TW Viewpoint | Where Did the Celts Come From?

August 23, 2017 | Jonathan Riley

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While much has been written on the arrival of the Danes, Angles, Saxons and Normans to the British Isles, few have explored the origins of the people who occupied the land before them. Just where did the Celts come from?

After the decline of the Roman Empire, around 410 AD the Angles and Saxons began moving from mainland Europe and settling all across England and lower parts of Scotland. By the 9th Century the Danes started building settlements around the British Isles and in the early part of the 11th Century, in 1066, the Normans invaded. Long before all of this, the Celts were living in the British Isles, they had arrived centuries before even the Romans were established in Europe.

If you visit the British Isles today you may well come across a Celtic revival as the National Curriculum in Wales requires all students to learn the Welsh language. This ancient language is a branch of the wider Celtic languages spoken along the western isles of Scotland, Ireland, Cornwall and Brittany.

Historians have traditionally seen the Celts as just another Germanic tribe that migrated west from central Europe but a relatively new scientific study has found genealogical evidence to the contrary.

Dr. Mark Jobling from the Department of Genetics at the University of Leicester published a journal on the Y-chromosomal lineage of the Celts. In this journal the lineage of European male Y chromosomes were tested and analysed with DNA evidence strongly supporting the theory that Celtic men "spread from a single source from the Near East" or Middle East as it is more commonly called. What is fascinating about the findings in this journal is that the route in which the migration occurred is entirely mappable.

Moving through modern day Turkey, across Europe and in particular, around the Mediterranean coastline and the Iberian peninsula, through the Gibraltar straights and up along the coast of Western Europe into the British Isles, is a clearly defined path. The "increases in frequency and [reduction] in diversity from east to west" of the Y-Chromosome supports a "rapid expansion" as a fading trail of the chromosome shows the path of migration from the Middle East to the region where the Celtic people reside today.

The study estimates that the timeframe of expansion was approximately over a period of 4,500 years and that this likely happened from 7,000 BC until as recently as 2,500 BC but regardless of the accuracy of their dating methods, the migration did occur and there is a corroborating historical document that I would like to cross examine with the scientific research which may suggest a more recent date for the migration.

Written in 1320 by Scottish Barons and nobles and submitted to Pope John the 22nd, the Declaration of Arbroath is Scotland's claim for independence. The document describes the sovereignty of its people and supports Jobling's claim by describing how they came to settle in the British Isles.

..."we know and from the chronicles and books of the ancients we find that among other famous nations our own, the Scots, has been graced with widespread renown. It journeyed from Greater Scythia by way of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Pillars of Hercules, and dwelt for a long course of time in Spain among the most savage peoples,.... Thence it came, twelve hundred years after the people of Israel crossed the Red Sea, to its home in the west where it still lives today."

These nobles firmly believed that their ancestors migrated from East to West following the exact pattern as described in the journal on the Celtic Y Chromosome. These men share the DNA evidence that corroborates their historical records.

For more information on the history and origins of the British people please read our free booklet called The United States and Great Britain in Prophecy.

I am Jonathan Riley for Tomorrow's World Viewpoint.

Since the research and production of this video took place it has come to our attention that Dr. Mark Jobling released a second journal in 2015 which proposed a much more recent migration. The new estimated time frame now sits between 2000 to 4000 years ago. This now agrees with the corroborating evidence found in the Declaration of Arbroath. The links to both journals can be found here:
Journal 1
Journal 2

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