the Yamnaya Culture which dominated the Pontic Steppe between c3300 and c2600 BC. During the latter part of this period, groups of Yamnaya people migrated into the lower Danube River valley and followed the Danube into Central Europe. The establishment of these Yamnaya ancestors of the Celts in Central Europe probably dates to the time of the early Bronze Age Bell Beaker Culture which existed between c2800 and c2300 BC.

The origins of the Bell Beaker Culture are debated, but it covered most of Western and Central Europe. After their arrival in Central Europe, the Yamnaya ancestors of the Celts apparently adopted the Bell Beaker Culture. This adoption of the Bell Beaker Culture marks the beginning of the Celts.

Sometime before 2000 BC, a portion of the earliest Celts of Central Europe migrated westwards. They first migrated into the present-day Netherlands – producing the Hilversum Culture. Further movements westwards brought these earliest Celts into Great Britain – producing the Wessex Culture – and further into Ireland, while others migrated into the Northwest corner of modern France – a region that was called Aremorica (are-mori “by the sea”) two thousand years ago, and which includes Brittany and adjacent areas.

The men among these migrants carried the R1b-P312 Y-DNA haplotype. After their migration, the R1b-L21 haplotype developed among them. This is by far the most common Y-DNA haplotype among modern speakers of the Celtoid languages. Meanwhile, the R1b-U152 Y-DNA haplotype developed among the Celts staying in Central Europe who developed the Unetice Culture (as well as the nearby Italic peoples who were then settled in the area of modern Hungary).

The language that the R1b-L21 folks spoke was originally part of the Proto-Celtic language. But as their language developed among the Atlantic peoples of Western Europe in relative isolation from the Proto-Celtic core territory in Central Europe, it soon diverged significantly from Proto-Celtic. It may well be that the eccentric particularities of the Celtoid language came from the Atlantic peoples of Western Europe among which the R1b-L21 migrants established themselves.

By the middle of the second millennium BC, there were probably two distinct descendants of the Proto-Celtic language: the Celtic language of Central Europe which directly continued Proto-Celtic (successive Tumulus and Urnfield cultures), and the divergent Celtoid language of Western Europe (Atlantic Bronze Age – c1300 to c700 BC). A later offshoot from the Central European Celtic territory (probably during the Urnfield period – c1300 to c750 BC) was the Celtiberian language which established itself in the northwest of Iberia.

The Celtoid language was originally spoken in Aremorica, Great Britain and Ireland, and possibly also in northern France and the Low Countries. It probably also spread southwards up to Gascony, and may even have spread eastwards to some extent, but the Celtoid language on the Continent was probably largely assimilated to the Celtic language as it spread westwards from Central Europe during the Urnfield and Hallstatt periods. Yet, there may have been transitional dialects between Celtic and Celtoid in some areas, especially in Aremorica.

In Great Britain, the influence of Celtic on the Celtoid language during the Hallstatt and LaTène periods (including the kw > p change) produced the Brittonic language. [The change of the kw sound to the p sound in Celtic probably occurred sometime in the first half of the first millennium BC.] This Celtic influence was largely due to the expansion of the Celtic language into southeast Great Britain in the LaTène period. On the other hand, there was little if any influence of the Celtic language on the Celtoid language of Ireland which developed into the Gaelic (or Goidelic) language. This accounts for the important differences between Brittonic and Gaelic.

So, all the modern languages that are called “Celtic” are really Celtoid languages (Gaelic and Brittonic). The Celtic languages, on the other hand, have been extinct for at least one and a half millennia; the last of these probably disappeared by the fifth century AD.

I might add that everything that we call “Celtic culture” in modern times should really be called Celtoid culture, and that much if not most of this culture is a continuation of the cultures of the pre-Celtoid peoples of Atlantic Europe (rather than Indo-European culture).

Light Blue – Celtoid; Dark Blue – Celtic; Medium Blue – P-Celtoid; Blue-gray – Celtiberian; Purple – Italo-Illyrian; Green – Germanic; Yellow- Pre-IE folks

The Development and Movements of Y-Dna Haplogroups in Eurasia

Genetic researchers apparently believe that great genetic diversity within a population in a given area indicates that that area was a point of origin for that population. I strongly disagree. In fact, I believe that this notion has led genetic researchers to interpret the movements of genetic groups in an altogether backwards fashion. An important result of this backwards thinking is the idea that all of the descendants of Y-DNA haplogroup K, including haplogroups N, O and R, originated in eastern or southern Asia. And of course, I have reason to wonder if this isn’t intentional…

The way I see it, great genetic diversity within a population in a given area indicates that that area is a peripheral area rather than a core area. It seems to me that genetic innovations usually occur in core areas and subsequently expand outwards from that core area. This causes all previous genetic groups to move outwards. This results in the genetic innovation dominating the core area, while the periphery becomes increasingly populated by a diverse assortment of genetic groups that had previously existed.

[The following text added on September 29, 2021]

{The observations in the previous two paragraphs relate particularly to the movements of Y-DNA haplogroups; they are not valid with respect to the distribution of mtDNA haplogroups. The reason for this is simply the inherent natural difference between men and women with respect to territoriality.

Males are naturally inclined to expel all unrelated males from their territories, thereby tending to eliminate the possibility of Y-DNA diversity within their territories, and this is just as true on the level of entire haplogroups as on more localized levels (e.g. clans). On the other hand, females are not so inclined to eliminate other mtDNA haplogroups from their territories, thereby allowing for the accumulation of mtDNA diversity.

The natural male propensity to enforce territoriality necessarily means that the existence of Y-DNA diversity in a region must indicate a peripheral area rather than a core area.}

Here is a diagram that attempts to demonstrate the way I see this.

This being said, here are some maps that show how I see the development and movements of the Y-DNA haplogroups in Eurasia.

The following 11 maps represent an attempt at showing the origins and movements of Y-DNA haplogroups in Eurasia. I must stress that these maps are largely my own guesswork. I should also add that Wikipedia was practically the only source of information that I used.

Please note that only the main center of each haplogroup is generally indicated and that expansions from these main centers generally are not indicated.

Also note that haplogroups C, F and H are no longer shown after map 7.

I have attempted to guess approximate dates for these maps. The guess for the first map is approximately 80000 years ago and the guess for the last map is approximately 30000 years ago, the maps in between being at approximately 5000-year intervals.

A Cladogram of the Indo-European Language Groups

The cladogram below attempts to show the relationships between the various branches of the Indo-European language family. The relationships shown in this cladogram should be compared with the geographic distributions of Indo-European language groupings between 3000 BCE and 1000 BCE shown on the following page: https://vellaunos.ca/2021/03/24/the-movements-and-expansions-of-indo-european-language-groups/

April 13, 2022 : I have produced a modified version of the cladogram to reflect my current view on the Illyrian & Albanian languages – see https://vellaunos.ca/2022/01/30/illyrians-and-albanians/ I have decided to keep the older version of the cladogram which appears below the newer version.

(Right-click and choose “Open image in new tab” to view full images.)

The Movements and Expansions of Indo-European Language Groups

Below are five maps which attempt to show the linguistic territories of the main divisions of the Indo-European language family around 3000 BC, 2500 BC, 2000 BC, 1500 BC and 1000 BC.

Please note that the extents of these linguistic territories are largely speculative. Also note that these linguistic territories do not necessarily correspond with the territories of identifiable archaeological cultures.

In my view, the Proto-Indo-European language existed before 5000 BC in the forested areas west of the Ural Mountains. This Proto-Indo-European language split into two dialects as it expanded southwards into the steppe zone sometime around 5000 BC. I call these two dialects North Indo-European (or Forest Indo-European) and South Indo-European (or Steppe Indo-European).

In red is the linguistic territory of North Indo-European (or Forest Indo-European). The descendants of North Indo-European are Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian. In my view, the Cimmerian and Daco-Thracian languages were southern extensions of the Balto-Slavic group, while the Scythian language of course belongs to the Indo-Iranian group.

In the last two maps below (1500 BC & 1000 BC), the Indo-Iranian dialect of North Indo-European (in pink) is distinguished from the Balto-Slavic dialect (in red).

In yellow is the linguistic territory of South Indo-European (or Steppe Indo-European). The descendants of South Indo-European are Celtic (including Celtoid), Italo-Illyric, Greco-Phrygian and Tocharian. This last group was an early offshoot from South Indo-European and soon diverged greatly from it; for this reason, a light green color is used for Tocharian on the four maps after the first one.

[February 16, 2022 – I have recently come to believe that Illyric was neither part of an Italo-Illyric branch, nor even part of the larger grouping that I define here as South Indo-European – see https://vellaunos.ca/2022/01/30/illyrians-and-albanians/ ]

It is my opinion that the Yamnaya Culture and its predecessors were not speakers of a unified Proto-Indo-European language. The language of the Yamnaya Culture was the southern dialect of Proto-Indo-European from which the Celtic, Italo-Illyric and Greco-Phrygian languages developed.

As for the northern dialect of Proto-Indo-European, this was probably the language of the Comb Ceramic (or Pit-Comb Ware) Culture. It was also the language of the Corded Ware Culture and of its easterly extensions (Middle Dnieper, Fatyanovo-Balanovo).

In brown is the linguistic territory of Anatolian, which in my view is the result of the (partial) adoption of South Indo-European by the non-Indo-European speakers north of the Caucasus who had produced the Maykop Culture.

In beige is the territory of the language that became Greek and Phrygian. This language in my view resulted from a fusion of the eastern dialect of North Indo-European (i.e. Pre-Proto-Indo-Iranian) with the South Indo-European language that was still spoken on the Pontic Steppe after the Yamnaya period. (This would have occurred before the centum-satem split.)

(Armenian is probably an offshoot of this language group, moving southwards over the Caucasus into historic Armenian territory while Greco-Phrygian moved westwards through the Pontic steppe.)

In the last two maps below (1500 BC & 1000 BC), the dialectal division between Italo-Illyric (in yellow) and Celtic (in light orange) is shown.

In orange is the linguistic territory of Germanic, which in my view is the result of a fusion of North Indo-European (particularly Pre-Proto-Baltic) and South Indo-European (particularly Pre-Proto-Celtic).

I have created a cladogram of the Indo-European language family: https://vellaunos.ca/2021/03/24/a-cladogram-of-the-indo-european-language-groups/