There is genetic, linguistic and archeological evidence that forms of proto celtic might have originated in the po valley, in the western regions.
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Genetic evidence: during the middle/late bronze age (during the transition period between tumulus and urnfield culture) southern german populations became subject to radical genetic drift from the previous bellbeaker-cordedware profile to a southwestern (specifically central-northern italian) profile. This might be because southern alpine populations started a sequence of gradual migrations towards the northern alps, which subsequently influenced culture, language and genetics. Later, the southern german populations would partly expand their new genetic profile to hungarians and western europeans (and, to some extent, iberians and maybe even czechs and balkaners) which show a remarkable genetic drift towards the south german / central-north italian direction too. This coincided perfectly with the later urnfield culture system and migrations, which are thought to be the origin of the celtic languages.
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Linguistic evidence: the italian peninsula had been settled in the chalcolithic and early bronze age by bell beakers, which brought proto-celtic-italic languages to the peninsula. From here, in the west, these languages developed in a more celtic-drifted way and in the east in a more italic-drifted way (hypothesis). This would explain why ligurian is considered to be more similar to celtic than italic (hence why it's often referred to as celto-ligurian), and it would explain the celtic languages of piedmont-lombardy (lepontic, a unique celtic language separate from gaulish and other continental celtic languages). Then, in the middle/late bronze age, the ancestor languages of lepontic would have been brought to southern germany by the northward migrations from the southern alps, to the urnfield culture, from where they were later expanded to most of western europe (lepontic might have then uniquely developed, while getting influenced again by gaulish later in the centuries). On the other hand, italic might have developed in the east, forming the later substratum for the difference between east and west central italic languages. The reason why the classification of venetic (northeastern italic language) is often disputed, is that it had some very original characteristics compared to the other central italic languages, and is often associated with illiryan languages. I have an explanation for this; in the late bronze age / early iron age there was an important migration from a western balkan people into Italy; these peoples had a native western balkan genetic profile (illyrian; they cluster the closest albanians/montenegrins, maybe bosniaks of the bronze age), and heavily influenced the genetic profile of northern and eastern italy (the centre-west and southwest received a generally low/very low proto-villanovan genetic influence except for some unique regions and provinces). Since the migrations started from the eastern alps and came downwards, it's obvious that the first regions to come into contact with the migrators were the northeastern italian regions of veneto and friuli; here, the ethnogenesis process of the "italics" as we know them started, and the resulting populations of the northeast were the proto-villanovans, of proto-villanovan culture and speaking italic languages. Hence, the reason why venetic has these "illiryan" influences is most likely because of the intensity of the migrations in this area. However, the invaders actually adopted the language of the region, probably because the bell-beaker natives were still the majority or managed to successfully preserve their language in some other way; venetic was this way born, an italic language with some illyrian (or generally western balkan) influences. The reason other italic languages in central-south italy don't show this influences might be because they mixed with previous italic languages of the centre-north, or it may be that in the north italic languages with illyrian influences were spoken, while in the centre-south there was a form of italic spoken by one of the populations that ran off from the proto-villanovans, migrating south and enforcing or influencing the local languages (which is also another good explanation for the difference between west and east italic languages). It may be that some of these peoples running from the proto-villanovans spoke a non-IndoEuropean language similar to rhaetian, which may explain how etruscan ended up in tuscany and also may explain why a thyrsenian language was found in a greek island (some of the italian peoples running from proto-villanovans apparently turned into invading sea-peoples, as it seems to be the case for some terramare peoples).
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Archeological evidence: the canegrate culture of northwestern italy is as old as the earliest stage of the urnfield culture, while showing many similarities; in fact it is classified as part of the larger urnfield system, and some consider this to be because of migrations from southern germany. But, the canegrate culture emerged from the previous Scamozzina culture of northwestern italy, which, logically, showed similarity to the canegrate culture and consequently also the urnfield culture; the point is that Scamozzina culture (14th-13th century) is older than than the urnfield culture, hence it can't be the influence of the tumulus culture people migrating here and influencing the culture (on top of this, there's no genetic evidence to back this claim). Another very important feature of the Scamozzina culture is that cremation was accompanied by the bones in cinerary urns, a cultural feature unprecedented in europe, which later showed up in the early stages of the urnfield culture after the end of the Scamozzina culture. Certainly not coincidences. My theory is that the tumulus culture in southern germany (where urnfield originated) transitioned to urnfield culture because of cultural influences and migrations from northwestern italy, and genetic evidence strongly backs my claims. Hence, the cultural similarities between urnfield and northwestern italy were not due to chance or north alpine migrations, but rather migrations from the south to the north which influenced culture and language, and genetic proves this theory is highly likely.
Hence, this is why I'm theorising that proto-celtic, or forms of early proto celtic, were the languages of northwestern Scamozzina/Canergrate related peoples, who later brought them to southern germany, where the urnfield peoples brought them to western europe.
What do you think
