Rock Art and Celto-Germanic Vocabulary Shared Iconography and Words As Reflections of Bronze Age Contact

John T. Koch Rock art and Celto-Germanic vocabulary Shared iconography and words as reflections of Bronze Age contact Abstract Recent discoveries in the chemical and isotopic sourcing of metals and ancient DNA have transformed our understanding of the Nordic Bronze Age in two key ways. First, we find that Scandinavia and the Iberian Peninsula were in contact within a system of long- distance exchange of Baltic amber and Iberian copper. Second, by the Early Bronze Age, mass migrations emanating from the Pontic-Caspian steppe had reached both regions, probably bringing Indo-European languages with them. In the light of these discoveries, we launched a research project in 2019 — ‘Rock art, Atlantic Europe, Words & Warriors (RAW)’ — based at the University of Gothenburg and funded by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet). The RAW project undertakes an extensive programme of scanning and documentation to enable detailed comparison of the strikingly similar iconography of Scandinavian rock art and Iberian ‘warrior’ stelae. A linguistic aspect of this cross-disciplinary project is to re-examine the inherited word stock shared by Celtic and Germanic, but absent from the other Indo-European languages, exploring how these words might throw light onto the world of meaning of Bronze rock art and the people who made it. This paper presents this linguistic aspect of the RAW project and some preliminary findings. Keywords: rock art, Bronze Age, Proto-Celtic, Proto-Germanic Introduction The recurrent themes and concepts found migrations emanating from the Pontic- in both the rock art of Scandinavia and Caspian steppe spreading widely across the Late Bronze Age ‘warrior’ stelae of the Western Eurasia, transforming the popula- Iberian Peninsula could undoubtedly also tions of regions including Southern Scan- be expressed in words. As this iconography dinavia and Atlantic Europe. In these re- belongs to an age before writing, is there sults the archaeogenetic evidence confirm any way to find out what those words important aspects of the so-called ‘steppe’ were? or ‘kurgan hypothesis’ of the homeland and dispersal of the Indo-European lan- Recent major breakthroughs in the se- guages, as formulated by Marija Gimbutas quencing the genomes of ancient hu- (1970) and subsequently elaborated by man beings carry important implications her student J. P. Mallory (1989; 2013), and about the languages spoken in Bronze David Anthony (2007; Anthony & Ringe Age Europe (Allentoft et al. 2015; Haak et 2015). Thus, the milestone genetics studies al. 2015; Cassidy et al. 2016; Olalde et al. cited above have tended to the conclusion 2018; 2019). This work now reveals mass that the migrants with steppe ancestry Adoranten 2018 1 who transformed European populations episode of Iberian–Scandinavian contact. by 2000 BC also brought with them early What were the exact dates and volume of forms of Indo-European speech. this trade? What regions and communities were involved? Did people and ideas move A significant negative finding of this se- with valuable raw materials? To answer quencing of ancient genomes is that many these questions, we have launched in 2019 regions, including Northern and Western a new research project: Rock art, Atlantic Europe, underwent no comparably large Europe, Words & Warriors (RAW), based at and abrupt in-migration subsequently, the University of Gothenburg and funded following the Neolithic–Bronze Age Tran- by the Swedish Research Council (Veten- sition and before historical times. While skapsrådet). RAW uses new technologies it remains possible that genetically unde- and crosses between three disciplines: tectable groups brought new languages to linguistics–archaeology–genetics (LAG). Its these countries later on in the Bronze Age syntheses seek to advance understanding and/or Iron Age, such hypothetical pre- of the formation of Atlantic Europe’s lan- historic migrations are no longer needed guages, cultures, and populations. to explain why Germanic and Celtic languages are where we find them at the A preliminary look at 1) rock-art motifs dawn of history. The simpler hypothesis is shared by these regions at this time and that these two Indo-European branches 2) the earliest layer of vocabulary shared evolved in situ in their historical home- by Germanic and Celtic (but not Indo- lands over the course of the Bronze Age European as a whole) suggests that seafar- (Koch 2019). ing warriors were the primary agents of this trade. RAW is fully investigating these An intriguing fact about the Celtic lan- data fields and this hypothesis. guages of Western Europe and the Ger- manic languages of the North is that Parallels between Iberian warrior stelae these two Indo-European branches share and Scandinavian rock art were noted a sizeable body of inherited vocabulary years ago (Almagro Basch 1966). Only that is absent from most or all of the other recently have shared motifs (e.g. shields, branches (Hyllested 2010). Undoubtedly, spears, swords, horned helmets, mirrors, this set of words reflects a historical stage bows and arrows, chariots with two-horse later than the main body of Indo-Euro- teams, dogs, mirrors, &c.) begun to be pean vocabulary attested more widely. Up recognized more fully and closely dated to until now, it has not been clear whether the span 1300–900 BC (Ling & Koch 2018). the Celto-Germanicisms (CGs) reflect a RAW is building an on-line library of 3D lengthy and evenly spaced continuum images of rock art to allow researchers over many centuries or peak with a denser world-wide to compare remote immov- cluster as the result of a specific episode of able objects in fine detail. Data is being intense interaction. A more defined abso- entered about motifs, typology of arte- lute chronology may be possible now. facts depicted, artistic conventions, carving techniques, successive carving events, dat- ing, archaeological contexts, and the script A new research project and language of Iberian stelae with writ- Recent chemical and isotopic sourcing of ing (Untermann 1997; Koch 2013; 2019). copper artefacts in Scandinavia and amber in Iberia reveal a trade system that arose and ended in the Late Bronze Age, On the RAW project’s linguistic 1400/1300–900 BC (Ling et al. 2013; 2014; aspect Murillo-Barroso & Torres 2012; Odriozola Viewed methodologically, not all Celto- et al. 2019). Much remains to be explained Germanicisms (CGs) are similar cases. In about this previously unrecognized the most straightforward examples, the 2 Adoranten 2018 item of vocabulary occurs in Celtic and brigā meaning both ‘hill’ and ‘hillfort’, Germanic languages, it is based on the later ‘town’, shows what happened to this same root, the word is formed in the same word and points to the age of the hillforts way, has the same meaning, and can be as the era when the change of meaning reconstructed phonologically as equivalent most probably occurred. There are other Proto-Celtic and Proto-Germanic forms. examples, such as ‘shield’, where Celtic In some cases, the possibility of a prehis- and Germanic words (*skeito- and *skeldu- toric loanword between the branches can < *skeltu-) have different etymologies, but be excluded, in others it cannot. In some their prehistoric forms sounded so much examples, the root is found in other Indo- alike that coincidence is unlikely. There European languages, but the word has are also some words with unique histories been formed in the same way (with the associated with long-distance exchange same suffix(es) for example) only in Celtic of precious commodities, such as the Ger- and Germanic, thus the word for ‘axle’, manic ‘silver’, probably of non-Indo-Euro- where the suffix with -l- with that mean- pean origin and found also as Celtiberian ing is unique to Celtic and Germanic. In silabur. some cases, it is a distinctive secondary meaning that is uniquely Celto-Germanic. A smaller group of Celto-Germanicisms oc- For example, Proto-Indo-European *bhr̥gh- cur also in Italic and/or Baltic. The former meant ‘height, hill’, but came to mean especially is hardly surprising as a close a fortified settlement in both Celtic and relationship between Celtic and Italic is Germanic; the development through Celtic widely recognized. Going back 150 years Fig. 1. The Indo-European family tree published by August Schleicher in 1861 anticipated groupings universally accepted (Balto-Slavic and Indo-Irannian) or widely accepted (Italo-Celtic) today. At the time, Anatolian and Tocharian were not yet discovered. (Drawing by author) Adoranten 2018 3 to August Schleicher (1861/1862) many As shown in earlier studies (especially Hyl- linguists have argued for Italo-Celtic as a lested 2010), warfare and ideology are primary subgrouping, or branch, of Proto- heavily represented in the meanings of Indo-European. (Fig. 1). Thus, it is likely the CG words. One of the discoveries that that many Italo-Celtic words found in motivated the RAW project is that several Latin, which is abundantly attested from of these same meanings were also repre- ancient times, had once occurred also in sented in the iconography prominently Celtic, but died out before that branch shared by Iberian and Scandinavian rock was fully recorded in the Middle Ages. In carvings of the Late Bronze Age (Ling & this light, it is remarkable that there are Koch 2018). These correspondences are relatively few Italo-Celto-Germanicisms suggestive of both a figurative and a (ICGs), i.e. CG words also showing paral- literal lingua franca shared by a mobile lels in the copiously and anciently attested class of trader–raiders operating along the Latin. This distribution could be seen as a Atlantic seaways in the Late Bronze Age. falsification of the Italo-Celtic hypothesis, Something analogous to a lingua franca i.e. the idea the Celtic and Italic descend can be seen in the visual code of carvings from a single primary branch of Proto- on stone used to express shared elements Indo-European.

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