The third volume in the influential Celtic from the West series questions the accepted status quo on the development and spread of Celtic languages across late Iron Age Europe.
The Celtic languages and groups called Keltoi (i.e. ‘Celts’) emerge into our written records at the pre-Roman Iron Age. The impetus for this book is to explore from the perspectives of three disciplines—archaeology, genetics, and linguistics—the background in later European prehistory to these developments. There is a traditional scenario, according to which, Celtic speech and the associated group identity came in to being during the Early Iron Age in the north Alpine zone and then rapidly spread across central and western Europe. This idea of ‘Celtogenesis’ remains deeply entrenched in scholarly and popular thought. But it has become increasingly difficult to reconcile with recent discoveries pointing towards origins in the deeper past. It should no longer be taken for granted that Atlantic Europe during the 2nd and 3rd millennia BC were pre-Celtic or even pre-Indo-European. The explorations in Celtic from the West 3 are drawn together in this spirit, continuing two earlier volumes in the influential series.
Introduction: John Koch & Barry Cunliffe
Part I: Archaeology
1. Laure Salanova: Behind the Warriors: Bell Beakers and identities in Atlantic Europe (3rd millennium BC)
2. Stuart Needham: The Lost Cultures of the Halberd Bearers: a non-Beaker ideology in later third millennium Atlantic Europe 3. Catriona Gibson: Closed for Business or Cultural Change? Tracing the re-use and final blocking of megalithic tombs during the Beaker period
4. Simon Timberlake: Copper mining, prospection and the Beaker phenomenon in Wales — the significance of the Banc Tynddol gold disc
5. Kerri Cleary: Burial practices in Ireland during the late third millennium BC—connecting new ideologies with local expressions.
6. Dirk Brandherm: Stelae, funerary practice, and group identities in the Bronze and Iron Ages of SW Iberia: a moyenne durée perspective
7. William O’Brien: Language Shift and Political Context in Late Bronze Age Ireland: some implications of hillfort chronology
8. Peter Bray: Metal, Metalwork, and Specialisation: the chemical composition of British Bronze Age swords in context
9. Raimund Karl: Emerging Settlement Monumentality in North Wales during the Late Bronze and Iron Age: the case of Meillionydd
10. Adam Gwilt, Mark Lodwick, Jody Deacon, Nicholas Wells, Richard Madgwick, and Tim Young: Ephemeral Abundance at Llanmaes: Exploring the residues and resonances of an Earliest Iron Age midden and its associated archaeological context in the Vale of Glamorgan
Part II: Genetics
11. Bruce J. Winney and Walter F. Bodmer: The Genetic Structure of the British Populations and their Surnames
12. Maria Pala, Pedro Soares, and Martin B. Richards: Archaeogenetic and palaeogenetic evidence for Metal Age mobility in Europe
Part III: Linguistics
13. J. P. Mallory: Archaeology and Language Shift in Atlantic Europe
14. Steve Hewitt: The Question of a Hamito-Semitic Substratum in Insular Celtic and Celtic from the West
15. John T. Koch: Phoenicians in the West and the Break-up of the Atlantic Bronze Age and Proto-Celtic
16. Fernando Fernández Palacios: Ancient Personal Names in the Iberian Peninsula and Parallels in Celtic Inscribed Artefacts from Early Medieval Britain and Ireland
17. Peter Schrijver: Sound Change, the Italo-Celtic Linguistic Unity, and the Italian Homeland of Celtic
18. Theo Vennemann: Celtic as Vasconized Indo-European? Three structural arguments
General Index
John T. Koch is Research Professor at the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies in Aberystwyth. A historical linguist specialising in early Celtic languages with a unique multidisciplinary profile, Koch’s research includes Indo-European origins of Celtic names, words, and grammar.
Sir Barry Cunliffe is Professor Emeritus of European Prehistory in the University of Oxford. A phenomenally prolific author and excavator, his publications include highly readable synthetic overviews that encompass long chronological sweeps of the archaeology of Britain, Eurasia, the Celtic world, and the Atlantic façade.
