Anthropology Question:

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This is a difficult issue to sort out. One problem, of course, is that we have neither artistic evidence nor soft-tissue evidence for either pre-Celtic (Iron Age) or Celtic populations themselves. The second problem is that such characteristics as skin color, hair form, skull shape, stature, etc. can change rapidly among small populations. This was famously demonstrated in studies of immigrants to the USA in the early 20th Century. Therefore, it is difficult to tell if any changes we see in the archaeological record (mostly changes in skeletal morphology) are the result of indigenous evolution or if there is significant gene flow from immigrant populations.

A subsidiary issue is that Bronze Age cultures seem to have practiced a fair amount of cremation, so bone preservation is weak for that period.