John Koch
University of Wales, Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, Faculty Member
- Archaeology, Late Bronze Age archaeology, Ancient History, Prehistoric Archaeology, Celtic Studies, Celtic Languages and Cultures, and 78 moreCymraeg - the Welsh language, Old Irish Language and Literature, Middle Welsh language and literature, Roman History, Archaeological Method & Theory, Ancient Celtic Faith, Ancient Near East, Greek Archaeology, Cyprus Studies, Cypriot Archaeology, Cypriot Bronze Age, Gaeilge, Brezhoneg, Indoeuropean Studies, Historical Linguistics, Tartessos, "Tartessian" Language, PHOENICIANS IN THE WEST, TARSHISH-TARTESSOS Ph. D. scholarship in History. Official acknowledgment of educational and research capability by the University of Huelva, Spain, Nuragic Archaeology, Sabellic languages, Proto-Italic and Proto-Sabellic, Ancient Iberian Numismatics, Iberian language, Linear A, Hispano-Celtic Languages, Iron Age Iberian Peninsula (Archaeology), Phoenician Punic Archaeology, Celtic Linguistics, Phoenicians, Protohistoric Iberian Peninsula, Iron Age, Indo-European Linguistics, Ancient Indo-European Languages, Late Bronze Age, Iberian Prehistory (Archaeology), Celtic Languages, Celtic religion, Bronze Age Europe (Archaeology), Epigraphy, Phoenician and Punic Studies, Indo-European Studies, Welsh linguistics, Copper age, Celtic Archaeology, Celtic Mythology, Archaeology of the Iberian Peninsula, Orientalizing Period (art & archaeology), Protohistory, Archaeogenetics, Ancient DNA Research, Continental celtic, Yamnaya, Etruscan Archaeology, Etruscan language, Etruscan studies, Etruscan and pre-Roman archaeology, Ligurian language, Raetic, Raetic Language, Ancient Seafaring, Neolithic & Chalcolithic Archaeology, Stable Isotope Analysis, Neolithic Europe, Megalithic Monuments, Neolithic Transition, Corded Ware Culture, Single Grave Culture, Archaeological GIS, Bayesian Radiocarbon Dating, Mobility (Archaeology), Strontium Isotope Analysis, Stable Isotopes, Bell Beakers (Archaeology), Val Camonica language, Ancient DNA, Human Population Genetics, Archaeogentics, Human Dispersal, Ancient DNA of Human Populations, and Ancient DNA (Archaeology)edit
In Chapter 4, the present writer proposes Celtic origins in the Bronze Age. The formation of a Proto-Celtic sociocultural area comprising Britain, Ireland, Atlantic Gaul, and the western Iberian Peninsula is seen as the result of... more
In Chapter 4, the present writer proposes Celtic origins in the Bronze Age. The
formation of a Proto-Celtic sociocultural area comprising Britain, Ireland, Atlantic Gaul,
and the western Iberian Peninsula is seen as the result of intensifying contact within
this region following the opening or re-opening/strengthening of a maritime network
through the straits of Gibraltar to the western seaways from the middle of the Bronze
Age (= mid 2nd millennium BC in absolute dates).
formation of a Proto-Celtic sociocultural area comprising Britain, Ireland, Atlantic Gaul,
and the western Iberian Peninsula is seen as the result of intensifying contact within
this region following the opening or re-opening/strengthening of a maritime network
through the straits of Gibraltar to the western seaways from the middle of the Bronze
Age (= mid 2nd millennium BC in absolute dates).
Research Interests: Celtic Studies, Indo-European Studies, Bronze Age Europe (Archaeology), Late Bronze Age archaeology, Indo-European Linguistics, and 9 moreHerodotus, Cosmology, Rock Art, Tartessos, Tartessian Language, Ancient Greek Hero Cult, Transition from Bronze Age to Iron Age, Chariots, Bronze Age, and Copper Metalurgy
In this article we propose a new theoretical framework to investigate Scandinavian Bronze Age rock art in the light of trade and mobility in Atlantic Europe in the Late Bronze Age. This framework is multidisciplinary, combining the core... more
In this article we propose a new theoretical framework to investigate Scandinavian Bronze Age rock art in the light of trade and mobility in Atlantic Europe in the Late Bronze Age. This framework is multidisciplinary, combining the core data fields of metal, rock art, and ancient languages. Our proposal takes its impetus from recent
discoveries, which have revealed a production-distribution-consumption system for metal, between
1400/1300 and 900 BC, in which Iberia was the producer and the Atlantic North was the consumer. In this
article we develop a testable hypothesis, to be used to model and explain the rise and fall of this network,
by exploring research questions. What was the volume of this trade? When and why did it begin and
end? Where were the commercial exchange points linked to copper mines in Iberia (subsequent mining
having obliterated the ancient mines themselves)? Was this exchange mostly long-distance or staged
with trans-shipment hubs (in e.g. Galicia, Brittany, Ireland, Britain)? How were societies in Atlantic
Europe and metal production organized for this international market? Who were the primary agents in
the system? Does the geographical distribution of finds of Baltic amber in the ore bearing regions in SW
Iberia confirm a system of
copper-for-amber exchange? What was the role of rock art—as both cause and effect—in the formation
of warrior-led maritime trading systems? And how might this have been reflected in the form of both
shared iconography and a common linguistic vocabulary?
discoveries, which have revealed a production-distribution-consumption system for metal, between
1400/1300 and 900 BC, in which Iberia was the producer and the Atlantic North was the consumer. In this
article we develop a testable hypothesis, to be used to model and explain the rise and fall of this network,
by exploring research questions. What was the volume of this trade? When and why did it begin and
end? Where were the commercial exchange points linked to copper mines in Iberia (subsequent mining
having obliterated the ancient mines themselves)? Was this exchange mostly long-distance or staged
with trans-shipment hubs (in e.g. Galicia, Brittany, Ireland, Britain)? How were societies in Atlantic
Europe and metal production organized for this international market? Who were the primary agents in
the system? Does the geographical distribution of finds of Baltic amber in the ore bearing regions in SW
Iberia confirm a system of
copper-for-amber exchange? What was the role of rock art—as both cause and effect—in the formation
of warrior-led maritime trading systems? And how might this have been reflected in the form of both
shared iconography and a common linguistic vocabulary?
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Abstract Background: India is a patchwork of tribal and non-tribal populations that speak many different languages from various language families. Indo-European, spoken across northern and central India, and also in Pakistan and... more
Abstract
Background: India is a patchwork of tribal and non-tribal populations that speak many different languages from
various language families. Indo-European, spoken across northern and central India, and also in Pakistan and Bangladesh, has been frequently connected to the so-called “Indo-Aryan invasions” from Central Asia ~3.5 ka and the establishment of the caste system, but the extent of immigration at this time remains extremely controversial.
South India, on the other hand, is dominated by Dravidian languages. India displays a high level of endogamy due
to its strict social boundaries, and high genetic drift as a result of long-term isolation which, together with a very
complex history, makes the genetic study of Indian populations challenging.
Results: We have combined a detailed, high-resolution mitogenome analysis with summaries of autosomal data and Y-chromosome lineages to establish a settlement chronology for the Indian Subcontinent. Maternal lineages document the earliest settlement ~55–65 ka (thousand years ago), and major population shifts in the later Pleistocene that explain previous dating discrepancies and neutrality violation. Whilst current genome-wide analyses conflate all dispersals from Southwest and Central Asia, we were able to tease out from the mitogenome data distinct dispersal episodes dating from between the Last Glacial Maximum to the Bronze Age. Moreover, we
found an extremely marked sex bias by comparing the different genetic systems.
Conclusions: Maternal lineages primarily reflect earlier, pre-Holocene processes, and paternal lineages predominantly episodes within the last 10 ka. In particular, genetic influx from Central Asia in the Bronze Age was strongly male-driven, consistent with the patriarchal, patrilocal and patrilineal social structure attributed to the inferred pastoralist early Indo-European society. This was part of a much wider process of Indo-European expansion, with an ultimate source in
the Pontic-Caspian region, which carried closely related Y-chromosome lineages, a smaller fraction of autosomal
genome-wide variation and an even smaller fraction of mitogenomes across a vast swathe of Eurasia between 5 and 3.5 ka.
Background: India is a patchwork of tribal and non-tribal populations that speak many different languages from
various language families. Indo-European, spoken across northern and central India, and also in Pakistan and Bangladesh, has been frequently connected to the so-called “Indo-Aryan invasions” from Central Asia ~3.5 ka and the establishment of the caste system, but the extent of immigration at this time remains extremely controversial.
South India, on the other hand, is dominated by Dravidian languages. India displays a high level of endogamy due
to its strict social boundaries, and high genetic drift as a result of long-term isolation which, together with a very
complex history, makes the genetic study of Indian populations challenging.
Results: We have combined a detailed, high-resolution mitogenome analysis with summaries of autosomal data and Y-chromosome lineages to establish a settlement chronology for the Indian Subcontinent. Maternal lineages document the earliest settlement ~55–65 ka (thousand years ago), and major population shifts in the later Pleistocene that explain previous dating discrepancies and neutrality violation. Whilst current genome-wide analyses conflate all dispersals from Southwest and Central Asia, we were able to tease out from the mitogenome data distinct dispersal episodes dating from between the Last Glacial Maximum to the Bronze Age. Moreover, we
found an extremely marked sex bias by comparing the different genetic systems.
Conclusions: Maternal lineages primarily reflect earlier, pre-Holocene processes, and paternal lineages predominantly episodes within the last 10 ka. In particular, genetic influx from Central Asia in the Bronze Age was strongly male-driven, consistent with the patriarchal, patrilocal and patrilineal social structure attributed to the inferred pastoralist early Indo-European society. This was part of a much wider process of Indo-European expansion, with an ultimate source in
the Pontic-Caspian region, which carried closely related Y-chromosome lineages, a smaller fraction of autosomal
genome-wide variation and an even smaller fraction of mitogenomes across a vast swathe of Eurasia between 5 and 3.5 ka.
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Europe's Atlantic Façade has long been treated as marginal to the formation of the European Bronze Age and the puzzle of the origin and early spread of the Indo-European languages. Until recently the idea that Atlantic Europe was still a... more
Europe's Atlantic Façade has long been treated as marginal to the formation of the European Bronze Age and the puzzle of the origin and early spread of the Indo-European languages. Until recently the idea that Atlantic Europe was still a wholly pre-Indo-European world throughout the Bronze Age remained plausible. Rapidly expanding evidence for the later prehistory and the pre-Roman languages of the West increasingly exclude that possibility. It is therefore time to refocus on a narrowing list of 'suspects' as possible archaeological proxies for the arrival of this great language family and emergence of its Celtic branch. This reconsideration inevitably throws penetrating new light on the Beaker Complex and the Atlantic Bronze Age to ask what else they brought with them. The studies presented here introduce diverse perspectives on the formation of later prehistoric Atlantic Europe and the implications of new evidence for interregional connections.
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Research Interests: Ancient History, Celtic Studies, Portuguese History, Celtic Linguistics, Spanish History, and 15 moreHistory of Reading and Writing, Ancient Historiography, Celtic Archaeology, Iron Age Iberian Peninsula (Archaeology), Iberian Prehistory (Archaeology), Phoenician Punic Archaeology, Iron Age, Protohistoric Iberian Peninsula, Tartessos, Late Bronze Age, Indoeuropean Studies, Orientalizing Period (art & archaeology), "Tartessian" Language, Histprical Linguistics. IndoEuropean languages. Italic Group: Sabellian; Archaic Latin and Faliscan; generally Ancient Italy Linguistics and Epigraphy., and PHOENICIANS IN THE WEST, TARSHISH-TARTESSOS Ph. D. scholarship in History. Official acknowledgment of educational and research capability by the University of Huelva, Spain
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Research Interests: Ancient History, Celtic Studies, Portuguese Studies, Portuguese History, Cyprus Studies, and 9 moreAncient Indo-European Languages, Iron Age Iberian Peninsula (Archaeology), Celtic Languages, Protohistoric Iberian Peninsula, Tartessos, Late Bronze Age, Indoeuropean Studies, "Tartessian" Language, and PHOENICIANS IN THE WEST, TARSHISH-TARTESSOS Ph. D. scholarship in History. Official acknowledgment of educational and research capability by the University of Huelva, Spain
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E x p l o r i n g C e l t i c O r i g i n s is the fruit of collaborative work by researchers in archaeology, historical linguistics, and archaeogenetics over the past ten years. T his team works towards the goal of a better understanding... more
E x p l o r i n g C e l t i c O r i g i n s is the fruit of collaborative work by
researchers in archaeology, historical linguistics, and archaeogenetics
over the past ten years. T his team works towards the goal of a better
understanding of the background in the Bronze Age and Beaker P eriod
of the people who emerge as Celts and speakers of Celtic languages
documented in the I ron Age and later times. L ed by S ir Barry Cunliffe
and John Koch, the contributors present multidisciplinary chapters
in a lively user-friendly style, aimed at accessibility for workers in
the other fields, as well as general readers. T he collection stands as
a pause to reflect on ways forward at the moment of intellectual
history when the genome-wide sequencing of ancient DNA (a.k.a.
‘the archaeogenetic revolution’) has suddenly changed everything in
the study of later European prehistory. How do we deal with what
appears to be an irreversible breach in the barrier between science
and the humanities? Exploring Celtic O rigins includes colour maps
and illustrations and annotated Further R eading for all chapters.
researchers in archaeology, historical linguistics, and archaeogenetics
over the past ten years. T his team works towards the goal of a better
understanding of the background in the Bronze Age and Beaker P eriod
of the people who emerge as Celts and speakers of Celtic languages
documented in the I ron Age and later times. L ed by S ir Barry Cunliffe
and John Koch, the contributors present multidisciplinary chapters
in a lively user-friendly style, aimed at accessibility for workers in
the other fields, as well as general readers. T he collection stands as
a pause to reflect on ways forward at the moment of intellectual
history when the genome-wide sequencing of ancient DNA (a.k.a.
‘the archaeogenetic revolution’) has suddenly changed everything in
the study of later European prehistory. How do we deal with what
appears to be an irreversible breach in the barrier between science
and the humanities? Exploring Celtic O rigins includes colour maps
and illustrations and annotated Further R eading for all chapters.
Research Interests:
CELTIC FROM THE WEST 3. 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... more
CELTIC FROM THE WEST 3. 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.
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.
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https://www.wales.ac.uk/Resources/Documents/Centre/2019/Koch-Celtic-of-the-SW-inscriptions-2019.pdf [ ¶ Preface. Our understanding of the emergence of the Celtic languages and their relationship with the rest of Indo-European still rests... more
https://www.wales.ac.uk/Resources/Documents/Centre/2019/Koch-Celtic-of-the-SW-inscriptions-2019.pdf
[ ¶ Preface. Our understanding of the emergence of the Celtic languages and their relationship with the rest of Indo-European still rests largely on a three-way comparison of Gaulish, Brythonic, and Goidelic. Until the discovery of the first long Celtiberian inscription from Botorrita (K.1.1) in 1970, little more than this was possible. In the coming years, one important factor for our grasp of Celtic as a subset of Indo-European will be how much Palaeohispanic evidence we can confidently include in the comparisons on which our evolving reconstruction of Proto-Celtic is based. Today, the classification remains uncertain for a large body of material from the western Iberian Peninsula outside the Celtiberian area in the eastern Meseta. The linguistic affiliation of this evidence should be more than an exercise in arbitrary labelling. We will want to know whether the evidence points to distinct branches of Indo-European that had formed somewhere else and then entered the Peninsula in waves or, rather, a pattern of long-term diversification of Indo-European in situ as a dialect continuum, along the lines foreseen by Renfrew. 1 ]
[ ¶ Preface. Our understanding of the emergence of the Celtic languages and their relationship with the rest of Indo-European still rests largely on a three-way comparison of Gaulish, Brythonic, and Goidelic. Until the discovery of the first long Celtiberian inscription from Botorrita (K.1.1) in 1970, little more than this was possible. In the coming years, one important factor for our grasp of Celtic as a subset of Indo-European will be how much Palaeohispanic evidence we can confidently include in the comparisons on which our evolving reconstruction of Proto-Celtic is based. Today, the classification remains uncertain for a large body of material from the western Iberian Peninsula outside the Celtiberian area in the eastern Meseta. The linguistic affiliation of this evidence should be more than an exercise in arbitrary labelling. We will want to know whether the evidence points to distinct branches of Indo-European that had formed somewhere else and then entered the Peninsula in waves or, rather, a pattern of long-term diversification of Indo-European in situ as a dialect continuum, along the lines foreseen by Renfrew. 1 ]
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Research Interests: Celtic Studies, Phoenicians, Celtic Linguistics, Iron Age Iberian Peninsula (Archaeology), Writing systems, and 5 morePhoenician Punic Archaeology, Tartessos, Indoeuropean Studies, Histprical Linguistics. IndoEuropean languages. Italic Group: Sabellian; Archaic Latin and Faliscan; generally Ancient Italy Linguistics and Epigraphy., and PHOENICIANS IN THE WEST, TARSHISH-TARTESSOS Ph. D. scholarship in History. Official acknowledgment of educational and research capability by the University of Huelva, Spain
The End and Beyond was launched 8 December 2014 in Cork. The IRC [Irish Research Council] have featured The End and Beyond on their home page! http://www.research.ie/ What awaits us beyond the grave is perhaps the fundamental... more
The End and Beyond was launched 8 December 2014 in Cork.
The IRC [Irish Research Council] have featured The End and Beyond on their home page!
http://www.research.ie/
What awaits us beyond the grave is perhaps the fundamental human mystery. Visionary accounts of the afterlife are attested long before the Common Era, and loomed large in the imaginative universe of early Christianity. The medieval Irish inherited and further transformed this tradition, producing vivid eschatological narratives which had a profound impact throughout Europe as well as being texts of remarkable literary and spiritual power in their own right.
This collection, comprising editions and translations of thirty-five texts together with several in-depth studies, is the most comprehensive survey of medieval Irish eschatology ever undertaken: included are sources from the Old Irish, Middle Irish and Early Modern Irish periods, and related material in Latin and Old English. A fascinating collection for anyone interested in the spiritual world of the medieval Irish, this book will also be a valuable resource for medievalists and religious historians generally.
The IRC [Irish Research Council] have featured The End and Beyond on their home page!
http://www.research.ie/
What awaits us beyond the grave is perhaps the fundamental human mystery. Visionary accounts of the afterlife are attested long before the Common Era, and loomed large in the imaginative universe of early Christianity. The medieval Irish inherited and further transformed this tradition, producing vivid eschatological narratives which had a profound impact throughout Europe as well as being texts of remarkable literary and spiritual power in their own right.
This collection, comprising editions and translations of thirty-five texts together with several in-depth studies, is the most comprehensive survey of medieval Irish eschatology ever undertaken: included are sources from the Old Irish, Middle Irish and Early Modern Irish periods, and related material in Latin and Old English. A fascinating collection for anyone interested in the spiritual world of the medieval Irish, this book will also be a valuable resource for medievalists and religious historians generally.
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KNEKK TEPAW Congress, Unama'ki College, Cape Breton University, Nova Scotia, Canada, September 2018
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Lecture with slides -- Aberystwyth January 2018 [in Welsh]
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John T. Koch* Formation of the Indo-European Branches in the light of the Archaeogenetic Revolution Philology and archaeology evolved in tandem for over a century in a general awareness that reconstructed proto-languages (such as... more
John T. Koch*
Formation of the Indo-European Branches in the light of the Archaeogenetic Revolution
Philology and archaeology evolved in tandem for over a century in a general awareness that reconstructed proto-languages (such as Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Germanic, Proto-Celtic) and later prehistoric cultures inhabited the same world. In effect, the two disciplines were studying the same thing. However, mapping reconstructed linguistic evidence onto text-free archaeology presented a near insurmountable challenge. The widespread astonishment that greeted the decipherment of Linear B as Late Bronze Age Greek illustrates the unreliability of carefully argued circumstantial inferences, even at the protohistoric horizon. David Anthony’s The Horse, the Wheel, and Language (2007) impressed many readers, but I know of no prior adherents of the Anatolian hypothesis of Indo-European origins who changed views upon reading it.
By then, we knew that ancient DNA evidence was coming. What we had not expected is that it would reveal, not incremental changes of population, but changes so dramatic that they very probably came with a change of language. In particular, this was the case with massive gene flow from the Pontic–Caspian steppe in the 3rd millennium BC, which transformed the Siberian Altai and central, northern, and western Europe. In other words, this new data seemed to confirm, for at least some key elements, the steppe hypothesis that had been constructed and won adherents on the basis of completely non-genetic evidence, rather linguistic and archaeological.
There were also less dramatic negative discoveries. For example, Cassidy et al. 2016 shows that three Early Bronze Age men from Rathlin Island were very different genetically from Neolithic woman from near Giant’s Ring outside Belfast. But the men were much closer to the modern Irish. In other words, the shift at the Neolithic–Bronze Age Transition was much greater, and relatively little had happened since. The authors accordingly suggested that the Rathlin men spoke the Indo-European language that then evolved into Gaelic in situ.
We can anticipate that genome-wide samples of ancient Europeans will soon number many 10,000s, filling gaps in most parts between the expansion from the steppe and historical populations speaking attested pre-Roman languages. We shall soon see whether this new evidence (archaeogenetic and isotopic) provides a conclusive advance for mapping nodes of the Indo-European family tree onto prehistoric populations and archaeological cultures. The paper will attempt a snapshot, reviewing results of some recent archaeogenetic studies and what they might imply about languages in later prehistoric Europe. What gaps and uncertainties remain? And where might answers come from?
*University of Wales, Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies
Formation of the Indo-European Branches in the light of the Archaeogenetic Revolution
Philology and archaeology evolved in tandem for over a century in a general awareness that reconstructed proto-languages (such as Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Germanic, Proto-Celtic) and later prehistoric cultures inhabited the same world. In effect, the two disciplines were studying the same thing. However, mapping reconstructed linguistic evidence onto text-free archaeology presented a near insurmountable challenge. The widespread astonishment that greeted the decipherment of Linear B as Late Bronze Age Greek illustrates the unreliability of carefully argued circumstantial inferences, even at the protohistoric horizon. David Anthony’s The Horse, the Wheel, and Language (2007) impressed many readers, but I know of no prior adherents of the Anatolian hypothesis of Indo-European origins who changed views upon reading it.
By then, we knew that ancient DNA evidence was coming. What we had not expected is that it would reveal, not incremental changes of population, but changes so dramatic that they very probably came with a change of language. In particular, this was the case with massive gene flow from the Pontic–Caspian steppe in the 3rd millennium BC, which transformed the Siberian Altai and central, northern, and western Europe. In other words, this new data seemed to confirm, for at least some key elements, the steppe hypothesis that had been constructed and won adherents on the basis of completely non-genetic evidence, rather linguistic and archaeological.
There were also less dramatic negative discoveries. For example, Cassidy et al. 2016 shows that three Early Bronze Age men from Rathlin Island were very different genetically from Neolithic woman from near Giant’s Ring outside Belfast. But the men were much closer to the modern Irish. In other words, the shift at the Neolithic–Bronze Age Transition was much greater, and relatively little had happened since. The authors accordingly suggested that the Rathlin men spoke the Indo-European language that then evolved into Gaelic in situ.
We can anticipate that genome-wide samples of ancient Europeans will soon number many 10,000s, filling gaps in most parts between the expansion from the steppe and historical populations speaking attested pre-Roman languages. We shall soon see whether this new evidence (archaeogenetic and isotopic) provides a conclusive advance for mapping nodes of the Indo-European family tree onto prehistoric populations and archaeological cultures. The paper will attempt a snapshot, reviewing results of some recent archaeogenetic studies and what they might imply about languages in later prehistoric Europe. What gaps and uncertainties remain? And where might answers come from?
*University of Wales, Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies
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slides for Bronze Age Seminar Group, Gothenburg, 2 December 2015, based on research developed in the AHRC-funded Atlantic Europe in the Metal Ages (AEMA) project
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Slides for the panel discussion 'In search of the Celts: beyond art, language and genetics', The British Museum, Friday, 16 October 2015, 18.30
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slides for public lecture, University of Gothenburg, 2 December 2015
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Glasgow Celtic Congress, July 2015
Research Interests: Celtic Studies, Phoenicians, Indo-European Studies, Celtic Linguistics, Bronze Age Europe (Archaeology), and 4 moreBronze And Iron Age In Mediterrarranean (Archaeology), Celtiberian, Ancient Weapons and Warfare, and PHOENICIANS IN THE WEST, TARSHISH-TARTESSOS Ph. D. scholarship in History. Official acknowledgment of educational and research capability by the University of Huelva, Spain
Fernando Fernández Palacios & John T. Koch, Gods epigraphically attested in ancient times with counterparts in the Early Medieval texts from the British Isles; XIIIth F.E.R.C.AN. workshop, The 13th international & interdisciplinary... more
Fernando Fernández Palacios & John T. Koch, Gods epigraphically attested in ancient times with counterparts in the Early Medieval texts from the British Isles; XIIIth F.E.R.C.AN. workshop, The 13th international & interdisciplinary
conference on ‘Celtic’ religion(s), Lampeter, Wales, 17th - 19th October 2014
conference on ‘Celtic’ religion(s), Lampeter, Wales, 17th - 19th October 2014
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Indo-European from the east and Celtic from the west: reconciling models for languages in later prehistory John T. Koch Canolfan Uwchefrydiau Cymreig a Cheltaidd Prifysgol Cymru University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic... more
Indo-European from the east and Celtic from the west: reconciling models for languages in later prehistory
John T. Koch
Canolfan Uwchefrydiau Cymreig a Cheltaidd Prifysgol Cymru
University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies
Linguistic and archaeological evidence suggests that Celtic branched off from Proto-Indo-European in south-west Europe, in contact with p-less Iberian and Aquitanian/Palaeo-Basque. An overview of some current theories of the Indo-European homeland reveals the limitations of the family-tree model and favours alternatives. Evidence for the Celticity of the South-western (a.k.a. Tartessian) inscriptions of the Early Iron Age (750–500 BC) will be briefly summarized. The archaeological context of the SW stelae shows a survival or revival of funerary rites of the same region (south Portugal) of the Early and Middle Bronze Age (1800–1300 BC). These rites articulate an indigenous cultural identity predating the arrival of the Phoenicians, iron working, and literacy in Atlantic Iberia, all of which occurred by 900 BC. Looking into the deeper prehistory of the Copper Age of the 3rd millennium BC, the distinctive features of the SW necropolises (e.g. anthropomorphic stelae depicting high-status weapons and reused as lids over single-burial cists at the centres of paved circular barrows) have antecedents in the ‘Yamnaya package’ of the Pontic steppes, rather than the local Beaker complex. This steppe culture, which expanded west to Hungary 2900–2700 BC, has been associated with the expansion of Indo-European languages in the traditional ‘kurgan’ theory of Gimbutas and Mallory.
John T. Koch
Canolfan Uwchefrydiau Cymreig a Cheltaidd Prifysgol Cymru
University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies
Linguistic and archaeological evidence suggests that Celtic branched off from Proto-Indo-European in south-west Europe, in contact with p-less Iberian and Aquitanian/Palaeo-Basque. An overview of some current theories of the Indo-European homeland reveals the limitations of the family-tree model and favours alternatives. Evidence for the Celticity of the South-western (a.k.a. Tartessian) inscriptions of the Early Iron Age (750–500 BC) will be briefly summarized. The archaeological context of the SW stelae shows a survival or revival of funerary rites of the same region (south Portugal) of the Early and Middle Bronze Age (1800–1300 BC). These rites articulate an indigenous cultural identity predating the arrival of the Phoenicians, iron working, and literacy in Atlantic Iberia, all of which occurred by 900 BC. Looking into the deeper prehistory of the Copper Age of the 3rd millennium BC, the distinctive features of the SW necropolises (e.g. anthropomorphic stelae depicting high-status weapons and reused as lids over single-burial cists at the centres of paved circular barrows) have antecedents in the ‘Yamnaya package’ of the Pontic steppes, rather than the local Beaker complex. This steppe culture, which expanded west to Hungary 2900–2700 BC, has been associated with the expansion of Indo-European languages in the traditional ‘kurgan’ theory of Gimbutas and Mallory.
Research Interests: Ancient Indo-European Languages, Indo-European Studies, Celtic Linguistics, Spanish History, Bronze Age Europe (Archaeology), and 8 moreCeltic Archaeology, Late Bronze Age archaeology, Iron Age Iberian Peninsula (Archaeology), Archaeology of the Iberian Peninsula, Tartessos, Copper age, Basque Language, and Yamnaya
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Cynhadledd Fechan ar Iaith y Pictiaid
Pictish Language Mini-Conference
Ystafell Seminar, Canolfan Uwchefrydiau Cymreig a Cheltaidd, Aberystwyth
Seminar Room, CAWCS, Aberystwyth
Dydd Gwener, 21 Mawrth 2014 9.30–13.15 Friday, 21 March 2014
Pictish Language Mini-Conference
Ystafell Seminar, Canolfan Uwchefrydiau Cymreig a Cheltaidd, Aberystwyth
Seminar Room, CAWCS, Aberystwyth
Dydd Gwener, 21 Mawrth 2014 9.30–13.15 Friday, 21 March 2014
Research Interests:
Formation of the Indo-European branches in the light of the Archaeogenetic Revolution John T. Koch University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies Draft of paper read at the conference ‘Genes, Isotopes and Artefacts. How... more
Formation of the Indo-European branches in the light of the Archaeogenetic Revolution
John T. Koch
University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies
Draft of paper read at the conference ‘Genes, Isotopes and Artefacts. How should we interpret the movement of people throughout Bronze Age Europe?’ Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, 13–14 December 2018.
Introduction
Using the historical-comparative method, linguists can recover many details of prehistoric languages. With enough of the right kind of data, it is possible to reconstruct detailed lexicons and grammatical descriptions of unattested languages. Even so, it can be difficult to determine an absolute date, geographical location, or cultural context for some of the most fully reconstructed prehistoric languages. The common ancestor of the attested Indo-European languages is such a case, and the question of its homeland has been disputed since the 19th century, through the 20th, and into the 21st. In recent years, with the availability of ancient DNA data, the situation has suddenly improved, now adding to the evidence base genetic relationships between populations in the historical period speaking attested languages and prehistoric groups.
This essay works from recently published archaeogenetic evidence, drawing attention to what it might imply for some longstanding issues in historical linguistics. Seven working hypotheses are presented concerning prehistoric languages in western Eurasia. These hypotheses aim to situate speech communities in time and space, and to identify archaeological cultures and genetic populations associated with them. Hypotheses 1–6 deal with particular nodes and splits on the tree model of the Indo-European macro-family, the seventh with the prehistoric ancestor of the non-Indo-European language Basque.
John T. Koch
University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies
Draft of paper read at the conference ‘Genes, Isotopes and Artefacts. How should we interpret the movement of people throughout Bronze Age Europe?’ Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, 13–14 December 2018.
Introduction
Using the historical-comparative method, linguists can recover many details of prehistoric languages. With enough of the right kind of data, it is possible to reconstruct detailed lexicons and grammatical descriptions of unattested languages. Even so, it can be difficult to determine an absolute date, geographical location, or cultural context for some of the most fully reconstructed prehistoric languages. The common ancestor of the attested Indo-European languages is such a case, and the question of its homeland has been disputed since the 19th century, through the 20th, and into the 21st. In recent years, with the availability of ancient DNA data, the situation has suddenly improved, now adding to the evidence base genetic relationships between populations in the historical period speaking attested languages and prehistoric groups.
This essay works from recently published archaeogenetic evidence, drawing attention to what it might imply for some longstanding issues in historical linguistics. Seven working hypotheses are presented concerning prehistoric languages in western Eurasia. These hypotheses aim to situate speech communities in time and space, and to identify archaeological cultures and genetic populations associated with them. Hypotheses 1–6 deal with particular nodes and splits on the tree model of the Indo-European macro-family, the seventh with the prehistoric ancestor of the non-Indo-European language Basque.