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Lethe scholar Profile picture
Lethe scholar
@Lethescholar
Retrieving from oblivion the antiquities of the old kingdom, where the sun sets and the divine awakens. Personal account: @FCMart1n
May 4 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
The Basques are overwhelmingly R1b but speak a non-IE language. Same for the Etruscans. And ancient Iberians, and so on. That’s a contradiction?

Not really. Their mitochondrial DNA was overwhelmingly pre-IE. Their autosomal DNA was also more pre-IE. Why should they speak IE?➡️🧵 Image Mothers are usually more important for language transfer than fathers. Pre-IE societies were also usually less patriarchal than Indo-Europeans.

What we know is that IE and pre-IE ancestry blended, and that language transferred unevenly depending on the society. Why?➡️ Image
Feb 25 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
The correct question is:

Why was central Gaul so cohesive?

The polities of central Gaul grew because they were the center of a system. In the final La Tène period, trade flowed through Gaul, and the central polities became richer. Political consolidation followed… Image Elites grew stronger. Towns (oppida) expanded. Political systems solidified, evolving from tribes into nascent republics. Former tribes were subordinated to their hegemons and gradually aggregated into powerful polities.

And then it is the periphery… Image
Apr 2, 2025 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
Not exactly.

1⃣ Celtic influence may be very old in Iberia, linked to the Late Bronze Age incineration cultures. This influence was strong up to the Ebro valley, but it can be observed even in Lusitania and Galicia. Probably much less in Asturias and Cantabria…➡️ Image 2⃣ In the early Iron Age, Celtic groups in Iberia became isolated from mainland Europe. Pre-Celtic substrata re-emerged: pre-Indo-European in the south and east, Pre-Celtic IE in the west. Celts entrenched in the highlands south of the Ebro valley—future Celtiberia…➡️ Image