The defining traits that make Celtic people so distinct is now thought to have been established 4,000 years ago as a result of an influx of immigrants from the Middle East and the Black Sea.
According to the Daily Mail, ‘waves of immigration’ caused by the adoption of agriculture in Ireland lead to a significant change in genetics, which resulted in the modern Celtic genetic make-up.
The news comes out of a study led by Queens University Belfast and Trinity College Dublin. The researchers analyzed the DNA of the remains of an ancient farmer from the Neolithic area believed to have been alive around 5,200 years ago in Belfast, Ireland. The remains of three men who lived in Ireland during the Bronze Age were also analyzed.
Interestingly, the DNA of the farmer woman more resembled modern qualities of people of Middle Eastern descent than it did people from the Celtic region. Based on the analyzation, the woman is believed to have had brown hair and brown eyes, while the men had blue eyes — more in line with modern thinking about Celtic people.
The woman’s genome is considered a ‘genetic cocktail’ of early hunter gatherer DNA mixed with Near East farmers. Contrastingly, the traits found in the Bronze Age males were observed to be much closer to modern Irish people.
It is thought that Near East farmers — which the woman’s remains resemble — migrated to Ireland thousands of years ago, bringing farming with them. This migration is believed to have occurred around 3,750 years ago.
The waves of people that made it to Ireland’s shores during this migration are believed to have helped shaped not only their modern genetic identity, but are believed to have played a significant role in the development of their language as well.