Old European (matricentric) Cultures and IndoEuropean (patriarchal) Cultures -- Two Contributors to Celtic Culture © Sage Starwalker, based on IndoEuropean Diffusion Map, La Hoguette-Bandkeramik Map, and Vinca Culture and Cucuteni Culture maps

As I tried to grapple with basic questions like:

• Who were the Celts, really?
• What do we really know about the "Celts"?
• How do you define Celtic "culture"?
• To what extent, if any, was Celtic culture matricentric?

I decided to take a long view and look at the history of the human species and especially that history as it pertains to Europe. The table on the next page reflects less than 1% of the information I gathered, but I hope it helps put into context a several hundred year-old "culture" within the greater human experience. Clearly, human beings (and our hominid ancestors) have been traveling all over this planet for millions of years. We've learned from our experiences and taken our "cultures" with us as we've traveled, merging and warring with "strangers" and adapting to new environments as we've moved around.

My research has taught me that the "Celts" are a diverse group of people, who moved and settled over vast distances, sharing some important things in common but also differing greatly from one group of "Celts" to the next. [Note that most, if not all, "Celts" would not have referred to themselves as such.] In my studies, I also found several solid indications that the Celts were a result of IndoEuropean warriors marrying indigenous Europeans (and/or farming-transplanted goddess people from the Fertile Crescent). There are also some indications of possible Crete > Basque (Iberian) > Ireland and Crete > Mediterranean > Europe connections, including several linguistic studies that show a Saharan origin of Mediterranean and European peoples/cultures. Consider:

• Edo Nylands's "Basque and Linear B" work.
• "The mysterious Basques of the Spanish and French mountain regions have defied all efforts to relate them to other peoples or languages. Some years ago, however, an Indian scholar, Lahovary, completed a study which showed interesting and detailed relationships between the Dravidian and the Basque languages. These two widely separated people still today have in common such words as those related to sheep, oxen, pigs, asses; spun and woven wool; ducks and doves; houses of wood, stone, or brick; boats of wood; fruit trees, plowing, cattle raising, and vine growing. The Tamil language (Dravidian) is still spoken by millions in India. The oldest form of the word Tamil was Dramila, Dramiza (Dravida). Lahovary also notes that the Lycians of Asia Minor called themselves Trmmili, and the pre-Hellenic Asiatic people of Crete were called Termilai, further possible links to Dravidians and Basques. Perhaps the trail of these peoples will one day be further clarified (Lahovary, 1963, p. 33-35)." (Spading Up Ancient Words)
  UPDATE: Recent genetic studies indicate that "Celtic" nations (Ireland, Scotland) have their origins in the Iberian Peninsula, and that these "Celts" have more in common with the Portuguese and the Spanish than with the Alpine Europeans who, historically, have been considered the source stock of those who populated the British Isles.
• "It is currently accepted that agriculture reached Central and Western Europe by two routes. One agricultural movement from the Near East followed the Mediterranean and is thought to be traceable by a Cardial-Impressed pottery. Reaching the Mediterranean Coast of Italy and France a northward progress from these pottery using groups unfolded around 6000-5600 cal BC. Starting around 5500 cal BC, bone-tempered pottery known as La Hoguette, named after a site in western France, appears along with Mesolithic-like stone tools and sheep-goat bones in the Rhône valley, Northern France, Switzerland and Southwest Germany (e.g. Jochim 2000:192-193). Although the pottery is linked to the Mediterranean Neolithic, the stone tools reveal a continued Mesolithic tradition.
  The other general route seems to have led from the Near East, probably across Greece to Hungary. There agriculture reached the expanses of the lower Tisza drainage near the Danube between 6400 – 6100 cal BC, as indicated by dates for C14 dates of monochrome Köros-type pottery. The development of Starcevo-Körös-Cris [Starcevo-Koros-Cris] culture in parts of the Carpathian Basin is followed by Bandkeramik pottery in Hungary, Austria and adjacent regions of the Danube Basin, after about 5700 cal BC or thereafter, implying either a moratorium on expansion, or a very gradual, but continued spread along the Upper Danube River and its tributaries.
  The evidence thus implies that there was a roughly simultaneous switch to domesticates in Central and Western Europe around 5500 cal BC. This period seems to be a critical phase for the spread of farming into the central latitudes of Europe, leading to a meeting of eastern and western agriculturist. Indeed, La Hoguette seems to coexist with the Bandkeramik in several sites, but there are exceptions. For instance, the La Hoguette assemblage in Stuttgart-Wilhelma is described as being “relatively pure” (e.g. Jochim 2000, Price 2000a). This is surprising, because the site is located on the Upper Neckar River in Germany, near the source of the Danube River, far from the French type site of La Hoguette.
  In summary, it appears that the Bandkeramik developed roughly 2000 years after the use of the earliest domesticated plants and animals in the Near East. Therefore, neither the people, their language, nor their technology or religion can simply be assumed to be identical with the people who domesticated the first plants in the Fertile Crescent" (Mesolithic - Neolithic transition)

Though I have more work to do in this area, I am for the moment convinced that the "Celts" are people whose family tree has several cultural roots at its base, and some of those are from matricentric, matrilineal, goddess people. Consider these:

• "For the Middle Rhein valley of Germany a long coexistence is proposed. The migrating farmers are even suggested to actually have married local Mesolithic women. This hypothesis is based on Strontium analysis of five bones and 11 teeth and burial orientation at the LBK [Bandkeramik] burial grounds of Flomborn (5300 – 5200 cal BC) and Schwetzingen 5100 – 5000 cal BC). The possibility that the LBK population migrated into this region, perhaps from as far away as Slovakia or Hungary, only to marry the women of the local La Hoguette foragers-herders (in later ?) generations is considered." The Later Bandkeramik
• Speaking of the Rubanné culture (Paris Basin, Aisne River, France -- 4,500-4,300 BCE): "Les Rubannés adoraient la grande déesse comme tous les asianiques . En Europe centrale, elle était parfois représentée avec des yeux de hibou (déesse des morts)." "The Bandkeramiks loved the large goddess, as did all the eastern folk. In Central Europe, she was sometimes depicted with owl eyes (goddess of death)." Réligion des Rubannés (my translation)

In any case, click here to see my very basic timeline. Putting it together helped me and I hope it may help my readers.

Sources
A History of Pagan Europe, Prudence Jones and Nigel Pennick
An Leabharlann Ghaidhlig Againn
Armenian Highland
BBC Timelines
Building Worlds
Celts
Celtic Art
Celtic Art
Celtic Arts Sig
Celtic Britain
Celtic Chronology
Celtic Corner
Celtic Historical Background
Celtic History
Central and Northern European Neolithic/Copper Age Chronology
Chronology of Europe
Druids -- Truth About #3
Encyclopedia of the Celts
European History from Before Man to Present
French Druidism
General History of the Celts
Hallstatt Culture
History of Offaly
History of the Celts
Irish Timeline: A Chronology of Events
La Hoguette
L'époque de la Tène
Museum of the Origins of Man
Notes
Scottish Event Timeline
The Earliest Bandkeramik
The Druids, Peter Beresford Ellis
The Language of the Goddess, Marija Gimbutas
The Shorter History of Ireland
The Spear of Destiny
The Vinca Culture
Timelines
Timelines for Prehistory
Wales History Timeline
Welsh Timeline
Wikipedia