Free Blood of the Isles by Bryan Sykes

context, is to the settler.’
    The intense spirituality of the Australian Aborigine, the connection to ancestors and the homeland, is in a muted form reflected in the search for Celtic roots. Displaced bythe invader and forced to the margins before being forced into exile overseas, the Celt is perceived to be the British – or even the European – aboriginal. She continues, ‘to have Celtic roots is to demonstrate that one also has a rich, tribal heritage rooted deeply within a landscape that is both mystical and mythical.’
    And it is the case that in ‘New Age’ bookshops around the world, titles on Celtic spirituality are found on the same shelves as Aboriginal and Native American material in the same genre. However, be warned that I heard the distinguished American sociologist Michael Waltzer in a recent lecture dismiss excess spirituality as ‘the solace of a conquered people’.
    Before we move on to more solid ground, let me just mention Frank from Boulder, Colorado. After spending twelve years with Native American teachers, Frank took part in the Sun Dance ceremony of the Lakota people, an experience which set him on the path to discovering his Celtic heritage. He now describes himself as ‘a poet, ecopsychologist and visionary teacher in the Celtic spiritual tradition’. Frank leads pilgrimages to the Scottish Highlands to promote what he calls ‘Highland cultural soul retrieval’.
    The range of emotion covered by the Celtic umbrella is vast, from a feeling of displacement and affinity with aboriginal groups, to a successful marketing tool, to a political rallying call, to the focus for sporting identity, even fanaticism. Can genetics lift the veil and see what lies beneath? Faced with this multiplicity of meaning for Celt and Celtic, what range of possibilities should we expectgenetics to reveal? Might we be able to detect the waves of a large-scale migration envisaged by Edward Lhuyd? Or might we find evidence that what we now call Celts have been here all along? Will we find any genetic similarity between the present-day Celts and the people of the rest of Britain, or will there be a sharp divide? And where should we look for origins? Though not absolutely essential for success in historical genetics, it is always best to formulate some scenarios that can be tested.
    One of the most striking emblems of the Celtic brand, the intricate naturalistic knotwork that inspires the modern Celtic jeweller, had its origin not in the Atlantic communities linked by a common language, but in central Europe. The evolution of this highly distinctive art form coincided with the rise of rich settlements north of the Alps, centres which controlled the trade of goods like amber and tin, flowing south to the Mediterranean world and their exchange for luxuries, such as wine and jewellery. In all likelihood, these luxury imports were used by local chieftains as a badge of status and also distributed among their subordinates in exchange for favours and services.
    The trading settlements spanned the heartland of Europe where its great navigable rivers converge in a relatively small area in eastern France and Switzerland. The Loire going westward to the Atlantic, the Rhône south to the Mediterranean, the Rhine north to the North Sea and the Danube east to the Black Sea. These were the arteries of prehistoric Europe along which flowed the life-blood of trade. Whoever controlled the heads of the rivers and theland between them controlled the trade – and grew very rich on it. At the peak, around 600 BC , there was enough wealth to stimulate and support the production of a local style of craftwork, and this is where we see the first appearance, principally in the delicate metalwork, of what we now call Celtic Art. The La Tène style, which we now most strongly associate with the Celtic brand, began not on the ocean coasts of the Atlantic, but within sight of the Alps.
    But was it just the goods and the ideas that moved, or was it