Talk:Atlantic Bronze Age

Baffling map of exchanged products
- none of the imported products are matched by exported ones, leaving me with the vague impression that tube sickles exported by Britain might arrive on the continent magically transformed into crested helmets. What can the map mean? 213.122.49.104 (talk) 23:07, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh, I get it - the words "imports" and "exports" refer only to dots to the west of the line that marks the boundary of the Urnfields. On the other side of the line, exports become imports and vice versa. This became clear once I looked up "Urnfield" and discovered it to be a culture, concurrent with and seperate from the Atlantic Bronze Age culture (I guess). The page could do with an explanation of this. 213.122.49.104 (talk) 23:13, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Citations, Koch, Cunliffe
There's no point in citing the O'Donnell lecture appendix all the time, because it isn't a seprate source, only a summary of Koch's other works which are already cited. One day Koch and Cunliffe may be proved right, who knows. Until that day comes, Hallstatt is the mainstream view. That is as obvious as the nose on your face. It's like putting "citation needed" next to someone saying that General de Gaulle was French. Paul S (talk) 20:46, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Language
Has it ever been hypothesised that they spoke a language similar to the pre-roman lusitanian language? --Sanferbal (talk) 16:20, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Don't think so, but Lusitanian is limited to a handful of inscriptions anyway. Paul S (talk) 20:49, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, it did seem rather far-fetched, as lusitanian is attested in only a few inscriptions. However, from a material culture point of view, I thought it could be plausible, as it seems lusitanian is a non-celtic but indo-european language, and, as the proto-celtic Hallstatt Culture began to expand in the early Iron Age, I thought it could have been theorized that in places where the Atlantic Bronze Age is attested, a language similar to lusitanian may have been spoken prior to the arrival of celtic languages. --Sanferbal (talk) 05:36, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, there is evidence from river names in Britain that an Indo-European language that may have been different to Celtic may once have been used. Myres et al (2010) have found an unusual concentration of P310/L11* Y-DNA in Central England and in parts of Wales which they think may be tied to LBK-Chaseen Neolithic settlement remnant population (that was the ancestor of Celtic, Italic and Germanic populations). Given this, maybe Lusitanian was a conservative descendant of the language of the original Chaseen Neolithic settlers spreading down from the Paris basin into Iberia before the differentiation into Celtic-Italic and Germanic - it would have gone its own way like the British IE before it was swamped by the later innovations in language. But with such few short and compromised (in the sense that the inscriptions could have been strongly Roman influenced) inscriptions this is just idle speculation and we can't include it here unless a peer-reviewed paper whose reviewers think the evidence is sufficient becomes available to us.Jembana (talk) 07:06, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Not my idea BTW - Linguist researcher Kalevi Wiik proposed this idea before but now other research seems to be pointing the same way as pointed out above.Jembana (talk) 09:23, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * As far as the Atlantic Bronze Age is concerned so much later, Myres et al (2010) show the highest frequency of P310/L11 descendant P312/S116* in the area stretching from the CeltIberian-Celtici-Tartessian language areas which also happen to be some of the most intense Atlantic Bronze Age production areas and there is abundant evidence of Celtic languages in these areas as well as other P312/S116 descendant areas like Brittany, Ireland and coastal Britain as well as other areas of France and into northern to central Italy also where Celtic languages are attested. So there would seem to be more evidence that the language of the later Altantic Bronze Age were Celtic in origin.Jembana (talk) 10:39, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, Myres et al (2010) note that the TMRCA and diversity values seem to indicate an ultimate origin in the Paris Basin-Munich (interestingly close to the Hallstatt area) area for this Neolithic demic expansion that coincides with the area Kalevi Wiik postulates as the source for the IE languages of Western Europe. However, Myres et al do not rule out earlier or later (than the Neolithic) population expansions and say that the only way we will know for sure is ancient Y-DNA from burials that can be dated (such as was done with the Lop Nur mummies as all being R1a in NW China).Jembana (talk) 11:31, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Hmmm... It seems then that this isn't the place to be discussing (at least yet) a possible relation between the possibility of populations formerly speaking a language related to lusitanian with a late Bronze Age material culture; but rather "beggining with the beggining", that is, finding (if there is one, of course) a source that tentatively places Lusitanian within the proposed Italo-Celtic Indo-European phylogenetic clade (which seems more probable to me than that it was a celtic language per se). --Sanferbal (talk) 19:58, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * We need more evidence than the few short and Roman-influenced inscriptions we have currently and they need to be datable somehow - like is happening with Tartessian.Jembana (talk) 22:12, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Agreed; there is too little evidence, and a lot more is to be knokn until a theory linking it with the ABA is sustained by any serious investigator. However, this could have some clues: Old European hydronymy (It´s not about the Kurgan Hypotheses' Old Europe)--Sanferbal (talk) 22:44, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Perhaps this evidence will come to light as attempts are made to translate inscriptions other than those in the Roman alphabet like the Phoenician-Tartessian ones or maybe those Ogham-like ones found further north. Have you read the recent works of Wodko and Koch and that other linguist in their group looking at the Tartessian and Lusitanian inscriptions - especially with that longest Tartessian inscription - their work finds some support locally in the area.Jembana (talk) 23:35, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes - Old European hydronymy was what I was refering to earlier- Kitson verified Krahe's work using the British river names - I believe they are onto something here in the context of the LBK-Chaseen-Long Barrow Neolithic people, but it appears the Megalthic cultures may have been spread by their descendant further differentiated peoples who seem to have evolved into the ABA. Koch reckons most Tartessian inscriptions are Celtic from inscriptions written in a 825 BC Phoenician-derived script. Gamito has documented a pottery culture migrating in from the north and linked that with a very old Celtic settlement of which the Celtici are linked. I feel we are looking at multiple cultural/linguistic layers here with older forms surviving in refuge areas such as the Alto areas for Lusitanian. Which cultural layer identifies with which language tree is the intriguing question but new evidence continues to come to light so there is still hope of some resolution in the future. Keep your eyes peeled for it.Jembana (talk) 00:02, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
 * If it is proven, then the anatolian hypothesis for the expansion of Indo-European would become the dominant one. Amazing. Although I'm rather skeptic about that theory... Only time will tell --Sanferbal (talk) 03:57, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
 * It has changed somewhat in 2010 from Kalevi Wiik's ideas in the light of Battaglia et al and Myres et al's Y-DNA R1b subclade extensive research: now we have somewhat compelling evidence for a truly massive Neoltihic population expansions from original Anatolian farmer migrants and their descendants within Europe rather than just the adoption of farming by indigenous groups (though in pockets this certainly did occur as well). It is growing hard to deny the large majority of Europeans their Neolithic and ultimately Anatolian IE heritage from this evidence - but as Myres et al say to be definite we need ancient Y-DNA from dated burials to be certain.Jembana (talk) 04:34, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
 * A problem I find in the Anatolian Hypothesis is (correct me if I'm wrong) that it envisions an acculturation rather than a migration scenario for the Bell Beaker Culture, which seems to not be the case acording to recent investigations (for example this one). Instead, I find it possible that the Bell Beaker Culture brought Indo-European languages related to the Italic and Celtic groups, which were later absorbed by Celtic.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sanferbal (talk • contribs) 17:07, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Whatever language might have spread with the earliest farmers could very well have been another language, not IE. Schrijver has pointed to a non-IE substratum in European IE (the "language of bird names", "North Balkan Substrate", "Atlantic", "European", Kuiper's "A1"), which could represent a Neolithic, pre-IE introduction from Anatolia and can tentatively be identified with the language of the first farmers, seriously challenging Renfrew's interpretation of the evidence. I also find Schrijver's proposal much more realistic. You can't expect millennia-old archaeological cultures to be associated with languages still spoken or even attested as a matter of course. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 12:42, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Comparison with Central Europe ?
I would like to see some comparison with the next-door culture of Central Europe- something that indicates why it is viewed seperately- in what way does it differ? I read things about one and the other, but such articles don't seem to deal with comparable things, mostly. eg- Urnfield has fields of urns- does the Atlantic not? IceDragon64 (talk) 12:59, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Copyedited
Richard asr (talk) 11:05, 8 May 2024 (UTC)