October 11th, 2011
When people think of the Celts, they typically think of Scottish lasses with names like Mary Rose McLean. Yet, while the Celts have called Britain and Ireland home for over 2,500 years, their history goes back much further. An Irish tradition holds that the Celts originated in Spain, and new DNA research appears to confirm this fact. As we’ll see, the Celts were more widespread than is generally believed, and the influence of Celtic culture remains in countries in Europe and around the world. Every Mary-Rose McLean should be aware of this heritage. The Celts’ connection to Spain would seem to date back to the last ice age, when Spain was a refuge for Europeans fleeing the advancing polar ice caps. While the Celts headed for Britain in about 600 B.C., the Basques remained in their Spanish homeland, and the comparison of the two peoples’ DNA has revealed that they were once closely related, if not a single group. The Basques are believed to be descended from the original Europeans, sometimes known as the Cro-Magnon, who left so much of their cave art in Spain and southern France. It is not clear whether the Celts came from the same stock or had arrived in Spain as ice-age latecomers. When the Celts finally left the Iberian peninsula, they settled not only the British Isles but France and northern Italy, as well. In fact, it was a tribe of these northern Italian Celts who first sacked Rome in the 4th century B.C. Interestingly, when the Romans invaded Britain in the 1st century B.C., they found that the Celts in France, or Gaul, as it was then called, were still able to communicate with the Celts in Britain without the need for an interpreter. More recently, Celts who had been driven back by the invading Anglo-Saxons left southwestern England for France and gave the region they settled the name Brittany. Today, Celts can be found all over the world, but particularly in countries that were once British colonies. The United States, for example, is home to millions of Irish, while Canada has been settled by Scottish with names like Mary Rose McLean, sometimes spelled Mary-Rose McLean and, of course, the French. For thousands of years, the Celts have been wanderers, and they’re showing no signs of changing.