http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=1781
by Darren Devine, Western Mail
Professor John Koch suggests the http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3616 Germany and Austria.
His radical work on http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3334 origins flatly contradicts the work of Sir John Rhys, who in the late 19th century established the idea that we originally came from central Europe.
Sir John believed the Celts were the http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=375 of a great culture that extended here from modern-day eastern France, Switzerland, southern Germany and Austria.
But Professor Koch, of the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh & Celtic Studies, in Aberystwyth, says archaeological inscriptions on stones show we came from southern Portugal and south-west Spain.
He said: “Celts are said to come from west central Europe – Austria, southern Germany, eastern France and that part of the world.“That’s been the theory that everybody has grown up with for at least 100 years.
“There is evidence that the Celtic languages were spoken there because of place names and people’s names.
“But the assumption was that was where they came from. I think they got there later.
“There is evidence in Spain and Portugal indicating they were there 500 or more years before.”
Professor Koch says there are Celtic texts in Portugal and Spain way before they started springing up in central Europe during Roman times.
One key piece of evidence is the earliest written language of western Europe – Tartessian, found on inscribed stones in Portugal and Spain dating back to between 800BC and 400BC. The professor maintains this language can be deciphered as Celtic.
Expert on Welsh history and archaeology Dr Raimund Karl, says there is also biological and genetic evidence to support professor Koch’s theory.
He said: “In the last couple of years there have been a number of genetic studies of human DNA indicating that the population of much of the western part of the British Isles is related to other communities along the Atlantic seafront. These include Brittany, northern Spain, Portugal and the French Atlantic coast. That’s their genetic origin.”