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books on genetic trails (
Eden in the East
and
Out of Eden
). Again, in this book, I argue that those who arrived first on the physical landscape tend to dominate the modern genetic one. But this does not mean ignoring genetic evidence for real migrations when it is there. Three aspects are special about the British story. First, the British Isles were cleared of people after the last Ice Age, thus avoiding the complication of a Palaeolithic gene pool. Second, and uniquely for such a small region in Europe, there is a deep genetic line dividing England from the rest of the British Isles. Third, the separate genetic source regions for the English and the AtlanticCelts are clear and distinct, and correspond to specific interpretations of the cultural evidence.
* * * *
     
    In the spirit of Caesar, I have divided this book into three parts, the first and last deal with Celts and Anglo-Saxons mainly, since they dominate modern ethic perceptions in these isles. The second part contains the genetic meat of our real origins from the Ice Age to the Iron Age. Some may wish to start there first.

Part 1
     

T HE C ELTIC MYTH: WRONG MYTH, REAL PEOPLE
     

2
     
C ELTIC AS A LANGUAGE LABEL
     
Written in stone
     
    Having demolished the evidence for a Central European homeland and any specific association of Celts with the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures, John Collis moves back briefly, in the penultimate chapter of his Celto-sceptic book, to language. Here he mainly bemoans the unhealthily close relationship between linguists and archaeologists in the nineteenth century, which has persisted in some quarters until today. Along with the obvious problem that ancient artefacts without writing do not identify the language of the maker or wearer, there is the tendency to force both language and culture into similar monolithic racial stereotypes, where the reality is of diversity, difference and mixture.
    The twelve conclusions that Collis reaches in his last chapter are mainly deconstructions of the struts of the modern Celticmyth, but the only hint of reconstruction, albeit half-hearted, comes from his seventh conclusion, which refers to language:
     
One interpretation of the historical and linguistic evidence also seeks the origin of the Celts in south-west Germany, but other interpretations of the classical sources are also possible, indeed perhaps more likely, and would include central and western France. 1
     
    This brings us conveniently back to the point in the last chapter at which I digressed into archaeological homeland myths. I had just referred to Caesar’s comment that the people he called ‘Celts’ in Middle Gaul called themselves Celts ‘in their own language’ ( Figure 2.1a ). Since Caesar’s assertion contradicts those who claim that Celts did not use the term for themselves, and broaches the whole question of the identity of celtic languages, it might be worth asking whether there is any evidence for the linguistic affiliation and identity of the language Caesar calls ‘Celtic’. In other words, is there a systematic record from Roman times, of a dominant, indigenous non-Latin language, in Caesar’s Celtic Gaul, which could be related or linked to modern insular-celtic languages?
    As it turns out, there
are
numerous records of such a language, and it was spoken in just those places unambiguously identified in classical literature as Celtic or occupied by Celts from at least as early as 300 BC : France south of the Seine, northern Italy and Spain ( Figures 2.1a and 2.1b ). To classical authors, the two more northerly regions were known respectively as Trans-Alpine Gaul and Cis-Alpine Gaul, named from the Roman point of view: Gaul-on-the-far-side and Gaul-on-the-Roman-side of the
French
Alps.
     

     
    Figure 2.1a
Who were the Celts in classical times? According to Caesar, Gaul was divided into three parts. The middle part, spoke celtic and was mainly south of the Seine and Marne, although there was a north-eastern