An update to our post about the new theory about the origins of the Celts, which can be found here, the ABP Welsh Communique gives us a little more detail. The full text of the article can be found here. In his O’Donnell Lecture at the University College, Bangor, Professor John Koch said that on the basis of an extensive continent-wide overview of linguistic and archaeological evidence, he has come to the conclusion that a Celtic civilisation and culture had originated on the Atlantic West of Europe in the Bronze Age.

Recent DNA researches has shown that contemporary British people – Celts and Anglo-Saxons alike – have more in common with the Basques than any other race group. This finding has attracted confusion and amusement in the popular English press.

Professor Koch’s theory is supported, at least in part, by Stephen Oppenheimer, author of The Origins of the British. Oppenheimer claims that genetic evidence shows that 75 per cent of the population of the British Isles have the same genes as people who live in the Basque country whose forefathers, he argues, migrated to those islands between 15,000 and 7,500 years ago.

Oppenheimer makes another interesting claim. He says there is no evidence – linguistic, archaeological or genetic – to identify the Hallstatt or La Tène regions or cultures as Celtic homelands. He says that this error is derived from a mistake by Herodotos 2,500 years ago when in a remark about the ‘Keltoi’, he placed them at the source of the Danube, which he thought was near the Pyrenees.

“The Danube,” wrote Herodotos, “starts from the country of the Celts and the city of Pyrene. It flows through Europe, which it divides down the middle. The Celts are outside the Pillars of Heracles and march with the Cynesii, who are the western-most people in Europe.” Everything else about his description, argues Oppenheimer, located the Keltoi in the region of Iberia.

The article goes on to say:

The Silver King

Herodotos, according to Henri Hubert, the great French historian, archaeologist and linguistics expert, gives the name of the King of Tartessus at the time when the Phocæans were colonising Marseilles. His name was Arganthonios – the silver King. Tartessus was famous for its silver mines, and according to Herodotos Arganthonios gave money to the Phocæans to build a defensive wall against the Persians of Cyrus. Hubert noted that the name Arganthonios is based on the Celtic form of the word for silver – arganto.

It is possible, of course, that a Celtic chief could have become king of the Iberian state of Tartessus.

There is even an Irish legend in Do Suidigud Tellaich Temra (The Yellow Book of Lecan) about the origins of the Gaelic Celts – “We are born of the children of Mile, of Spain.”

Professor Koch’s theory has attracted a lively discussion on one or two websites. But as yet I have seen no mention of the views of Hubert. He cited Philipon’s work in drawing up an Iberian vocabulary, based on geographical names and proper nouns, which is distinct from Tartessian.

The people of Tartessus were famous for their trading, travelling to Brittany and even to the British Isles, and resemblances in culture between the British Isles and Spain could be explained by trade. Of course, it makes no difference whether the Celts spread from central Europe or from the Iberian peninsula. It’s still very interesting, nevertheless.

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