The Celts are Circaesir from Circaesya, who lived on the Sea of Grass in what is now west Kazakhstan until late in the second millennium B.C. They were by their own definition a linguistic group, but now they are a culture. Contrary to popular belief, they had nothing to do with European inhabitants known to archaeologists as the 'Beaker folk' and 'Battle Axe people'. The 'Urnfield people' farther east were Circaesir, and obviously related to the Celts. Their descendants integrated with Celts in central Europe.
Tradition suggests that the Celts left the Sea of Grass in a dispute with the Scythian confederacy, of which they seem to have been members. It seems the Scythians threw their weight around a little too much with their allies. They would take over the Cimmerians living in what is now the Ukraine, but shortly after the middle of the first millennium they would get their comeuppance. Sarmatians from the southeast would invade, possibly supported by disgruntled members of the confederacy.
By this time Celts had dominated central Europe for several centuries. They had immediately become powerful there, in lands occupied by the Faan (see 'Arthur'), for they were a warrior people and the Faan were gentle. They were more powerful than the Circaesir who already lived there, and they could have defeated the Germanics moving south from Scandinavia. It has long been a mystery why the latter took over from them. It is likely that the Germanics from Scandinavia clashed with the Faan, who assumed that the Celts were in on the attack. The Faan did not mind being dominated, but extermination was another matter. I believe that the Celts of central Europe moved south and west because they had no intention of fighting someone else's war.
By the time the Roman Empire was expanding, the Celts were most concentrated in what is now France. They may have been the catalyst to the Roman Empire, because at the beginning of the fourth century B.C. they had (1) sacked Rome, (2) pulled on the Senators' beards and (3) left without suspecting they had just made an enemy that would one day destroy them.
The name 'Celt' is a misnomer, by the way, but it has stuck and I will continue to use it. 'Keltoi' was a Greek word meaning 'uncivilized' and it referred to an Alpine people who may have been related to central Asians. Probably Celts came in contact with these people during their stay in central Europe, and accidentally became confused with them. It is also likely that they integrated with them. The proper name for the Celts may be 'Gaedheals'. Certainly the Gaels, a people of the same kind who took the Mediterranean route out of Circaesya, were descended from a man named Gaedheal Glas, son of Agnoman, who was in turn descended from Magog, son of Japheth. But people from the entire cultural group are now referred to as Celts, and there's no going back. Throughout their history the Chaldees, Faan, Athenians, Volsungrs and Germanic Vikings who joined the Gaedheals have been referred to inclusively as Celts, which creates quite a confusion for historians trying to trace the origin of the Gaedheals themselves.
There were many Circaesir cultural groups, of which the Celts were only one. They were all military in character, for Circaesya was a war zone. I will explain why. About fifteen thousand years ago, a huge migration began out of the prairie which is now the Sahara desert. People we would now describe as Oriental may have been pushed out of the Middle East by the exodus behind them. They moved northeast until some of them turned south into China, displacing the people who had been living there and pushing them south to join relatives in Melanesia, Papua/New Guinea and Australia. Groups preceding and following the Orientals pushed on to North America, and the groups behind remained in Siberia and Mongolia.
Behind these groups were the Aesir. These people had features in common with those who had gone before them, but they must have been a different branch of the family tree because they had light hair and eyes. They settled on the steppes of central Asia, and the entire continent has been named after their land, Aesya. After the Aesir came the Circaesir, who remained to the southwest of Aesya, spreading outward in both directions as an alternative to moving on in a train that was becoming very uncomfortable indeed. The name 'Circaesya' may not have originally referred to this area as a whole. (There exists a theory that it was derived from 'Zirghizia', one of its regions through which all of them passed.) However, the term came to apply to the lands between Aesya and Arabaya.
A tidal wave shortly before 3000 B.C. desertified the north African plain where the ancestors of the Circaesir had once lived. On one side of Circaesya, Aesya would not support more people, and on the other the Arab nations were pushing to leave the desert. The Circaesir put a sock in the largest ever human migration, and Circaesya became a war zone as its nations fought for their land.
The Celts were only one of the many nations living in Circaesya. They were in the hottest area of conflict, the Sea of Grass (the plains of the Ukraine and Kazakhstan) directly along the migratory route. Just south of them the people of the Iranian plateau also felt the pressure. For thousands of years life had been easier for those Circaesir to the northwest who had spread along the Danube. While their relatives on the Sea of Grass had retained the pastoral life, the Danubians had learned agriculture. But during the second millennium B.C. they too felt the pressure of overpopulation. Many of them moved south to the Mediterranean, conquering the Mesopotamian cultures there (predominantly Hamite), and becoming profoundly affected by them.
Meanwhile on the Sea of Grass life had been tough. Around 4000 B.C. a large number of Circaesir descended from Gomer, son of Japheth, moved north into an area called Vanya (now western Russia). At an early date (definitely more than ten thousand years ago) the people of Vanya –called the Vanir, precursors to modern Finns– had fought the Aesir to a stalemate and had made a truce, agreeing that they would live west of the Don River in Vanya if the Aesir would confine Aesya to the land east of the Don River. When the Circaesir descended from Gomer arrived in Vanya thousands of years later, they took over the area and developed a culture distinct and separate from anything in Circaesya. They became Germanic, and not to be confused with the Circaesir despite the physical resemblance. A group of Aesir called Volsungrs had already moved north and west into Scandinavia. Late in the fourth millennium they clashed with Germanics who were moving in on them from Vanya.
Some people of the same type as the Germanics remained Circaesir. Their ruling class called themselves 'Aria', meaning 'noble', and their legends suggest that they came from central Asia, though this may have been a retelling of the Ancient Ones descending from a mountain peak. They worshipped Aries or Marduk, the supervisor of the fallen angels, and an 'Arian' was a descendant of Aries.
During the second millennium these Circaesir were forced to move southwest against the migratory tide. They took over the Iranian plateau and conquered the Dravidian civilization of India. Closely related to the Germanics of the north and to the Achaeans of Greece, they referred to their ancestor Japheth as 'Djapatischta'. Those who moved into Persia were converted to worship of the Heavenly Host, but those who went to India continued to worship Marduk.
I have mentioned only a few of the Circaesir in this article. They had the same strong build, medium height and small features, but their colouring varied greatly. Their warlike history made them a dominant type, but they were expert at preventing conflict and did not destroy cultures that cooperated with them. Unfortunately they had no mechanism for halting a war in mid-course. This was because when they were living by their own laws, if their sophisticated negotiating skills could not prevent a war then there was no alternative. It must be remembered that in many countries they proved beneficial to the people they conquered, for the Circaesir protected their own.
the real European power politics
are Caucasians Japhethites?
graphic courtesy of Uffington Horse
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