Insular Celts
Encyclopedia
The Insular Celts are the speakers of Insular Celtic languages
Insular Celtic languages
Insular Celtic languages are those Celtic languages that originated in the British Isles, in contrast to the Continental Celtic languages of mainland Europe and Anatolia. All surviving Celtic languages are from the Insular Celtic group; the Continental Celtic languages are extinct...

.

Pre-Celtic Britain

Little is known of the culture and language of pre-Celtic Britain, but remnants of the latter may remain in the names of some geographical features, such as the rivers Clyde
River Clyde
The River Clyde is a major river in Scotland. It is the ninth longest river in the United Kingdom, and the third longest in Scotland. Flowing through the major city of Glasgow, it was an important river for shipbuilding and trade in the British Empire....

, Tamar
River Tamar
The Tamar is a river in South West England, that forms most of the border between Devon and Cornwall . It is one of several British rivers whose ancient name is assumed to be derived from a prehistoric river word apparently meaning "dark flowing" and which it shares with the River Thames.The...

 and Thames, whose etymology is unclear but possibly derive from a pre-Celtic
Pre-Celtic
The term pre-Celtic refers to the period in the prehistory of Central and Western Europe postdating the emergence of Proto-Celtic and predating the expansion of the Celts, or Celtic culture, in the course of the earlier Iron Age . The area involved is that of the maximum extent of Celtic languages...

 substrate
Substratum
In linguistics, a stratum or strate is a language that influences, or is influenced by another through contact. A substratum is a language which has lower power or prestige than another, while a superstratum is the language that has higher power or prestige. Both substratum and superstratum...

 (Gelling). By the Roman period, however, most of the inhabitants of the isles of Ireland and Britain were speaking Goidelic or Brythonic languages, close counterparts to the Celtic languages spoken on the European mainland.

The Celtic settlement of the British Isles is difficult to document genetically.
Two books, The Blood of the Isles by Bryan Sykes
Bryan Sykes
Bryan Sykes is a former Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Oxford and a current Fellow of Wolfson College.Sykes published the first report on retrieving DNA from ancient bone...

 and The Origins of the British: a Genetic Detective Story by Stephen Oppenheimer
Stephen Oppenheimer
Stephen Oppenheimer is a British paediatrician, geneticist, and writer. He is a member of Green Templeton College, Oxford and an honorary fellow of Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, and carries out and publishes research in the fields of genetics and human prehistory.-Career:Oppenheimer...

 discuss genetic evidence, concluding that while there is evidence for a series of migrations from the Iberian Peninsula
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...

  during the Mesolithic
Mesolithic
The Mesolithic is an archaeological concept used to refer to certain groups of archaeological cultures defined as falling between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic....

 and, to a lesser extent, the Neolithic
Neolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...

 eras, there is comparatively little trace of any Iron Age migration. In terms of Y-chromosomes, Sykes finds that the "Oisin" (R1b) clan is in the majority which has strong affinities to paleolithic Iberia, with no evidence of a large scale arrival from Central Europe. He further claims that the majority of the gene pool of the current inhabitants of the British Isles, whether they consider themselves to be "Anglo Saxon", "Celt" or otherwise, may derive from the original Mesolithic hunter-gatherer
Hunter-gatherer
A hunter-gatherer or forage society is one in which most or all food is obtained from wild plants and animals, in contrast to agricultural societies which rely mainly on domesticated species. Hunting and gathering was the ancestral subsistence mode of Homo, and all modern humans were...

s who migrated north from Iberia approximately 13,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age.

Celtic invasion

The Celts first appear at the beginning of the European Iron Age. They are united by features of their languages, which derive from a Proto-Celtic language
Proto-Celtic language
The Proto-Celtic language, also called Common Celtic, is the reconstructed ancestor language of all the known Celtic languages. Its lexis can be confidently reconstructed on the basis of the comparative method of historical linguistics...

.

The timeline of the arrival of Celtic speakers in the British Isles is unclear.

In 1946 the Celtic scholar T. F. O'Rahilly
T. F. O'Rahilly
Thomas Francis O'Rahilly was an Irish scholar of the Celtic languages, particularly in the fields of Historical linguistics and Irish dialects. He was a member of the Royal Irish Academy.-Biography:He was born in Listowel, County Kerry, Ireland...

 published his extremely influential mode
O'Rahilly's historical model
O'Rahilly's historical model is a theory of Irish prehistory put forward by Celtic scholar T. F. O'Rahilly in 1946. It was based on his study of the influences on the Irish language and a critical analysis of Irish mythology....

 of the early history of Ireland
Early history of Ireland
The early medieval history of Ireland, often called Early Christian Ireland, spans the 5th to 8th centuries, from the gradual emergence out of the protohistoric period to the beginning of the Viking Age...

 which postulated four separate waves of Celtic invaders, spanning most of the Iron Age (700 to 100 BC).
Later research indicated that the culture may have developed gradually and continuously between the Celts and the indigenous populations. Similarly in Ireland little archaeological evidence was found for large intrusive groups of Celtic immigrants, suggesting to archaeologists such as Colin Renfrew
Colin Renfrew, Baron Renfrew of Kaimsthorn
Andrew Colin Renfrew, Baron Renfrew of Kaimsthorn, Ph.D., FBA, FSA, HonFSAScot is a prominent British archaeologist and highly regarded academic, noted for his work on radiocarbon dating, the prehistory of languages, archaeogenetics, and the prevention of looting at archaeological sites...

 that the native late Bronze Age inhabitants gradually absorbed European Celtic influences and language.

Genetic studies have supported the prevalence of native populations. A study by Christian Capelli, David Goldstein and others at University College, London showed that genetic marker
Genetic marker
A genetic marker is a gene or DNA sequence with a known location on a chromosome that can be used to identify cells, individuals or species. It can be described as a variation that can be observed...

s associated with Gaelic names in Ireland and Scotland are also common in certain parts of Wales and England (in most cases, The Southeast of England with the lowest counts of these markers) are similar to the genetic markers of the Basque people, who speak a non-Indo-European language. This similarity supported earlier findings in suggesting a large pre-Celtic genetic ancestry, likely going back to the Paleolithic
Paleolithic
The Paleolithic Age, Era or Period, is a prehistoric period of human history distinguished by the development of the most primitive stone tools discovered , and covers roughly 99% of human technological prehistory...

. They suggest that Celtic culture and the Celtic language may have been imported to Britain by cultural contact, not mass invasions around 600 BC. In the 1970s a "continuity model" was popularized by Colin Burgess
Colin Burgess (author)
Colin Burgess is an Australian author and historian, specializing in space flight and military history. He is a former customer service manager for Qantas Airways, and a regular contributor to the collectSPACE online community. He lives in New South Wales...

 in his book The Age of Stonehenge
Stonehenge
Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument located in the English county of Wiltshire, about west of Amesbury and north of Salisbury. One of the most famous sites in the world, Stonehenge is composed of a circular setting of large standing stones set within earthworks...

which theorised that Celtic culture in Great Britain "emerged" rather than resulted from invasion and that the Celts were not invading aliens, but the descendants of the people of Stonehenge
Amesbury Archer
The Amesbury Archer is an early Bronze Age man whose grave was discovered during excavations at the site of a new housing development in Amesbury near Stonehenge. The grave was uncovered in May 2002, and the man is believed to date from about 2300 BC. He is nicknamed the "archer" because of the...

. More recent genetic studies regarding Y-DNA Haplogroup I2b2-L38 have concluded that there was some Late Iron Age migration of Celtic La Tène people, through Belgium, to the British Isles including north-east Ireland.

The archaeological evidence is of substantial cultural continuity through the 1st millennium BC, although with a significant overlay of selectively adopted elements of La Tène culture
La Tène culture
The La Tène culture was a European Iron Age culture named after the archaeological site of La Tène on the north side of Lake Neuchâtel in Switzerland, where a rich cache of artifacts was discovered by Hansli Kopp in 1857....

. There are claims of continental-style states appearing in southern England
Southern England
Southern England, the South and the South of England are imprecise terms used to refer to the southern counties of England bordering the English Midlands. It has a number of different interpretations of its geographic extents. The South is considered by many to be a cultural region with a distinct...

 close to the end of the period, possibly reflecting in part immigration by élites from various Gallic states such as those of the Belgae
Belgae
The Belgae were a group of tribes living in northern Gaul, on the west bank of the Rhine, in the 3rd century BC, and later also in Britain, and possibly even Ireland...

. Evidence of chariot burial
Chariot burial
Chariot burials are tombs in which the deceased was buried together with his chariot, usually including his horses and other possessions....

s in England begins about 300 BC and is mostly confined to the Arras culture
Arras Culture
The Arras culture is an archaeological culture of the Middle Iron Age in East Yorkshire It takes its name from the cemetery site of Arras near Market Weighton in the East Riding of Yorkshire, which was discovered in the 19th century...

 associated with the Parisii.

Iron Age Britain

The British Iron Age is a conventional name in the archaeology of Great Britain, typically excluding prehistoric Ireland
Prehistoric Ireland
The prehistory of Ireland has been pieced together from archaeological and genetic evidence; it begins with the first evidence of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers settling in Ireland around 7000 BC and finishes with the start of the historical record, around AD 400. The prehistoric period covers the...

, which had an independent Iron Age culture of its own. The parallel phase of Irish archaeology is termed the Irish Iron Age,

The British Iron Age lasted in theory from the first significant use of iron
Iron
Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...

 for tools and weapons in Britain to the Romanisation of the southern half of the island. The Romanised culture is termed Roman Britain
Roman Britain
Roman Britain was the part of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire from AD 43 until ca. AD 410.The Romans referred to the imperial province as Britannia, which eventually comprised all of the island of Great Britain south of the fluid frontier with Caledonia...

 and is considered to supplant the British Iron Age.

Roman era and Dark Ages

Some recent studies have suggested that the Germanic tribes (Angles
Angles
The Angles is a modern English term for a Germanic people who took their name from the ancestral cultural region of Angeln, a district located in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany...

, Saxons
Saxons
The Saxons were a confederation of Germanic tribes originating on the North German plain. The Saxons earliest known area of settlement is Northern Albingia, an area approximately that of modern Holstein...

) did not wipe out the Romano-British of England but rather, over the course of six centuries, conquered the native Brythonic people of what is now England and south-east Scotland
Gododdin
The Gododdin were a Brittonic people of north-eastern Britain in the sub-Roman period, the area known as the Hen Ogledd or Old North...

 and imposed their culture and language upon them, much as the Gaels
Gaels
The Gaels or Goidels are speakers of one of the Goidelic Celtic languages: Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx. Goidelic speech originated in Ireland and subsequently spread to western and northern Scotland and the Isle of Man....

 may have spread over Northern Britain This view is supported by the Celtic, or at least non-Germanic, names of some prominent early members of a number of "Anglo-Saxon" dynasties, such as Cerdic of Wessex
Cerdic of Wessex
Cerdic was probably the first King of Anglo-Saxon Wessex from 519 to 534, cited by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as the founder of the kingdom of Wessex and ancestor of all its subsequent kings...

 and Penda of Mercia
Penda of Mercia
Penda was a 7th-century King of Mercia, the Anglo-Saxon kingdom in what is today the English Midlands. A pagan at a time when Christianity was taking hold in many of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Penda took over the Severn Valley in 628 following the Battle of Cirencester before participating in the...

. The Pennines
Pennines
The Pennines are a low-rising mountain range, separating the North West of England from Yorkshire and the North East.Often described as the "backbone of England", they form a more-or-less continuous range stretching from the Peak District in Derbyshire, around the northern and eastern edges of...

 remained a stronghold for Brythonic culture in England, the Cumbric language
Cumbric language
Cumbric was a variety of the Celtic British language spoken during the Early Middle Ages in the Hen Ogledd or "Old North", or what is now northern England and southern Lowland Scotland, the area anciently known as Cumbria. It was closely related to Old Welsh and the other Brythonic languages...

 survived until the 12th century, whereas in isolated areas of East Anglia, a Brythonic language was only recorded as late as the Saxon period. Parts of the Brythonic culture still survives in the form of the Northumbrian smallpipes
Northumbrian smallpipes
The Northumbrian smallpipes are bellows-blown bagpipes from the North East of England.In a survey of the bagpipes in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford University, the organologist Anthony Baines wrote: It is perhaps the most civilized of the bagpipes, making no attempt to go farther than the...

 and Wrestling
Wrestling
Wrestling is a form of grappling type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. A wrestling bout is a physical competition, between two competitors or sparring partners, who attempt to gain and maintain a superior position...

 (Lancashire and Cumbrian wrestling). Still, others maintain that the picture is mixed and that in some places the indigenous population was indeed wiped out while in others it was assimilated. According to this school of thought the populations of Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...

, East Anglia
East Anglia
East Anglia is a traditional name for a region of eastern England, named after an ancient Anglo-Saxon kingdom, the Kingdom of the East Angles. The Angles took their name from their homeland Angeln, in northern Germany. East Anglia initially consisted of Norfolk and Suffolk, but upon the marriage of...

, Northumberland
Northumberland
Northumberland is the northernmost ceremonial county and a unitary district in North East England. For Eurostat purposes Northumberland is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "Northumberland and Tyne and Wear" NUTS 2 region...

 and the Orkney and Shetland Islands
Shetland Islands
Shetland is a subarctic archipelago of Scotland that lies north and east of mainland Great Britain. The islands lie some to the northeast of Orkney and southeast of the Faroe Islands and form part of the division between the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the North Sea to the east. The total...

 are those populations with the fewest traces of ancient (Celtic) British continuation, probably because these are eastern areas which were exposed to invasion from the East by Angles, Saxons and Vikings.

By the end of the Dark Ages, around the 8th century, the Insular Celtic peoples had become the bearers of the Gaelic
Gaels
The Gaels or Goidels are speakers of one of the Goidelic Celtic languages: Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx. Goidelic speech originated in Ireland and subsequently spread to western and northern Scotland and the Isle of Man....

 and Welsh
Welsh people
The Welsh people are an ethnic group and nation associated with Wales and the Welsh language.John Davies argues that the origin of the "Welsh nation" can be traced to the late 4th and early 5th centuries, following the Roman departure from Britain, although Brythonic Celtic languages seem to have...

 cultures of the historical Gaelic Ireland
Gaelic Ireland
Gaelic Ireland is the name given to the period when a Gaelic political order existed in Ireland. The order continued to exist after the arrival of the Anglo-Normans until about 1607 AD...

 and Medieval Wales.

See also

  • Celtic toponymy#Insular Celtic
  • British toponymy#Celtic
  • Goidelic substrate hypothesis
  • Insular Celtic languages
    Insular Celtic languages
    Insular Celtic languages are those Celtic languages that originated in the British Isles, in contrast to the Continental Celtic languages of mainland Europe and Anatolia. All surviving Celtic languages are from the Insular Celtic group; the Continental Celtic languages are extinct...

  • Iron Age Britain
  • Genetic history of the British Isles
    Genetic history of the British Isles
    The genetic history of the British Isles is the subject of research within the larger field of human population genetics. It has developed in parallel with DNA testing technologies capable of identifying genetic similarities and differences between populations...

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