I have a side interest in scientific research that is often considered "pseudoscience," or more politely, "boundary science." One of the things that usually perks my ears up is hearing a story describing research that seems to hint at the (pre)-history of the ancient Celts and even back further to their ancestors. I've been struck by a number of these lately. Of course, at the borders of science, many of the results and hypotheses being described are the subject of hot debates... but as far as I can tell, that's nothing new for the Celts!
In September 1991, a copper-age mummy was discovered in the ice of the Alpine mountains. (There was some debate as to whether it was the Austrian or the Italian Alps, but at this point an Italian museum has the actual mummy.) Estimates of his lifetime suggest he lived around 3200 BCE. He appears to have been a shepherd or goatherd, probably caught in a storm as he was searching for strays from his flock. He is old enough that he predates the classically known Celts, but given his location and age, he might have been one of their ancestors.
He is also old enough that several things about him upset the established modes of scientific thought. First, he carried a copper axe, although he was almost 1000 years older than the commonly accepted beginning of the "Bronze age" around 2500 BCE. Second, he had several tattoos on his body which, according to modern (Chinese) acupuncturists, were perfectly placed to be a treatment for the arthritis that he in fact suffered. This practise predates by 2000 years the commonly accepted origin of acupuncture in China. He also carried mushrooms apparently intended for use as antibiotics. And, at age 45, he died with no cavities, which scientists conclude is a result of his diet of largely unrefined foods.
In the 70s and 80s, in the Takla Makan Desert of central Asia, a number of mummies were found who are, by all accounts, not at all Asian. In fact, they were Caucasian, and some reports indicate that they had long reddish-blond hair. They are estimated to be 3000 years old, putting them at roughly 1000 BCE, or 2000 years younger than the "Ice Man."
Furthermore, there are indications that the wool used in their clothing, and the manner of weave, may have originated in the Celtic lands. Of course, this doesn't mean they were Celts; they could have simply traded for these goods.
Were they the ones who carried acupuncture to China? In fact, someone has put forth another possibility -- that European and Chinese acupuncture were separate inventions. This, it was suggested, means that the ancient people were much more in tune with their bodies natural healing abilities than we are today. Now some scientists (particularly MDs) pooh-pooh acupuncture as ineffectual. If this were the case, then it would hardly due to assume it was invented twice, the very same way. It must have been carried from Europe to China -- or perhaps the other way, though the current evidence leans toward the former explanation. One way or another, we have some very challenging scientific issues to consider.
In an forthcoming Nature article (Vol 404, No 6776, pp. 351-352, which I was unable to find before press time -- this summary is based on a NY Times article) researchers at Trinity College in Dublin are presenting work on the ancient genetic roots of the Irish. Based on certain genetic markers that are carried on the Y chromosome (and hence passed from father to son), they have determined that some of the oldest genetic material in Europe may be in Ireland.
They didn't really put it that way. But they're claiming that in men from the west coast of Ireland, in Connaught, and in the descendents of these men, nearly 98 percent show traces of DNA that seems to have originated with the earliest migrations across Europe. They estimate that the form of the DNA present in Ireland is over 4000 years old.
The only place outside of Ireland where the concentrations approach these is in the Basque country between Spain and France, which has for a long time been recognized for having a language that apparently predates the spread of the common "Indo-European" languages. One possible interpretation for this connection is that a pre-Indo-European people, once living in the Basque country, migrated west and north until they arrived in Ireland. Later, when the Indo-Europeans arrived in Ireland, their languages took hold but their genetic stock did not. Interestingly (as the Times article notes) Celtic legends also hold that the "Milesians" arrived in Ireland from Spain around 1000 BCE.
In another NY Times article, an interview with Dr. Joseph H. Greenberg of Stanford looks at his work on the evolution of languages and their spread across and between continents. He believes it possible and perhaps even likely that the principle of language, spawned once, proceeded to spread and evolve into all the known language of the world. It is not clear how acceptable this notion is to main-stream linguists. But he goes a step further, and really arouses controversy, by suggesting that we may still be able to see traces of this ancient language by looking at commonalities between historically recorded languages.
Interestingly, people outside of Greenberg's field of linguistics think it's a great notion. Geneticists, as we have seen, have been tracking this sort of spread and evolution, in much the same manner. Although language and genetics don't always go hand-in-hand, there have been numerous commonalities discovered by comparing them. Many linguists, however, believe that evidence within languages for an ancient ancestral tongue has long since been erased.
My own experience suggests that linguists tend to be dedicated skeptics, or at least extremely conservative in their science. (In particular, a significant number of linguists still hold to Noam Chomsky's notion that linguistics is all about grammar. If Chomsky is right, I'd like to know what the name of the science that studies the meaning of language is, since he's left a big hole.) But that aside, I think Greenberg's research might give us yet another valuable starting point in looking for more clues about where the ancient Celts came from.
Although many scientists would rather not associate themselves with sensational or controversial topics such as these, I believe that many of our most exciting future discoveries are lurking on the perimeters of accepted disciplines. The discoveries I have mentioned here raise many questions themselves. Was Oetzi's family, living in the Alps, proto-Basque, or proto-Celtic, or both? Did his descendants migrate both to Ireland and to China? Genetically, linguistically, and culturally, what are the origins of the Celts.
We know that by 600 BCE, the Greeks described a people who called themselves Celts living in both Spain and Austria. Much of what came before, and what happened during the "dark ages" after the literate cultures reporting on the Celts faded and the before the Celts themselves began writing their history, may remain a mystery forever. But research into these interesting topics may shed light on questions we never thought we would answer.
