Curating Celts: what's in a name?

You thought Celts were bright blue, marauding warriors who lived in mud huts? Not quite. Curator Julia Farley tackles the idea of what it means to be ‘Celtic’ in the British Museum exhibition:
Celts: art and identity
24 September 2015 - 31 January 2016
Find out more and book tickets:
www.britishmuseum.org/celts
Organised with National Museums Scotland
Supported by:
In memory of Melvin R Seiden
Sheila M Streek
Stephen and Julie Fitzgerald
Fund for the Future donors
Processional Cross, Tully Lough Co. Roscommon © The National Museum of Ireland.

[@kimmcb8037]

This was a fabulous introduction - if only I wasn't six years too late! I would love to see this short film on TV as an extended documentary, Julia puts across her love and passion for the period so well I can't help but want to know more.

[@Annur375]

The voice of the presenter is very clear and lovely. She is a natural for this. Thanks for sharing.

[@ttaibe]

I love Julia Harley's enthusiasm.

[@MrMAC8964]

Farley

[@MrGbannan]

Great topic beautiful artwork. Too bad we didn’t get a good look at the pieces since the videographer wanted so badly to show off his rack focus skills and consistently cut away from the objects as soon as they were finally in focus. So stylishly annoying.

[@mutualbeard]

Valuable insights! Scholarship and passion is a great blend.

[@Kilt_Bilt]

very nice, thanks for sharing

[@kenfarley8895]

Julia you're the best! From one Farley to another!

[@jwport580]

Good piece. So wonderful to hear directly from researchers with training.

[@scarymonsterer]

Very enlightening, and provocative. I'm interested in learning more about these ideas, objects and origins. thx 4 posting this

[@trull122]

When I participated in the National Geographic genome project 20 years ago, I was informed hapolo group I (the letter I) is specifically Celt. It doesn't say that anymore.

[@salottin]

I love her presentation!

[@jamesstaplesv]

wow what an awesome Lady !!!

[@DavidNewlandz]

fabulous

[@carolnorton2551]

All I get is the impression the Celtics left very little allowance for a lighting budget.

[@frankie7529]

That's how it was in the dark ages

[@KB4QAA]

CN: I'm not impressed with the recent fad of museums to darken displays.

[@JEEDUHCHRI]

@@KB4QAA I rather appreciate the darkened museums. It puts the spotlight on the objects.

[@kingdavidapple]

Good to know this exhibit goes on for some years. I've a lot of pennies to save! O, to see so many pieces I can name in one place...

[@rebeccabrehm9788]

Fascinating that you have a so similar statue of the "wing headed man" like it was found on Glauberg, Hessia in Germany

[@atrain5197]

Great except for the sub-Enya background music... I wish I could have seen the show!

[@2manysigns]

Great !

[@FloorManiac]

Thanks

[@georgewaked2346]

Dr. Julia Farley could you please hook up with the BBC and make a documentary about iron age celtic art, etc...?

[@Sandwich13455]

Oh the BBC are poison! Just look at their take on achilles being black!

[@kbirridia]

I just stared at the piece at 0:20 for 5 minutes.

[@oldleatherstocking3185]

You timed it huh?

[@ingemarolson3240]

So did I (well, maybe 3) but I'm still left wondering what it is / what its function was.

[@kbirridia]

@@ingemarolson3240 It's a brooch, apparently, though I had to go hunting for it. :) I was just lost in all of the fine detail, but harder to tell what it is, since "[t]he hinge or spring and pin are lost". www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/G_2001-0501-1

[@hglundahl]

2:05 Ideas moved from Hallstatt and La Tène to Ireland and to Galatia - did language move with it? Is the Galatian of Modern Turkey recognisable as P-Celtic or Q-Celtic in the Insular Celtic vein? Obviously excepting traits like VSO word order in insular.

[@pauljermyn5909]

An interesting concept, not so much a clash of civilizations, more a clash of artistic and cultural styles.

[@themadhattress5008]

I only have a bit of Irish, and I think some Scottish, in me, but regardless, I find ancient Celtic culture and societies infinitely fascinating. I strive to learn all I can. I think something of the fun of researching the lot of it is the mystery and intrigue of it. That in and of itself makes the Celts one of the more compelling collectives of people to study. I mean, the fact that they went hundreds of years without having a written language -- with tales of their bards allegedly being able to remember countless tales and myths and poems, and so on and so forth, all being recited by word of mouth -- is also truly captivating and enticing to me.

[@johnhayes8557]

Some of our Celtic ancestors had written languages, but the use of them was mostly for official work rather than scholarship or teaching. Some tribes used greek or phoenician characters, some invented their own. The oldest know to now are Lepontic, Rhaetic, and Tartessian. Why did most avoid written language as much as possible? So fakers couldn't simply memorize complicated conclusions and pretend to be educated learned and wise!

[@gedbob1]

You aré not cet! Bel beaker, look it up

[@leshmahagow364]

@@johnhayes8557 Druids didn't write things down for, "philosophical or cultural reasons", as knowledge is power. (A major problem for us now) Remember ... The most powerful Druids were Female. It was a matriarchal society.

[@johnhayes8557]

@@leshmahagow364 my family are descendents of a historical Irish Ollamh, the Arch-Druid of Munster. Our teachings were not written down for the reasons I noted. Trades of cows, claims of land, history, exports of gold, treaties all were written down in Ogham on stones or Books of Staves. An older system was used when we lived in Central Europe, clay tablets. Now let's hear what the dfleaceadh amadans say! Sin e mo sceal anois!

[@johnhayes8557]

@@gedbob1 we moved in as they declined for want of their raw materials for bronze and glazing ceramics...we are R1B CELTS.

[@IosuamacaMhadaidh]

I see the way modern people who go to university and live in cities look down on rural folk similar to the way Greeks and eventually Romans viewed the Celts.

[@Pitmirk_]

Someone once said to me that celtic art is like that because it looks good in dark rooms with firelight...

[@Pitmirk_]

@@vids595 good point... now thinking about things found elsewhere in dark northern places in bronze age, plus carvings in maori (pretty dark) meeting houses...

[@profeseurchemical]

thats a very illuminating revelation

[@pseudopetrus]

I have always thought of Celts as more so peoples who share a language group than a single group of people who did great migrations. Of course with language comes a degree of shared culture.

[@ArtwithKrissy]

she was talking utter tripe.

[@helenamcginty4920]

They didnt even share a language. The culture spread from central europe all the way to the Britain. The original IRA cultivated the whole celtic twilight thing in Ireland as a way of uniting the Irish people.

[@helenamcginty4920]

@@ArtwithKrissy you are an expert on human migration, dna, genetics etc then? Doesxwearing blue jeans and drinking coffee make you American?

[@pseudopetrus]

@@helenamcginty4920 Some historians say the birth place for celtic culture was what we know as Bohemia or there abouts.

[@123Andersonev]

@@helenamcginty4920 no it didn't work that way, in reality you had proto indo european belief systems, a celtic language developed on the western periphery in the early stages cut off from what was going on with the continent but still trading with it, there are recent studies that dispel the commentators claims on genetics but I won't hold it against them for stating that at the time of filming, the reality is these western populations probably came to the islands in multiple waves that's backed up by genetic studies, after this period you then get the anglo saxon era, a logical person would connect this with the roman/punic era and the maritime spread of the phoenicians before it but due to politics we get the restrained lacklustre version rather than the logical one.

[@tarunhari1144]

The Celts were a linguistic group of peoples who spoke languages which originated from the same proto-language.

[@tubalcain1039]

I'm a Celt and I approve this message.

[@Zany4God]

Great vlog. Thank you. You said "celt" was not determined by genes. Rats. Now I get to start over and try to place the pieces of the puzzle in a new way. So, it looks like my ancestors traveled through lands occupied by Celtic oriented tribes. That then raises my genetic ancestry in the household of England and I am therefore I am predominantly English.

[@helenamcginty4920]

You could be predominantly British rather than anglo saxon couldnt you? Esp if you hail from the west rather than the East. 1st time I travelled into Cambridgeshire etc it felt and looked like a foreign country to this Lancashire lass.

[@gedbob1]

Bel beaker¡.

[@ondudengrund]

What are the background music used ?

[@kenc2257]

Sounds like generic [not "genetic"] Celtic music--which to me [not musically educated] sounds a lot like generic Irish music.

[@dacealksne]

Robin of Sherwood

[@coolmacatrain9434]

0:44 the 1993 "Guardians Of The Galaxy" Annual bottom right

[@catsupchutney]

Foxy curator!

[@olelarsen7688]

The celts were innovative people. They invented the soap. Before they washed themselves in pis, and brushed the teeth in it. But when we today have tooth cleaning bubblegum containing "karbamid", it is actually artificial "urea", or pis stuf.

[@thegreenmage6956]

Oh Julia. Sweet Julia. A name means everything...

[@MrMAC8964]

as long as you spell it correctly unlike some above,she is a babe tho eh.

[@josoapification]

The celts originated from what is now modern day Serbia north of the DANUBE RIVER They identified 1500 old Serbian Slavic words In the old gaelic language this is not a coincidence they originated from the BALKANS not north of the ALPS

[@1spitfirepilot]

A lot 'Celtic people' stuff is retrospective fantasy. It's a word for an idea, or mutually influencing communities etc, not a racial group ( 'race', in any case, is another invention )

[@123Andersonev]

ok anglo...

[@MonkeyWhoWouldBeKing]

was that a replica of the gundestep cauldron??? :D

[@kenc2257]

Per Wikipedia [I know, I know] while there are replicas, the original was indeed in the UK on a travelling exhibition called "The Celts" during 2015-16. Good catch.

[@ulrikschackmeyer848]

Correct. And just a detail, it's 'Gundestrup': as in 'Gundars Thorpe' , which is of cause a Viking age name for the place in Denmark where it was discovered.

[@EricJacobson1990]

I really wish I could go... I wish I hadnt watched this now... $$ for the flight from BC are kind of prohibitive o.0 Would be cool to go...

[@Peripatetic45]

Whilst I fully accept Julia Farley's analysis of Celticism as a movement of ideas rather than a people, I wonder whether there are genetic similarities, distinct from our English neighbours, between existing Celtic nations e.g. Brittany, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Isle of Man and Ireland?

[@MrMAC8964]

Farley

[@Peripatetic45]

Thank you

[@constipatedinsincity4424]

You look like Lisa Loeb. She's very sweet and your quite pretty.

[@victoriareil2782]

What confuses me is the inclusion of the Astrix comic at 0:45. I believe the term "Gaul" is used throughout, so it wouldn't really fit into a history of the term "Celt". Perhaps the Korean translation uses a word derived from "Celt".

[@twistedtachyon5877]

Asterix & co. are gauls, but don't celts, moors, and so on appear sometimes too? Maybe it's from an issue focusing on "celts" somehow.

[@susandougherty9673]

'Gaul' and 'Gallic' were the Latin words for these peoples and their cultures.

[@michelebriere9569]

My ancestry is French (if you couldn't tell by my name), and I get so tired of people assuming all Celts were Irish and Scottish.

[@helenamcginty4920]

Yes they forget about Halstadd and la tène.

[@gerardferry3958]

should have showed the stadium

[@trailingarm63]

Nobody has convinced me of what "Celtic" really means (and I'm supposed to be one). The old Welsh believed our origins were in the the Middle East. But it's so long ago, it's hard to ascertain the truth. "Various tribes to the north and west of the classical world," is about the most you could say. But how then do you differentiate the Russo, Germanic and Scandinavian tribes? Linguistics maybe, but there's lots of contradictions in that field too.

[@gramursowanfaborden5820]

it's important to make the distinction between the insular Celts and continental Celts, but as a culture it is very ancient and descended from the indo-europeans. the Welsh are part of the insular Celts (insulated by the English Channel from the rest of Europe) and isolated from the other Celtics by the Roman invasion of England and every one thereafter. i think you're struggling to find an answer because you're not sure exactly what it is you're asking... the Welsh come from Wales, which has always been a Celtic place.

[@trailingarm63]

@@gramursowanfaborden5820 Thanks for your response. Before Welsh history was suppressed by London-based administrations in favour of a more Anglo-Saxon approach, the old stories referred to two periods of major inward immigration, one from the time of the lost tribes of Israel and the second led by Brutus some time after the fall of Troy. Whether the detail is correct or not it implies a strong belief that the origins of the Cymru (the name "Welsh" only comes from the Anglo Saxon Wealas) were Middle Eastern in origin. However, DNA research by Prof Steve Jones, et al, strongly suggests Welsh and Irish communities are derived from the Basque gene pool in Northern Spain. Possibly both things could be true and the populations intermixed, I don't know. I do know that the channel was never a source of insularity. It was a maritime highway strongly connecting Britain to all parts of the Mediterranean (hence the export of copper, tin, lead, etc and the import of wine, olive oil, jewellery, etc). This distinction of insular Celts and continental Celts has only been dreamt up to hide historians' embarrassment about how old communities are and which way people or culture were travelling. My essential point remains that the word Celt is applied to a hell of a lot of groups all over Europe (and a bit further) but on what defining basis?

[@gramursowanfaborden5820]

@@trailingarm63 oh right i see what you mean now, however i still believe the channel was a significant obstacle, it'd have been much more treacherous to travel to the continent than it would the same distance by land, maybe quicker, certainly not easier. i don't think the insular Celts are descended from Troy at all, nor anywhere else we would recognise as a "place" now. there's no reason to think it isn't older than that. the word is a word, focusing this much and this particularly on the definition is pointless. different words can mean the same thing, and the same word can mean multiple things, this notion the ancient Greeks "knew" Celts up in the mountains, they were in all likelihood completely unrelated to us and the name was just a coincidence. it's arguable the genetic lineage of what we now recognise as Celts goes far back into the neolithic and the first signs of "culture" appearing, and i maintain that argument.

[@trailingarm63]

@@gramursowanfaborden5820 Thanks for your response. I'm inclined to agree with you about Western fringe "Celts" being in place for a hell of a long time - albeit they may have arrived from the Basque country if the genetic markers are to be believed (or did they go the other way?) Additionally I think it's reasonable to assume their numbers were swollen from time to time by tribes moving west seeking refuge. I disagree that it's not worth examining the merits of the term Celt. If it's a fraudulent, over-arching term used by lazy writers and historians then let's expose it. Alternatively, defend it, but I haven't read a convincing argument yet. I'm confident about the channel, Irish Sea and Mediterranean being an ancient super-highway. Maritime history is now grotesquely underrated. Sure it was dangerous, as countless wrecks testify, but the mariners were brave and extremely skillful. The Phoenicians, for example, built a pre-Roman empire on their sailing skills and traded directly with Cornwall. Land travel by contrast was a nightmare: few or no proper roads, dense forests, brigands and covetous tribes around every hill. You can imagine the difficulties of transporting heavy cargo in these conditions. But by using the seas plenty of Mediterranean bronze weapons and tools have been made with Cornish tin and North Wales' copper. British tribes, reciprocally, got roaring drunk on red wine and flashed precious stones from India and Afghanistan.

[@gramursowanfaborden5820]

@@trailingarm63 i was aware of the extensive trading done long ago, but again, it doesn't match the local area for the amount of cultural exchange taking place to justify saying that the waterways weren't a barrier enough for there not to be meaningful cultural differences on either side of it. maritime history here is certainly not underrated, though evidently is elsewhere. but that is why i know, as well as from my own experience, why we all would rather stay on land. up until recently the coast around Land's End and St Just were the deadliest stretch of water in the world, but even then, some modern ships are caught off-guard. the only concession i might make is that the ancient traders were sensible enough to only make trips here during summer!

[@thoughtsfromtheuniverse]

I never thought that celts were considered barbaric. I thought they were spiritual not religious people. I think i will keep my versions of them. In my private world they were awesome way cooler than the Greeks ever could have hoped to have been. 😋

[@tahiragibson6407]

caleb carson234 - yes, they would always check off “spiritual not religious” on their dating profiles. You should write a book- “CELTS: Awesome Way Cooler Than the Greeks”, and share the insights of your private world.

[@michaelsommers2356]

To the Greeks, anyone who did not speak Greek was a barbarian, by definition.

[@marconatrix]

@@michaelsommers2356 Because to a Greek their speech sounded like "...bar...bar...bar..."

[@JaneDoe-ci3gj]

I thought the music, however wonderful, was just in the way! I couldn't concentrate on what the Curator Julia Farley was saying. Dnf because of it! Pity!

[@trabantdelux]

It will be really interesting if archaeologists get more interested in the migration rout of the Celtic people... Like through the length of Asia... They had at least two settlements on the Balkans... Would be really interesting scientific research.

[@leshmahagow364]

They are indigenous to Northern Spain and the British Isles. We come from the South .... Germans come from the East ....

[@johnhayes8557]

I traveled it decades ago, and it is highly likely the Tocharians and Saka were very very close relatives...the horse riding cultures of the Uralic and Pontic steppes, too. I saw the Tarim mummies before wonks from U-Penn were able to attend movies on their own! Russian scientists genotypes the human remains and guess what...a humongous proportion of R1B1, R1Ax, and other relevant paternal and also maternal markers. And these people raised the right sheep, cast metal and forged the same way, had the wheel, the right arrow straightener and compound bow technology, and made the right twilled plaid woolen weaves! Tocharian A and B i are over 60% cognate with Proto-Gaelic....and the right horses, cows, giant dogs!

[@johnhayes8557]

And in modern day Ukraine and Moldova, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia.....

[@trabantdelux]

@@leshmahagow364 not really. Redheaded people are discribed by Chinese as living north from them. Thousands of years before Celtic people were mentioned in Europe.

[@The_Gallowglass]

The thing that makes them so enigmatic is that they didn't have a writing system. They passed things down in an oral tradition. The Greeks called them barbarians because they spoke an unintelligible language to them and had a different culture.

[@johnhayes8557]

Greeks said the same about everybody not Achaean Greek. Many Celtic groups used writing before contact with Rome or Greece, they, for reasons unknown, are not surviving today.

[@leshmahagow364]

They did write. There were letters between Romans and Druidic judges and political advisers. The policy of the Druids was not to write things down. A deliberate policy. Can you guess why .... ? It's simple really. Once you think about it.

[@sbeacock1]

pondering just the markings were blue? the romans fought them for gold

[@johnhayes8557]

Absolutely true about the Gold, regarding Spain and Gaul, it was salt in central Europe...the Romans did attack Ireland for gold, too, lost two legions to my ancestor Milucc Mac Buan

[@Sandwich13455]

@@johnhayes8557 some goal at the weekend sir!

[@faithlesshound5621]

So the Celts were, to some extent, a cultural or artistic movement. Like present day "Goths" perhaps? Archaeologists don't yet talk about "Baroque" people spreading across 18th century Europe, or "Brutalists" in the 20th.

[@tarunhari1144]

They were a linguistic group.

[@faithlesshound5621]

@@tarunhari1144 Well, we assume that people with a certain kind of grave goods spoke the same language or group of languages. Yet today it would be incorrect to assume that most people with black clothes and white make-up speak Rumanian or Transylvanian Hungarian.

[@ThePr8head]

I think she would look AWESOME in blue body paint!!!

[@MrMAC8964]

i should like to be the one to paint her .

[@tedtimmis8135]

I think modern scholars are bowing to political correctness and are too quick to discard the idea that Celts are people with a common genetic heritage. Everything I’ve read in recent genetic studies suggests that the Celts generally consisted of an early wave of Yamnaya peoples (Bell Beaker with the R1B haplogroup) into Europe.

[@gwynwilliams4222]

New evidence on Welsh DNA which is strange. Wales doesn't Share DNA with other Celtic people's new evidence for Oxford university DNA project. So if this is correct were do the Welsh come from?

[@leshmahagow364]

The British Isles. Before that Galicia now Northern Spain. Next ? To Welshmen in Cardiff bar ... Plaid Cymru supporters ... "You can't leave Britain you ARE THE BRITISH ! God give me strength."

[@flamencoprof]

Cough "Basque" cough. Just across the sea, they fish far away, even to Canada, Wales was easy. Gallic = Gaelic = Gael = Celt, just a missing "T" BTW, I'm from New Zealand, once a colony of the British Empire. When I visited Europe in '96, I went first to France. I had no trouble with the "foreign" culture. Then when I got to Britain I was moved to observe that the French and British don't seem to realise how culturally similar they are. I saw houses in Scotland very similar to those in Brittany (Quel surprise!) I observed that villages in the low rolling countryside of Northern France are about twice as far apart as a peasant can walk to work, and found similar in England. My point is that the poster is correct in saying that Culture is not necessarily connected to Genetics.

[@MrMAC8964]

Wales

[@spongmongler6760]

old but the romans and the vikings too a liking to certain parts such as scotland, ireland and wales. just don't think too much about it.

[@KatzenjammerKid61]

Mass migration, or invasion if you like, doesn't have to be "either/or" alongside cultural diffusion of ideas and practices; it can be an admixture of both.

[@chrissantee8489]

I would disagree about her comment as it relates to the Celts being strictly a cultural attribute it is true that it is a culture but it is also genetic.

[@sclabhailordofnoplot2430]

I thought there was a well established genetic map as well. But then again who can argue that Russian, German and American genetics are correct about RN1A and RN1B. Its not like Red hair DNA or people exists. I mean its not like there is a Roman statue of a Dying Celt was found near Rhodes, Turkey (Which would be East of Greece in my geography), who is to say that they Dying Celt Torc looks similar to the Torc on the Gundestrup cup from La Tena. Or that there were ever Greek writing's about the Celts. Or the Celt guides of the alps for the Carthage Hannibal expedition. Vercingetorix must be a fake story too. (Hold on Calling to tell the people of Nova Scotia, New Zealand, Brittany, Ireland, Wales, Cornish, Scotland, Northern Spain, and all the Irish and Scottish people that for some reason live in North America that they just plain straight out don't exist) P.S. I didn't know Margret thatcher had a daughter "Julia Farley". kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y3qkqXiqiZifnKM

[@emm_arr]

"also genetic" Seemingly not.

[@kenc2257]

@@sclabhailordofnoplot2430 Well...your thoughts are--as we say in America--"all over the map." [not to mean "confused," but geographically dispersed...]

[@Argonaut3]

While this is fascinating, she is incorrect regarding her conception of culture vs genetics, as we can and already have tested for Celtic genes, and they can be identified by any common geneticist.

[@voidremoved]

I have tested for attack helicopter genes

[@kenc2257]

I can imagine that there were blue hordes of barbaric, "common geneticists," protesting the inaccuracies in this (closed) Celtic exhibition. All that remained were smoking ruins...

[@1allspub]

Jayson Gold-Pambianchi Yep, there are certain Y-DNA haplogroups that are far more common in traditional Celtic regions.

[@spongmongler6760]

every people have their different DNA patterns and celts are no different. feels bad that a whole swathe of people are trying to be made into nothing more than an art style.

[@nicholasr82]

It's not just a name, it's an ethnicity. It's been proven that the Galations in the bible are the celts. They migrated from west to east and then some migrated back again.

[@aine7173]

Can i ask why is there a Irish high cross in celtic exhibition.

[@themadhattress5008]

Because the Irish were/are part of the Celtic collective along with Gauls, Welsh, Britons, Scottish, Cornish, and depending on who you ask, Pictish. It stands to reason an "Irish cross" would make its way into an exhibition showcasing Celtic artefacts.

[@Auriflamme]

The Irish high cross is an integration of the Celtic solar wheel into early Christianity in Ireland. Everything in early Christian symbolism has origins in pre-Christian art and culture.

[@moseyburns1614]

A bit absurd to say 'everything' when that's patently untrue.

[@davidcameron-may9268]

Just to personally mess with your head.

[@jeniwatkins3297]

Because the Celts wore them

[@almaminervalealbenavides5889]

If you look and study an Atlas, you will find the Iron Age people, and if you search for dates and cultures we can find Celts in German Territory becoming the richest for exploiting the mountains for minerals and trading with their neighbors. The Romans were digging with their wooden carts and already using the wheel as means of transportation in the north of Spain. They had established in 218 B.c in the Mediterranean Cost of Spain the city of Tarraco, today Tarragona. The Greeks had already been there settling in "Emporion" today Ampurias. And before them, we can find Tartesians, Iberos, Phoenicians, Goths, Visigoths. All this descendants of these people together with the Celts of the year 1,000 A. d. were the ones who invaded the Roman Empire of the East in Constantinople giving a step forward robbing all the treasures from Hagia Sophia and weakening this strategic post of Europe for Mehmet invading and taking Constantinople in 1453.

[@kevincharlesperkins4395]

Listen to her, they are trying to brain wash children into thinking Celt were not a people, but a culture. They are trying to erace us.

[@johnhayes8557]

Rome and Greece came into existence long after my people began building a confederation north of the Alps. Best guess is the tribes who became called Keltoi by the Greeks moved in from the Stepped approximately 4000 BC into the Alpine and Balkan regions...the Latins and various Greeks followed 1500 years after that. The Doric Greeks were a Celtic derived people, FYI.

[@marconatrix]

Celts were and are people who speak a Celtic language, just as Latins are people speaking a Latin language, Slaves peoples speaking a Slavic language, etc. etc. No problem and no mystery really. True there's some doubt about whether some poorly known tribes were or were not Celtic, but the same goes for many other ancient groups that are not well recorded. Henn yw fatell ywe, sempel fest yn gwiryonedh.

[@KieranMckean]

There's something wrong with a britt telling me about my celtic history.

[@marconatrix]

@@KieranMckean What do you mean by 'britt', if you mean 'English' say so. Half of the six existing Celtic nations are located on the island of Great Britain.

[@annettefournier9655]

Oooo get ready for the bristling hackles among all who believe on genetic not cultural Celts. I love The British Museum channel. So fascinating!

[@cadams1607]

The same is true for all cultures when it comes to social constructs. That doesn't stop many people from believing that their special ways of thinking are innate to the people of their own culture. That culture is then often linked to immutable characteristics like skin colour and racial features that are genetic. Appearance is often seen as a key point of belonging to such cultures. They do not distinguish between the culture, the physical, or the spiritual. They are all one and neither aspect can be teased out from the other. This is particularly true of Maori culture in New Zealand and many other tribal cultures. If you try and tell them that the differences between them and other cultures are purely social constructs they will let you know how wrong you are.

[@Sandwich13455]

The cells were predominantly rb1a! So there's that genetic level of a distinct tribe who spread.

[@pavelavietor1]

Hello the most important and famous Celtic today are the family controling the Island of Cuba. The Castros from Galicia in the Iberian Peninsula. Saludos

[@callummason6589]

Celts and English are both germanic people and have com existed on continental Europe and Albion for some time.

[@ArtwithKrissy]

lots of racism when it comes to us celts, as a Cornish person I didnt recognise anything she said about my prepercevied expectations.

[@leshmahagow364]

Americans did not become "The rock and roller people ". In the 1950s The British did not become "The Punk rock" people in 1976. It's fashion a culture not a people

[@johnhayes8557]

The Brisith neither 'invented' Rock and Roll nor Punk Rock. They expropriated them successfully from musical artists in the USA

[@leshmahagow364]

@@johnhayes8557 Rock n roll is American Punk Rock is British I know .. in 1976 I was in England when the Punk craze happened. Then immediately, because of work, went to the States. East Coast ... every conversation was about the Punk Phenomenon. Even the Redskin players I met on the town in Washington. Punk is British ... because it was a working class movement a little rebellion against the fashion and music of the time.

[@pierredelecto9385]

They all ran around naked covered in blue paint.

[@celtofcanaanesurix2245]

Yeah except there is celtic genetic markers, but the farther east you go, the more mixed and un-pure the original genetics of the Atlantic celts is, and the more Rhaetic and Illyrian it becomes in the modern day it’s been diluted on the continent do to romans and franks and such, but if you test an ancient Gaul from France, their closest modern match is a Scotsman, proof of an overall genetically homogenous people, one who spread their language and culture eastward to people who where close but not the same as them genetically and culturally...

[@OldieBugger]

Someone should tell Julia that "viking" means a job, not people.

[@sail2byzantium]

Puh-leaze. She used the term fine, and accurately. The Vikings are an historic peoples associated with Scandinavia.

[@sail2byzantium]

@@mikefule330 Where upon they settled in places like Greenland or L'Anse aux Meadow and became Viking farmers . . .

[@OldieBugger]

@@sail2byzantium, by your logic we can call everyone who lived in England in 16th-17th century Pirates. Because Pirates are historical people associated with the British Isles.

[@sail2byzantium]

@@OldieBugger Not the best argument. All the more so as pirates can hardly be defined by any sort of geographic and historical cultural specificity at least in terms in how we still use the words "pirate" and "piracy" today. Now--if those words underwent the kinds of transformations in usage that the word "Viking" in fact actually did beginning in the early nineteenth century by which it has acquired the historical and geographic specificity it has today, and to which Ms Farley used perfectly correctly (i.e., those seafaring traders and raiders associated with Scandinavia between the 700s - 1000s), then, sure, perhaps so. But this is not the case. So here you're guilty of an overgeneralization while in your first instance you went into the opposite direction lurching into the etymological fallacy.

[@sail2byzantium]

@@mikefule330 Well, I never said that a Danish fisherman or farmer were pirates. Your next point is the correct one: "However, this is one of those cases where it would be better to accept how the word is generally used rather than to try to reassert its original use." My original posts to you and Äijänkäppänä were over the nitpickiness and pendentary you two applied to curator Farley's use of "Viking" who, as based on your quote here, used "Viking" in a perfectly acceptable sense. I feel reasonably certain that both of you for example, make use of all sorts words like "fantastic," "awful" and "gay," to note three examples, more in their current senses today than in their original meanings (i.e., "something existing just in the imagination, like a 'fantasy' "; "something that inspire awe or wonderment;" and "happy" or "joyful"). Instead, the two of you seemed more interested in lurching into the etymological fallacy in that the word could only be used in a particular way because of its original meaning, never mind that languages are never that static so that any word's meaning has a lot more to do with its current usage that its original one.

[@gwynwilliams4222]

The Welsh are the true Britons

[@johnhayes8557]

So are the Cornish, the descendants of the Caledonii (Picts), and the Dalriadans

[@callummason6589]

Yes but the English are english. We do t have to be Britons or want to be.

[@ArtwithKrissy]

@@johnhayes8557 Cornwalls 'West Wales'

[@mikesands4681]

Was not happy with British museum section of celts. It implies they became British rather than removed by genocidal Continental waves of invaders.

[@ar_xiv]

this must have been posted on some racist forum somewhere

[@Sandwich13455]

@Shufei well there's the haplogrouping of rb1a predominantly in Celtic dna !

[@digofthedump]

the reason they painted blue obvious a uniform a need too too know who you kill in blind rage! imo and the artwork ! why do history make ppl think that civilization is younger than it is. ask a modern day (person to make such) gl

[@mrsuperger5429]

There were no such race as the " Celts ".

[@alunrees313]

For something to be something it has to start and someone has to say it who said we are celts , I’ll tell you who said it the academics at Oxford and Cambridge the welsh people are 80 % Israelites 10% Celt 10% germanic, ask Wilson and Blackett

[@robertdonnell8114]

I disagree that a "Celtic DNA linage" can not be found, today's DNA can be traced back thousands of years and the art + linguistic history do also follow the gene flows across Europe. Do not allow your politics to color your science on these matters.

[@bood22ataol]

English aren't Celts though.

[@frankie7529]

You are correct. Not being English is a big part of being a Celt.

[@angofbew]

@@frankie7529 no not totally correct genetically. The highest portion of Anglo Saxon DNA in any English group today is max 41.5% in Norfolk. Many areas having only 10%. Most 'English' Have up to 30% British DNA. As per your other post where you said 'Celt' is silly and meaningless, only to you and your twisted mind I'm afraid. Modern day Celts as has been said is totally about linguistics, either being a speaker of one on the Languages or being decended from. To call oneself a Celt today has more credence than calling oneself English

[@spongmongler6760]

nonsense.

[@mourasantos]

If there's a longstanding cultural modality, you can be sure it has some sort of genetic expression.

[@Wsrtw53]

+Situations103 You're right, and I'll tell you something, the stupidity and lack of the latest information on such study about it, amongst people who are supposedly qualified to speak of such things, is unbearable. Geneticists have recognised, years ago now, a genetic haplogroup which is shared by all of the Celtic peoples, whether in the ancient graves of Galatia, Germania, Gaul, Pictland, literally anywhere where Celts lived. When their DNA was sequenced they all test positive for that one haplogroup, one genetic cluster - R1B S116, and it's various descendant subclades. This can also be found in people all over Europe. The Celts are a racial grouping, a Proto-Indo-European branch. Yet regardless of the irrefutable scientific evidence, there are people who think it's an "artistic trade", and not only that, they're apparently "professionals"

[@mourasantos]

+Ross Findlay I bet this reluctance to accept genetic distinctions among peoples has to do with some kind of misguided progressive ideology.

[@Wsrtw53]

I think you're absolutely correct. I find it particularly frustrating as I personally have invested in ethno-genetic testing, and I belong to one of the descendant subclades (L21) of R1B S116. I almost hope that it is to fit a backwards, politically correct utopia, as in that case it at the very least wouldn't be that all of these top notch historians and archaeologist are not as incredulously under informed as they seem. There's even "anti-racism" groups in France who oppose ancestry testing, even though it's obviously only partaken in by consenting people. What's the world coming too?...

[@mateusflores1128]

Pathetically the truth is hidden by a infestation of ideologies and egos in the professional world across the board. Which is by all means hardly professional . This is why the history will always be told by the 'victor' and not by people who claim themselves to be 'unbiased' or 'intellectuals'. The victor calls them 'useful idiots' but the sad reality is they are all 'misguided geniuses.'

[@AndyLundell]

Wow, people read the pamphlet that comes with a $50 dna testing kit, and they think they're experts.

[@johnnycats5157]

could do without the sappy, trite, Enya-esque music

[@kenc2257]

If one follows the web link to The British Museum's online page for this (now closed) exhibition, they'll see that distinctive music is part of the idea of Celtic identity.

[@moviejose3249]

I take it Julia will also inform us the Indians or Pakistanis or Jamaicans in England do have not genetic identity either just like the Celts.

[@AR-ws1gr]

Maybe it's bc a few different people's came under celtic culture? Those on the continent and those on the isles? I'm sure they are all white but maybe it's not as simple as this one DNA sequence? Like they did with Welsh and the Gaelic people's in the DNA studies?

[@AR-ws1gr]

But it's hard to say bc there is a motivation to blur these cultures for fear of white identity groups. Which is a real shame. I just want the facts. I don't need these people choosing what is safe for us to know. We can misuse any information. But they create a bigger interest into this area by hiding it.

[@emm_arr]

Interesting choices. Pakistanis are not one nation of people. Jamaicans speak patois because their ancestors did not necessarily share a common language. So it seems unlikely that Pakistanis or Jamaicans in England - or anywhere else - have a Pakistani or Jamaican genetic identity.

[@athulfgeirsson]

"There is no Celtic gene" Absolute nonsense.

[@ar_xiv]

why? because you say so?

[@ar_xiv]

also very subtle with the icon

[@hoathanatos6179]

To say that that is absolute nonsense just shows that you literally know nothing about genetics. No single gene can represent an identity, and especially not an ethnic one. You're more daft than the people who think that there is some gay gene that can express an individual's entire sexuality. Also ancient Celtic societies dealt with so much migration and bred with so many different peoples that yeah, you cannot compare modern peoples' genetics with theirs.

[@Yog-Sothothery]

@@hoathanatos6179 Ahhh yes, the famous Sub-saharan migration into iron age europe. This only proves that small amounts of migration from the same geographical region is a perfect excuse to completely eradicate borders and western civilisation.

[@heavyhands1383]

@@Yog-Sothothery There's no such thing as a "western civilization" gene either, bucko

[@alunrees313]

Celtic was a name given to the ancient British by the academics in Oxford and Cambridge under pressure from the Church of England it all started in the 1700 s to get rid of British welsh history if you get rid of a history you must replace it with another then they decided to get rid of the welsh language so they passed an act of parliament in 1840s banning welsh being spoken in welsh schools then in the 1920s welsh history was stopped being taught in welsh schools it’s called brad y llyfrau gleision, the treachery of the blue book, Christianity came to Britain in 37 ad 600 years before the English by Llid now Llanilid in Glamorgan, if you go in to a book shop and look for a book on British history you will only find books on English history nothing about Welsh British history, the Assyrians called the Israelites khymri after King Omri of Israel the welsh still call themselves the Cymry and they still speak the language of the those lost tribes of Israel Cymraeg , THER IS NO CELTIC GENE

[@barbarossa5700]

"There is no kinda Celtic gene, you can't test somebody to see if they're a Celt but nevertheless we are looking at what actually does unite the peoples that have used this name across a really broad suave of time" Basically rule out genetic evidence for abstract interpretations via art and literature, I guess it's impossible to do DNA sampling....all coming from a curator.

[@frankie7529]

I think the term Celt is silly and misleading/meaningless.

[@martinan22]

She is parroting the "muuh elite transfer" scholars have crafted after ww2. For political reasons. Listen to Peter Heather instead, he has a much more balanced view.

[@crystalrose7921]

Its so sad.... she is so smart, but the amount of times she says "um," then smacks her lips, distracts me from hearing what she is trying to teach us. So sad..

[@mikefule330]

I expect it's a bit like using "so" three times in such a short comment.

[@jeniwatkins3297]

It is unfortunate. However, i believe some people do it when on camera or in front of crowds due to nerves, that would not normally

[@mikefule330]

@@jeniwatkins3297 Not only that, it's a useful technique. If you just talk confidently with no breaks or pauses, it comes across as scripted. The best public speakers do something to indicate that they are pausing to think about what they are about to say. It makes them sound more considered, and it gives the audience time to catch up.

[@jeniwatkins3297]

@@mikefule330 that's true too. Though i was always taught not to use "um" when speaking like this

[@toddwykoff7658]

@@mikefule330 i think that it is bad practice all around. Public speaking classes in college all stress against the so called verbal vomit of ums, ahs, and other repetitions. Instead, a dynamic tone of voice and pace is suggested to give time to think and sound like natural conversation.