Celtic from the West 3: Atlantic Europe in the Metal Ages ― questions of shared language

by John T. Koch (editor), Barry Cunliffe (editor)

The Celtic languages and groups called Keltoi (i.e. ‘Celts’) emerge into our written records at the pre-Roman Iron Age. The impetus for this book is to explore from the perspectives of three disciplines—archaeology, genetics, and linguistics—the background in later European prehistory to these developments. There is a traditional scenario, according to which, Celtic speech and the associated group identity came in to being during the Early Iron Age in the north Alpine zone and then rapidly spread across central and western Europe. This idea of ‘Celtogenesis’ remains deeply entrenched in scholarly and popular thought. But it has become increasingly difficult to reconcile with recent discoveries pointing towards origins in the deeper past. It should no longer be taken for granted that Atlantic Europe during the 2nd and 3rd millennia BC were pre-Celtic or even pre-Indo-European. The explorations in Celtic from the West 3 are drawn together in this spirit, continuing two earlier volumes in the influential series.

Table of Contents

John Koch & Barry Cunliffe
Part Archaeology
1. Laure Behind the Bell Beakers and identities in Atlantic Europe (3rd millennium BC)
2. Stuart The Lost Cultures of the Halberd a non-Beaker ideology in later third millennium Atlantic Europe 3. Catriona Closed for Business or Cultural Change? Tracing the re-use and final blocking of megalithic tombs during the Beaker period
4. Simon Copper mining, prospection and the Beaker phenomenon in Wales — the significance of the Banc Tynddol gold disc
5. Kerri Burial practices in Ireland during the late third millennium BC—connecting new ideologies with local expressions.
6. Dirk Stelae, funerary practice, and group identities in the Bronze and Iron Ages of SW a moyenne durée perspective
7. William O’ Language Shift and Political Context in Late Bronze Age some implications of hillfort chronology
8. Peter Metal, Metalwork, and the chemical composition of British Bronze Age swords in context
9. Raimund Emerging Settlement Monumentality in North Wales during the Late Bronze and Iron the case of Meillionydd
10. Adam Gwilt, Mark Lodwick, Jody Deacon, Nicholas Wells, Richard Madgwick, and Tim Ephemeral Abundance at Exploring the residues and resonances of an Earliest Iron Age midden and its associated archaeological context in the Vale of Glamorgan
Part Genetics
11. Bruce J. Winney and Walter F. The Genetic Structure of the British Populations and their Surnames
12. Maria Pala, Pedro Soares, and Martin B. Archaeogenetic and palaeogenetic evidence for Metal Age mobility in Europe
Part Linguistics
13. J. P. Archaeology and Language Shift in Atlantic Europe
14. Steve The Question of a Hamito-Semitic Substratum in Insular Celtic and Celtic from the West
15. John T. Phoenicians in the West and the Break-up of the Atlantic Bronze Age and Proto-Celtic
16. Fernando Fernández Ancient Personal Names in the Iberian Peninsula and Parallels in Celtic Inscribed Artefacts from Early Medieval Britain and Ireland
17. Peter Sound Change, the Italo-Celtic Linguistic Unity, and the Italian Homeland of Celtic
18. Theo Celtic as Vasconized Indo-European? Three structural arguments
General Index

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Language

552 pages, Paperback

Published May 15, 2024

About the author

John T. Koch is an American academic, historian and linguist who specializes in Celtic studies, especially prehistory and the early Middle Ages.

He is a graduate of Harvard University, where he was awarded the degrees of A.M. and Ph.D. in Celtic Languages and Literatures in 1983 and 1985 respectively. In addition, he has also pursued studies at Jesus College, Oxford, and the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. He has taught Celtic Studies at Harvard University and Boston College.

Since 1998, he has been senior research fellow or Reader at the Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, University of Wales, where he has supervised a research project focusing on Celtic Languages and Cultural Identity. Two of the offshoots of this project are the five-volume Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia and An Atlas for Celtic Studies (2007).

He has published widely on aspects of early Irish and Welsh language, literature and history. His works include The Celtic Heroic Age (first published in 1994, 4th edition in 2003), in collaboration with John Carey; The Gododdin of Aneirin (1997), an edition, translation and discussion of the early Welsh poem Y Gododdin; and numerous articles published in books and journals. A grammar of Old Welsh and a book on the historical Taliesin are in the works.

In 2007, John Koch received a personal chair at the University of Wales.

Koch supervises (as Senior Fellow and Project Leader) the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh & Celtic Studies Ancient Britain and the Atlantic Zone Project (Ireland, Armorica, and the Iberian Peninsula). In 2008, Koch gave the O'Donnell Lecture at Aberystwyth University titled People called Keltoi, the La Tène Style, and ancient Celtic languages: the threefold Celts in the light of geography. In 2009, Koch published a paper Tartessian: Celtic from the Southwest at the Dawn of History detailing how the Tartessian language may have been the earliest directly attested Celtic language with the Tartessian written script used in the inscriptions based on a version of a Phoenician script in use around 825 BC.

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