Galatian DNA - Evidence of Celtic expansion

This map show's Greek geographer Strabo's account of the migration of the Tectosages, one of three Celtic (Gaulish) tribes, descended from the Volcae tribe which originates in Germany, that migrated East to Phrygia to form the Galatian Celtic group. Even Saint Paul wrote that there were Celts there in his Epistle to the Galatians ("you Celtic goyim don't need to get circumcised") so their presence is well attested. But now we have their DNA! (one sample at least)

The Iron Age sample called Anatolia_IA_MA2197 can be modelled as 57% Bell Beaker derived (signifiant because although Beaker folk didn't speak Celtic, we know the Celts were Beaker descended), it also shows a strong affinity with a sample from the Halstatt Proto-Celtic culture of Austria.

 Interestingly, if we assume the Hallstatt and Urnfield people to be genetically similar to the Celts who expanded East and West in the 3rd century BC and to the ones who brought Celtic languages to Britain in 6th BC we can see that in all the modern day "Celtic" regions, their genetic influence is small (UK, Brittany and Ireland) to negligible (Galicia - where there are greater amounts of medieval Arabic admixture than Iron Age Hallstatt).

The paper
Eurogenes blog post on the modelling

Where Did Celts Come From?

While Germanic language is widely agreed to have emerged around 3000 years ago in Northern Denmark, amongst a people who were genetically like modern Danes, and then to have spread from 750BC as neighbouring peoples adopted the language for some reason, it is harder to pin point who the first Celtic speakers were or explain how their languages got to Britain.

As I have said in videos, the modern British genetic profile emerged 4500 years ago with the arrival of the beaker folk from Holland, but these people did NOT speak a Celtic language, as linguists agree Proto-Celtic isn't that old (maybe 3000 or 3500 years old). This means that either: 

a) The peoples of the British Isles adopted a Celtic language due to trade with continental Celts
b) A small Celtic elite took over Britain and Ireland and somehow changed the culture and language but not the genetics
c) A continental population of Celts took over Britain and Ireland and did change the genetics, but this change is only very slight because they were already closely related to the people of the British Isles.

Archeologically, the Hallstatt culture of the 8th to 6th centuries BC, is seen as the first proper Celtic material culture. The two black stars on the PCA chart above, made by Eurogenes, represent two skeletons from the Hallstatt culture, and it can clearly be seen that one plots among the Dutch and one among the Northern French, but neither among modern "Celtic" areas. However, the purple Iron Age Celts on the chart are between the older Bronze age British samples and the Halstatt samples indicating there WAS an invasion of continental Celts to Britain who were related to these Halstatt samples and that they changed the DNA of Britain and Ireland.

Modern English people plot between these purple Iron Age Celts and the red Anglo-Saxon samples, but there is always the possibility that other 5th century Anglo-Saxon invaders from Frisia, Holland etc would have plotted like modern Dutch people just as the much older Halstatt sample does - thus making the job of distinguishing "Celtic and Germanic DNA" very complicated! Especially when you also see that the Anglo-Saxon samples are closer to the Bronze Age Britons than the Halstatt Celts are.

EDIT: Eurogenes actually said there may have been as much as 10% admixture from a Celtic source in the iron age.

Read more