Monday, March 7, 2011

Redshank Ethnicity

A watershed moment has taken place in the field of early Western European history. It is a paradigm shift that has totally changed forever how early European history will be taught. It is the concept that Celtic languages and the people that spoke them originated in the Atlantic Zone during the Bronze Age. Dr Barry Cunliffe and Dr John Koch have co-edited Cetlic From the West which has an excellent presentation of exactly where the the field of Celtic studies stands in the first part of the 21st Century.

The Celtic from the West theory is a major departure from the long-established, but increasingly problematic paradigm from late Victorian times in which the story of the Ancient Celtic languages and people were linked to the Hallstatt and La Tene cultures of Iron Age west-central Europe.

Celtic From the West also brings to an English-language readership some of the rapidly unfolding and too often neglected evidence of the pre-Roman peoples and languages of the western Iberian Peninsula.

Celtic from the West
is a multidisciplinary project and multi-year research initiative undertaken by the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies. It represents the current state of Celtic studies and the thoughts of the leading researchers. Contributors are: (Archaeology) Barry Cunliffe; Raimund Karl; Amilcar Guerra; (Genetics) Brian McEvoy & Daniel Bradley; Stephen Oppenheimer; Ellen Rrvik; (Language) Graham Isaac; David Parsons; John T. Koch; Philip Freeman; Dagmar S. Wodtko.

Celtic From the West is available from the Ulster Heritage Amazon Associate Book Shop under the 'Ancient History' section: Link... Ulster Heritage Book Shop and from McCain's Book Shop.