CELTIC-L April 1997
Re: Celts in Wales
David Walter Fortin <[log in to unmask]>
What I was getting at in the below quotation is the theory that small
groups of Celtic peoples were able to subsume the established cultures of
the peoples already living in Wales and England (Ireland as well?).  Prof.
Davies earlier had stated that the majority of Wale's population was
already present in the 6th C BC when the first of the Halstatt folks
appeared.
I have a problem with 'small groups'.   There are darn few examples in
history where a minority group of invaders is able to completely supress
AND subsume the culture of the majority.  Even in the example of 7th C
Egypt which Prof Davies utilizes, the Coptic Church survived the Islamic
incursion.
Sla/inte,
> the current orthodox view is that the Celtic language and the essentials
> of Celtic culture were brought to Britain in the centuries after 600 BC
> by small groups of migrants who were not large enough to change the basic
> racial composition of society, but who were powerful and confident
> enough to be culturally dominant...(example of Egypt when Islam rolled
> in)...In the same way, it may be imagined that a small class, Celtic in
> language, seized power in Britain in the last centuries of prehistory and
> that the culture of that class permeated society to so great an extent as
> to cause the archeological and documentary evidence to suggest that their
> culture was that of the totality of the inhabitants...while the enduring
> elements in the society of Wales should be stressed and while it should be
> emphasized that the blood of the men of Halstatt scarcely courses through
> the veins of the present inhabitants of Wales, these are not arguments for
> belittling the achievements of the Celts..." (p22-23).