The bronze age and the Celtic world - Universal History Library

146 THE BRONZE AGE AND THE CELTIC WORLD
and that the Q are in the outer and the P in the inner ring. With regard to Greek
however, the case is different, and it is generally considered that the dialect of
Herodotus and Hippocrates is purely local and not necessarily primitive, and it has
been pointed out that had the original Ionic dialect been a Q tongue, signs of this would
have been apparent in Homer. It is also becoming more common to consider Greek
as having closer af&nities with Persian than with Itahc or Celtic, though one wonders
whether this connection is not being exaggerated as the pendulum swings from the
over-estimated resemblance formerly recognised between the two languages of the
Classical world.
We must, however, agree that the Greek part of Rhys' hypothesis will not stand,
at least without considerable emendation, nor have we found from our archaeological
investigations any reasons for beUeving that the Alpine inhabitants of the Swiss
lake-dweUings over-ran as conquerors the surrounding regions. The evidence, in fact,
points in an opposite direction. The deletion of these two points is not fatal to the
hypothesis, and we may still consider that there is, on philological evidence, a pnma-facie
reason for believing that from somewhere in Central Europe, from the area which we have
termed the Celtic cradle, two waves of invaders, of Wiro speech if not of Wiro race, set
out in various directions, that the Q was the earlier and the P the later, and that both
entered Italy and the Celtic lands.
We may further admit the possibility or even the probabiUty, that an ahen
element, not necessarily non-Wiro, had entered the Celtic cradle before the departure
of the second wave, and that it was to this alien element that the labiaUsation was
due. Lastly, we may admit that, though evidence of the Q wave into Greece is
non-proven, there is no doubt of the arrival of the P people, but these P people
spoke a tongue showing greater affinities with Iranian speech, especially in their names
for weapons and other warUke paraphernalia,' than is to be recognised in the other
P tongues.
Now we have seen from the study of archaeological evidence that the men of the
leaf-shaped sword passed at one time into Italy, where they settled near Lake Fucino,
and a Httle later some entered the Celtic lands of the west, while earlier a few adventurers
reached Greek lands. Later some refugees from the mountain zone reached many parts
9 Schrader (1890) 225-228.