United Celts

Recreated burial of an Indo-European prince, unearthed near Fuente Olmedo, in Valladolid province, Spain. 🇪🇸 On display at the Museum of Valladolid. The Fuente Olmedo burial is dated to ~1,650 B.C. It contained a young man between 16 and 18 years of age, buried with elite-status items such as bell-beaker pottery, a copper dagger, copper arrows, a golden diadem, and a stone wrist-guard to protect his forearm when engaged in archery. His young age and diadem suggest he was a ruler who inherited his position, but died prematurely. Archaeological and genetic studies have shown that the people to whom the Fuente Olmedo prince belonged were in part derived from Central European migrants who came to central Spain at some point around 2,500 B.C. They were apparently mostly males, who then intermarried with native Iberian women. DNA extracted from skeletons of these people has so far all reflected the paternal lineages R1b-P312 and DF27, which would mean that these people were of the same stock as the later attested Celts. Their autosomal DNA however, was almost entirely native Iberian, as the central European component was diluted through generations of inter-marriage. These people were culturally different from the non-Indo-European Iberian civilization of the southern and eastern peninsula. The latter were urban, agricultural, and matriarchal, while the former were male-ruled semi-nomadic livestock-herders. These Indo-European herders were ancestral to later attested peoples of Iberia, such as the Vettones and Lusitanians, while others of their descendants inter-married with the Celts who arrived in the peninsula from southern France around 1,200 B.C; going on to form hybrid cultures such as the Celtiberians, Berones, Autrigones, and others. In the case of northern peoples such as the Astures, Gallaecians, and Cantabrians, trade and some migration from the British Isles seems to have also contributed to the mix. Celtic Europe - channel link (please share!): https://t.me/CelticEurope

Great Sugar Loaf Mountain (Irish: Ó Cualann; “Lump of Cualu”), with heather prairie blooming in the foreground and the remainder of the Wicklow Mountains in the background; county Wicklow, Ireland. 🇮🇪 The name of this mountain reflects the original and more ancient name of the region, for Cualu was the name of a territory that encompassed almost the whole of present county Wicklow and parts of county Dublin, from Arklow to the river Liffey. According to the Irish place-name index, www.logainm.ie, the Wicklow Mountains were also formerly known as Sliabh Ruadh, meaning “Red Mountain”. The current Irish name is Sléibhte Chill Mhantáin; “Mountains of the Church of St. Mantan”, and is more modern. Celtic Europe - channel link (please share!): https://t.me/CelticEurope

Cragivar Castle, Scotland, 16th century

In only two councils was the population majority religious, with Na h-Eileanan Siar having the largest response of Church of Scotland (35.3%) and in Inverclyde being Catholic (33.4%) as the most common response. Additionally, large ethnic change is happening in Scotland. 12.9% are now from an ethnic minority background, compared to 8.2% in 2011 and 4.5% in 2001. I'll list these out. Irish: 1.02% to 1.05% Polish: 1.16% to 1.67% Gypsy/Traveller: 0.08% to 0.06% Roma: 0.06% (not previously counted) Showman/woman: 0.03% (not previously counted) Other White: 1.93% to 2.92% Mixed: 0.37% to 1.12% Pakistani: 0.93% to 1.34% Indian: 0.62% to 0.97% Bangladeshi: 0.07% to 0.13% Chinese: 0.64% to 0.87% Other Asian: 0.4% to 0.59% African: 0.56% to 1.08% Carribbean: 0.12% stable Arab: 0.18% to 0.41% Other: 0.09% to 0.5% Around 3 quarters of the Other White group wrote a European origin in their answer. Aberdeen has the biggest Polish population portion, 4.4%, Edinburgh is at 3.2%. In Aberdeen City, the Tillydrone/Seaton/Old Aberdeen ward has the highest portion, at 13.2%. The biggest takeaway is that Scotland's population would have decreased were it not for migration. This is framed as an issue by many in charge, but a natural population decrease is not necessarily a bad thing. Now for the good news - Scottish Gaelic. Finally reversing the trend of the language's slow decline, 2.5% of the population aged 3 and above has some skill in Gaelic, compared to 1.7% in 2011 and 1.9% in 2001. Not quite the comeback of the century, but encouraging nonetheless. I imagine much of this is due to increased government focus in this area with sites like LearnGaelic.scot and SpeakGaelic.scot being supported and deployed, in addition to the Gaelic course being added to the Duolingo platform. Not surprisingly, Na h-Eileanan Siar has the highest percentage of Gaelic speakers at 57.2%. The Highland council is second, with 8.1% of its residents speaking the language, Argyll & Bute being third at 6.2%. All other councils had less than 3%. The percentage of people with some skill in the Scots language also increased, 46.6% from 37.7%. The north-east leads in this category, with Aberdeenshire having the highest at 64.1%, and Na h-Eileanan Siar the lowest at 30.7%. Further information available at https://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/2022-results/scotland-s-census-2022-ethnic-group-national-identity-language-and-religion/. I have simply highlighted the details I find most relevant.

Some unfortunate developments here compared to 2011 - declining Christianity being one lf the main ones. The Church of Scotland decreased from 32.44% of the population to 20.36%, while the Catholic Church decreased from 15.88% to 13.3%. Other Christian groups decreased from 5.5% to 5.13%. The grouping of "Another religion" also decreased from 0.29% to 0.23%. People not declaring a religion also decreased from 6.95% to 6.16%. Judaism remains largely unchanged, at 0.11% since 2011. Increases included no religion, which now makes up 51.12% of the population, up from 36.66%. Hinduism increased from 0.31% to 0.55%. Buddhism increased from 0.24% to 0.28%. Sikhism increased from 0.17% to 0.2%. Paganism was added to the census for the first time in 2022, which is at 0.35%. Across all age groups, including the elderly, having no religion increased markedly, the largest being the 25-49 age group from 43.3% to 60.3%.

St Mary's Church , Inverness , Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Pictish symbol stone depicting a battle against Anglo-Saxon invaders, from the churchyard of Aberlemno, in Angus; Scotland. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿⚔️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 The stone is thought to depict the Battle of Dún Nechtáin, fought on May 20 of the year AD 685, between the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria and the Pictish Kingdom of Foirtriu. Northumbria had been extending its power northward into northern Scotland, trying to subdue and annex the whole of northern Britain. Strong resistance seems to have coalesced around the Pictish king of Foirtriu, Bridei III, son of Beli. The Anglian king Ecgfrith, son of Oswiu, led an immense army into Scotland in hopes of finally crushing that resistance. According to the English historian Bede, the Picts lured the Anglo-Saxon army deep into Scotland to a pre-selected battlefield, where they were defeated and cut to pieces in one of the bloodiest battles of that entire period. Ecgfrith himself was killed —the stone seems to show him in the lower right, being eaten by a raven— along with his entire army. The Picts not only shook off Northumbrian domination, they permanently broke the kingdom’s power; Northumbria would never again achieve hegemony in Britain. Celtic Europe - channel link (please share!): https://t.me/CelticEurope

The Archaeological survey of ireland has all the Holy Wells mapped. Really great rescource. https://heritagedata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=0c9eb9575b544081b0d296436d8f60f8

The city of Dinant, on the banks of the Meuse river, in Walloonia, Belgium. 🇧🇪 Like many other places in this part of Europe, the region’s Celtic past is very much evident in the place-names. The name Dinant is derived from Gaulish Divo-Nanto, meaning “Divine/Sacred Valley”. In like manner, the geographical region in which Dinant is located is called Condroz, a name derived from that of the Gallic tribe that inhabited this area, the Condrusi. Julius Caesar innacurately documented this people as Germanic, however the tribal name, which is rendered in some Latin sources as ‘Condrusti’, is indisputably Celtic. Like many tribal names, it probably represents the name or an ancestor. Condrustos would mean “group-cry” or “group-howl” (Gaulish: Con-/Com- [together, with] + Trustos [noise/cry]). The name was probably a word play reference to wolves, as the first element is similar enough to the Gaulish word Cunos, meaning “wolf” or “hound”. The river Meuse also retains its original Gaulish name, having evolved from Mosa, a word that’d be related to the English word maze, and bear the same meaning. Celtic Europe - channel link (please share!): https://t.me/CelticEurope