Is celts a word

This article is about the ancient and medieval peoples of Europe. For Celts of the present day, see Celts (modern). For other uses, see Celt (disambiguation).

The Celts (, see pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples () are^[1] a collection of Indo-European peoples^[2] in Europe and Anatolia, identified by their use of Celtic languages and other cultural similarities.^[3][4][5][6] Historical Celtic groups included the Britons, Boii, Celtiberians, Gaels, Gauls, Gallaeci,^[7][8] Galatians, Lepontii and their offshoots. The relation between ethnicity, language and culture in the Celtic world is unclear and debated;^[9] for example over the ways in which the Iron Age people of Britain and Ireland should be called Celts.^{[6][9][10][11]} In current scholarship, ‘Celt’ primarily refers to ‘speakers of Celtic languages’ rather than to a single ethnic group.^[12]

The history of pre-Celtic Europe and Celtic origins is debated. The traditional «Celtic from the East» theory, says the Proto-Celtic language arose in the late Bronze Age Urnfield culture of central Europe, named after grave sites in southern Germany,^[13][14] which flourished from around 1200 BC.^[15] This theory links the Celts with the Iron Age Hallstatt culture which followed it (c. 1200–500 BC), named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria,^[15][16] and with the following La Tène culture (c. 450 BC onward), named after the La Tène site in Switzerland. It proposes that Celtic culture spread from these areas by diffusion or migration, westward to Gaul, the British Isles and Iberia, and southward to Cisalpine Gaul.^[17] A newer theory, «Celtic from the West», suggests Proto-Celtic arose earlier, was a lingua franca in the Atlantic Bronze Age coastal zone, and spread eastward.^[18] Another newer theory, «Celtic from the Centre», suggests Proto-Celtic arose between these two zones, in Bronze Age Gaul, then spread in various directions.^[12] After the Celtic settlement of Southeast Europe in the 3rd century BC, Celtic culture reached as far east as central Anatolia, Turkey.

The earliest undisputed examples of Celtic language are the Lepontic inscriptions from the 6th century BC.^[19] Continental Celtic languages are attested almost exclusively through inscriptions and place-names. Insular Celtic languages are attested from the 4th century AD in Ogham inscriptions, though they were clearly being spoken much earlier. Celtic literary tradition begins with Old Irish texts around the 8th century AD. Elements of Celtic mythology are recorded in early Irish and early Welsh literature. Most written evidence of the early Celts comes from Greco-Roman writers, who often grouped the Celts as barbarian tribes. They followed an ancient Celtic religion overseen by druids.

The Celts were often in conflict with the Romans, such as in the Roman–Gallic wars, the Celtiberian Wars, the conquest of Gaul and conquest of Britain. By the 1st century AD, most Celtic territories had become part of the Roman Empire. By c. 500, due to Romanisation and the migration of Germanic tribes, Celtic culture had mostly become restricted to Ireland, western and northern Britain, and Brittany. Between the 5th and 8th centuries, the Celtic-speaking communities in these Atlantic regions emerged as a reasonably cohesive cultural entity. They had a common linguistic, religious and artistic heritage that distinguished them from surrounding cultures.^[20]

Insular Celtic culture diversified into that of the Gaels (Irish, Scots and Manx) and the Celtic Britons (Welsh, Cornish, and Bretons) of the medieval and modern periods.^[3][21][22] A modern Celtic identity was constructed as part of the Romanticist Celtic Revival in Britain, Ireland, and other European territories such as Galicia.^[23] Today, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, and Breton are still spoken in parts of their former territories, while Cornish and Manx are undergoing a revival.

Names and terminology

Ancient

The first recorded use of the name ‘Celts’ – as Κελτοί (Keltoi) in Ancient Greek – was by Greek geographer Hecataeus of Miletus in 517 BC,^[24] when writing about a people living near Massilia (modern Marseille), southern Gaul.^[25] In the fifth century BC, Herodotus referred to Keltoi living around the source of the Danube and in the far west of Europe.^[26] The etymology of Keltoi is unclear. Possible roots include Indo-European *kʲel ‘to hide’ (seen also in Old Irish ceilid, and Modern Welsh celu), *kʲel ‘to heat’ or *kel ‘to impel’.^[27] It may come from the Celtic language. Linguist Kim McCone supports this view and notes that Celt- is found in the names of several ancient Gauls such as Celtillus, father of Vercingetorix. He suggests it meant the people or descendants of «the hidden one», noting the Gauls claimed descent from an underworld god (according to Commentarii de Bello Gallico), and linking it with the Germanic Hel.^[28] Others view it as a name coined by Greeks; among them linguist Patrizia de Bernardo Stempel, who suggests it meant «the tall ones».^[29]

In the first century BC, Roman leader Julius Caesar reported that the Gauls called themselves ‘Celts’, Latin: Celtae, in their own tongue.^[30] Thus whether it was given to them by others or not, it was used by the Celts themselves. Greek geographer Strabo, writing about Gaul towards the end of the first century BC, refers to the «race which is now called both Gallic and Galatic«, though he also uses Celtica as another name for Gaul. He reports Celtic peoples in Iberia too, calling them Celtiberi and Celtici.^[31] Pliny the Elder noted the use of Celtici in Lusitania as a tribal surname,^[32] which epigraphic findings have confirmed.^[33][34]

A Latin name for the Gauls, Galli (pl.), may come from a Celtic ethnic name, perhaps borrowed into Latin during the Celtic expansion into Italy from the early fifth century BC. Its root may be Proto-Celtic *galno, meaning «power, strength» (whence Old Irish gal «boldness, ferocity», Welsh gallu «to be able, power»). The Greek name Γαλάται (Galatai, Latinized Galatae) most likely has the same origin, referring to the Gauls who invaded southeast Europe and settled in Galatia.^[35] The suffix -atai might be a Greek inflection.^[36] Linguist Kim McCone suggests it comes from Proto-Celtic *galatis («ferocious, furious»), and was not originally an ethnic name but a name for young warrior bands. He says «If the Gauls’ initial impact on the Mediterranean world was primarily a military one typically involving fierce young *galatīs, it would have been natural for the Greeks to apply this name for the type of Keltoi that they usually encountered».^[28]

Because Classical writers did not call the inhabitants of Britain and Ireland Κελτοί (Keltoi) or Celtae,^[6][9][10] some scholars prefer not to use the term for the Iron Age inhabitants of those islands.^{[6][9][10][11]} However, they spoke Celtic languages, shared other cultural traits, and Roman historian Tacitus says the Britons resembled the Gauls in customs and religion.^[12]

Modern

Celt is a modern English word, first attested in 1707 in the writing of Edward Lhuyd, whose work, along with that of other late 17th-century scholars, brought academic attention to the languages and history of the early Celtic inhabitants of Great Britain.^[37] The English words Gaul, Gauls (pl.) and Gaulish (first recorded in the 16–17th centuries) come from French Gaule and Gaulois, a borrowing from Frankish *Walholant, «Roman land» (see Gaul: Name), the root of which is Proto-Germanic *walha-, «foreigner, Roman, Celt», whence the English word ‘Welsh’ (Old English wælisċ). Proto-Germanic *walha comes from the name of the Volcae,^[38] a Celtic tribe who lived first in southern Germany and central Europe, then migrated to Gaul.^[39] This means that English Gaul, despite its superficial similarity, is not actually derived from Latin Gallia (which should have produced *Jaille in French), though it does refer to the same ancient region.^{[citation needed]}

Celtic refers to a language family and, more generally, means «of the Celts» or «in the style of the Celts». Several archaeological cultures are considered Celtic, based on unique sets of artefacts. The link between language and artefact is aided by the presence of inscriptions.^[40] The modern idea of a Celtic cultural identity or «Celticity» focuses on similarities among languages, works of art, and classical texts,^[41] and sometimes also among material artefacts, social organisation, homeland and mythology.^[42] Earlier theories held that these similarities suggest a common racial origin for the various Celtic peoples, but more recent theories hold that they reflect a common cultural and linguistic heritage more than a genetic one. Celtic cultures seem to have been diverse, with the use of a Celtic language being the main thing they had in common.^[6]

Today, the term ‘Celtic’ generally refers to the languages and cultures of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, the Isle of Man, and Brittany; also called the Celtic nations. These are the regions where Celtic languages are still spoken to some extent. The four are Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, and Breton; plus two recent revivals, Cornish (a Brittonic language) and Manx (a Goidelic language). There are also attempts to reconstruct Cumbric, a Brittonic language of northern Britain. Celtic regions of mainland Europe are those whose residents claim a Celtic heritage, but where no Celtic language survives; these include western Iberia, i.e. Portugal and north-central Spain (Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, Castile and León, Extremadura).^[43]

Continental Celts are the Celtic-speaking people of mainland Europe and Insular Celts are the Celtic-speaking people of the British and Irish islands, and their descendants. The Celts of Brittany derive their language from migrating Insular Celts from Britain and so are grouped accordingly.^[44]

Origins

The Celtic languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages. By the time Celts are first mentioned in written records around 400 BC, they were already split into several language groups, and spread over much of western mainland Europe, the Iberian Peninsula, Ireland and Britain. The languages developed into Celtiberian, Goidelic and Brittonic branches, among others.^[45][46]

Urnfield-Hallstatt theory

The mainstream view during most of the twentieth century is that the Celts and the proto-Celtic language arose out of the Urnfield culture of central Europe around 1000 BC, spreading westward and southward over the following few hundred years.^{[15][47][48][49]} The Urnfield culture was preeminent in central Europe during the late Bronze Age, circa 1200 BC to 700 BC. The spread of iron-working led to the Hallstatt culture (c. 800 to 500 BC) developing out of the Urnfield culture in a wide region north of the Alps. The Hallstatt culture developed into the La Tène culture from about 450 BC, which came to be identified with Celtic art.^{[citation needed]}

In 1846, Johann Georg Ramsauer unearthed an ancient grave field with distinctive grave goods at Hallstatt, Austria. Because the burials «dated to roughly the time when Celts are mentioned near the Danube by Herodotus, Ramsauer concluded that the graves were Celtic».^[50] Similar sites and artifacts were found over a wide area, which were named the ‘Hallstatt culture’. In 1857, the archaeological site of La Tène was discovered in Switzerland.^[50] The huge collection of artifacts had a distinctive style. Artifacts of this ‘La Tène style’ were found elsewhere in Europe, «particularly in places where people called Celts were known to have lived and early Celtic languages are attested. As a result, these items quickly became associated with the Celts, so much so that by the 1870s scholars began to regard finds of the La Tène as ‘the archaeological expression of the Celts'».^[50] This cultural network was overrun by the Roman Empire, though traces of La Tène style were still seen in Gallo-Roman artifacts. In Britain and Ireland, the La Tène style survived precariously to re-emerge in Insular art.^{[citation needed]}

The Urnfield-Hallstatt theory began to be challenged in the latter 20th century, when it was accepted that the oldest known Celtic-language inscriptions were those of Lepontic from the 6th century BC and Celtiberian from the 2nd century BC. These were found in northern Italy and Iberia, neither of which were part of the ‘Hallstatt’ nor ‘La Tène’ cultures at the time.^[12] The Urnfield-Hallstatt theory was partly based on ancient Greco-Roman writings, such as the Histories of Herodotus, which placed the Celts at the source of the Danube. However, Stephen Oppenheimer shows that Herodotus seemed to believe the Danube rose near the Pyrenees, which would place the Ancient Celts in a region which is more in agreement with later classical writers and historians (i.e. in Gaul and Iberia).^[51] The theory was also partly based on the abundance of inscriptions bearing Celtic personal names in the Eastern Hallstatt region (Noricum). However, Patrick Sims-Williams notes that these date to the later Roman era, and says they suggest «relatively late settlement by a Celtic-speaking elite».^[12]

‘Celtic from the West’ theory

In the late 20th century, the Urnfield-Hallstatt theory began to fall out of favour with some scholars, which was influenced by new archaeological finds. ‘Celtic’ began to refer primarily to ‘speakers of Celtic languages’ rather than to a single culture or ethnic group.^[12] A new theory suggested that Celtic languages arose earlier, along the Atlantic coast (including Britain, Ireland, Armorica and Iberia), long before evidence of ‘Celtic’ culture is found in archaeology. Myles Dillon and Nora Kershaw Chadwick argued that «Celtic settlement of the British Isles» might date to the Bell Beaker culture of the Copper and Bronze Age (from c. 2750 BC).^[52][53] Martín Almagro Gorbea (2001) also proposed that Celtic arose in the 3rd millennium BC, suggesting that the spread of the Bell Beaker culture explained the wide dispersion of the Celts throughout western Europe, as well as the variability of the Celtic peoples.^[54] Using a multidisciplinary approach, Alberto J. Lorrio and Gonzalo Ruiz Zapatero reviewed and built on Almagro Gorbea’s work to present a model for the origin of Celtic archaeological groups in Iberia and proposing a rethinking of the meaning of «Celtic».^[55]

John T. Koch^[56] and Barry Cunliffe^[57] have developed this ‘Celtic from the West’ theory. It proposes that the proto-Celtic language arose along the Atlantic coast and was the lingua franca of the Atlantic Bronze Age cultural network, later spreading inland and eastward.^[12] More recently, Cunliffe proposes that proto-Celtic had arisen in the Atlantic zone even earlier, by 3000 BC, and spread eastwards with the Bell Beaker culture over the following millennium. His theory is partly based on glottochronology, the spread of ancient Celtic-looking placenames, and thesis that the Tartessian language was Celtic.^[12] However, the proposal that Tartessian was Celtic is widely rejected by linguists, many of whom regard it as unclassified.^[58][59]

‘Celtic from the Centre’ theory

Celticist Patrick Sims-Williams (2020) notes that in current scholarship, ‘Celt’ is primarily a linguistic label. In his ‘Celtic from the Centre’ theory, he argues that the proto-Celtic language did not originate in central Europe nor the Atlantic, but in-between these two regions. He suggests that it «emerged as a distinct Indo-European dialect around the second millennium BC, probably somewhere in Gaul [centered in modern France] […] whence it spread in various directions and at various speeds in the first millennium BC». Sims-Williams says this avoids the problematic idea «that Celtic was spoken over a vast area for a very long time yet somehow avoided major dialectal splits», and «it keeps Celtic fairly close to Italy, which suits the view that Italic and Celtic were in some way linked».^[12]

Linguistic evidence

The Proto-Celtic language is usually dated to the Late Bronze Age.^[15] The earliest records of a Celtic language are the Lepontic inscriptions of Cisalpine Gaul (Northern Italy), the oldest of which pre-date the La Tène period. Other early inscriptions, appearing from the early La Tène period in the area of Massilia, are in Gaulish, which was written in the Greek alphabet until the Roman conquest. Celtiberian inscriptions, using their own Iberian script, appear later, after about 200 BC. Evidence of Insular Celtic is available only from about 400 AD, in the form of Primitive Irish Ogham inscriptions.^{[citation needed]}

Besides epigraphic evidence, an important source of information on early Celtic is toponymy (place names).^[60]

Genetic evidence

Arnaiz-Villena et al. (2017) demonstrated that Celtic-related populations of the European Atlantic (Orkney Islands, Scottish, Irish, British, Bretons, Basques, Galicians) shared a common HLA system.^{[clarification needed][61]}

Other genetic research does not support the notion of a significant genetic link between these populations, beyond the fact that they are all West Europeans. Early European Farmers did settle Britain (and all of Northern Europe) in the Neolithic; however, recent genetics research has found that, between 2400 and 2000 BC, over 90% of British DNA was overturned by European Steppe Herders in a migration that brought large amounts of Steppe DNA (including the R1b haplogroup) to western Europe.^[62] Modern autosomal genetic clustering is testament to this fact, as both modern and Iron Age British and Irish samples cluster genetically very closely with other North Europeans, and less so with Galicians, Basques or those from the south of France.^[63][64]

Archaeological evidence

The concept that the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures could be seen not just as chronological periods but as «Culture Groups», entities composed of people of the same ethnicity and language, had started to grow by the end of the 19th century. At the beginning of the 20th century the belief that these «Culture Groups» could be thought of in racial or ethnic terms was held by Gordon Childe, whose theory was influenced by the writings of Gustaf Kossinna.^[65] As the 20th century progressed, the ethnic interpretation of La Tène culture became more strongly rooted, and any findings of La Tène culture and flat inhumation cemeteries were linked to the Celts and the Celtic language.^[66]

In various^{[clarification needed]} academic disciplines the Celts were considered a Central European Iron Age phenomenon, through the cultures of Hallstatt and La Tène. However, archaeological finds from the Halstatt and La Tène culture were rare in Iberia, southwestern France, northern and western Britain, southern Ireland and Galatia^[67][68] and did not provide enough evidence for a culture like that of Central Europe. It is equally difficult to maintain that the origin of the Iberian Celts can be linked to the preceding Urnfield culture. This has resulted in a newer theory that introduces a ‘proto-Celtic’ substratum and a process of Celticisation, having its initial roots in the Bronze Age Bell Beaker culture.^[69]

The La Tène culture developed and flourished during the late Iron Age (from 450 BC to the Roman conquest in the 1st century BC) in eastern France, Switzerland, Austria, southwest Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. It developed out of the Hallstatt culture without any definite cultural break, under the impetus of considerable Mediterranean influence from Greek, and later Etruscan civilisations. A shift of settlement centres took place in the 4th century. The western La Tène culture corresponds to historical Celtic Gaul. Whether this means that the whole of La Tène culture can be attributed to a unified Celtic people is difficult to assess; archaeologists have repeatedly concluded that language and material culture do not necessarily run parallel. Frey notes that in the 5th century, «burial customs in the Celtic world were not uniform; rather, localised groups had their own beliefs, which, in consequence, also gave rise to distinct artistic expressions».^[70] Thus, while the La Tène culture is certainly associated with the Gauls, the presence of La Tène artefacts may be due to cultural contact and does not imply the permanent presence of Celtic speakers.^{[citation needed]}

Historical evidence

The Greek historian Ephorus of Cyme in Asia Minor, writing in the 4th century BC, believed the Celts came from the islands off the mouth of the Rhine and were «driven from their homes by the frequency of wars and the violent rising of the sea». Polybius published a history of Rome about 150 BC in which he describes the Gauls of Italy and their conflict with Rome. Pausanias in the 2nd century AD says that the Gauls «originally called Celts», «live on the remotest region of Europe on the coast of an enormous tidal sea». Posidonius described the southern Gauls about 100 BC. Though his original work is lost, later writers such as Strabo used it. The latter, writing in the early 1st century AD, deals with Britain and Gaul as well as Hispania, Italy and Galatia. Caesar wrote extensively about his Gallic Wars in 58–51 BC. Diodorus Siculus wrote about the Celts of Gaul and Britain in his 1st-century history.^{[citation needed]}

Diodorus Siculus and Strabo both suggest that the heartland of the people they call Celts was in southern Gaul. The former says that the Gauls were to the north of the Celts, but that the Romans referred to both as Gauls (linguistically the Gauls were certainly Celts). Before the discoveries at Hallstatt and La Tène, it was generally considered that the Celtic heartland was southern Gaul, see Encyclopædia Britannica for 1813.^{[citation needed]}

Distribution

Continental

Gaul

The Romans knew the Celts then living in present-day France as Gauls. The territory of these peoples probably included the Low Countries, the Alps and present-day northern Italy. Julius Caesar in his Gallic Wars described the 1st-century BC descendants of those Gauls.^{[citation needed]}

Eastern Gaul became the centre of the western La Tène culture. In later Iron Age Gaul, the social organisation resembled that of the Romans, with large towns. From the 3rd century BC the Gauls adopted coinage. Texts with Greek characters from southern Gaul have survived from the 2nd century BC.^[71]

Greek traders founded Massalia about 600 BC, with some objects (mostly drinking ceramic vessels) being traded up the Rhône valley. But trade became disrupted soon after 500 BC and re-oriented over the Alps to the Po valley in the Italian peninsula. The Romans arrived in the Rhone valley in the 2nd century BC and encountered a mostly Celtic-speaking Gaul. Rome wanted land communications with its Iberian provinces and fought a major battle with the Saluvii at Entremont in 124–123 BC. Gradually Roman control extended, and the Roman province of Gallia Transalpina developed along the Mediterranean coast.^[72][73] The Romans knew the remainder of Gaul as Gallia Comata – «Hairy Gaul».^{[citation needed]}

In 58 BC the Helvetii planned to migrate westward but Julius Caesar forced them back. He then became involved in fighting the various tribes in Gaul, and by 55 BC had overrun most of Gaul. In 52 BC Vercingetorix led a revolt against Roman occupation but was defeated at the Battle of Alesia and surrendered.^[74]

Following the Gallic Wars of 58–51 BC, Caesar’s Celtica formed the main part of Roman Gaul, becoming the province of Gallia Lugdunensis. This territory of the Celtic tribes was bounded on the south by the Garonne and on the north by the Seine and the Marne.^[75] The Romans attached large swathes of this region to neighbouring provinces Belgica and Aquitania, particularly under Augustus.^{[citation needed]}

Place- and personal-name analysis and inscriptions suggest that Gaulish was spoken over most of what is now France.^[76][77]

Iberia

Until the end of the 19th century, traditional scholarship dealing with the Celts did acknowledge their presence in the Iberian Peninsula^[78][79] as a material culture relatable to the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures. However, since according to the definition of the Iron Age in the 19th century Celtic populations were supposedly rare in Iberia and did not provide a cultural scenario that could easily be linked to that of Central Europe, the presence of Celtic culture in that region was generally not fully recognised. Modern scholarship, however, has clearly proven that Celtic presence and influences were most substantial in what is today Spain and Portugal (with perhaps the highest settlement saturation in Western Europe), particularly in the central, western and northern regions.^[80][81]

In addition to Gauls infiltrating from the north of the Pyrenees, the Roman and Greek sources mention Celtic populations in three parts of the Iberian Peninsula: the eastern part of the Meseta (inhabited by the Celtiberians), the southwest (Celtici, in modern-day Alentejo) and the northwest (Gallaecia and Asturias).^[82] A modern scholarly review^[83] found several archaeological groups of Celts in Spain:

• The Celtiberian group in the Upper-Douro Upper-Tagus Upper-Jalón area.^[84] Archaeological data suggest a continuity at least from the 6th century BC. In this early period, the Celtiberians inhabited in hill-forts (Castros). Around the end of the 3rd century BC, Celtiberians adopted more urban ways of life. From the 2nd century BC, they minted coins and wrote inscriptions using the Celtiberian script. These inscriptions make the Celtiberian Language the only Hispano-Celtic language classified as Celtic with unanimous agreement.^[85] In the late period, before the Roman Conquest, both archaeological evidence and Roman sources suggest that the Celtiberians were expanding into different areas in the Peninsula (e.g. Celtic Baeturia).
• The Vetton group in the western Meseta, between the Tormes, Douro and Tagus Rivers. They were characterised by the production of Verracos, sculptures of bulls and pigs carved in granite.
• The Vaccean group in the central Douro valley. They were mentioned by Roman sources already in the 220 BC. Some of their funerary rituals suggest strong influences from their Celtiberian neighbours.^{[citation needed]}

• The Castro Culture in northwestern Iberia, modern day Galicia and Northern Portugal.^[86] Its high degree of continuity, from the Late Bronze Age, makes it difficult to support that the introduction of Celtic elements was due to the same process of Celticisation of the western Iberia, from the nucleus area of Celtiberia. Two typical elements are the sauna baths with monumental entrances, and the «Gallaecian Warriors», stone sculptures built in the 1st century AD. A large group of Latin inscriptions contain linguistic features that are clearly Celtic, while others are similar to those found in the non-Celtic Lusitanian language.^[85]
• The Astures and the Cantabri. This area was romanised late, as it was not conquered by Rome until the Cantabrian Wars of 29–19 BC.
• Celts in the southwest, in the area Strabo called Celtica^[87]

The origins of the Celtiberians might provide a key to understanding the Celticisation process in the rest of the Peninsula. The process of Celticisation of the southwestern area of the peninsula by the Keltoi and of the northwestern area is, however, not a simple Celtiberian question. Recent investigations about the Callaici^[88] and Bracari^[89] in northwestern Portugal are providing new approaches to understanding Celtic culture (language, art and religion) in western Iberia.^[90]

John T. Koch of Aberystwyth University suggested that Tartessian inscriptions of the 8th century BC might be classified as Celtic. This would mean that Tartessian is the earliest attested trace of Celtic by a margin of more than a century.^[91]

Germany, Alps and Italy

The Canegrate culture represented the first migratory wave of the proto-Celtic^[94][95] population from the northwest part of the Alps that, through the Alpine passes, had already penetrated and settled in the western Po valley between Lake Maggiore and Lake Como (Scamozzina culture). It has also been proposed that a more ancient proto-Celtic presence can be traced back to the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age, when North Westwern Italy appears closely linked regarding the production of bronze artefacts, including ornaments, to the western groups of the Tumulus culture.^[96] La Tène cultural material appeared over a large area of mainland Italy,^[97] the southernmost example being the Celtic helmet from Canosa di Puglia.^[98]

Italy is home to Lepontic, the oldest attested Celtic language (from the 6th century BC).^[99] Anciently spoken in Switzerland and in Northern-Central Italy, from the Alps to Umbria.^{[100][101][102][103]} According to the Recueil des Inscriptions Gauloises, more than 760 Gaulish inscriptions have been found throughout present-day France – with the notable exception of Aquitaine – and in Italy,^[104][105] which testifies the importance of Celtic heritage in the peninsula.^{[citation needed]}

In 391 BC, Celts «who had their homes beyond the Alps streamed through the passes in great strength and seized the territory that lay between the Apennine Mountains and the Alps» according to Diodorus Siculus. The Po Valley and the rest of northern Italy (known to the Romans as Cisalpine Gaul) was inhabited by Celtic-speakers who founded cities such as Milan.^[106] Later the Roman army was routed at the battle of Allia and Rome was sacked in 390 BC by the Senones.^[107]

At the battle of Telamon in 225 BC, a large Celtic army was trapped between two Roman forces and crushed.^[108]

The defeat of the combined Samnite, Celtic and Etruscan alliance by the Romans in the Third Samnite War sounded the beginning of the end of the Celtic domination in mainland Europe, but it was not until 192 BC that the Roman armies conquered the last remaining independent Celtic kingdoms in Italy.^{[citation needed]}

Expansion east and south

The Celts also expanded down the Danube river and its tributaries. One of the most influential tribes, the Scordisci, established their capital at Singidunum (present-day Belgrade, Serbia) in the 3rd century BC. The concentration of hill-forts and cemeteries shows a dense population in the Tisza valley of modern-day Vojvodina, Serbia, Hungary and into Ukraine. Expansion into Romania was however blocked by the Dacians.^{[citation needed]}

The Serdi were a Celtic tribe^[109] inhabiting Thrace. They were located around and founded Serdika (Bulgarian: Сердика, Latin: Ulpia Serdica, Greek: Σαρδῶν πόλις), now Sofia in Bulgaria,^[110] which reflects their ethnonym. They would have established themselves in this area during the Celtic migrations at the end of the 4th century BC, though there is no evidence for their existence before the 1st century BC. Serdi are among traditional tribal names reported into the Roman era.^[111] They were gradually Thracianized over the centuries but retained their Celtic character in material culture up to a late date.^{[when?][citation needed]} According to other sources they may have been simply of Thracian origin,^[112] according to others they may have become of mixed Thraco-Celtic origin. Further south, Celts settled in Thrace (Bulgaria), which they ruled for over a century, and Anatolia, where they settled as the Galatians (see also: Gallic Invasion of Greece). Despite their geographical isolation from the rest of the Celtic world, the Galatians maintained their Celtic language for at least 700 years. St Jerome, who visited Ancyra (modern-day Ankara) in 373 AD, likened their language to that of the Treveri of northern Gaul.^{[citation needed]}

For Venceslas Kruta, Galatia in central Turkey was an area of dense Celtic settlement.^{[citation needed]}

The Boii tribe gave their name to Bohemia, Bologna and possibly Bavaria, and Celtic artefacts and cemeteries have been discovered further east in what is now Poland and Slovakia. A Celtic coin (Biatec) from Bratislava’s mint was displayed on the old Slovak 5-crown coin.^{[citation needed]}

As there is no archaeological evidence for large-scale invasions in some of the other areas, one current school of thought holds that Celtic language and culture spread to those areas by contact rather than invasion.^[113] However, the Celtic invasions of Italy and the expedition in Greece and western Anatolia, are well documented in Greek and Latin history.^{[citation needed]}

There are records of Celtic mercenaries in Egypt serving the Ptolemies. Thousands were employed in 283–246 BC and they were also in service around 186 BC. They attempted to overthrow Ptolemy II.^[114]

Insular

All living Celtic languages today belong to the Insular Celtic languages, derived from the Celtic languages spoken in Iron Age Britain and Ireland.^[115] They separated into a Goidelic and a Brittonic branch early on. By the time of the Roman conquest of Britain in the 1st century AD, the Insular Celts were made up of the Celtic Britons, the Gaels (or Scoti), and the Picts (or Caledonians).^{[citation needed]}

Linguists have debated whether a Celtic language came to the British Isles and then split, or whether the two branches arrived separately. The older view was that Celtic influence in the Isles was the result of successive migrations or invasions from the European mainland by diverse Celtic-speaking peoples over several centuries, accounting for the P-Celtic vs. Q-Celtic isogloss. This view has been challenged by the hypothesis that the islands’ Celtic languages form an Insular Celtic dialect group.^[116] In the 19th and 20th centuries, scholars often dated the «arrival» of Celtic culture in Britain (via an invasion model) to the 6th century BC, corresponding to archaeological evidence of Hallstatt influence and the appearance of chariot burials in what is now England. Cunliffe and Koch propose in their newer #’Celtic from the West’ theory that Celtic languages reached the Isles earlier, with the Bell Beaker culture c.2500 BC, or even before this.^[117][118] More recently, a major archaeogenetics study uncovered a migration into southern Britain in the Bronze Age from 1300 to 800 BC.^[119] The newcomers were genetically most similar to ancient individuals from Gaul.^[119] From 1000 BC, their genetic marker swiftly spread through southern Britain,^[120] but not northern Britain.^[119] The authors see this as a «plausible vector for the spread of early Celtic languages into Britain».^[119] There was much less immigration during the Iron Age, so it is likely that Celtic reached Britain before then.^[119] Cunliffe suggests that a branch of Celtic was already spoken in Britain, and the Bronze Age migration introduced the Brittonic branch.^[121]

Like many Celtic peoples on the mainland, the Insular Celts followed an Ancient Celtic religion overseen by druids. Some of the southern British tribes had strong links with Gaul and Belgica, and minted their own coins. During the Roman occupation of Britain, a Romano-British culture emerged in the southeast. The Britons and Picts in the north, and the Gaels of Ireland, remained outside the empire. During the end of Roman rule in Britain in the 400s AD, there was significant Anglo-Saxon settlement of eastern and southern Britain, and some Gaelic settlement of its western coast. During this time, some Britons migrated to the Armorican peninsula, where their culture became dominant. Meanwhile, much of northern Britain (Scotland) became Gaelic. By the 10th century AD, the Insular Celtic peoples had diversified into the Brittonic-speaking Welsh (in Wales), Cornish (in Cornwall), Bretons (in Brittany) and Cumbrians (in the Old North); and the Gaelic-speaking Irish (in Ireland), Scots (in Scotland) and Manx (on the Isle of Man).^{[citation needed]}

Classical writers did not call the inhabitants of Britain and Ireland Celtae or Κελτοί (Keltoi),^[6][9][10] leading some scholars to question the use of the term ‘Celt’ for the Iron Age inhabitants of those islands.^{[6][9][10][11]} The first historical account of the islands was by the Greek geographer Pytheas, who sailed around what he called the «Pretannikai nesoi» (the «Pretannic isles») around 310–306 BC.^[122] In general, classical writers referred to the Britons as Pretannoi (in Greek) or Britanni (in Latin).^[123] Strabo, writing in Roman times, distinguished between the Celts and Britons.^[124] However, Roman historian Tacitus says the Britons resembled the Celts of Gaul in customs and religion.^[12]

Romanisation

Under Caesar the Romans conquered Celtic Gaul, and from Claudius onward the Roman empire absorbed parts of Britain. Roman local government of these regions closely mirrored pre-Roman tribal boundaries, and archaeological finds suggest native involvement in local government.^{[citation needed]}

The native peoples under Roman rule became Romanised and keen to adopt Roman ways. Celtic art had already incorporated classical influences, and surviving Gallo-Roman pieces interpret classical subjects or keep faith with old traditions despite a Roman overlay.^{[citation needed]}

The Roman occupation of Gaul, and to a lesser extent of Britain, led to Roman-Celtic syncretism. In the case of the continental Celts, this eventually resulted in a language shift to Vulgar Latin, while the Insular Celts retained their language.^{[citation needed]}

There was also considerable cultural influence exerted by Gaul on Rome, particularly in military matters and horsemanship, as the Gauls often served in the Roman cavalry. The Romans adopted the Celtic cavalry sword, the spatha, and Epona, the Celtic horse goddess.^[125][126]

Society

To the extent that sources are available, they depict a pre-Christian Iron Age Celtic social structure based formally on class and kingship, although this may only have been a particular late phase of organisation in Celtic societies. Patron-client relationships similar to those of Roman society are also described by Caesar and others in the Gaul of the 1st century BC.^{[citation needed]}

In the main, the evidence is of tribes being led by kings, although some argue that there is also evidence of oligarchical republican forms of government eventually emerging in areas which had close contact with Rome. Most descriptions of Celtic societies portray them as being divided into three groups: a warrior aristocracy; an intellectual class including professions such as druid, poet, and jurist; and everyone else. In historical times, the offices of high and low kings in Ireland and Scotland were filled by election under the system of tanistry, which eventually came into conflict with the feudal principle of primogeniture in which succession goes to the first-born son.^{[citation needed]}

Little is known of family structure among the Celts. Patterns of settlement varied from decentralised to urban. The popular stereotype of non-urbanised societies settled in hillforts and duns,^[127] drawn from Britain and Ireland (there are about 3,000 hill forts known in Britain)^[128] contrasts with the urban settlements present in the core Hallstatt and La Tène areas, with the many significant oppida of Gaul late in the first millennium BC, and with the towns of Gallia Cisalpina.^{[citation needed]}

Slavery, as practised by the Celts, was very likely similar to the better documented practice in ancient Greece and Rome.^[129] Slaves were acquired from war, raids, and penal and debt servitude.^[129] Slavery was hereditary,^[130] though manumission was possible. The Old Irish and Welsh words for ‘slave’, cacht and caeth respectively, are cognate with Latin captus ‘captive’ suggesting that the slave trade was an early means of contact between Latin and Celtic societies.^[129] In the Middle Ages, slavery was especially prevalent in the Celtic countries.^[131] Manumissions were discouraged by law and the word for «female slave», cumal, was used as a general unit of value in Ireland.^[132]

There are only very limited records from pre-Christian times written in Celtic languages. These are mostly inscriptions in the Roman and sometimes Greek alphabets. The Ogham script, an Early Medieval alphabet, was mostly used in early Christian times in Ireland and Scotland (but also in Wales and England), and was only used for ceremonial purposes such as inscriptions on gravestones. The available evidence is of a strong oral tradition, such as that preserved by bards in Ireland, and eventually recorded by monasteries. Celtic art also produced a great deal of intricate and beautiful metalwork, examples of which have been preserved by their distinctive burial rites.^[133]

In some regards the Atlantic Celts were conservative: for example, they still used chariots in combat long after they had been reduced to ceremonial roles by the Greeks and Romans. However, despite being outdated, Celtic chariot tactics were able to repel the invasions of Britain attempted by Julius Caesar.^[134]

According to Diodorus Siculus:

The Gauls are tall of body with rippling muscles and white of skin and their hair is blond, and not only naturally so for they also make it their practice by artificial means to increase the distinguishing colour which nature has given it. For they are always washing their hair in limewater and they pull it back from the forehead to the nape of the neck, with the result that their appearance is like that of Satyrs and Pans since the treatment of their hair makes it so heavy and coarse that it differs in no respect from the mane of horses. Some of them shave the beard but others let it grow a little; and the nobles shave their cheeks but they let the moustache grow until it covers the mouth.

Clothing

During the later Iron Age the Gauls generally wore long-sleeved shirts or tunics and long trousers (called braccae by the Romans).^[135] Clothes were made of wool or linen, with some silk being used by the rich. Cloaks were worn in the winter. Brooches^[136] and armlets were used, but the most famous item of jewellery was the torc, a neck collar of metal, sometimes gold. The horned Waterloo Helmet in the British Museum, which long set the standard for modern images of Celtic warriors, is in fact a unique survival, and may have been a piece for ceremonial rather than military wear.^{[citation needed]}

Trade and coinage

Archaeological evidence suggests that the pre-Roman Celtic societies were linked to the network of overland trade routes that spanned Eurasia. Archaeologists have discovered large prehistoric trackways crossing bogs in Ireland and Germany. Due to their substantial nature, these are believed to have been created for wheeled transport as part of an extensive roadway system that facilitated trade.^[137] The territory held by the Celts contained tin, lead, iron, silver and gold.^[138] Celtic smiths and metalworkers created weapons and jewellery for international trade, particularly with the Romans.^{[citation needed]}

The myth that the Celtic monetary system consisted of wholly barter is a common one, but is in part false. The monetary system was complex and is still not understood (much like the late Roman coinages), and due to the absence of large numbers of coin items, it is assumed that «proto-money» was used. This included bronze items made from the early La Tène period and onwards, which were often in the shape of axeheads, rings, or bells. Due to the large number of these present in some burials, it is thought they had a relatively high monetary value, and could be used for «day to day» purchases. Low-value coinages of potin, a bronze alloy with high tin content, were minted in most Celtic areas of the continent and in South-East Britain prior to the Roman conquest of these lands. Higher-value coinages, suitable for use in trade, were minted in gold, silver, and high-quality bronze. Gold coinage was much more common than silver coinage, despite being worth substantially more, as while there were around 100 mines in Southern Britain and Central France, silver was more rarely mined. This was due partly to the relative sparsity of mines and the amount of effort needed for extraction compared to the profit gained. As the Roman civilisation grew in importance and expanded its trade with the Celtic world, silver and bronze coinage became more common. This coincided with a major increase in gold production in Celtic areas to meet the Roman demand, due to the high value Romans put on the metal. The large number of gold mines in France is thought to be a major reason why Caesar invaded.^{[citation needed]}

Gender and sexual norms

Very few reliable sources exist regarding Celtic views on gender roles, though some archaeological evidence suggests their views may have differed from those of the Greco-Roman world, which tended to be less egalitarian.^[139][140] Some Iron Age burials in northeastern Gaul suggest women may have had roles in warfare during the earlier La Tène period, but the evidence is far from conclusive.^[141] Celtic individuals buried with both female jewellery and weaponry have been found, such as the Vix Grave in northeastern Gaul, and there are questions about the gender of some individuals buried with weaponry. However, it has been suggested that the weapons indicate high social rank rather than masculinity.^[142]

Most written accounts of the Ancient Celts are from the Romans and Greeks, though it is not clear how accurate these are. Roman historians Ammianus Marcellinus and Tacitus mentioned Celtic women inciting, participating in, and leading battles.^[143] Plutarch reports that Celtic women acted as ambassadors to avoid a war among Celtic chiefdoms in the Po valley during the 4th century BC.^[144] Posidonius’ anthropological comments on the Celts had common themes, primarily primitivism, extreme ferocity, cruel sacrificial practices, and the strength and courage of their women.^[145] Cassius Dio suggests there was great sexual freedom among women in Celtic Britain:

… a very witty remark is reported to have been made by the wife of Argentocoxus, a Caledonian, to Julia Augusta. When the empress was jesting with her, after the treaty, about the free intercourse of her sex with men in Britain, she replied: «We fulfill the demands of nature in a much better way than do you Roman women; for we consort openly with the best men, whereas you let yourselves be debauched in secret by the vilest». Such was the retort of the British woman.^[146]

Barry Cunliffe writes that such references are «likely to be ill-observed» and meant to portray the Celts as outlandish «barbarians».^[147] Historian Lisa Bitel argues the descriptions of Celtic women warriors are not credible. She says some Roman and Greek writers wanted to show that the barbarian Celts lived in «an upside-down world […] and a standard ingredient in such a world was the manly warrior woman».^[148]

The Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote in his Politics that the Celts of southeastern Europe approved of male homosexuality. Greek historian Diodorus Siculus wrote in his Bibliotheca historica that although Gaulish women were beautiful, the men had «little to do with them» and it was a custom for men to sleep on animal skins with two younger males. He further claimed that «the young men will offer themselves to strangers and are insulted if the offer is refused». His claim was later repeated by Greco-Roman writers Athenaeus and Ammianus.^[149] David Rankin, in Celts and the Classical World, suggests some of these claims refer to bonding rituals in warrior groups, which required abstinence from women at certain times,^[150] and says it probably reflects «the warlike character of early contacts between the Celts and the Greeks».^[151]

Under Brehon Law, which was written down in early Medieval Ireland after conversion to Christianity, a woman had the right to divorce her husband and gain his property if he was unable to perform his marital duties due to impotence, obesity, homosexual inclination or preference for other women.^{[152][failed verification]}

Celtic art

Celtic art is generally used by art historians to refer to art of the La Tène period across Europe, while the Early Medieval art of Britain and Ireland, that is what «Celtic art» evokes for much of the general public, is called Insular art in art history. Both styles absorbed considerable influences from non-Celtic sources, but retained a preference for geometrical decoration over figurative subjects, which are often extremely stylised when they do appear; narrative scenes only appear under outside influence. Energetic circular forms, triskeles and spirals are characteristic. Much of the surviving material is in precious metal, which no doubt gives a very unrepresentative picture, but apart from Pictish stones and the Insular high crosses, large monumental sculpture, even with decorative carving, is very rare; possibly it was originally common in wood. Celts were also able to create developed musical instruments such as the carnyces, these famous war trumpets used before the battle to frighten the enemy, as the best preserved found in Tintignac (Gaul) in 2004 and which were decorated with a boar head or a snake head.^[153]

The interlace patterns that are often regarded as typical of «Celtic art» were characteristic of the whole of the British Isles, a style referred to as Insular art, or Hiberno-Saxon art. This artistic style incorporated elements of La Tène, Late Roman, and, most importantly, animal Style II of Germanic Migration Period art. The style was taken up with great skill and enthusiasm by Celtic artists in metalwork and illuminated manuscripts. Equally, the forms used for the finest Insular art were all adopted from the Roman world: Gospel books like the Book of Kells and Book of Lindisfarne, chalices like the Ardagh Chalice and Derrynaflan Chalice, and penannular brooches like the Tara Brooch and Roscrea Brooch. These works are from the period of peak achievement of Insular art, which lasted from the 7th to the 9th centuries, before the Viking attacks sharply set back cultural life.^{[citation needed]}

In contrast the less well known but often spectacular art of the richest earlier Continental Celts, before they were conquered by the Romans, often adopted elements of Roman, Greek and other «foreign» styles (and possibly used imported craftsmen) to decorate objects that were distinctively Celtic. After the Roman conquests, some Celtic elements remained in popular art, especially Ancient Roman pottery, of which Gaul was actually the largest producer, mostly in Italian styles, but also producing work in local taste, including figurines of deities and wares painted with animals and other subjects in highly formalised styles. Roman Britain also took more interest in enamel than most of the Empire, and its development of champlevé technique was probably important to the later Medieval art of the whole of Europe, of which the energy and freedom of Insular decoration was an important element. Rising nationalism brought Celtic revivals from the 19th century.^{[citation needed]}

Gallic calendar

The Coligny calendar, which was found in 1897 in Coligny, Ain, was engraved on a bronze tablet, preserved in 73 fragments, that originally was 1.48 metres (4 feet 10 inches) wide and 0.9 metres (2 feet 11 inches) high (Lambert p. 111). Based on the style of lettering and the accompanying objects, it probably dates to the end of the 2nd century.^[154] It is written in Latin inscriptional capitals, and is in Gaulish. The restored tablet contains 16 vertical columns, with 62 months distributed over 5 years.^{[citation needed]}

French archaeologist J. Monard speculated that it was recorded by druids wishing to preserve their tradition of timekeeping in a time when the Julian calendar was imposed throughout the Roman Empire. However, the general form of the calendar suggests the public peg calendars (or parapegmata) found throughout the Greek and Roman world.^[155]

Warfare and weapons

Tribal warfare appears to have been a regular feature of Celtic societies. While epic literature depicts this as more of a sport focused on raids and hunting rather than organised territorial conquest, the historical record is more of tribes using warfare to exert political control and harass rivals, for economic advantage, and in some instances to conquer territory.^{[citation needed]}

The Celts were described by classical writers such as Strabo, Livy, Pausanias, and Florus as fighting like «wild beasts», and as hordes. Dionysius said that their

«manner of fighting, being in large measure that of wild beasts and frenzied, was an erratic procedure, quite lacking in military science. Thus, at one moment they would raise their swords aloft and smite after the manner of wild boars, throwing the whole weight of their bodies into the blow like hewers of wood or men digging with mattocks, and again they would deliver crosswise blows aimed at no target, as if they intended to cut to pieces the entire bodies of their adversaries, protective armour and all».^[156]

Such descriptions have been challenged by contemporary historians.^[157]

Polybius (2.33) indicates that the principal Celtic weapon was a long bladed sword which was used for hacking edgewise rather than stabbing. Celtic warriors are described by Polybius and Plutarch as frequently having to cease fighting in order to straighten their sword blades. This claim has been questioned by some archaeologists, who note that Noric steel, steel produced in Celtic Noricum, was famous in the Roman Empire period and was used to equip the Roman military.^[158][159] However, Radomir Pleiner, in The Celtic Sword (1993) argues that «the metallographic evidence shows that Polybius was right up to a point», as around one third of surviving swords from the period might well have behaved as he describes.^[160] In addition to these long bladed slashing swords, spears and specialized javelins were also used.^[161]

Polybius also asserts that certain of the Celts fought naked, «The appearance of these naked warriors was a terrifying spectacle, for they were all men of splendid physique and in the prime of life.»^[162] According to Livy, this was also true of the Celts of Asia Minor.^[163]

Head hunting

Celts had a reputation as head hunters.^[164] Paul Jacobsthal says, «Amongst the Celts the human head was venerated above all else, since the head was to the Celt the soul, centre of the emotions as well as of life itself, a symbol of divinity and of the powers of the other-world.»^[165] Writing in the first century BC, Greek historians Posidonius and Diodorus Siculus said Celtic warriors cut off the heads of enemies slain in battle, hung them from the necks of their horses, then nailed them up outside their homes.^[164] Strabo wrote in the same century that Celts embalmed the heads of their most esteemed enemies in cedar oil and put them on display.^[164] Roman historian Livy wrote that the Boii beheaded a defeated Roman general after the Battle of Silva Litana, covered his skull in gold, and used it as a ritual cup.^[164] Archaeologists have found evidence that heads were embalmed and displayed by the southern Gauls.^[166][167]
In another example, at the southern Gaulish site of Entremont, there stood a pillar carved with skulls, within which were niches where human skulls were kept, nailed into position.^[168] Roquepertuse nearby has similar carved heads and skull niches. Many lone carved heads have been found in Celtic regions, some with two or three faces.^[169] Examples include the Mšecké Žehrovice Head and the Corleck Head.

Severed heads are a common motif in Insular Celtic myths, and there are many tales in which ‘living heads’ preside over feasts and/or speak prophecies.^[164][169] The beheading game is a motif in Irish myth and Arthurian legend, most famously in the tale Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, where the Green Knight picks up his own severed head after Gawain has struck it off. There are also many legends in Celtic regions of saints who carry their own severed heads. In Irish myth, the severed heads of warriors are called the mast or nuts of the goddess Macha.^[170]

Religion and mythology

Ancient Celtic religion

Like other European Iron Age societies, the Celts practised a polytheistic religion.^[171] Celtic religion varied by region and over time, but had «broad structural similarities»,^[171] and there was «a basic religious homogeneity» among the Celtic peoples.^[172] Because the ancient Celts did not have writing, evidence about their religion is gleaned from archaeology, Greco-Roman accounts, and literature from the early Christian period.^[173]

The names of over two hundred Celtic deities have survived (see list of Celtic deities), although it is likely that many of these were alternative names, regional names or titles for the same deity.^[171] Some deities were venerated only in one region, but others were more widely known.^[171] According to Miranda Aldhouse-Green, the Celts were also animists, believing that every part of the natural world had a spirit.^[173]

The Celts seem to have had a father god, who was often a god of the tribe and of the dead (Toutatis probably being one name for him); and a mother goddess who was associated with the land, earth and fertility^[174] (Dea Matrona probably being one name for her). The mother goddess could also take the form of a war goddess as protectress of her tribe and its land.^[174] There also seems to have been a male celestial god—identified with Taranis—associated with thunder, the wheel, and the bull.^[174] There were gods of skill and craft, such as the pan-regional god Lugus, and the smith god Gobannos.^[174] Celtic healing deities were often associated with sacred springs,^[174] such as Sirona and Borvo. Other pan-regional deities include the horned god Cernunnos, the horse and fertility goddess Epona, the divine son Maponos, as well as Belenos, Ogmios, and Sucellos.^[171][173] Caesar says the Gauls believed they all descended from a god of the dead and underworld.^[171] Triplicity is a common theme in Celtic cosmology, and a number of deities were seen as threefold,^[175] for example the Three Mothers.^[176]

Greco-Roman writers say the Celts believed in reincarnation. Diodorus says they believed souls were reincarnated after a certain number of years, probably after spending time in an afterlife, and noted they buried grave goods with the dead.^[177]

Celtic religious ceremonies were overseen by priests known as druids, who also served as judges, teachers, and lore-keepers. Other classes of druids performed sacrifices for the perceived benefit of the community.^[178] There is evidence that ancient Celtic peoples sacrificed animals, almost always livestock or working animals. It appears some were offered wholly to the gods (by burying or burning), while some were shared between gods and humans (part eaten and part offered).^[179] There is also some evidence that ancient Celts sacrificed humans, and some Greco-Roman sources claim the Gauls sacrificed criminals by burning them in a wicker man.^[180]

The Romans said the Celts held ceremonies in sacred groves and other natural shrines, called nemetons.^[171] Some Celtic peoples built temples or ritual enclosures of varying shapes (such as the Romano-Celtic temple and viereckschanze), though they also maintained shrines at natural sites.^[171] Celtic peoples often made votive offerings: treasured items deposited in water and wetlands, or in ritual shafts and wells, often in the same place over generations.^[171] Modern clootie wells might be a continuation of this.^[181]

Insular Celtic mythology

Most surviving Celtic mythology belongs to the Insular Celtic peoples: Irish mythology has the largest written body of myths, followed by Welsh mythology. These were written down in the early Middle Ages, mainly by Christian scribes.

The supernatural race called the Tuatha Dé Danann are believed to represent the main Celtic gods of Ireland. Their traditional rivals are the Fomóire, whom they defeat in the Battle of Mag Tuired.^[182] Barry Cunliffe says the underlying structure in Irish myth was a dualism between the male tribal god and the female goddess of the land.^[171] The Dagda seems to have been the chief god and the Morrígan his consort, each of whom had other names.^[171] One common motif is the sovereignty goddess, who represents the land and bestows sovereignty on a king by marrying him. The goddess Brigid was linked with nature as well as poetry, healing and smithing.^[175]

Some figures in medieval Insular Celtic myth have ancient continental parallels: Irish Lugh and Welsh Lleu are cognate with Lugus, Goibniu and Gofannon with Gobannos, Macán and Mabon with Maponos, while Macha and Rhiannon may be counterparts of Epona.^[183]

In Insular Celtic myth, the Otherworld is a parallel realm where the gods dwell. Some mythical heroes visit it by entering ancient burial mounds or caves, by going under water or across the western sea, or after being offered a silver apple branch by an Otherworld resident.^[184] Irish myth says that the spirits of the dead travel to the house of Donn (Tech Duinn), a legendary ancestor; this echoes Caesar’s comment that the Gauls believed they all descended from a god of the dead and underworld.^[171]

Insular Celtic peoples celebrated four seasonal festivals, known to the Gaels as Beltaine (1 May), Lughnasa (1 August), Samhain (1 November) and Imbolc (1 February).^[171]

Roman influence

The Roman invasion of Gaul brought a great deal of Celtic peoples into the Roman Empire. Roman culture had a profound effect on the Celtic tribes which came under the empire’s control. Roman influence led to many changes in Celtic religion, the most noticeable of which was the weakening of the druid class, especially religiously; the druids were to eventually disappear altogether. Romano-Celtic deities also began to appear: these deities often had both Roman and Celtic attributes, combined the names of Roman and Celtic deities, and/or included couples with one Roman and one Celtic deity. Other changes included the adaptation of the Jupiter Column, a sacred column set up in many Celtic regions of the empire, primarily in northern and eastern Gaul. Another major change in religious practice was the use of stone monuments to represent gods and goddesses. The Celts had probably only created wooden cult images (including monuments carved into trees, which were known as sacred poles) before the Roman conquest.^[176]

Celtic Christianity

While the regions under Roman rule adopted Christianity along with the rest of the Roman empire, unconquered areas of Ireland and Scotland began to move from Celtic polytheism to Christianity in the 5th century. Ireland was converted by missionaries from Britain, such as Saint Patrick. Later missionaries from Ireland were a major source of missionary work in Scotland, Anglo-Saxon parts of Britain, and central Europe (see Hiberno-Scottish mission). Celtic Christianity, the forms of Christianity that took hold in Britain and Ireland at this time, had for some centuries only limited and intermittent contact with Rome and continental Christianity, as well as some contacts with Coptic Christianity. Some elements of Celtic Christianity developed, or retained, features that made them distinct from the rest of Western Christianity, most famously their conservative method of calculating the date of Easter. In 664, the Synod of Whitby began to resolve these differences, mostly by adopting the current Roman practices, which the Gregorian Mission from Rome had introduced to Anglo-Saxon England.^{[citation needed]}

Genetics

Genetic studies on the limited amount of material available suggest continuity between Iron Age people from areas considered Celtic and the earlier Bell Beaker culture of Bronze Age Western Europe.^{[188][189][190]} Like the Bell Beakers, ancient Celts carried a substantial amount of steppe ancestry, which is derived from Yamnaya pastoralists who expanded westwards from the Pontic–Caspian steppe during late Neolithic and early Bronze Age.^[191] This ancestry was particularly prevalent among Celts of Northwest Europe.^[190] Examined individuals overwhelmingly carry types of the paternal haplogroup R-M269,^{[185][186][187]} while the maternal haplogroups H and U are frequent.^[192][193] These lineages are associated with steppe ancestry.^[185][192] The spread of Celts into Iberia and the emergence of the Celtiberians is associated with an increase in north-central European ancestry in Iberia, and may be connected to the expansion of the Urnfield culture.^[194] The paternal haplogroup haplogroup I2a1a1a has been detected among Celtiberians.^[195] There appears to have been significant gene flow among Celtic peoples of Western Europe during the Iron Age.^[196][190] While the Gauls of southern France display genetic links with the Celtiberians, the Gauls of northern France display links with Great Britain and Sweden.^[197] Modern populations of Western Europe, particularly those who still speak Celtic languages, display substantial genetic continuity with the Iron Age populations of the same areas.^{[198][199][200]}

See also

• List of ancient Celtic peoples and tribes
• Ethnic groups in Europe
• Celtic F.C., soccer club in Glasgow

References

Citations

Sources

External links

• Ancient Celtic music – in the Citizendium
• Essays on Celtiberian topics – in e-Keltoi, University of Wisconsin, Madison
• Ancient Celtic Warriors in History
• Celts descended from Spanish fishermen, study finds
• Discussion – with academic Barry Cunliffe, on BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time, 21 February 2002. (Streaming RealPlayer format)

Geography

• An interactive map showing the lands of the Celts between 800 BC and 305 AD.
• Detailed map of the Pre-Roman Peoples of Iberia (around 200 BC), showing the Celtic territories
• Map of Celtic lands

Organisations

• newworldcelts.org
• XIII. International Congress of Celtic Studies in Bonn

Currently, the term ‘Celtic’, and its variations, is alternatively loved or loathed by archaeologists, historians, the general public and the media.

Why is this?

What has happened to the way the word is defined that causes disparity?  How did this word mean  previously rational archaeologists such as John Collis, Simon James and the Megaws  spent years arguing about the use of ‘Celtic’ as an archaeological term?

Is Ferguson correct to state that archaeologists are, by definition, just sheep?  Reviewing various writings from antiquarians through to modern archaeologists it may be possible to discover when and where it all went wrong.  In choosing the articles or books I took the simplest route and utilised those with  ‘Kelt’, ‘Celt’ or ‘Celtic’ in the title or subject matter and a rough spread of examples from over the past century or so.

Annotated Bibliography

Various Authors, latest date 1892. KAS, Celtic, Roman and Saxon Kent. Archaeologia Cantiana, various volumes.

This is a very eclectic collection of articles taken from the Archaeologia Cantiana, presumably compiled by someone from the KAS for some unknown reason; it is the only book of its kind in the University of Kent Library and, seemingly, anywhere else.  The Archaeologia Cantiana, initially only available to members of the Kent Archaeological Society and academic institutions, is now accessible on-line.  This volume contains numerous papers by a variety of writers including W.M. Flinders Petrie and The Rev. Canon R.C. Jenkins, covering the Palaeolithic through to the Saxon period, all written during the last quarter of the 19^th century and therefore containing many archaic words; interment, obsequies, and so forth, as well as Latin phrases without translation.  There are three relevant articles.

Roach Smith (1874) declares that the ‘Celts’ were: ‘half civilized’ and were: ‘without cultivation of the higher reasoning faculties and the comfort and refinements of life’ (pg 8).  He comes to the latter conclusion as a result of comparing Greek and Roman works of art with: ‘their great intellectual excellence’ (pg 13) to Eastern and ‘Celtic’ items with their: ‘mental inferiority’ (pg 13), contrary to later writers who saw ‘Celtic’ art as so superior that they believed, conversely, that the native people could not have made it, the explanation being that only invaders could have brought it to Britain; the ‘Celts’  The ‘Celts’ he referred to were, seemingly, a combination of Britons and Northern Gauls from around the time of the Roman invasion.

Woodruff (1874) was, in this writers opinion, an archaeologist before his time.  For example; in this article he points out that many possible sites, including Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Age barrows, have vanished due, mainly, to farming activities and consequently those remaining should be protected, most antiquarians would not be so overly concerned.

Woodruff also gives detailed information about various sites he has either heard about or visited himself including dimensions, orientations, soil types and so forth.  He also notes that: ‘No one will assume that, because identical customs prevailed in different parts of the land, therefore those customs were contemporaneous’ (pg 16) a relatively modern theory.  Furthermore, some ostensibly antiquated ideas, for example: ‘… the late Mr Kemble was of the opinion that the Celts made no settlements in East Kent’ (pg 3) which he then proceeds to discredit.  Woodruff used ‘Celtic’ to cover the Neolithic through to the Pre-Roman Iron Age with reference to the period and the people.

Paynes’ article (1879), refers to ‘Celtic’ remains but it was actually about the finding of a 10ft diameter, 3 – 4ft deep, bowl containing numerous flints which he admits: ‘belong to the Neolithic or polished stone age’ (pg 6) and includes a number of ‘celts’ which are a type of axehead.  It is, however, a clearly written paper.  Apparently Payne saw ‘Celtic’ as a period of time and not a culture attributing the era to a much earlier epoch (like Woodruff) than Roach Smith.

Benfield, E. 1947. The Town of Maiden Castle. London: Hale

This is a very phenomenological book and quite comprehensive, covering such topics as death rites through to loaves of bread.  The main body is written in the form of a novel rather than a site report.  The forward is intriguing; Benfield states that the information gleaned from the excavation of Maiden Castle: ‘certainly wipes out the facile idea that Rome discovered our fathers to be painted savages without civilization of any kind’ (pg 7) referring, presumably, to Caesars infamous comments.

Interestingly, whilst talking about post 410 AD, he suggests the ‘Celts’: ‘…did not have much real guidance or creative thought of its [sic] own’ and the ‘Celtic’ people were opened to be conquered again by the Saxons (pg 68 – 69).  Accordingly Benfield believes that they were the only native population (in Britain and the near continent) when the Roman invasion occurred, and also when they left – at which time he also suggests that ALL the Romans left leaving only the ‘original’ inhabitants (pg 70).

It seems clear, therefore, he saw the ‘Celts’ as a race of people who occupied Britain from well before the arrival of the Romans and continued on afterwards, and not a period of time.  The language used is relatively modern with few archaic words, it seems to have been produced for academia.  This book was chosen for inclusion because it is a well-known Iron Age site but also because of the year it was published; just after World War II; before an explosion in new archaeological theory.D

Elvère, C. 1995 (1992). The Celts: First Masters of Europe. London: Thames & Hudson

A small book, lavishly illustrated and covering the development of the ‘Celtic’ civilization in Europe from its apparent beginnings at Hallstatt, with ‘Celts’ being the most prominent item on the cover.  Of the two sections, the first looks at warriors and princes of the ‘all-conquering Celts’, their relationship with the Romans, religion and the ‘Celts’ today.

Each chapter uses multiple images of finds and sites utilizing photographs, paintings and illustrations to explain/interpret their history in Europe, however there are only two maps, one of which is ineffectual as an aide to information.  Its structure and contents seems designed for the general public, especially in its composition and presentation.  The second section is completely different consisting of extracts from articles both modern, antiquarian, and contemporary texts, with short discussions, as well as drawings and illustrations seemingly aimed at academia.  Elvère uses the ‘C’ word to mean a race that still exists, a period of time and a culture, especially its art.

Hill, J. D. 1995. The Pre-Roman Iron Age in Britain and Ireland: an overview. Journal of World Prehistory Vol.9, No. 1, pp 47 – 98

An article written by Hill that, as he says in the conspectus, is an introduction to the recent (in 1995) literature as well as evidence from multiple excavations, surveys, analytical techniques and new interpretations, which suggest that our current ideas need updating (pg 47).  The paper is divided into three parts; The Development of Iron Age Studies, The Nature of the British PRIA and Change Throughout the PRIA.

There are a number of illustrations and maps.  He uses ‘Celtic’ nine times, with the word in “” seven times, ostensibly almost reluctant to utilise it.  For example: ‘Notions about these “Celtic” peoples formed during the Romantic and Nationalist eras still play a strong role in shaping both popular and academic perceptions of the Iron Age’ (pg 51).  Hill, even in 1995, recognises that a change in perception of the ‘Celtic’ question was occurring when he points out that Iron Age/’Celtic’ art, especially metalwork, is seen as a separate study area from; ‘the studies of “Celtic” Religion/”Myth”, [and] are viewed by some as somewhat divorced from archaeological studies of settlement and society’ (pg 53), so not actually a complete move away from the use of the ‘C’ word but possibly a step in the right direction.  The article is clearly written with plenty of examples and information from around Britain and Ireland, with a bibliography running to a healthy eight pages.

James, S. 2002 (1993). Exploring the World of the Celts. London: Thames & Hudson

This is a flashy, commercial, easily accessible publication utilizing the ‘Celts’ tag instead of the less commercial ‘Iron Age’ ostensibly to appeal to the general public; the dust cover is of shiny paper with multiple photographs of artefacts, and the word ‘Celts’ as the most prominent feature.  However, it is written, at least, by a genuine archaeologist who, at the time it was written, was a Senior Lecturer at the University of Leicester.  James has since gone on the attack regarding the veracity of ‘Celts’ in archaeology in his 1999 book; The Atlantic Celts: Ancient People or Modern Invention? (see below) so it is, therefore, astounding that he allowed this book to be reprinted in 2002 without him updating it to include his new theories.

In this issue, though, James uses quotes and ideas from many ancient texts as well as contemporary ones; from Strabo and Catullus for example, through Bede and Geoffrey of Monmouth to Cunliffe and the Megaws, to talk about the European ‘Celts’.  He asserts, on the first page (7), that ‘The Celts are among the greatest peoples of European history, and indeed prehistory’ however he does then state, albeit in brackets, that it is nonsense to use ‘Celtic’ to cover the Neolithic through to the Roman Era (and beyond), as it is the languages that connects areas and peoples (pg10).  Disappointingly he covers Iron Age pottery in only 4 paragraphs out of a book of 192 pages, a genre of artefact which is the most important source of dating and cultural identity in an archaeologist’s lexicon.  However he covers all other aspects of the culture well.

James, S. 1999. The Atlantic Celts: Ancient People or Modern Invention? London: British Museum Press.

Yet again the word; ‘Celts’ is the most prominent thing on the front cover but this time is, ostensibly, done to deliberately attract people to read it and discover the new thinkings about the subject, furthermore the Battersea Shield, a famous ‘Celtic’ artefact, placed in front of a background picture of Maiden Castle, a well-known ‘Celtic’ site, further enticement.  Inside there are a few photographs, diagrams, illustrations and maps, a glossary and suggestions for further reading.

In the first chapter he states most emphatically that; ‘the insular Ancient Celts never existed.’ (pg 16) being a completely modern invention.  This comment, and the rest of the book, resulted in James being vilified for shockingly new ideas which were presented by some journalists as an outrageous attack on devolution and he was even accused of ‘ethnic cleansing’ and ‘genocide!’ (pg 16).  ‘The Daily Telegraph of 12 March 1998 reported that certain archaeologists had ‘angered self-proclaimed Celts from Scotland to Cornwall by their claims that the Celtic culture, much trumpeted during the weeks before devolution referendums in Wales and Scotland, is historical “fantasy”’ (Cunliffe, 2003, 5) referring to Collis’ and James’ papers in Antiquity in 1997 and 1998, both in advance of their subsequent books.

What James was trying to say is that we, as archaeologists, cannot continue to look at the British Iron Age people with the preconceived notion that they were ‘insular Celts’, especially as there is no proof they ever invaded in Britain in any significant number, if at all.  James states that he was concerned about the veracity of the ‘Celtic’ culture, and so forth, whilst writing Exploring the World of the Celts, speaking to a number of archaeologists, including J.D. Hill and John Collis, and found a anthropological, and controversial (but little known) book by Malcolm Chapman called; The Celts: The construction of a Myth (1992) which; ‘precipitated a profound shift in the way I see the pre-Roman past’ (pg 12).

Cunliffe, B. 2000 (1995). English Heritage Book of Iron Age Britain. London: Batsford

This is a book produced for the general public and schools.  Barry Cunliffe is a well known Iron Age expert and, as he says in the Preface, had just finished his Iron Age Communities when he agreed to undertake this book.  This work includes lots of illustrations, photographs (B&W and colour), maps, a small glossary, further reading and a list of suggested sites and museums to visit.  The book covers; the land, people (their language, race and population), farming, society, internal struggles, religion and their artefacts.

Cunliffe attempts to counteract the bias and misunderstandings perpetuated by the writings of Caesar, Tacitus and Strabo, amongst others, pointing out that; ‘The opinions of Caesar and of Tacitus provided the foundations upon which the theories of 19^th and 20^th commentators were were constructed’ (pg 20) subsequently perpetuating the misconceptions and misinterpretations therein.  Additionally, he states that the 1960s theories about how archaeological ‘evidence’ of multiple ‘invasions’ is linked to the introduction of language groups are an example of circularity in argument (pg 20) but he points out that now it is believed the Indo-European language: ‘…was introduced to Britain perhaps as early as the Early Neolithic period and it was from this common base in Britain, and much of Western Europe that the Celtic language developed’ (pg 21), seemingly anticipating Oppenheimer’s published findings seven years later (see below).

Carr, G. and Stoddart, S. (eds.) 2002. Celts from Antiquity. Cambridge: Antiquity Publications.

A collection of 26 articles from the Journal Antiquity, the earliest from 1929, the latest 1996.  The papers are by well-known archaeologists including Kraft, Wheeler, Bersu, Christopher Hawkes, Parker Pearson and Fitzpatrick.  There is a ‘debate’ between the Megaws, Collis and James about the ethnicity of ‘Celts/Celtic’ in prehistory and the modern world, which is very entertaining.

Some of the articles themselves are infamous, for example; Christopher Hawkes’s The ABC of the British Iron Age (a paper that proposed the chronological sequence of the Iron Age, a scheme that was used by specialists and indeed radiated to interested lay public through a generation) and Kraft’s The origin of the Kelts.  The book is split into four sections looking at; Celticity, Continental Europe, The Southern British Iron Age and The Scottish Iron Age.

In their introduction Stoddart and Carr clearly voice many contemporary writers’ views that; ‘Too frequently the term ‘Celtic’ is employed as a short-hand for all Iron Age, and even Bronze Age, archaeological evidence in continental Europe, Britain and Ireland, and yet its proper use should be employed as a term of self-identity that is contingent on context’ (pg 5)  also pointing out that the modern use of the word is problematic.  There are plenty of photographs, illustrations, maps and charts.  It is clearly aimed at academia with the language used varying according to when the article was written, some of the more interesting ones being ‘conspectus’ and ‘cradleland’.  In total 10 of the 26 articles have no mention of ‘Celts/Celtic’ at all and 2 only use it twice.

Collis, J. 2003. The Celts: Origins, Myths & Inventions.  Stroud: Tempus.

A book in a similar vein to James The Atlantic Celts, in that the word ‘Celts’ is the most prominent feature of the cover to entice an audience in and delivers a similar message.  It was, however published four years after Simon James’ book and seems to have escaped the furore that book attracted even though he is, essentially saying the same thing.  It contains 11 chapters, multiple maps as well as many photographs and illustrations, along with a bibliography for each chapter.

Collis begins the book by asking a number of significant questions that he will be attempting to answer, and finishes with a chapter called Implications in which the results are stated and the consequences, that will have to be faced by archaeologists, historians and the general public, are made clear.  He attempts, and in this writers opinion succeeds, in answering his, and James’, critics, principally the Megaws with whom they had been sparring with since 1996, mainly in Antiquity, pointing out that the conflict really began, like most do, with a misunderstanding.  Collis uses straightforward language and this results in an easy to read and understandable book which makes clear the new thinking on the ‘Celts’ in Britain, Ireland and Europe.

Oppenheimer, S. 2007 (2006). The Origins of the British: The New Prehistory of Britain and Ireland from Ice-Age Hunter Gatherers to the Vikings as revealed by DNA Analysis. London: Robinson.

A very long but comprehensive tome in which Stephen Oppenheimer uses: ‘genetics, climatology, geology, archaeology, linguistics, culture and history to reconstruct and explain our roots and differences’ (pg xvii) not just with regard to the ‘Celtic’ question but also including the impact of the Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and so forth.  It contains many photographs, multiple maps and charts and, although full of technical jargon, there is a useful glossary.  The packaging seems to have been designed to appeal to the general public as well as scholars.  Oppenheimer is a world-recognised expert in the synthesis of DNA studies with archaeological and other evidence to track ancient migrations, he is a member of Green Templeton College, Oxford.

Oppenheimer derives some of his archaeological theories from the here mentioned books by Cunliffe, James, Pryor, Collis plus Colin Renfrew’s Archaeology and Language – The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins (1989).  His main conclusion, based primarily on his genetic investigations, is that: ‘three quarters of British ancestors arrived long before the first farmers’ (pg 470), so in the early Neolithic, and that ‘Celts’ did exist but did not invade Britain en mass.  He disagrees however with the ‘Celto-sceptics’ views that the corruption of the word is the fault of ‘early antiquarian philologists’ (pg 472) and blames the archaeologists themselves for the confusion.  Oppenheimer believes that the ‘Celtic’ languages and people (and not many of them) arrived from south-west Europe, in the Neolithic, not Iron Age.

‘…the idea of a race, nation or ethnic group called Celts in Ancient Britain and

Ireland is indeed a modern invention.  It is an 18^th – 19^th century ‘reification’ of a people

that never existed, a factoid … assembled from fragments of evidence drawn from a wide

range of societies across space and time’ (James, 1999, 136)

Discussion

It is clear from looking at these books and articles that there has been a huge change in the attitude towards the use, and meaning, of the ‘C’ words in archaeology texts and theories over the past 136 years, but especially in the last 12.  Many archaeologists, politicians, Welsh, Scots, Cornish, Irish, journalists and the media are outraged that their beloved ‘Celts’ are being, almost, erased from history and criticised James heavily for the above statement.  It is, therefore, not just the word itself that has been censored but the insular ‘Celts’ themselves, only the Celtic languages have survived the cull.   Looking at a few examples of texts about ‘Celts’ chronologically it has been possible to follow the changing views.

In the late 19^th century the word was used in an unequivocal way with no thought as to it’s legitimacy, this was probably because of the influence of Edward Lhuyds book of 1707; Giving some account Additional to what has been hitherto publish’d, of the Languages, Histories, and Customs of the Original Inhabitants of Great Britain.  ‘The term ‘Celtic’ had never been applied to inhabitants of the British Isles until the time of Lhuyd …’ he, correctly, worked out that there was a common link between a number of seemingly different languages but he: ‘erred in conflating this linguistic unity with the Roman non-linguistic term ‘Celtae’ (Oppenheimer, 2007, which, unfortunately, proceeded to be repeated ad infinitum until it became, as James states, a factoid.  Lhuyds’ misinterpretation or ill-informed extrapolation, therefore, led to nearly three hundred years of incorrect assumptions about various sites, artefacts (especially metalwork), cultures and people.

Krafts’ article in Celts in Antiquity (translated by the equally famous Gordon Childes), is a excellent example of how a factoid can lead to a whole field of archaeological study to be considered incontrovertible.  His statement that: ‘The forerunners of the Teutons in England, France, western Germany and in parts of Spain and Italy were the Kelts’ (1929, 11) demonstrates the level to which misconceptions and preconceptions influenced the way people viewed ancient history even to the extent that: ‘Where the Keltic raids and invasions impinged upon the domains of classical civilization, we may expect the oldest and most reliable reports about Kelts from the ancient authors’ (pg 11).

This statement further shows the reliance and credulity that was placed on ancient writers, such as Hecataeus and Herodotus, for those were the texts that the antiquarians (many of whom were clerics and academics) studied from an early age and continued to be an influence, as can be seen in, for example, Elvère’s and James’ 1993 book.   However, it is clear that Kraft acknowledges that the question of ‘Keltic origins’ (he remarks on his ongoing search for the ‘cradle of the Celts’, pg 14) is a problem; for example he notes that a century ago the Bronze Age was considered ‘Keltic’ and ‘Such a mistake reveals the stupendous methodological difficulties that stand in our path’ (pg 11), some archaeological problems are seemingly perpetual.  He talks of the ‘Kelts’ as spreading out by war and invasion taking the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures with them, conclusions recently discredited, although there is no doubt that these cultures did influence Iron Age metalwork and ceramic decoration, though this was through trade and immigration.

Krafts hunt for the cradle of the ‘Kelts’ appears to have been accomplished by Bersu in the research for his article A Hill-fort in Switzerland, from 1946 in Celts in Antiquity, as he states that it is in Southern Germany and its neighbourhood (pg 57).  He uses the phrase; ‘proto-Celtic’ a number of times which apparently refers to the early ‘Celtic’ or Iron Age (specifically in Europe).  This idiom is now used to refer only to a language that has been reconstructed from ancient writings and current insular ‘Celtic’ languages.  Haselgrove, et al, use another idiom; ‘pan-Celticism’ when talking of votive deposits in their Understanding the British Iron Age, as recently as 2001 (pg 19), indicating that even after over 50 years the C word is still open to manipulation and reinterpretation.

Not using the ‘Celtic’ tag in an article of the 20^th century could also be significant; for example Wheeler  (A Prehistoric Metropolis, 1932 in Celts in Antiquity) does not use the ‘C’ word but prefers ‘pre-Belgic’ and ‘sub-Belgic’.  ‘Belgic’ has also been completely discredited by recent archaeological investigations, and is yet another example of a factoid originating with, primarily, Caesars almost throwaway remark in his Gallic Wars V; ‘tribes that migrated at an earlier time from Belgium to seek booty by invasion’ (Caesar translated by Edwards, 1979, 251).

This was taken as fact for nearly 2000 years even though it is only one, single remark, with no archaeological proof.  Not using ‘Celtic’ or it’s variations could imply a lack of confidence in its authenticity, or may relate to the contemporary archaeological theory prevalent at time.  For example; Matthew Johnson points out the changes in archaeological theory in the 1960s and 70s, with the development of ‘New Archaeology’, meaning that cultures began to be viewed in different ways and from divergent angles, with more emphasis on interpreting sites and artefacts instead of just collecting them for display (2010, 15).

This led to numerous reinterpretations and reassessments of many previously held ideas and assumptions, with ‘New Archaeologists’ wanting to ‘look at the internal dynamics of a society’ (Johnson, 2010, 23).  It may have been this movement that started the questioning of the reality of the ‘Celtic’ society, plus more people undertaking archaeology as a career instead of just a hobby, followed in 1992 by the introduction of PPG16 leading to the discovery of many Iron Age remains that had had no chance of being found before and therefore giving a larger sample from which to glean a clearer picture of our past.

In Hawkes seminal work, The A B C of the British Iron Age, the ‘C’ word does not appear until about two-thirds of the way through (pg 139), and then it is used to refer to Hallstatt people from approximately 425 BC and the ‘La Tène civilization [which] was wholly Celtic’ (1959, 139) showing that at the time of writing there was still no doubt as to the legitimacy of the ‘Celtic’ culture.

Alcock wrote a fascinating article about Cadbury Castle in 1972 (in Celts in Antiquity) suggesting that in the 5^th century AD it was the site of King Arthur’s Camelot (pg 185), he does, however, write a clear and informed paper about the site as being originally constructed in the 7^th century BC for ‘Heroic Celtic Warriors’ (pg 179) comparing it to Maiden Castle and Little Woodbury, especially with regard to their design and size of roundhouses.  He also claims that it was the ‘Celtic’ invaders that brought the ‘new bronzes and the new pottery’ to this island in the 7^th or 6^th centuries BC and that they set the ‘tone of life … for the next millennium or more’ (pg 179) implying, like Benfield, that the ‘Celts’ still existed in Britain after the Roman arrived and left.

Therefore, it appears that an invasion, be it by ‘Celts’ or ‘Belgae’, was the explanation utilized by early archaeologists to explain a new design of pottery or decoration on metalwork, instead of believing the native population capable of that kind of development, like Roach Smiths opinion that the ‘Celts’ (and by default the natives of Britain to whom he was actually referring) were all mentally deficient.     A very recent reference book (Adkins et al, 2008) admits that these invasions have been wholly discounted (pg 95) but still talks about; ‘Celtic inspiration’ in the Roman period (pg 170) and ‘Celtic Britain’ in the Early Medieval Period (pg 203 and 210), showing it may prove to be impossible for the ‘C’ word to ever be abandoned.

The Megaws may agree, their opinion is that James and Collis especially have, in effect, committed genocide by declaring that the ‘Celts’ never existed in Britain and are denying the ‘Celtic British Nations’ their rightful heritage and destroying their ethnicity.  Their debate began after Timothy Taylor criticised the Megaws book Celtic Art: from its beginnings to the book of Kells  (1989) in the Scottish Archaeological Review in 1991, in which he stated that: ‘”Celtic” art is a myth, as is a discrete, unitary, “artistically pure” Celtic race’ (Taylor, 1991, 131, cited in Carr & Stoddart, 2002, 7) firing up the debate.

The Megaws answered this critique in the next SAR in 1995 entitled; Paper tigers, tilting at windmills and Celtic Cheshire Cats: a reply to Tim Taylor, by dismissing Taylor as another archaeological rebel adding to the drive to destroy ‘Celticism’ along with ‘a small group of Cambridge scholars’ who are promulgating a: ‘new orthodoxy that there is no such thing as a ‘Celt’ (Megaws, 1995, 248, cited in Carr & Stoddart, 2002, 7) and being motivated by English nationalism and anxiety rooted in the decline of British imperial power and the ‘threat’ of European federalism.  (However, as James points it may be that it appears to be a purely English ‘threat’ because approximately 80% of research archaeologists are at Universities in England (1998 in Celts in Antiquity, 2002, 37)).

One quite worrying aspect of the Megaws argument in their papers in Celts in Antiquity is that they seem to be equating ‘Celticism’ with Jewishness and the Australian Aborigines – none of which are in anyway connected with each other, in this writers opinion.  The heated debate between the Megaws, James and Collis within Antiquity was intense which, in its way, moved the question of the ‘Celts’ forward faster than maybe it would have done otherwise.

James and Collis are not the only archaeologists that have ‘come out’ with their new theories, there are others, for example; Champion (1987), Renfrew (1987), Merriman (1987), Hill (1989), Fitzpatrick (1996) and Timothy Darvill, in whose respected Oxford Concise Dictionary of Archaeology he states; ‘there is no archaeological evidence for such a widespread and enduring common culture’ as the ‘Celts’ (2003, 76), and as a University Lecturer it is hoped he passes this information on to his students.

Carr and Stoddart, and Hill, further point out that before the late 1980’s nobody questioned theories about the Iron Age because the story of the ‘Celts’ was so accepted as fact, then in 1987 Nick Merriman’s article about the Celtic spirit appeared in which he suggested that the ‘Celts’: ‘ethnographically distinct from other peoples in Classical eyes’ but that the title was one: ‘imposed by outside observers for classification convenience’ (cited in Carr & Stoddart, 2002, 7).

The Megaws blame him for igniting the debate but cite Collis as being the ‘prime mover’ after his report in British Archaeological News in 1994.  James does state quite emphatically at the beginning of his notorious book of 1999 that; ‘For some decades, the pace of change has been gathering speed, culminating in a radical reformulation of ideas about history’ (pg 9) especially cultures and ethnicity, both ancient and modern, and this has culminated in the explosion of, mostly, unpopular and infamous papers, articles and books demolishing the lovingly held beliefs of millions of people regarding their ethnicity.

However, changes in our ideas of the past always have to be open to questioning, especially with new technologies, laws, finds, sites and theories being developed by new archaeologists (and scientists, geneticists, anthropologists and so forth), as well as the ‘old brigade’.  Furthermore, the changing perspectives of the ‘Celts’ should encourage a review of the way other cultures have been interpreted in the past, and will be in the future, through using, as Oppenheimer did, not just DNA testing or archaeology or ethnography or linguistics and so forth but a combination of all avenues of investigation, along with vigorous testing and scrutinisation.

Francis Pryor, a well known face in the media (especially Time Team) has written two books in the past 6 years, both concurring with James and Collis et al.  In the first book (Britain B.C., 2004) Pryor states that his generation was taught at university about the hypothetical invasions of the ‘Celts’, with them being responsible for the new styles of pottery, however the digs he attend have shown that: ‘these so-called invaders’ lived together in the same settlements alongside the people they were meant to have replaced (pg 118).  In his 2010 book (The Making of the British Landscape) he emphasises, and strengthens, what was said in the previous tome, with comments such as: ‘There is no evidence that the Celts can be equated with a distinctive ethnicity’ and that ‘Celts’ are a pure invention by antiquarians, artists, scholars and writers of the 18^th and 19^th centuries, so back to Lhuyds long-running factoid (pg 120).

It would, therefore, be hoped that, Pryor, being a relatively ‘high-profile’ and well-respected archaeologist, may deliver the news that the ‘Celts’ maybe never existed, to the public, without the cries of ‘murderer’ that James had to endure.  Neil Oliver has managed to sneak in a comment or two about the new thinking in his A History of Celtic Britain television programme despite the misleading title (possibly used, like James’ and Collis’ books, to attract an audience in a way that ‘A History of Iron Age Britain‘ may not have done) but did not overly emphasis the information and continued to use ‘Celts’ and ‘Celtic’ throughout the series.

e
The ‘Celtic’ word will, hopefully, no longer be used by many archaeologists to refer to the Iron Age but will properly be utilised by everyone to pertain to the language, as there has been no dispute about that.  However, it will also continue to be used by the general public, many academics, the media, politicians and so on, for all aspects of the ‘Celtic’ culture (people, art, sites, religion, ethnicity) for the foreseeable future because they want to believe nothing has changed and they are still blind to the proof.  Unfortunately, for them, archaeology is not a static subject and most archaeologists are not purblind any more, as Fitzpatrick points out: ‘the ancient evidence remains to be explained rather than explained away’ (1996, 246).

Written by Catherine Holtham-Oakley

Header Image – The Waterloo Helmet – Ealdgyth s

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25. Haselgrove, C., Champion, T.C., Armit, I., Creighton, J. and Gwilt, A. 2001. Understanding the British Iron Age: an agenda for action. A Report for the Iron Age Research Seminar and the Council of the Prehistoric
26. Society. Salisbury: Trust for Wessex Archaeology
27. Hill, J. D. 1995. The Pre-Roman Iron Age in Britain and Ireland: an overview. Journal of World Prehistory Vol.9, No. 1, 47 – 98
28. James, S. 1999. The Atlantic Celts: Ancient People or Modern Invention? London: British Museum Press
29. James, S. 2002 (1993). Exploring the World of the Celts. London: Thames & Hudson
30. Johnson, M. 2010 (1999). Archaeological Theory: An Introduction. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell
31. Lhuyd, E. 1707. Giving some account Additional to what has been hitherto publish’d, of the Languages,
32. Histories, and Customs of the Original Inhabitants of Great Britain. Oxford. cited in Oppenheimer, S. 2007 (2006). The Origins of the British: The New Prehistory of Britain and Ireland from Ice-Age Hunter Gatherers to the Vikings as revealed by DNA Analysis. London: Robinson.
33. Megaw J.V.S. & M.R. Megaw, 1989. Celtic art: from its beginnings to the book of Kells. London: Thames and
34. Hudson. Cited in Carr, G. & Stoddart, S. (eds.) 2002. Celts from Antiquity. Cambridge: Antiquity Publications.
35. Merriman, N. 1987. ‘Value and motivation in prehistory; the evidence for “Celtic spirit”‘, in Hodder, I. (ed.) The
36. Archaeology of Contextual Meanings. Cambridge University Press, pp.111-116. Cited in Carr, G. & Stoddart, S. (eds.) 2002. Celts from Antiquity. Cambridge: Antiquity Publications.
37. Oppenheimer, S. 2007 (2006). The Origins of the British: The New Prehistory of Britain and Ireland from Ice-
38. Age Hunter Gatherers to the Vikings as revealed by DNA Analysis. London: Robinson
39. Pryor, F. 2004 (2003). Britain BC: Life in Britain and Ireland before the Romans. London: Harper
40. Pryor, F. 2010. The Making of the British Landscape: How we have transformed the land, from Prehistory to Today. London: Penguin.
41. Renfrew, A.C. 1987. Archaeology and language, The puzzle of Indo-European origins. London: Cape. Cited in Carr, G. & Stoddart, S. (eds.) 2002. Celts from Antiquity. Cambridge: Antiquity Publications.
42. Taylor, T. 1991. Celtic Art, Scottish Archaeological Review 8: 129 -32. cited in Carr, G. & Stoddart, S. (eds.) 2002. Celts from Antiquity. Cambridge: Antiquity Publications.
43. Various Authors, latest date 1892. KAS, Celtic, Roman and Saxon Kent. Archaeologia Cantiana.
44. Roach Smith, C. 1874. Gold Torques and Armillæ discovered in Kent, in     Archaeologia   Cantiana, Vol. IX
45. Woodruff, C.H. 1874. Celtic Tumuli in East Kent, in Archaeologia Cantiana, Vol. IX
46. Payne, G. 1879. Celtic Remains discovered at Grovehurst, in Milton-next-   Sittingbourne, in Archaeologia Cantiana, Vol. XIII

«Celt» redirects here. For other uses, see Celt (disambiguation).

This article is about the ancient peoples of Europe. For Celts of the present day, see Celts (modern).

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The Celts ( /ˈkɛlts/ or /ˈsɛlts/, see pronunciation of Celtic) were a diverse group of tribal societies in Iron Age and Roman-era Europe who spoke Celtic languages.^[1]

The earliest archaeological culture commonly accepted as Celtic, or rather Proto-Celtic, was the central European Hallstatt culture (c. 800-450 BC), named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria.^[2] By the later La Tène period (c. 450 BC up to the Roman conquest), this Celtic culture had expanded over a wide range of regions, whether by diffusion or migration: to the British Isles (Insular Celts), France and The Low Countries (Gauls), much of Central Europe, the Iberian Peninsula (Celtiberians, Celtici and Gallaeci) and northern Italy (Golaseccans and Cisalpine Gauls)^[3] and following the Gallic invasion of the Balkans in 279 BC as far east as central Anatolia (Galatians).^[4]

The earliest directly attested examples of a Celtic language are the Lepontic inscriptions, beginning from the 6th century BC.^[5] Continental Celtic languages are attested only in inscriptions and place-names. Insular Celtic is attested from about the 4th century AD in ogham inscriptions, although it is clearly much earlier. Literary tradition begins with Old Irish from about the 8th century. Coherent texts of Early Irish literature, such as the Táin Bó Cúailnge (The Cattle Raid of Cooley), survive in 12th-century recensions.

By mid 1st millennium AD, following the expansion of the Roman Empire and the Great Migrations (Migration Period) of Germanic peoples, Celtic culture and Insular Celtic had become restricted to Ireland, to the western and northern parts of Great Britain (Wales, Scotland, Cornwall and the Isle of Man), and to northern France (Brittany). Between the fifth and eighth centuries AD the Celtic-speaking communities of the Atlantic regions had emerged as a reasonably cohesive cultural entity. In language, religion, and art they shared a common heritage that distinguished them from the culture of surrounding polities.^[6] The Continental Celtic languages ceased to be widely used by the 6th century.

Insular Celtic culture diversified into that of the Gaels (Irish, Scottish and Manx) and the Brythonic Celts (Welsh, Cornish, and Bretons) of the medieval and modern periods. A modern «Celtic identity» was constructed in the context of the Romanticist Celtic Revival in Great Britain, Ireland, and other European territories, such as Galicia.^[7] Today Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, and Breton remain spoken in parts of their historical territories, and both Cornish and Manx are currently undergoing revival.

Names and terminology

The first recorded use of the word Celts (Κελτοί) to refer to an ethnic group was by Hecataeus of Miletus, the Greek geographer, in 517 BC,^[8] when writing about a people living near «Massilia» (Marseille).^[9] According to the testimony of Julius Caesar and Strabo, the Latin name «Celtus» (pl. «Celti» or «Celtae») and the Greek (Κέλτης pl. Κέλται or Κελτός pl. Κελτοί) were borrowed from a native Celtic tribal name.^[10][11] Pliny the Elder referred it as being used in Lusitania as a tribal surname^[12] which epigraphic findings confirm.^[13][14]

Latin «Gallus» might originally be from a Celtic ethnic or tribal name, perhaps borrowed into Latin during the Celtic expansions into Italy of the early 5th century BC. Its root may be the Common Celtic «*galno», meaning power or strength. Galli, Gallaeci and Galatae most probably go with Old Irish gal ‘boldness, ferocity’ and Welsh gallu ‘to be able, power’.^[15] The Greek «Galatai» seems to be based on the same root, borrowed directly from the same hypothetical Celtic source which gave us «Galli» (the suffix «-atai» is an Ancient Greek inflection).^[16] (see Galatia in Anatolia)

The English word «Celt» is modern, attested from 1707 in the writings of Edward Lhuyd whose work, along with that of other late 17th-century scholars, brought academic attention to the languages and history of these early inhabitants of Great Britain.^[17] The English form «Gaul» (first recorded in the 17th century) and «Gaulish» come from the French «Gaule» and «Gaulois», which translate Latin «Gallia» and «Gallus, -icus» respectively. In Old French, the words «gualeis», «galois», «walois» (Northern French phonetics keeping /w/) had different meanings: Welsh or the Langue d’oïl, etc. On the other hand, the word «Waulle» (Northern French phonetics keeping /w/) is recorded for the first time in the 13th century to translate the Latin word Gallia, while «gaulois» is recorded for the first time in the 15th century, and the scholars use it to translate the Latin words Gallus / Gallicus. The word comes from Proto-Germanic *Walha- (see Gaul: Name). The English word «Welsh» originates from the word wælisċ, the Anglo-Saxon form of *walhiska-, the reconstructed Proto-Germanic word for «foreign»^[18] or «Celt» (South German Welsch(e) «Celtic speaker», «French speaker», «Italian speaker»; Old Norse «valskr», pl. «valir» «Gaulish», «French»), that is supposed to be derived of the name of the «Volcae»,^[19] a Celtic tribe who lived first in the South of Germany and emigrated then to Gaul.^[20]

The notion of an identifiable Celtic cultural identity or «Celticity», though problematic, generally centres on language, art and classical texts,^[21] though can also include, material artifacts, social organisation, homeland and mythology.^[22] Earlier theories were that this indicated a common racial origin but more recent theories are reflective of culture and language rather than race. Celtic cultures seem to have had numerous diverse characteristics but the commonality between these diverse peoples was the use of a Celtic language.^{[citation needed]}.

«Celtic» is a descriptor of a family of languages and, more generally, means «of the Celts», or «in the style of the Celts». It has also been used to refer to several archaeological cultures defined by unique sets of artifacts. The link between language and artifact is aided by the presence of inscriptions.^[23] (see Celtic (disambiguation) for other applications of the term)

Today, the term Celtic is generally used to describe the languages and respective cultures of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, the Isle of Man and Brittany, also known as the Six Celtic Nations. These are the regions where four Celtic languages are still spoken to some extent as mother tongues: Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, and Breton, plus two recent revivals, Cornish (one of the Brythonic languages) and Manx (one of the Goidelic languages). There are also attempts to reconstruct the Cumbric language (a Brythonic language from Northwest England and Southwest Scotland). ‘Celtic’ is also sometimes used to describe regions of Continental Europe that claim a Celtic heritage, but where no Celtic language has survived; these areas include the western Iberian Peninsula, i.e. Portugal, and north-central Spain (Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, Castile and León, Extremadura).^[24] (see Modern Celts)

«Continental Celts» refers to the Celtic-speaking people of mainland Europe. «Insular Celts» refers to the different Celtic-speaking peoples of the British and Irish islands and to their descendants. The Celts of Brittany derive their language from migrating insular Celts mainly from Wales and Cornwall and so are grouped accordingly.^[25]

Origins

Main articles: Pre-Celtic and Celticization

The Celtic languages form a branch of the larger Indo-European family. By the time speakers of Celtic languages enter history around 400 BC, they were already split into several language groups, and spread over much of Western continental Europe, the Iberian Peninsula, Ireland and Britain.

Some scholars think that the Urnfield culture of Western Middle Europe represents an origin for the Celts as a distinct cultural branch of the Indo-European family. This culture was preeminent in central Europe during the late Bronze Age, from ca. 1200 BC until 700 BC, itself following the Unetice and Tumulus cultures. The Urnfield period saw a dramatic increase in population in the region, probably due to innovations in technology and agricultural practices. The Greek historian Ephoros of Cyme in Asia Minor, writing in the 4th century BC, believed that the Celts came from the islands off the mouth of the Rhine and were «driven from their homes by the frequency of wars and the violent rising of the sea».

The spread of iron-working led to the development of the Hallstatt culture directly from the Urnfield (ca. 700 to 500 BC). Proto-Celtic, the latest common ancestor of all known Celtic languages, is considered by this school of thought to have been spoken at the time of the late Urnfield or early Hallstatt cultures, in the early 1st millennium BC. The spread of the Celtic languages to Iberia, Ireland and Britain would have occurred during the first half of the 1st millennium BC, the earliest chariot burials in Britain dating to c. 500 BC. Other scholars see Celtic languages as covering Britain and Ireland, and parts of the Continent, long before any evidence of «Celtic» culture is found in archaeology. Over the centuries the language(s) developed into the separate Celtiberian, Goidelic and Brythonic languages.

The Hallstatt culture was succeeded by the La Tène culture of central Europe, which was overrun by the Roman Empire, though traces of La Tène style are still to be seen in Gallo-Roman artefacts. In Britain and Ireland La Tène style in art survived precariously to re-emerge in Insular art. Early Irish literature casts light on the flavour and tradition of the heroic warrior elites who dominated Celtic societies. Celtic river-names are found in great numbers around the upper reaches of the Danube and Rhine, which led many Celtic scholars to place the ethnogenesis of the Celts in this area.

Diodorus Siculus and Strabo both suggest that the Celtic heartland was in southern France. The former says that the Gauls were to the north of the Celts but that the Romans referred to both as Gauls. Before the discoveries at Hallstatt and La Tene, it was generally considered that the Celtic heartland was southern France, see Encyclopædia Britannica for 1813.

Linguistic evidence

The Proto-Celtic language is usually dated to the early European Iron Age. The earliest records of a Celtic language are the Lepontic inscriptions of Cisalpine Gaul, the oldest of which still predate the La Tène period. Other early inscriptions are Gaulish, appearing from the early La Tène period in inscriptions in the area of Massilia, in the Greek alphabet. Celtiberian inscriptions appear comparatively late, after about 200 BC. Evidence of Insular Celtic is available only from about 400 AD, in the form of Primitive Irish Ogham inscriptions. Besides epigraphical evidence, an important source of information on early Celtic is toponymy.^[26]

Archaeological evidence

Further information: Iron Age Europe

Before the 19th century, scholars assumed that the original land of the Celts was west of the Rhine, more precisely in Gaul, because it was where Greek and Roman ancient sources, namely Cesar, located the Celts. This view was challenged by Jubainville who placed the land of origin of the Celts east of the Rhine. Jubainville based his arguments on a phrase of Herodotus´ that placed the Celts at the source of the Danube, and argued that Herodotus had meant to place the Celtic homeland in southern Germany. The finding of the prehistoric cemetery of Hallstat in 1846 by Johan Ramsauer and almost ten years later the finding of the archaeological site of La Tène by Hansli Kopp in 1857 draw attention to this area. The concept that the Hallstatt and La Tene cultures could be seen not just as chronological periods but as “Culture Groups”, entities composed of people of the same ethnicity and language, started to grow by the end of the 19th century. In the beginning of the 20th century the belief that those “Culture Groups” could be thought in racial or ethnic terms was strongly held by Gordon Childe whose theory was influenced by the writings of Gustaf Kossinna.^[27] Along the 20th century the racial ethnic interpretation of La Tene culture rooted much stronger, and any findings of “La Tene culture” and “flat inhumation cemeteries” were directly associated with the celts and the celtic language.^[28] The Iron Age Hallstatt (c. 800-475 BC) and La Tène (c. 500-50 BC) cultures are typically associated with Proto-Celtic and Celtic culture.^[29]

In various^{[clarification needed]} academic disciplines the Celts were considered a Central European Iron Age phenomenon, through the cultures of Hallstatt and La Tène. However, archaeological finds from the Halstatt and La Tène culture were rare in the Iberian Peninsula, in southwestern France, northern and western Britain, southern Ireland and Galatia^[30][31] and did not provide enough evidence for a cultural scenario comparable to that of Central Europe. It is considered equally difficult to maintain that the origin of the Peninsular Celts can be linked to the preceding Urnfield culture, leading to a more recent approach that introduces a ‘proto-Celtic’ substratum and a process of Celticisation having its initial roots in the Bronze Age Bell Beaker culture.^[32]

The La Tène culture developed and flourished during the late Iron Age (from 450 BC to the Roman conquest in the 1st century BC) in eastern France, Switzerland, Austria, southwest Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. It developed out of the Hallstatt culture without any definite cultural break, under the impetus of considerable Mediterranean influence from Greek, and later Etruscan civilisations. A shift of settlement centres took place in the 4th century.

The western La Tène culture corresponds to historical Celtic Gaul. Whether this means that the whole of La Tène culture can be attributed to a unified Celtic people is difficult to assess; archaeologists have repeatedly concluded that language, material culture, and political affiliation do not necessarily run parallel. Frey notes that in the 5th century, «burial customs in the Celtic world were not uniform; rather, localised groups had their own beliefs, which, in consequence, also gave rise to distinct artistic expressions».^[33] Thus, while the La Tène culture is certainly associated with the Gauls, the presence of La Tène artefacts may be due to cultural contact and does not imply the permanent presence of Celtic speakers.

Historical evidence

Polybius published a history of Rome about 150 BC in which he describes the Gauls of Italy and their conflict with Rome. Pausanias in the 2nd century BC says that the Gauls «originally called Celts», «live on the remotest region of Europe on the coast of an enormous tidal sea». Posidonius described the southern Gauls about 100 BC. Though his original work is lost it was used by later writers such as Strabo. The latter, writing in the early 1st century AD, deals with Britain and Gaul as well as Hispania, Italy and Galatia. Caesar wrote extensively about his Gallic Wars in 58-51 BC. Diodorus Siculus wrote about the Celts of Gaul and Britain in his 1st-century history.

Minority views

Martín Almagro Gorbea^[34] proposed the origins of the Celts could be traced back to the 3rd millennium BC, seeking the initial roots in the Bell Beaker culture, thus offering the wide dispersion of the Celts throughout western Europe, as well as the variability of the different Celtic peoples, and the existence of ancestral traditions an ancient perspective. More recently, John Koch^[35] and Barry Cunliffe^[36] have suggested that Celtic origins lie with the Atlantic Bronze Age, roughly contemporaneous with the Hallstatt culture but positioned considerably to the West, extending along the Atlantic coast of Europe.

Stephen Oppenheimer^[37] points out that Herodotus seemed to believe the Danube rose near the Pyrenees.

Distribution

Continental Celts

Gaul

At the dawn of history in Europe, the Celts then living in what is now France were known as Gauls to the Romans. The territory of these peoples probably included the low countries, the Alps and what is now northern Italy. Their descendants were described by Julius Caesar in his Gallic Wars. Eastern Gaul was the centre of the western La Tène culture. In later Iron Age Gaul, the social organisation was similar to that of the Romans, with large towns. From the 3rd century BC the Gauls adopted coinage, and texts with Greek characters are known in southern Gaul from the 2nd century.

Greek traders founded Massalia in about 600 BC, with exchange up the Rhone valley, but trade was disrupted soon after 500 BC and re-oriented over the Alps to the Po valley in Italy. The Romans arrived in the Rhone valley in the 2nd century BC and encountered a Gaul that was mostly Celtic-speaking. Rome needed land communications with its Iberian provinces and fought a major battle with the Saluvii at Entremont in 124-123 BC. Gradually Roman control extended, and the Roman Province of Gallia Transalpina was formed along the Mediterranean coast. The remainder was known as Gallia Comata — «Hairy Gaul».

In 58 BC, the Helvetii planned to migrate westward but were forced back by Julius Caesar. He then became involved in fighting the various tribes in Gaul, and by 55 BC, most of Gaul had been overrun. In 52 BC, Vercingetorix led a revolt against the Roman occupation but was defeated at the siege of Alesia and surrendered.

Following the Gallic Wars of 58-51 BC, Caesar’s Celtica formed the main part of Roman Gaul. This territory of the Celtic tribes was bounded on the south by the Garonne and on the north by the Seine and the Marne.^[38] Place and personal name analysis and inscriptions suggest that the Gaulish Celtic language was spoken over most of what is now France.^[39]

Iberia

Until the end of the 19th century, traditional scholarship dealing with the Celts did acknowledge their presence in the Iberian Peninsula^[40][41] as a material culture relatable to the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures. However, since according to the definition of the Iron Age in the 19th century Celtic populations were supposedly rare in Iberia and did not provide a cultural scenario that could easily be linked to that of Central Europe, the presence of celtic culture in that region was generally not fully recognised. Three divisions of the Celts of the Iberian Peninsula were assumed to have existed: the Celtiberians in the mountains near the centre of the peninsula, the Celtici in the southwest, and the celts in the northwest (in Gallaecia and Asturias).^[42]

Modern scholarship, however, has clearly proven that Celtic presence and influences were most substantial in what is today Spain and Portugal (with perhaps the highest settlement saturation in Western Europe), particularly in the central, western and northern regions.^[43][44] The Celts in Iberia were divided into two main archaeological and cultural groups,^[45] even though that division is not very clear:

• One group was spread out along Galicia^[46] and the Iberian Atlantic shores. They were made up of the Proto / Para-Celtic Lusitanians (in Portugal)^[47] and the Celtic region that Strabo called Celtica in the southwestern Iberian peninsula,^[48] including the Algarve, which was inhabited by the Celtici, the Vettones and Vacceani peoples^[49] (of central-western Spain and Portugal), and the Gallaecian, Astures and Cantabrian peoples of the Castro culture of northern and northwestern Spain and Portugal.^[50]
• The Celtiberian group of central Spain and the upper Ebro valley.^[51] This group originated when Celts (mainly Gauls and some Celtic-Germanic groups) migrated from what is now France and integrated with the local Iberian people.

The origins of the Celtiberians might provide a key to understanding the Celticisation process in the rest of the Peninsula. The process of Celticisation of the southwestern area of the peninsula by the Keltoi and of the northwestern area is, however, not a simple Celtiberian question. Recent investigations about the Callaici^[52] and Bracari^[53] in northwestern Portugal are providing new approaches to understanding Celtic culture (language, art and religion) in western Iberia.^[54]

John T. Koch of the University of Wales-Aberystwyth suggested that Tartessian inscriptions of the 8th century BC might already be classified as Celtic. This would mean that Tartessian is the earliest attested trace of Celtic by margin of more than a century.^[55]

Alps and Po Valley

It had been known for some time that there was an early, although apparently somewhat limited, Celtic (Lepontic, sometimes called Cisalpine Celtic) presence in Northern Italy since inscriptions dated to the 6th century BC have been found there.

The site of Golasecca, where the Ticino exits from Lake Maggiore, was particularly suitable for long-distance exchanges, in which Golaseccans acted as intermediaries between Etruscans and the Halstatt culture of Austria, supported on the all-important trade in salt.

In 391 BC Celts «who had their homes beyond the Alps streamed through the passes in great strength and seized the territory that lay between the Appennine mountains and the Alps» according to Diodorus Siculus. The Po Valley and the rest of northern Italy (known to the Romans as Cisalpine Gaul) was inhabited by Celtic-speakers who founded cities such as Milan.^[56] Later the Roman army was routed at the battle of Allia and Rome was sacked in 390 BC by the Senones.

At the battle of Telamon in 225 BC a large Celtic army was trapped between two Roman forces and crushed.

The defeat of the combined Samnite, Celtic and Etruscan alliance by the Romans in the Third Samnite War sounded the beginning of the end of the Celtic domination in mainland Europe, but it was not until 192 BC that the Roman armies conquered the last remaining independent Celtic kingdoms in Italy.

Eastward expansion

The Celts also expanded down the Danube river and its tributaries. One of the most influential tribes, the Scordisci, had established their capital at Singidunum in 3rd century BC, which is present-day Belgrade, Serbia. The concentration of hill-forts and cemeteries shows a density of population in the Tisza valley of modern-day Vojvodina, Serbia, Hungary and into Ukraine. Expansion into Romania was however blocked by the Dacians.

Further south, Celts settled in Thrace (Bulgaria), which they ruled for over a century, and Anatolia, where they settled as the Galatians (see also: Gallic Invasion of Greece). Despite their geographical isolation from the rest of the Celtic world, the Galatians maintained their Celtic language for at least 700 years. St Jerome, who visited Ancyra (modern-day Ankara) in 373 AD, likened their language to that of the Treveri of northern Gaul.

For Venceslas Kruta, Galatia in central Turkey was an area of dense celtic settlement.

The Boii tribe gave their name to Bohemia, Bologna and possibly Bavaria, and Celtic artefacts and cemeteries have been discovered further east in what is now Poland and Slovakia. A celtic coin (Biatec) from Bratislava’s mint was displayed on the old Slovak 5-crown coin.

As there is no archaeological evidence for large scale invasions in some of the other areas, one current school of thought holds that Celtic language and culture spread to those areas by contact rather than invasion.^[57] However, the Celtic invasions of Italy and the expedition in Greece and western Anatolia, are well documented in Greek and Latin history.

There are records of Celtic mercenaries in Egypt serving the Ptolemies. Thousands were employed in 283-246 BC and they were also in service around 186 BC. They attempted to overthrow Ptolemy II.

Insular Celts

Main article: Insular Celts

Further information: Iron Age Britain and Celtic immigration to the British Isles

All Celtic languages extant today belong to the Insular Celtic languages, derived from the Celtic languages spoken in Iron Age Britain. They were separated into a Goidelic and a Brythonic branch from an early period.

Linguists have been arguing for many years whether a Celtic language came to Britain and Ireland and then split or whether there were two separate «invasions». The older view of prehistorians was that the Celtic influence in the British Isles was the result of successive invasions from the European continent by diverse Celtic-speaking peoples over the course of several centuries, accounting for the P-Celtic vs. Q-Celtic isogloss. This view is now generally discredited in favour of a phylogenetic Insular Celtic dialect group.

Celtic arrival in Britain is usually taken to correspond to Hallstatt influence and the appearance of chariot burials in what is now England from about the 6th century BC. Some Iron Age migration does seem to have occurred but the nature of the interactions with the indigenous populations of the isles is unknown. In the late Iron Age Pryor estimates that the population of Britain and Ireland was between 1 and 1.5 million, upon which a smaller number of Celtic-speaking immigrant populations would have installed themselves as a superstrate.

By about the 6th century (Sub-Roman Britain), most of the inhabitants of the Isles were speaking Celtic languages of either the Goidelic or the Brythonic branch.

After Caesar’s conquest of Gaul in the 50s BC, some Belgic people seem to have come to central southern Britain.^[58] Though there was a tribe called Parisi in eastern Yorkshire, these were probably a British people with cultural links to the continent. It has been claimed that there were a tribe of Iverni in Ireland who spoke a Brythonic language.

In Ireland as in Great Britain, beginning Celtic influence is taken to correspond to the beginning Iron Age. The adoption of Celtic culture and language was likely a gradual transformation, brought on by cultural exchange with Celtic groups in the mainland or otherwise southwest continental Europe.

Romanisation

Under Caesar the Romans conquered Celtic Gaul, and from Claudius onward the Roman empire absorbed parts of Britain. Roman local government of these regions closely mirrored pre-Roman tribal boundaries, and archaeological finds suggest native involvement in local government.

The native peoples under Roman rule became Romanised and keen to adopt Roman ways. Celtic art had already incorporated classical influences, and surviving Gallo-Roman pieces interpret classical subjects or keep faith with old traditions despite a Roman overlay.

The Roman occupation of Gaul, and to a lesser extent of Britain, led to Roman-Celtic syncretism. In the case of the continental Celts, this eventually resulted in a language shift to Vulgar Latin, while the Insular Celts retained their language.

There was also considerable cultural influence exerted by Gaul on Rome, particularly in military matters and horsemanship, as the Gauls often served in the Roman cavalry. The Romans adopted the Celtic cavalry sword, the spatha, and Epona, the Celtic horse goddess.^[59][60]

Society

To the extent that sources are available, they depict a pre-Christian Celtic social structure based formally on class and kingship. Patron-client relationships similar to those of Roman society are also described by Caesar and others in the Gaul of the 1st century BC.

In the main, the evidence is of tribes being led by kings, although some argue that there is also evidence of oligarchical republican forms of government eventually emerging in areas which had close contact with Rome. Most descriptions of Celtic societies portray them as being divided into three groups: a warrior aristocracy; an intellectual class including professions such as druid, poet, and jurist; and everyone else. In historical times, the offices of high and low kings in Ireland and Scotland were filled by election under the system of tanistry, which eventually came into conflict with the feudal principle of primogeniture in which succession goes to the first born son.

Little is known of family structure among the Celts. Patterns of settlement varied from decentralised to urban. The popular stereotype of non-urbanised societies settled in hillforts and duns,^[61] drawn from Britain and Ireland (there are about 3,000 hill forts known in Britain)^[62] contrasts with the urban settlements present in the core Hallstatt and La Tene areas, with the many significant oppida of Gaul late in the first millennium BC, and with the towns of Gallia Cisalpina.

Slavery, as practised by the Celts, was very likely similar to the better documented practice in ancient Greece and Rome.^[63] Slaves were acquired from war, raids, and penal and debt servitude.^[63] Slavery was hereditary^{[citation needed]}, though manumission was possible. The Old Irish word for slave, cacht, and the Welsh term caeth are likely derived from the Latin captus, captive, suggesting that slave trade was an early venue of contact between Latin and Celtic societies.^[63] In the Middle Ages, slavery was especially prevalent in the Celtic countries.^[64] Manumissions were discouraged by law and the word for «female slave», cumal, was used as a general unit of value in Ireland.^[65]

Archaeological evidence suggests that the pre-Roman Celtic societies were linked to the network of overland trade routes that spanned Eurasia. Archaeologists have discovered large prehistoric trackways crossing bogs in Ireland and Germany. Due to their substantial nature, these are believed to have been created for wheeled transport as part of an extensive roadway system that facilitated trade.^[66] The territory held by the Celts contained tin, lead, iron, silver and gold.^[67] Celtic smiths and metalworkers created weapons and jewellery for international trade, particularly with the Romans.

The myth that the Celtic monetary system consisted of wholly barter is a common one, but is in part false. The monetary system was complex and is still not understood (much like the late Roman coinages), and due to the absence of large numbers of coin items, it is assumed that «proto-money» was used. This is the collective term used to describe bronze items made from the early La Tene period onwards, which were often in the shape of axeheads, rings, or bells. Due to the large number of these present in some burials, it is thought they had a relatively high monetary value, and could be used for «day to day» purchases. Low-value coinages of potin, a bronze alloy with high tin content, were minted in most Celtic areas of the continent and in South-East Britain prior to the Roman conquest of these lands. Higher-value coinages, suitable for use in trade, were minted in gold, silver, and high-quality bronze. Gold coinage was much more common than silver coinage, despite being worth substantially more, as while there were around 100 mines in Southern Britain and Central France, silver was more rarely mined. This was due partly to the relative sparcity of mines and the amount of effort needed for extraction compared to the profit gained. As the Roman civilisation grew in importance and expanded its trade with the Celtic world, silver and bronze coinage became more common. This coincided with a major increase in gold production in Celtic areas to meet the Roman demand, due to the high value Romans put on the metal. The large number of gold mines in France is thought to be a major reason why Caesar invaded.

There are only very limited records from pre-Christian times written in Celtic languages. These are mostly inscriptions in the Roman and sometimes Greek alphabets. The Ogham script, an Early Medieval alphabet, was mostly used in early Christian times in Ireland and Scotland (but also in Wales and England), and was only used for ceremonial purposes such as inscriptions on gravestones. The available evidence is of a strong oral tradition, such as that preserved by bards in Ireland, and eventually recorded by monasteries. The oldest recorded rhyming poetry in the world is of Irish origin^[68] and is a transcription of a much older epic poem, leading some scholars to claim that the Celts invented rhyme. Celtic art also produced a great deal of intricate and beautiful metalwork, examples of which have been preserved by their distinctive burial rites.

In some regards the Atlantic Celts were conservative: for example, they still used chariots in combat long after they had been reduced to ceremonial roles by the Greeks and Romans. However, despite being outdated, Celtic chariot tactics were able to repel the invasion of Britain attempted by Julius Caesar.

According to Diodorus Siculus:

The Gauls are tall of body with rippling muscles and white of skin and their hair is blond, and not only naturally so for they also make it their practice by artificial means to increase the distinguishing colour which nature has given it. For they are always washing their hair in limewater and they pull it back from the forehead to the nape of the neck, with the result that their appearance is like that of Satyrs and Pans since the treatment of their hair makes it so heavy and coarse that it differs in no respect from the mane of horses. Some of them shave the beard but others let it grow a little; and the nobles shave their cheeks but they let the moustache grow until it covers the mouth.

Clothing

During the later Iron Age the Gauls generally wore long-sleeved shirts or tunics and long trousers (called braccae by the Romans).^[69] Clothes were made of wool or linen, with some silk being used by the rich. Cloaks were worn in the winter. Brooches and armlets were used, but the most famous item of jewellery was the torc, a neck collar of metal, sometimes gold. The horned Waterloo Helmet in the British Museum, which long set the standard for modern images of Celtic warriors, is in fact a unique survival, and may have been a piece for ceremonial rather than military wear.

Gender and sexual norms

According to Aristotle, most «belligerent nations» were strongly influenced by their women, but the Celts were unusual because their men openly preferred male lovers (Politics II 1269b).^[70] H. D. Rankin in Celts and the Classical World notes that «Athenaeus echoes this comment (603a) and so does Ammianus (30.9). It seems to be the general opinion of antiquity.»^[71] In book XIII of his Deipnosophists, the Roman Greek rhetorician and grammarian Athenaeus, repeating assertions made by Diodorus Siculus in the 1st century BC (Bibliotheca historica 5:32), wrote that Celtic women were beautiful but that the men preferred to sleep together. Diodorus went further, stating that «the young men will offer themselves to strangers and are insulted if the offer is refused». Rankin argues that the ultimate source of these assertions is likely to be Poseidonius and speculates that these authors may be recording male «bonding rituals».^[72]

The sexual freedom of women in Britain was noted by Cassius Dio:^[73]

…a very witty remark is reported to have been made by the wife of Argentocoxus, a Caledonian, to Julia Augusta. When the empress was jesting with her, after the treaty, about the free intercourse of her sex with men in Britain, she replied: «We fulfill the demands of nature in a much better way than do you Roman women; for we consort openly with the best men, whereas you let yourselves be debauched in secret by the vilest.» Such was the retort of the British woman.

There are instances recorded where women participated both in warfare and in kingship, although they were in the minority in these areas. Plutarch reports that Celtic women acted as ambassadors to avoid a war among Celts chiefdoms in the Po valley during the 4th century BC.^[74]

Very few reliable sources exist regarding Celtic views towards gender divisions and societal statues, though some archaeological evidence does suggest that their views towards gender roles may differ from contemporary and less egalitarian classical counterparts of the roman era.^[75][76]

There are some general indications from Iron Age burial sites in the Champagne and Bourgogne regions of Northeastern France which suggest that women may have had roles in combat during the earlier portions of the La Tène period. However, the evidence is far from conclusive.^[77] Examples of individuals buried with both female jewellery and weaponry have been identified, such as the Vix Grave, and there are questions about the sexing of some skeletons that were buried with warrior assemblages. However, it has been suggested that «the weapons may indicate rank instead of masculinity».^[78]

Among the insular Celts, there is a greater amount of historic documentation to suggest warrior roles for women. In addition to commentary by Tacitus about Boudica, there are indications from later period histories that also suggest a more substantial role for «women as warriors» in symbolic if not actual roles. Posidonius and Strabo described an island of women where men could not venture for fear of death, and where the women ripped each other apart.^[79] Other writers, such as Ammianus Marcellinus and Tacitus, mentioned Celtic women inciting, participating in, and leading battles.^[80] Poseidonius’ anthropological comments on the Celts had common themes, primarily primitivism, extreme ferocity, cruel sacrificial practices, and the strength and courage of their women.^[81]

Under Brehon Law, which was written down in early Medieval Ireland after conversion to Christianity, a woman had the right to divorce her husband and gain his property if he was unable to perform his marital duties due to impotence, obesity, homosexual inclination or preference for other women.^[82]

Celtic art

Celtic art is generally used by art historians to refer to art of the La Tène period across Europe, while the Early Medieval art of Britain and Ireland, that is what «Celtic art» evokes for much of the general public, is called Insular art in art history. Both styles absorbed considerable influences from non-Celtic sources, but retained a preference for geometrical decoration over figurative subjects, which are often extremely stylised when they do appear; narrative scenes only appear under outside influence. Energetic circular forms, triskeles and spirals are characteristic. Much of the surviving material is in precious metal, which no doubt gives a very unrepresentative picture, but apart from Pictish stones and the Insular high crosses, large monumental sculpture, even with decorative carving, is very rare; possibly it was originally common in wood.

The interlace patterns that are often regarded as typical of «Celtic art» were in fact introduced to Insular art from the animal Style II of Germanic Migration Period art, though taken up with great skill and enthusiasm by Celtic artists in metalwork and illuminated manuscripts. Equally, the forms used for the finest Insular art were all adopted from the Roman world: Gospel books like the Book of Kells and Book of Lindisfarne, chalices like the Ardagh Chalice and Derrynaflan Chalice, and penannular brooches like the Tara Brooch. These works are from the period of peak achievement of Insular art, which lasted from the 7th to the 9th centuries, before the Viking attacks sharply set back cultural life.

In contrast the less well known but often spectacular art of the richest earlier Continental Celts, before they were conquered by the Romans, often adopted elements of Roman, Greek and other «foreign» styles (and possibly used imported craftsmen) to decorate objects that were distinctively Celtic. After the Roman conquests, some Celtic elements remained in popular art, especially Ancient Roman pottery, of which Gaul was actually the largest producer, mostly in Italian styles, but also producing work in local taste, including figurines of deities and wares painted with animals and other subjects in highly formalised styles. Roman Britain also took more interest in enamel than most of the Empire, and its development of champlevé technique was probably important to the later Medieval art of the whole of Europe, of which the energy and freedom of Insular decoration was an important element.

Warfare and weapons

Principal sites in Roman Britain, with indication of the Celtic tribes. Tribal warfare appears to have been a regular feature of Celtic societies. While epic literature depicts this as more of a sport focused on raids and hunting rather than organised territorial conquest, the historical record is more of tribes using warfare to exert political control and harass rivals, for economic advantage, and in some instances to conquer territory.^{[citation needed]}

The Celts were described by classical writers such as Strabo, Livy, Pausanias, and Florus as fighting like «wild beasts», and as hordes. Dionysius said that their «manner of fighting, being in large measure that of wild beasts and frenzied, was an erratic procedure, quite lacking in military science. Thus, at one moment they would raise their swords aloft and smite after the manner of wild boars, throwing the whole weight of their bodies into the blow like hewers of wood or men digging with mattocks, and again they would deliver crosswise blows aimed at no target, as if they intended to cut to pieces the entire bodies of their adversaries, protective armour and all».^[83] Such descriptions have been challenged by contemporary historians.^[84]

Polybius (2.33) indicates that the principal Celtic weapon was a long bladed sword which was used for hacking edgewise rather than stabbing. Celtic warriors are described by Polybius and Plutarch as frequently having to cease fighting in order to straighten their sword blades. This claim has been questioned by some archaeologists, who note that Noric steel, steel produced in Celtic Noricum, was famous in the Roman Empire period and was used to equip the Roman military.^[85][86] However, Radomir Pleiner, in The Celtic Sword (1993) argues that «the metallographic evidence shows that Polybius was right up to a point», as around one third of surviving swords from the period might well have behaved as he describes.^[87]

Polybius also asserts that certain of the Celts fought naked, «The appearance of these naked warriors was a terrifying spectacle, for they were all men of splendid physique and in the prime of life.»^[88] According to Livy this was also true of the Celts of Asia Minor.^[89]

Head hunting

Celts had a reputation as head hunters. According to Paul Jacobsthal, «Amongst the Celts the human head was venerated above all else, since the head was to the Celt the soul, centre of the emotions as well as of life itself, a symbol of divinity and of the powers of the other-world.»^[90] Arguments for a Celtic cult of the severed head include the many sculptured representations of severed heads in La Tène carvings, and the surviving Celtic mythology, which is full of stories of the severed heads of heroes and the saints who carry their decapitated heads, right down to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, where the Green Knight picks up his own severed head after Gawain has struck it off, just as St. Denis carried his head to the top of Montmartre.

A further example of this regeneration after beheading lies in the tales of Connemara’s St. Feichin, who after being beheaded by Viking pirates carried his head to the Holy Well on Omey Island and on dipping the head into the well placed it back upon his neck and was restored to full health.

Diodorus Siculus, in his 1st century History had this to say about Celtic head-hunting:

They cut off the heads of enemies slain in battle and attach them to the necks of their horses. The blood-stained spoils they hand over to their attendants and striking up a paean and singing a song of victory; and they nail up these first fruits upon their houses, just as do those who lay low wild animals in certain kinds of hunting. They embalm in cedar oil the heads of the most distinguished enemies, and preserve them carefully in a chest, and display them with pride to strangers, saying that for this head one of their ancestors, or his father, or the man himself, refused the offer of a large sum of money. They say that some of them boast that they refused the weight of the head in gold

In Gods and Fighting Men, Lady Gregory’s Celtic Revival translation of Irish mythology, heads of men killed in battle are described in the beginning of the story The Fight With The Fir Bolgs as pleasing to Macha, one aspect of the war goddess Morrigu.

Religion

Polytheism

Like other European Iron Age tribal societies, the Celts practised a polytheistic religion.^[91] Many Celtic gods are known from texts and inscriptions from the Roman period. Rites and sacrifices were carried out by priests known as druids. The Celts did not see their gods as having human shapes until late in the Iron Age. Celtic shrines were situated in remote areas such as hilltops, groves, and lakes.

Celtic religious patterns were regionally variable; however, some patterns of deity forms, and ways of worshipping these deities, appeared over a wide geographical and temporal range. The Celts worshipped both gods and goddesses. In general, Celtic gods were deities of particular skills, such as the many-skilled Lugh and Dagda, while goddesses were associated with natural features, particularly rivers (such as Boann, goddess of the River Boyne). This was not universal, however, as goddesses such as Brighid and The Morrígan were associated with both natural features (holy wells and the River Unius) and skills such as blacksmithing and healing.^[92]

Triplicity is a common theme in Celtic cosmology, and a number of deities were seen as threefold.^[93] This trait is exhibited by The Three Mothers, a group of goddesses worshipped by many Celtic tribes (with regional variations).^[94]

The Celts had literally hundreds of deities, some of which were unknown outside a single family or tribe, while others were popular enough to have a following that crossed lingual and cultural barriers. For instance, the Irish god Lugh, associated with storms, lightning, and culture, is seen in similar forms as Lugos in Gaul and Lleu in Wales. Similar patterns are also seen with the continental Celtic horse goddess Epona and what may well be her Irish and Welsh counterparts, Macha and Rhiannon, respectively.^[95]

Roman reports of the druids mention ceremonies being held in sacred groves. La Tène Celts built temples of varying size and shape, though they also maintained shrines at sacred trees and votive pools.^[91]

Druids fulfilled a variety of roles in Celtic religion, serving as priests and religious officiants, but also as judges, sacrificers, teachers, and lore-keepers. Druids organised and ran religious ceremonies, and they memorised and taught the calendar. Other classes of druids performed ceremonial sacrifices of crops and animals for the perceived benefit of the community.^[96]

Gallic Calendar

The Coligny calendar, which was found in 1897 in Coligny, Ain, was engraved on a bronze tablet, preserved in 73 fragments, that originally was 1.48 m wide and 0.9 m high (Lambert p. 111). Based on the style of lettering and the accompanying objects, it probably dates to the end of the 2nd century.^[97] It is written in Latin inscriptional capitals, and is in the Gallic language. The restored tablet contains 16 vertical columns, with 62 months distributed over 5 years.

The French archaeologist J. Monard speculated that it was recorded by druids wishing to preserve their tradition of timekeeping in a time when the Julian calendar was imposed throughout the Roman Empire. However, the general form of the calendar suggests the public peg calendars (or parapegmata) found throughout the Greek and Roman world.^[98]

There were four major festivals in the Gallic Calendar: «Imbolc» on 1 February, possibly linked to the lactation of the ewes and sacred to the Irish Goddess Brigid. «Beltaine» on 1 May, connected to fertility and warmth, possibly linked to the Sun God Belenos. «Lúnasa» on 1 August, connected with the harvest and associated with the God Lugh. And finally «Samhain» on 1 November, possibly the start of the year.^[99] Two of these festivals, Beltaine and Lúnasa are shown on the Coligny Calendar by sigils, and it is easy to imagine that the first month on the Calendar (Samonios) matches Samhain. However, Imbolc does not seem to be shown at all.^[100]

Roman Influence

The Roman invasion of Gaul brought a great deal of Celtic peoples into the Roman Empire. Roman culture had a profound effect on the Celtic tribes which came under the empire’s control. Roman influence led to many changes in Celtic religion, the most noticeable of which was the weakening of the druid class, especially religiously; the druids were to eventually disappear altogether. Romano-Celtic deities also began to appear: these deities often had both Roman and Celtic attributes and combined the names of Roman and Celtic deities. Other changes included the adaptation of the Jupiter Pole, a sacred pole which was used throughout Celtic regions of the empire, primarily in the north. Another major change in religious practice was the use of stone monuments to represent gods and goddesses. The Celts had only created wooden idols (including monuments carved into trees, which were known as sacred poles) previously to Roman conquest.^[94]

Celtic Christianity

While the regions under Roman rule adopted Christianity along with the rest of the Roman empire, unconquered areas of Ireland and Scotland moved from Celtic polytheism to Christianity in the 5th century AD. Ireland was converted under missionaries from Britain, such as Patrick. Later missionaries from Ireland were a major source of missionary work in Scotland, Saxon parts of Britain, and central Europe (see Hiberno-Scottish mission). The term Celtic Christianity has been applied to the forms of Christianity that took hold in Britain and Ireland at this time, with especial reference to its traditions that were distinct from the rest of Western Christianity. The development of Christianity in Ireland and Britain brought an early medieval renaissance of Celtic art between 390 and 1200 AD.^[101][102] Many of the styles now thought of as typically «Celtic» developed in this period, and are found throughout much of Ireland and Britain, including the northeast and far north of Scotland, Orkney and Shetland. Notable works produced during this period include the Book of Kells and the Ardagh Chalice. Antiquarian interest from the 17th century led to the term Celt being extended, and rising nationalism brought Celtic revivals from the 19th century.

See also

• Celtic nations
• Celtic languages
• Ethnic groups of Europe
• Modern Celts

Notes

Literature

• Alberro, Manuel and Arnold, Bettina (eds.), e-Keltoi: Journal of Interdisciplinary Celtic Studies, Volume 6: The Celts in the Iberian Peninsula, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, Center for Celtic Studies, 2005.
• Collis, John. The Celts: Origins, Myths and Inventions. Stroud: Tempus Publishing, 2003. ISBN 0-7524-2913-2. Historiography of Celtic studies.
• Cunliffe, Barry. The Ancient Celts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-19-815010-5.
• Cunliffe, Barry. Iron Age Britain. London: Batsford, 2004. ISBN 0-7134-8839-5
• Cunliffe, Barry. The Celts: A Very Short Introduction. 2003
• Freeman, Philip Mitchell The Earliest Classical Sources on the Celts: A Linguistic and Historical Study. Diss. Harvard University, 1994. (link)
• Gamito, Teresa J. The Celts in Portugal. In E-Keltoi, Journal of Interdisciplinary Celtic Studies, vol. 6. 2005.
• Haywood, John. Historical Atlas of the Celtic World. 2001.
• Herm, Gerhard. The Celts: The People who Came out of the Darkness. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1977.
• James, Simon. Exploring the World of the Celts 1993.
• James, Simon. The Atlantic Celts — Ancient People Or Modern Invention? Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, August 1999. ISBN 0-299-16674-0.
• James, Simon & Rigby, Valerie. Britain and the Celtic Iron Age. London: British Museum Press, 1997. ISBN 0-7141-2306-4.
• Kruta, V., O. Frey, Barry Raftery and M. Szabo. eds. The Celts. New York: Thames & Hudson, 1991. ISBN 0-8478-2193-5. A translation of Les Celtes: Histoire et Dictionnaire 2000.
• Laing, Lloyd. The Archaeology of Late Celtic Britain and Ireland c. 400–1200 AD. London: Methuen, 1975. ISBN 0-416-82360-2
• Laing, Lloyd and Jenifer Laing. Art of the Celts, London: Thames and Hudson, 1992 ISBN 0-500-20256-7
• MacKillop, James. A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN 0-19-280120-1
• Maier, Bernhard: Celts: A History from Earliest Times to the Present. University of Notre Dame Press 2003. ISBN 978-0268023614
• McEvedy, Colin. The Penguin Atlas of Ancient History. New York: Penguin, 1985. ISBN 0-14-070832-4
• Mallory, J. P. In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology and Myth. London: Thames and Hudson, 1991. ISBN 0-500-27616-1.
• O’Rahilly, T. F. Early Irish History Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1946.
• Powell, T. G. E. The Celts. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1980. third ed. 1997. ISBN 0-500-27275-1.
• Raftery, Barry. Pagan Celtic Ireland: The Enigma of the Irish Iron Age. London: Thames & Hudson, 1994. ISBN 0-500-27983-7.

External links

Additional articles

• Ancient Celtic music — in the Citizendium
• Essays on Celtiberian topics — in e-Keltoi, University of Wisconsin, Madison
• Ancient Celtic Warriors in History

Geography

• An interactive map showing the lands of the Celts between 800BC and 305AD.
• Detailed map of the Pre-Roman Peoples of Iberia (around 200 BC), showing the Celtic territories
• Map of Celtic lands

Multimedia

• Discussion — with academician Barry Cunliffe, on BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time, February 21, 2002. (Streaming Realplayer format)
• «The Primitive Celts» — part of Terry Jones’ Barbarians, June 2006.

Organisations

• newworldcelts.org
• XIII. International Congress of Celtic Studies in Bonn

Special interest

• Related Nordic-Celtic DNA material — at FamilyTreeDNA.com
• http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/celts-descended-from-spanish-fishermen-study-finds-416727.html

‘Hey – I’ve just read a Celtic Symbol guide and I’ve a question… Who were the Celts.. were they Irish?’

Since publishing a detailed guide to Celtic symbols and their meanings a year or so ago, we’ve had 150+ questions about the ancient Celts.

Questions like ‘Where did the Celts come from?’ and ‘what did the Celts look like?’ hit our inboxes on a weekly basis, and have done for quite some time.

So, in an attempt to educate both myself and those of you that visit this site, I’ve spent many an hour researching everything from the origin of the Celts to what they ate.

You’ll find a factual, easy-to-follow and no-BS guide to the Celts in the guide below! Dive on in and let me know if you have a question in the comments section!

The ancient Celts weren’t Irish. They weren’t Scottish, either. In fact, they were a collection of people/clans from Europe that are identified by their language and cultural similarities.

They existed in a number of different areas in Europe north of the Mediterranean from the Late Bronze Age onwards, thanks to their frequent migration over the years.

They were given the name ‘Celts’ by ancient writers. It’s thought that a Greek geographer, named Hecataeus of Miletus, was the first to use the name in 517 BC when he was writing about a group living in France.

Below, you’ll discover a heap of information to help you understand who were the Celts, what they believed, what they ate and much more.

Quick Facts About the Celts

If you’re stuck for time, I’ve popped together some need-to-know facts about the Celts that should bring you up to speed quickly:

• The first record of the existence of the Celts dates back to 700 BC
• The Celts were not ‘one people’ – they were a collection of tribes
• Contrary to popular belief, they weren’t from Ireland or Scotland
• The Celts are thought to have arrived in Ireland around 500 BC
• Ogham was a Celtic script that was used in Ireland from the 4th century
• The Celts lived across much of Europe
• They were fierce warriors (they beat the Romans on a number of occasions)
• The use of storytelling was brought to Ireland by the Celts (this gave birth to Irish mythology and Irish folklore)

Where did the Celts come from originally?

The exact origin of the Celts is a topic that causes a lot of heated debate online. Although it’s widely believed that Celtic culture dates as far back as 1200 BC, their exact origin is unknown. 

There are many strong links to suggest that they came from an area close to the Upper Danube River but, again, this is disputed.

What language did the Celts speak?

The Celts contributed greatly to European culture and language. Now, don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t that those already living in Europe couldn’t communicate effectively, but the Celts language was adopted relatively quickly by many ‘non-Celts’.

It’s thought that the Celtic language gained momentum as they travelled, traded and communicated with various different people.

The Celtic language belongs to what’s known as the ‘Indo-European’ family of languages. In the years that followed 1000 BC, the language spread to Turkey, Scotland, Switzerland and Iberia. 

The language began to die out (literally…) after 100 BC, after Roman conquests in Portugal, Spain, France and England. In the years that followed, the language slowly began to whittle away. However, it survived in a number of places, like Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

Where did the Celts live?

The Celts didn’t just live in one place – they were a group of tribes that were spread right the way across Europe. The Celts were known for migrating. Over the years, they were known to reside in Ireland, Britain, Frace, Scotland, Wales, Turkey and France and many more places.

When did the Celts arrive in Ireland?

Now, this is another (yes, I know…) topic that tends to cause heated debate. When the Celts arrived in Ireland is unclear, for a very definitive reason.

Before Christianity arrived in Ireland, there were no written accounts of history. With that being said, there is sign of Celtic influence in Ireland between the years 800BC and 400BC.

What did the Celts look like?

It’s believed that the Celts were well-groomed, a belief that would appear to be backed up by the discovery of a number of tools that were used for cutting hair and, presumably, beards.

The men wore a tunic that stretched down to their knees along with a pair of trousers that were called ‘Bracae’. 

Women are known to have worn long, loose-fitting dresses made from linen that was woven from the flax that they grew.

What religion were they?

The Celts were what’s known as ‘Polytheists’, which means that they believed in a number of different gods and goddesses. 

There wasn’t one central religion that the many different groups of Celts followed. In fact, different groups of Celts held different beliefs.

If you read our guide to Celtic symbols, you’ll see that many of the designs that they created were closely linked to spirituality.

What happened to the Celts?

Many of the Celts were brought under the control of the Roman Empire. The Celts that resided in the north of Italy were conquered at the start of the second century.

Those living in parts of Spain were dominated over the course of a number of wars that took place during the first and second centuries.

The Gauls (a group of ancient Celts living in France) were conquered towards the latter end of the second century and during the middle of the first century.

Over a number of centuries of Roman rule in Britain, the Celts lost their language and much of their culture, as they were forced to adopt the Roman way.

What did the Celts eat?

The Celts maintained a diet like many Europeans at the time and survived mainly on grains, meat, fruits and vegetables. 

It’s widely accepted that the Celts in Ireland were skilled farmers and lived off of the produce of their work. They reared sheep and cattle, from which they would get milk, butter, cheese and, eventually, meat.

Were the Celts Irish?

Although many assume that the Celts came from Ireland, this isn’t the case. Although some groups of Celts did travel and live on the island of Ireland, they were not from Ireland.

An Easy-to-Follow History of the Celts

The ancient Celts were a collection of people that originated in central Europe and that shared similar culture, language and beliefs.

Over the years, the Celts migrated. They spread across Europe and set up shop everywhere from Turkey and Ireland to Britain and Spain.

The first record of the origin of the Celts was in documentation kept by the Greeks, and it cited their existence to around 700 BC. We can take it for granted that these ancient people existed long before this.

Enter the Romans

The Celts were fierce warriors and, by the 3rd century BC, they had a stronghold on a large chunk of Europe, north of the Alps.

Then the Roman Empire set off on a conquest to expand their control on Europe. Under the leadership of Julius Caesar in the 1st century BC, the Romans killed large numbers of Celts, wiping out their language and culture in many parts of Europe.

One of the countries that Ceasar tried to invade at the time was Britain, but his attempt fell flat. This is why Celtic traditions and language survived in many parts of Scotland, Wales and Ireland.

Who were the Celts? Wrapping it up!

I realise that the above is a very speedy history of the Celts. It’s intended to help you gain a quick understanding of who they were and to offer some insight into their past.

The Celts didn’t live the way many of us perceive that they did – up until a few years ago I genuinely believed that the majority of Celts lived in the one location.

That couldn’t have been further than the truth. The Celts were a loose collection of tribes and communities that came together for trading, defence and worship.

This article is about the ancient and medieval peoples of Europe. For Celts of the present day, see Celts (modern). For other uses, see Celt (disambiguation).

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The Celts (/kɛlts[unsupported input]sɛlts/, see pronunciation of Celt for different usages) are^[1] a collection of Indo-European peoples^[2] of Europe identified by their use of the Celtic languages^[2] and other cultural similarities.^[3] The history of pre-Celtic Europe and the exact relationship between ethnic, linguistic and cultural factors in the Celtic world remains uncertain and controversial.^[4] The exact geographic spread of the ancient Celts is disputed; in particular, the ways in which the Iron Age inhabitants of Great Britain and Ireland should be regarded as Celts have become a subject of controversy.^[3][4][5][6] According to one theory, the common root of the Celtic languages, the Proto-Celtic language, arose in the Late Bronze Age Urnfield culture of Central Europe, which flourished from around 1200 BC.^[7]

According to another theory proposed in the 19th century, the first people to adopt cultural characteristics regarded as Celtic were the people of the Iron Age Hallstatt culture in central Europe (c. 800–450 BC), named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria.^[7][8] It is thus that this area is sometimes called the «Celtic homeland». By or during the later La Tène period (c. 450 BC to the Roman conquest), this Celtic culture was supposed to have expanded by trans-cultural diffusion or migration to the British Isles (Insular Celts), France and the Low Countries (Gauls), Bohemia, Poland and much of Central Europe, the Iberian Peninsula (Celtiberians, Celtici, Lusitanians and Gallaeci) and northern Italy (Golasecca culture and Cisalpine Gauls)^[9] and, following the Celtic settlement of Eastern Europe beginning in 279 BC, as far east as central Anatolia (Galatians) in modern-day Turkey.^[10]

The earliest undisputed direct examples of a Celtic language are the Lepontic inscriptions beginning in the 6th century BC.^[11] Continental Celtic languages are attested almost exclusively through inscriptions and place-names. Insular Celtic languages are attested beginning around the 4th century in Ogham inscriptions, although they were clearly being spoken much earlier. Celtic literary tradition begins with Old Irish texts around the 8th century AD. Coherent texts of Early Irish literature, such as the Táin Bó Cúailnge («Cattle Raid of Cooley«), survive in 12th-century recensions.

By the mid-1st millennium, with the expansion of the Roman Empire and migrating Germanic tribes, Celtic culture and Insular Celtic languages had become restricted to Ireland, the western and northern parts of Great Britain (Wales, Scotland, and Cornwall), the Isle of Man, and Brittany. Between the 5th and 8th centuries, the Celtic-speaking communities in these Atlantic regions emerged as a reasonably cohesive cultural entity. They had a common linguistic, religious and artistic heritage that distinguished them from the culture of the surrounding polities.^[12] By the 6th century, however, the Continental Celtic languages were no longer in wide use.

Insular Celtic culture diversified into that of the Gaels (Irish, Scottish and Manx) and the Celtic Britons (Welsh, Cornish, and Bretons) of the medieval and modern periods.^[13][14] A modern Celtic identity was constructed as part of the Romanticist Celtic Revival in Great Britain, Ireland, and other European territories, such as Portugal and Spanish Galicia.^[15] Today, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, and Breton are still spoken in parts of their historical territories, and Cornish and Manx are undergoing a revival.

Names and terminology

File:Galician Celtic Stele — Estela Galaica.jpg

Main article: Names of the Celts

The first recorded use of the name of Celts – as Κελτοί (Keltoi) in Greek – to refer to an ethnic group was by Hecataeus of Miletus, the Greek geographer, in 517 BC,^[16] when writing about a people living near Massilia (modern Marseille).^[17] In the fifth century BC, Herodotus referred to Keltoi living around the head of the Danube and also in the far west of Europe.^[18] The etymology of the term Keltoi is unclear. Possible roots include Indo-European *kʲel ‘to hide’ (present also in Old Irish ceilid), IE *kʲel ‘to heat’ or *kel ‘to impel’.^[19] Several authors have supposed it to be Celtic in origin, while others view it as a name coined by Greeks. Linguist Patrizia De Bernardo Stempel falls in the latter group, and suggests the meaning «the tall ones».^[20]

In the 1st century BC, Julius Caesar reported that the people known to the Romans as Gauls (Latin: Galli) called themselves Celts,^[21] which suggests that even if the name Keltoi was bestowed by the Greeks, it had been adopted to some extent as a collective name by the tribes of Gaul. The geographer Strabo, writing about Gaul towards the end of the first century BC, refers to the «race which is now called both Gallic and Galatic,» though he also uses the term Celtica as a synonym for Gaul, which is separated from Iberia by the Pyrenees. Yet he reports Celtic peoples in Iberia, and also uses the ethnic names Celtiberi and Celtici for peoples there, as distinct from Lusitani and Iberi.^[22] Pliny the Elder cited the use of Celtici in Lusitania as a tribal surname,^[23] which epigraphic findings have confirmed.^[24][25]

Latin Gallus (pl. Galli) might stem from a Celtic ethnic or tribal name originally, perhaps one borrowed into Latin during the Celtic expansions into Italy during the early fifth century BC. Its root may be the Proto-Celtic *galno, meaning «power, strength», hence Old Irish gal «boldness, ferocity» and Welsh gallu «to be able, power». The tribal names of Gallaeci and the Greek Γαλάται (Galatai, Latinized Galatae; see the region Galatia in Anatolia) most probably have the same origin.^[26] The suffix -atai might be an Ancient Greek inflection.^[27] Classical writers did not apply the terms Κελτοί (Keltoi) or Celtae to the inhabitants of Britain or Ireland,^[3][4][5] which has led to some scholars preferring not to use the term for the Iron Age inhabitants of those islands.^[3][4][5][6]

Celt is a modern English word, first attested in 1707, in the writing of Edward Lhuyd, whose work, along with that of other late 17th-century scholars, brought academic attention to the languages and history of the early Celtic inhabitants of Great Britain.^[28] The English form Gaul (first recorded in the 17th century) and Gaulish come from the French Gaule and Gaulois, a borrowing from Frankish *Walholant, «Roman land» (see Gaul: Name), the root of which is Proto-Germanic *walha-, «foreigner, Roman, Celt», whence the English word Welsh (Old English wælisċ < *walhiska-), South German welsch, meaning «Celtic speaker», «French speaker» or «Italian speaker» in different contexts, and Old Norse valskr, pl. valir, «Gaulish, French»). Proto-Germanic *walha is derived ultimately from the name of the Volcae,^[29] a Celtic tribe who lived first in the south of Germany and in central Europe and then migrated to Gaul.^[30] This means that English Gaul, despite its superficial similarity, is not actually derived from Latin Gallia (which should have produced **Jaille in French), though it does refer to the same ancient region.

Celtic refers to a family of languages and, more generally, means «of the Celts» or «in the style of the Celts». Several archaeological cultures are considered Celtic in nature, based on unique sets of artefacts. The link between language and artefact is aided by the presence of inscriptions.^[31] The relatively modern idea of an identifiable Celtic cultural identity or «Celticity» generally focuses on similarities among languages, works of art, and classical texts,^[32] and sometimes also among material artefacts, social organisation, homeland and mythology.^[33] Earlier theories held that these similarities suggest a common racial origin for the various Celtic peoples, but more recent theories hold that they reflect a common cultural and language heritage more than a genetic one. Celtic cultures seem to have been widely diverse, with the use of a Celtic language being the main thing they had in common.^[3]

Today, the term Celtic generally refers to the languages and respective cultures of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, the Isle of Man, and Brittany, also known as the Celtic nations. These are the regions where four Celtic languages are still spoken to some extent as mother tongues. The four are Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, and Breton; plus two recent revivals, Cornish (one of the Brittonic languages) and Manx (one of the Goidelic languages). There are also attempts to reconstruct Cumbric, a Brittonic language from North West England and South West Scotland. Celtic regions of Continental Europe are those whose residents claim a Celtic heritage, but where no Celtic language has survived; these areas include the western Iberian Peninsula, i.e. Portugal and north-central Spain (Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, Castile and León, Extremadura).^[34]

Continental Celts are the Celtic-speaking people of mainland Europe and Insular Celts are the Celtic-speaking peoples of the British and Irish islands and their descendants. The Celts of Brittany derive their language from migrating insular Celts, mainly from Wales and Cornwall, and so are grouped accordingly.^[35]

Origins

File:Hallstatt LaTene.png

Main articles: Pre-Celtic and Celticization

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The Celtic languages form a branch of the larger Indo-European family. By the time speakers of Celtic languages entered history around 400 BC, they were already split into several language groups, and spread over much of Western continental Europe, the Iberian Peninsula, Ireland and Britain.
The Greek historian Ephorus of Cyme in Asia Minor, writing in the 4th century BC, believed that the Celts came from the islands off the mouth of the Rhine and were «driven from their homes by the frequency of wars and the violent rising of the sea».

Hallstatt culture

Some scholars think that the Urnfield culture of western Middle Europe represents an origin for the Celts as a distinct cultural branch of the Indo-European family.^[7] This culture was preeminent in central Europe during the late Bronze Age, from circa 1200 BC until 700 BC, itself following the Unetice and Tumulus cultures. The Urnfield period saw a dramatic increase in population in the region, probably due to innovations in technology and agriculture.

The spread of iron-working led to the development of the Hallstatt culture directly from the Urnfield (c. 700 to 500 BC). Proto-Celtic, the latest common ancestor of all known Celtic languages, is considered by this school of thought to have been spoken at the time of the late Urnfield or early Hallstatt cultures, in the early 1st millennium BC. The spread of the Celtic languages to Iberia, Ireland and Britain would have occurred during the first half of the 1st millennium BC, the earliest chariot burials in Britain dating to c. 500 BC. Other scholars see Celtic languages as covering Britain and Ireland, and parts of the Continent, long before any evidence of «Celtic» culture is found in archaeology. Over the centuries the language(s) developed into the separate Celtiberian, Goidelic and Brittonic languages.

The Hallstatt culture was succeeded by the La Tène culture of central Europe, which was overrun by the Roman Empire, though traces of La Tène style are still to be seen in Gallo-Roman artefacts. In Britain and Ireland La Tène style in art survived precariously to re-emerge in Insular art. Early Irish literature casts light on the flavour and tradition of the heroic warrior elites who dominated Celtic societies. Celtic river-names are found in great numbers around the upper reaches of the Danube and Rhine, which led many Celtic scholars to place the ethnogenesis of the Celts in this area.

Diodorus Siculus and Strabo both suggest that the heartland of the people they called Celts was in southern France. The former says that the Gauls were to the north of the Celts, but that the Romans referred to both as Gauls (in linguistic terms the Gauls were certainly Celts). Before the discoveries at Hallstatt and La Tène, it was generally considered that the Celtic heartland was southern France, see Encyclopædia Britannica for 1813.

Atlantic seaboard theory

Myles Dillon and Nora Kershaw Chadwick accepted that «the Celtic settlement of the British Isles» might have to be dated to the Bell Beaker culture concluding that «There is no reason why so early a date for the coming of the Celts should be impossible».^[36][37] Martín Almagro Gorbea^[38] proposed the origins of the Celts could be traced back to the 3rd millennium BC, also seeking the initial roots in the Beaker period, thus offering the wide dispersion of the Celts throughout western Europe, as well as the variability of the different Celtic peoples, and the existence of ancestral traditions and ancient perspective. Using a multidisciplinary approach, Alberto J. Lorrio and Gonzalo Ruiz Zapatero reviewed and built on Almagro Gorbea’s work to present a model for the origin of the Celtic archaeological groups in the Iberian Peninsula (Celtiberian, Vetton, Vaccean, the Castro culture of the northwest, Asturian—Cantabrian and Celtic of the southwest) and proposing a rethinking of the meaning of «Celtic» from a European perspective.^[39] More recently, John Koch^[40] and Barry Cunliffe^[41] have suggested that Celtic origins lie with the Atlantic Bronze Age, roughly contemporaneous with the Hallstatt culture but positioned considerably to the West, extending along the Atlantic coast of Europe.

Stephen Oppenheimer^[42] points out that the only written evidence that locates the Keltoi near the source of the Danube (i.e. in the Hallstatt region) is in the Histories of Herodotus. However, Oppenheimer shows that Herodotus seemed to believe the Danube rose near the Pyrenees, which would place the Ancient Celts in a region which is more in agreement with later classical writers and historians (i.e. in Gaul and the Iberian peninsula).

Linguistic evidence

Main article: Proto-Celtic language

Further information: Celtic toponymy

The Proto-Celtic language is usually dated to the Late Bronze Age.^[7] The earliest records of a Celtic language are the Lepontic inscriptions of Cisalpine Gaul (Northern Italy), the oldest of which predate the La Tène period. Other early inscriptions, appearing from the early La Tène period in the area of Massilia, are in Gaulish, which was written in the Greek alphabet until the Roman conquest. Celtiberian inscriptions, using their own Iberian script, appear later, after about 200 BC. Evidence of Insular Celtic is available only from about 400 AD, in the form of Primitive Irish Ogham inscriptions.

Besides epigraphical evidence, an important source of information on early Celtic is toponymy.^[43]

Genetic evidence

Historically many scholars postulated that there was genetic evidence of a common origin of the European Atlantic populations i.e.: Orkney Islands, Scottish, Irish, British, Bretons, Iberians (Basques, Galicians), Guanches and Berbers.^[44]

More recent genetic evidence does not support the notion of a significant genetic link between these populations, beyond the fact that they are all West Eurasians. Sardinian-like Neolithic farmers did populate Britain (and all of Northern Europe) during the Neolithic period, however, recent genetics research has claimed that, between 2400BC and 2000BC, over 90% of British DNA was overturned by a North European population of ultimate Russian Steppe origin as part of an ongoing migration process that brought large amounts of Steppe DNA (including the R1b haplogroup) to North and West Europe.^[45] Modern autosomal genetic clustering is testament to this fact, as both modern and Iron Age British and Irish samples cluster genetically very closely with other North European populations, and limited with Galicians, Basques or those from the south of France.^[46][47] Such findings have largely put to rest the theory that there is a significant ancestral genetic link (beyond being Europeans) between the various ‘Celtic’ peoples in the Atlantic area, instead, they are related in that male lines are brother R1b L151 subclades with the local native maternal line admixture explaining the genetic distance noted.

Archaeological evidence

Further information: Iron Age Europe

File:Hallstatt culture.png

File:Herodotus world map-en.svg

Before the 19th century, scholarsTemplate:Who assumed that the original land of the Celts was west of the Rhine, more precisely in Gaul, because it was where Greek and Roman ancient sources, namely Caesar, located the Celts. This view was challenged by the 19th-century historian Marie Henri d’Arbois de Jubainville [citation needed]

who placed the land of origin of the Celts east of the Rhine. Jubainville based his arguments on a phrase of Herodotus' that placed the Celts at the source of the Danube, and argued that Herodotus had meant to place the Celtic homeland in southern Germany.

The finding of the prehistoric cemetery of Hallstat in 1846 by Johan Ramsauer and the finding of the archaeological site of La Tène by Hansli Kopp in 1857 drew attention to this area.

The concept that the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures could be seen not just as chronological periods but as «Culture Groups», entities composed of people of the same ethnicity and language, had started to grow by the end of the 19th century. At the beginning of the 20th century the belief that these «Culture Groups» could be thought of in racial or ethnic terms was strongly held by Gordon Childe whose theory was influenced by the writings of Gustaf Kossinna.^[48] As the 20th century progressed, the racial ethnic interpretation of La Tène culture became much more strongly rooted, and any findings of La Tène culture and flat inhumation cemeteries were directly associated with the Celts and the Celtic language.^[49]
The Iron Age Hallstatt (c. 800–475 BC) and La Tène (c. 500–50 BC) cultures are typically associated with Proto-Celtic and Celtic culture.^[50]

File:Celts in III century BC.jpg

In various^{[clarification needed]} academic disciplines the Celts were considered a Central European Iron Age phenomenon, through the cultures of Hallstatt and La Tène. However, archaeological finds from the Halstatt and La Tène culture were rare in the Iberian Peninsula, in southwestern France, northern and western Britain, southern Ireland and Galatia^[52][53] and did not provide enough evidence for a cultural scenario comparable to that of Central Europe. It is considered equally difficult to maintain that the origin of the Peninsular Celts can be linked to the preceding Urnfield culture. This has resulted in a more recent approach that introduces a ‘proto-Celtic’ substratum and a process of Celticisation, having its initial roots in the Bronze Age Bell Beaker culture.^[54]

The La Tène culture developed and flourished during the late Iron Age (from 450 BC to the Roman conquest in the 1st century BC) in eastern France, Switzerland, Austria, southwest Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. It developed out of the Hallstatt culture without any definite cultural break, under the impetus of considerable Mediterranean influence from Greek, and later Etruscan civilisations. A shift of settlement centres took place in the 4th century.

The western La Tène culture corresponds to historical Celtic Gaul. Whether this means that the whole of La Tène culture can be attributed to a unified Celtic people is difficult to assess; archaeologists have repeatedly concluded that language, material culture, and political affiliation do not necessarily run parallel. Frey notes that in the 5th century, «burial customs in the Celtic world were not uniform; rather, localised groups had their own beliefs, which, in consequence, also gave rise to distinct artistic expressions».^[55] Thus, while the La Tène culture is certainly associated with the Gauls, the presence of La Tène artefacts may be due to cultural contact and does not imply the permanent presence of Celtic speakers.

File:Map Gallia Tribes Towns.png

File:Divinka minca.jpg

Historical evidence

Polybius published a history of Rome about 150 BC in which he describes the Gauls of Italy and their conflict with Rome. Pausanias in the 2nd century AD says that the Gauls «originally called Celts», «live on the remotest region of Europe on the coast of an enormous tidal sea». Posidonius described the southern Gauls about 100 BC. Though his original work is lost it was used by later writers such as Strabo. The latter, writing in the early 1st century AD, deals with Britain and Gaul as well as Hispania, Italy and Galatia. Caesar wrote extensively about his Gallic Wars in 58–51 BC. Diodorus Siculus wrote about the Celts of Gaul and Britain in his 1st-century history.

Distribution

Continental Celts

Gaul

Main article: Gauls

The Romans knew the Celts then living in present-day France as Gauls. The territory of these peoples probably included the Low Countries, the Alps and present-day northern Italy. Julius Caesar in his Gallic Wars described the 1st-century BC descendants of those Gauls.

Eastern Gaul became the centre of the western La Tène culture. In later Iron Age Gaul, the social organisation resembled that of the Romans, with large towns. From the 3rd century BC the Gauls adopted coinage. Texts with Greek characters from southern Gaul have survived from the 2nd century BC.

Greek traders founded Massalia about 600 BC, with some objects (mostly drinking ceramics) being traded up the Rhone valley. But trade became disrupted soon after 500 BC and re-oriented over the Alps to the Po valley in the Italian peninsula. The Romans arrived in the Rhone valley in the 2nd century BC and encountered a mostly Celtic-speaking Gaul. Rome wanted land communications with its Iberian provinces and fought a major battle with the Saluvii at Entremont in 124–123 BC. Gradually Roman control extended, and the Roman Province of Gallia Transalpina developed along the Mediterranean coast.^[56][57] The Romans knew the remainder of Gaul as Gallia Comata – «Hairy Gaul».

In 58 BC the Helvetii planned to migrate westward but Julius Caesar forced them back. He then became involved in fighting the various tribes in Gaul, and by 55 BC had overrun most of Gaul. In 52 BC Vercingetorix led a revolt against the Roman occupation but was defeated at the Siege of Alesia and surrendered.

Following the Gallic Wars of 58–51 BC, Caesar’s Celtica formed the main part of Roman Gaul, becoming the province of Gallia Lugdunensis. This territory of the Celtic tribes was bounded on the south by the Garonne and on the north by the Seine and the Marne.^[58] The Romans attached large swathes of this region to neighboring provinces Belgica and Aquitania, particularly under Augustus.

Place- and personal-name analysis and inscriptions suggest that the Gaulish Celtic language was spoken over most of what is now France.^[59][60]

Iberia

File:Iberia 300BC-en.svg

Main articles: Celtiberians and Gallaeci

See also: Castro culture, Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula, Prehistoric Iberia, Hispania, Lusitania, Gallaecia, Celtici, and Vettones

Until the end of the 19th century, traditional scholarship dealing with the Celts did acknowledge their presence in the Iberian Peninsula^[61][62] as a material culture relatable to the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures. However, since according to the definition of the Iron Age in the 19th century Celtic populations were supposedly rare in Iberia and did not provide a cultural scenario that could easily be linked to that of Central Europe, the presence of Celtic culture in that region was generally not fully recognised. Modern scholarship, however, has clearly proven that Celtic presence and influences were most substantial in what is today Spain and Portugal (with perhaps the highest settlement saturation in Western Europe), particularly in the central, western and northern regions.^[63][64]

In addition to Gauls infiltrating from the north of the Pyrenees, the Roman and Greek sources mention Celtic populations in three parts of the Iberian Peninsula: the eastern part of the Meseta (inhabited by the Celtiberians), the southwest (Celtici, in modern-day Alentejo) and the northwest (Gallaecia and Asturias).^[65] A modern scholarly review^[66] found several archaeological groups of Celts in Spain:

• The Celtiberian group in the Upper-Douro Upper-Tagus Upper-Jalón area.^[67] Archaeological data suggest a continuity at least from the 6th century BC. In this early period, the Celtiberians inhabited in hill-forts (Castros). Around the end of the 3rd century BC, Celtiberians adopted more urban ways of life. From the 2nd century BC, they minted coins and wrote inscriptions using the Celtiberian script. These inscriptions make the Celtiberian Language the only Hispano-Celtic language classified as Celtic with unanimous agreement.^[68] In the late period, before the Roman Conquest, both archaeological evidence and Roman sources suggest that the Celtiberians were expanding into different areas in the Peninsula (e.g. Celtic Baeturia).
• The Vetton group in the western Meseta, between the Tormes, Douro and Tagus Rivers. They were characterised by the production of Verracos, sculptures of bulls and pigs carved in granite.
• The Vaccean group in the central Douro valley. They were mentioned by Roman sources already in the 220 BC. Some of their funerary rituals suggest strong influences from their Celtiberian neighbours.

File:Torque de Santa Tegra 1.JPG

• The Castro Culture in northwestern Iberia, modern day Galicia and Northern Portugal.^[69] Its high degree of continuity, from the Late Bronze Age, makes it difficult to support that the introduction of Celtic elements was due to the same process of Celticization of the western Iberia, from the nucleus area of Celtiberia. Two typical elements are the sauna baths with monumental entrances, and the «Gallaecian Warriors», stone sculptures built in the 1st century AD. A large group of Latin inscriptions contain linguistic features that are clearly Celtic, while others are similar to those found in the non-Celtic Lusitanian language.^[68]
• The Astures and the Cantabri. This area was romanised late, as it was not conquered by Rome until the Cantabrian Wars of 29–19 BC.
• Celts in the southwest, in the area Strabo called Celtica^[70]

The origins of the Celtiberians might provide a key to understanding the Celticisation process in the rest of the Peninsula. The process of Celticisation of the southwestern area of the peninsula by the Keltoi and of the northwestern area is, however, not a simple Celtiberian question. Recent investigations about the Callaici^[71] and Bracari^[72] in northwestern Portugal are providing new approaches to understanding Celtic culture (language, art and religion) in western Iberia.^[73]

John T. Koch of Aberystwyth University suggested that Tartessian inscriptions of the 8th century BC might be classified as Celtic. This would mean that Tartessian is the earliest attested trace of Celtic by a margin of more than a century.^[74]

Alps and Italy

Main articles: Golasecca culture, Lepontii, and Cisalpine Gaul

File:Römische Provinzen im Alpenraum ca 14 n Chr.png

Further information: History of the Alps

The Canegrate culture represented the first migratory wave of the proto-Celtic^[75][76] population from the northwest part of the Alps that, through the Alpine passes, had already penetrated and settled in the western Po valley between Lake Maggiore and Lake Como (Scamozzina culture). It has also been proposed that a more ancient proto-Celtic presence can be traced back to the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age, when North Westwern Italy appears closely linked regarding the production of bronze artefacts, including ornaments, to the western groups of the Tumulus culture.^[77] La Tène cultural material appeared over a large area of mainland Italy,^[78] the southernmost example being the Celtic helmet from Canosa di Puglia.^[79]

Italy is home to Lepontic, the oldest attested Celtic language (from the 6th century BC).^[80] Anciently spoken in Switzerland and in Northern-Central Italy, from the Alps to Umbria.^{[81][82][83][84]} According to the Recueil des Inscriptions Gauloises, more than 760 Gaulish inscriptions have been found throughout present-day France – with the notable exception of Aquitaine – and in Italy,^[85][86] which testifies the importance of Celtic heritage in the peninsula.

In 391 BC, Celts «who had their homes beyond the Alps streamed through the passes in great strength and seized the territory that lay between the Apennine mountains and the Alps» according to Diodorus Siculus. The Po Valley and the rest of northern Italy (known to the Romans as Cisalpine Gaul) was inhabited by Celtic-speakers who founded cities such as Milan.^[87] Later the Roman army was routed at the battle of Allia and Rome was sacked in 390 BC by the Senones.

At the battle of Telamon in 225 BC, a large Celtic army was trapped between two Roman forces and crushed.

The defeat of the combined Samnite, Celtic and Etruscan alliance by the Romans in the Third Samnite War sounded the beginning of the end of the Celtic domination in mainland Europe, but it was not until 192 BC that the Roman armies conquered the last remaining independent Celtic kingdoms in Italy.

Expansion east and south

File:Roman period tribes in Illyria and Lower Pannonia.png

Main article: Gallic invasion of the Balkans

The Celts also expanded down the Danube river and its tributaries. One of the most influential tribes, the Scordisci, had established their capital at Singidunum in the 3rd century BC, which is present-day Belgrade, Serbia. The concentration of hill-forts and cemeteries shows a density of population in the Tisza valley of modern-day Vojvodina, Serbia, Hungary and into Ukraine. Expansion into Romania was however blocked by the Dacians.

The Serdi were a Celtic tribe^[88] inhabiting Thrace. They were located around and founded Serdika (Template:Lang-bg, Latin: Ulpia Serdica, Greek: Σαρδῶν πόλις), now Sofia in Bulgaria,^[89] which reflects their ethnonym. They would have established themselves in this area during the Celtic migrations at the end of the 4th century BC, though there is no evidence for their existence before the 1st century BC. Serdi are among traditional tribal names reported into the Roman era.^[90] They were gradually Thracianized over the centuries but retained their Celtic character in material culture up to a late date.^[when?][citation needed]

According to other sources they may have been simply of Thracian origin,[91] according to others they may have become of mixed Thraco-Celtic origin. Further south, Celts settled in Thrace (Bulgaria), which they ruled for over a century, and Anatolia, where they settled as the Galatians (see also: Gallic Invasion of Greece). Despite their geographical isolation from the rest of the Celtic world, the Galatians maintained their Celtic language for at least 700 years. St Jerome, who visited Ancyra (modern-day Ankara) in 373 AD, likened their language to that of the Treveri of northern Gaul.

For Venceslas Kruta, Galatia in central Turkey was an area of dense Celtic settlement.

The Boii tribe gave their name to Bohemia, Bologna and possibly Bavaria, and Celtic artefacts and cemeteries have been discovered further east in what is now Poland and Slovakia. A Celtic coin (Biatec) from Bratislava‘s mint was displayed on the old Slovak 5-crown coin.

As there is no archaeological evidence for large-scale invasions in some of the other areas, one current school of thought holds that Celtic language and culture spread to those areas by contact rather than invasion.^[92] However, the Celtic invasions of Italy and the expedition in Greece and western Anatolia, are well documented in Greek and Latin history.

There are records of Celtic mercenaries in Egypt serving the Ptolemies. Thousands were employed in 283–246 BC and they were also in service around 186 BC. They attempted to overthrow Ptolemy II.

Insular Celts

File:Romanbritain.jpg

Main article: Insular Celts

Further information: Iron Age Britain and Celtic immigration to the British Isles

Further information: Iron Age tribes in Britain, Goidelic substrate hypothesis, and O’Rahilly’s historical model

All Celtic languages extant today belong to the Insular Celtic languages, derived from the Celtic languages spoken in Iron Age Britain and Ireland.^[93] They were separated into a Goidelic and a Brythonic branch from an early period.

Linguists have been arguing for many years whether a Celtic language came to Britain and Ireland and then split or whether there were two separate «invasions». The older view of prehistorians was that the Celtic influence in the British Isles was the result of successive invasions from the European continent by diverse Celtic-speaking peoples over the course of several centuries, accounting for the P-Celtic vs. Q-Celtic isogloss. This view has been challenged by the hypothesis that the Celtic languages of the British Isles form a phylogenetic Insular Celtic dialect group.^[94]

In the 19th and 20th centuries, scholars commonly dated the «arrival» of Celtic culture in Britain (via an invasion model) to the 6th century BC, corresponding to archaeological evidence of Hallstatt influence and the appearance of chariot burials in what is now England. Some Iron Age migration does seem to have occurred but the nature of the interactions with the indigenous populations of the isles is unknown. According to this model, by about the 6th century (Sub-Roman Britain), most of the inhabitants of the Isles were speaking Celtic languages of either the Goidelic or the Brythonic branch. Since the late 20th century, a new model has emerged (championed by archaeologists such as Barry Cunliffe and Celtic historians such as John T. Koch) which places the emergence of Celtic culture in Britain much earlier, in the Bronze Age, and credits its spread not to invasion, but due to a gradual emergence in situ out of Proto-Indo-European culture (perhaps introduced to the region by the Bell Beaker People, and enabled by an extensive network of contacts that existed between the peoples of Britain and Ireland and those of the Atlantic seaboard.^[95][96]

Classical writers did not apply the terms Κελτοί (Keltoi) or «Celtae» to the inhabitants of Britain or Ireland,^[3][4][5] leading a number of scholars to question the use of the term Celt to describe the Iron Age inhabitants of those islands.^[3][4][5][6] The first historical account of the islands of Britain and Ireland was by Pytheas, a Greek from the city of Massalia, who around 310–306 BC, sailed around what he called the «Pretannikai nesoi», which can be translated as the «Pretannic Isles».^[97] In general, classical writers referred to the inhabitants of Britain as Pretannoi or Britanni.^[98]
Strabo, writing in the Roman era, clearly distinguished between the Celts and Britons.^[99]

Romanisation

Main articles: Gallo-Roman culture and Romano-British culture

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Under Caesar the Romans conquered Celtic Gaul, and from Claudius onward the Roman empire absorbed parts of Britain. Roman local government of these regions closely mirrored pre-Roman tribal boundaries, and archaeological finds suggest native involvement in local government.

The native peoples under Roman rule became Romanised and keen to adopt Roman ways. Celtic art had already incorporated classical influences, and surviving Gallo-Roman pieces interpret classical subjects or keep faith with old traditions despite a Roman overlay.

The Roman occupation of Gaul, and to a lesser extent of Britain, led to Roman-Celtic syncretism. In the case of the continental Celts, this eventually resulted in a language shift to Vulgar Latin, while the Insular Celts retained their language.

There was also considerable cultural influence exerted by Gaul on Rome, particularly in military matters and horsemanship, as the Gauls often served in the Roman cavalry. The Romans adopted the Celtic cavalry sword, the spatha, and Epona, the Celtic horse goddess.^[100][101]

Society

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To the extent that sources are available, they depict a pre-Christian Iron Age Celtic social structure based formally on class and kingship, although this may only have been a particular late phase of organization in Celtic societies. Patron-client relationships similar to those of Roman society are also described by Caesar and others in the Gaul of the 1st century BC.

In the main, the evidence is of tribes being led by kings, although some argue that there is also evidence of oligarchical republican forms of government eventually emerging in areas which had close contact with Rome. Most descriptions of Celtic societies portray them as being divided into three groups: a warrior aristocracy; an intellectual class including professions such as druid, poet, and jurist; and everyone else. In historical times, the offices of high and low kings in Ireland and Scotland were filled by election under the system of tanistry, which eventually came into conflict with the feudal principle of primogeniture in which succession goes to the first-born son.

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Little is known of family structure among the Celts. Patterns of settlement varied from decentralised to urban. The popular stereotype of non-urbanised societies settled in hillforts and duns,^[102] drawn from Britain and Ireland (there are about 3,000 hill forts known in Britain)^[103] contrasts with the urban settlements present in the core Hallstatt and La Tène areas, with the many significant oppida of Gaul late in the first millennium BC, and with the towns of Gallia Cisalpina.

Slavery, as practised by the Celts, was very likely similar to the better documented practice in ancient Greece and Rome.^[104] Slaves were acquired from war, raids, and penal and debt servitude.^[104] Slavery was hereditary[citation needed]
, though manumission was possible. The Old Irish and Welsh words for ‘slave’, cacht and caeth respectively, are cognate with Latin captus ‘captive’ suggesting that the slave trade was an early means of contact between Latin and Celtic societies.^[104] In the Middle Ages, slavery was especially prevalent in the Celtic countries.^[105] Manumissions were discouraged by law and the word for «female slave», cumal, was used as a general unit of value in Ireland.^[106]

Archaeological evidence suggests that the pre-Roman Celtic societies were linked to the network of overland trade routes that spanned Eurasia. Archaeologists have discovered large prehistoric trackways crossing bogs in Ireland and Germany. Due to their substantial nature, these are believed to have been created for wheeled transport as part of an extensive roadway system that facilitated trade.^[107] The territory held by the Celts contained tin, lead, iron, silver and gold.^[108] Celtic smiths and metalworkers created weapons and jewellery for international trade, particularly with the Romans.

The myth that the Celtic monetary system consisted of wholly barter is a common one, but is in part false. The monetary system was complex and is still not understood (much like the late Roman coinages), and due to the absence of large numbers of coin items, it is assumed that «proto-money» was used. This included bronze items made from the early La Tène period and onwards, which were often in the shape of axeheads, rings, or bells. Due to the large number of these present in some burials, it is thought they had a relatively high monetary value, and could be used for «day to day» purchases. Low-value coinages of potin, a bronze alloy with high tin content, were minted in most Celtic areas of the continent and in South-East Britain prior to the Roman conquest of these lands. Higher-value coinages, suitable for use in trade, were minted in gold, silver, and high-quality bronze. Gold coinage was much more common than silver coinage, despite being worth substantially more, as while there were around 100 mines in Southern Britain and Central France, silver was more rarely mined. This was due partly to the relative sparsity of mines and the amount of effort needed for extraction compared to the profit gained. As the Roman civilisation grew in importance and expanded its trade with the Celtic world, silver and bronze coinage became more common. This coincided with a major increase in gold production in Celtic areas to meet the Roman demand, due to the high value Romans put on the metal. The large number of gold mines in France is thought to be a major reason why Caesar invaded.

There are only very limited records from pre-Christian times written in Celtic languages. These are mostly inscriptions in the Roman and sometimes Greek alphabets. The Ogham script, an Early Medieval alphabet, was mostly used in early Christian times in Ireland and Scotland (but also in Wales and England), and was only used for ceremonial purposes such as inscriptions on gravestones. The available evidence is of a strong oral tradition, such as that preserved by bards in Ireland, and eventually recorded by monasteries. Celtic art also produced a great deal of intricate and beautiful metalwork, examples of which have been preserved by their distinctive burial rites.

In some regards the Atlantic Celts were conservative: for example, they still used chariots in combat long after they had been reduced to ceremonial roles by the Greeks and Romans. However, despite being outdated, Celtic chariot tactics were able to repel the invasion of Britain attempted by Julius Caesar.

According to Diodorus Siculus:

The Gauls are tall of body with rippling muscles and white of skin and their hair is blond, and not only naturally so for they also make it their practice by artificial means to increase the distinguishing colour which nature has given it. For they are always washing their hair in limewater and they pull it back from the forehead to the nape of the neck, with the result that their appearance is like that of Satyrs and Pans since the treatment of their hair makes it so heavy and coarse that it differs in no respect from the mane of horses. Some of them shave the beard but others let it grow a little; and the nobles shave their cheeks but they let the moustache grow until it covers the mouth.

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Clothing

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During the later Iron Age the Gauls generally wore long-sleeved shirts or tunics and long trousers (called braccae by the Romans).^[109] Clothes were made of wool or linen, with some silk being used by the rich. Cloaks were worn in the winter. Brooches and armlets were used, but the most famous item of jewellery was the torc, a neck collar of metal, sometimes gold. The horned Waterloo Helmet in the British Museum, which long set the standard for modern images of Celtic warriors, is in fact a unique survival, and may have been a piece for ceremonial rather than military wear.

Gender and sexual norms

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See also: Ancient Celtic women

Very few reliable sources exist regarding Celtic views on gender divisions and societal status, though some archaeological evidence does suggest that their views of gender roles may differ from contemporary and less egalitarian classical counterparts of the Roman era.^[110][111] There are some general indications from Iron Age burial sites in the Champagne and Bourgogne regions of Northeastern France suggesting that women may have had roles in combat during the earlier La Tène period. However, the evidence is far from conclusive.^[112] Examples of individuals buried with both female jewellery and weaponry have been identified, such as the Vix Grave, and there are questions about the gender of some skeletons that were buried with warrior assemblages. However, it has been suggested that «the weapons may indicate rank instead of masculinity».^[113]

Among the insular Celts, there is a greater amount of historic documentation to suggest warrior roles for women. In addition to commentary by Tacitus about Boudica, there are indications from later period histories that also suggest a more substantial role for «women as warriors«, in symbolic if not actual roles. Posidonius and Strabo described an island of women where men could not venture for fear of death, and where the women ripped each other apart.^[114] Other writers, such as Ammianus Marcellinus and Tacitus, mentioned Celtic women inciting, participating in, and leading battles.^[115] Posidonius’ anthropological comments on the Celts had common themes, primarily primitivism, extreme ferocity, cruel sacrificial practices, and the strength and courage of their women.^[116]

Under Brehon Law, which was written down in early Medieval Ireland after conversion to Christianity, a woman had the right to divorce her husband and gain his property if he was unable to perform his marital duties due to impotence, obesity, homosexual inclination or preference for other women.^[117]

Classical literature records the views of the Celts’ neighbours, though historians are not sure how much relation to reality these had. According to Aristotle, most «belligerent nations» were strongly influenced by their women, but the Celts were unusual because their men openly preferred male lovers (Politics II 1269b).^[118] H. D. Rankin in Celts and the Classical World notes that «Athenaeus echoes this comment (603a) and so does Ammianus (30.9). It seems to be the general opinion of antiquity.»^[119] In book XIII of his Deipnosophists, the Roman Greek rhetorician and grammarian Athenaeus, repeating assertions made by Diodorus Siculus in the 1st century BC (Bibliotheca historica 5:32), wrote that Celtic women were beautiful but that the men preferred to sleep together. Diodorus went further, stating that «the young men will offer themselves to strangers and are insulted if the offer is refused». Rankin argues that the ultimate source of these assertions is likely to be Posidonius and speculates that these authors may be recording male «bonding rituals».^[120]

The sexual freedom of women in Britain was noted by Cassius Dio:

… a very witty remark is reported to have been made by the wife of Argentocoxus, a Caledonian, to Julia Augusta. When the empress was jesting with her, after the treaty, about the free intercourse of her sex with men in Britain, she replied: «We fulfill the demands of nature in a much better way than do you Roman women; for we consort openly with the best men, whereas you let yourselves be debauched in secret by the vilest.» Such was the retort of the British woman.^[121]

There are instances recorded where women participated both in warfare and in kingship, although they were in the minority in these areas. Plutarch reports that Celtic women acted as ambassadors to avoid a war among Celts chiefdoms in the Po valley during the 4th century BC.^[122]

Celtic art

File:Romano-Celtic mirror (Desborough).jpg

Main article: Celtic art

Celtic art is generally used by art historians to refer to art of the La Tène period across Europe, while the Early Medieval art of Britain and Ireland, that is what «Celtic art» evokes for much of the general public, is called Insular art in art history. Both styles absorbed considerable influences from non-Celtic sources, but retained a preference for geometrical decoration over figurative subjects, which are often extremely stylised when they do appear; narrative scenes only appear under outside influence. Energetic circular forms, triskeles and spirals are characteristic. Much of the surviving material is in precious metal, which no doubt gives a very unrepresentative picture, but apart from Pictish stones and the Insular high crosses, large monumental sculpture, even with decorative carving, is very rare; possibly it was originally common in wood. Celts were also able to create developed musical instruments such as the carnyces, these famous war trumpets used before the battle to frighten the enemy, as the best preserved found in Tintignac (Gaul) in 2004 and which were decorated with a boar head or a snake head.^[123]

The interlace patterns that are often regarded as typical of «Celtic art» were characteristic of the whole of the British Isles, a style referred to as Insular art, or Hiberno-Saxon art. This artistic style incorporated elements of La Tène, Late Roman, and, most importantly, animal Style II of Germanic Migration Period art. The style was taken up with great skill and enthusiasm by Celtic artists in metalwork and illuminated manuscripts. Equally, the forms used for the finest Insular art were all adopted from the Roman world: Gospel books like the Book of Kells and Book of Lindisfarne, chalices like the Ardagh Chalice and Derrynaflan Chalice, and penannular brooches like the Tara Brooch. These works are from the period of peak achievement of Insular art, which lasted from the 7th to the 9th centuries, before the Viking attacks sharply set back cultural life.

In contrast the less well known but often spectacular art of the richest earlier Continental Celts, before they were conquered by the Romans, often adopted elements of Roman, Greek and other «foreign» styles (and possibly used imported craftsmen) to decorate objects that were distinctively Celtic. After the Roman conquests, some Celtic elements remained in popular art, especially Ancient Roman pottery, of which Gaul was actually the largest producer, mostly in Italian styles, but also producing work in local taste, including figurines of deities and wares painted with animals and other subjects in highly formalised styles. Roman Britain also took more interest in enamel than most of the Empire, and its development of champlevé technique was probably important to the later Medieval art of the whole of Europe, of which the energy and freedom of Insular decoration was an important element. Rising nationalism brought Celtic revivals from the 19th century.

Warfare and weapons

Main articles: Celtic warfare and Celtic sword

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Tribal warfare appears to have been a regular feature of Celtic societies. While epic literature depicts this as more of a sport focused on raids and hunting rather than organised territorial conquest, the historical record is more of tribes using warfare to exert political control and harass rivals, for economic advantage, and in some instances to conquer territory.[citation needed]

The Celts were described by classical writers such as Strabo, Livy, Pausanias, and Florus as fighting like «wild beasts», and as hordes. Dionysius said that their <templatestyles src=»Template:Blockquote/styles.css» />

«manner of fighting, being in large measure that of wild beasts and frenzied, was an erratic procedure, quite lacking in military science. Thus, at one moment they would raise their swords aloft and smite after the manner of wild boars, throwing the whole weight of their bodies into the blow like hewers of wood or men digging with mattocks, and again they would deliver crosswise blows aimed at no target, as if they intended to cut to pieces the entire bodies of their adversaries, protective armour and all».^[124]

Such descriptions have been challenged by contemporary historians.^[125]

Polybius (2.33) indicates that the principal Celtic weapon was a long bladed sword which was used for hacking edgewise rather than stabbing. Celtic warriors are described by Polybius and Plutarch as frequently having to cease fighting in order to straighten their sword blades. This claim has been questioned by some archaeologists, who note that Noric steel, steel produced in Celtic Noricum, was famous in the Roman Empire period and was used to equip the Roman military.^[126][127] However, Radomir Pleiner, in The Celtic Sword (1993) argues that «the metallographic evidence shows that Polybius was right up to a point», as around one third of surviving swords from the period might well have behaved as he describes.^[128]

Polybius also asserts that certain of the Celts fought naked, «The appearance of these naked warriors was a terrifying spectacle, for they were all men of splendid physique and in the prime of life.»^[129] According to Livy, this was also true of the Celts of Asia Minor.^[130]

Head hunting

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Celts had a reputation as head hunters. According to Paul Jacobsthal, «Amongst the Celts the human head was venerated above all else, since the head was to the Celt the soul, centre of the emotions as well as of life itself, a symbol of divinity and of the powers of the other-world.»^[131] Arguments for a Celtic cult of the severed head include the many sculptured representations of severed heads in La Tène carvings, and the surviving Celtic mythology, which is full of stories of the severed heads of heroes and the saints who carry their own severed heads, right down to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, where the Green Knight picks up his own severed head after Gawain has struck it off, just as St. Denis carried his head to the top of Montmartre. Physical evidence exists for the ritual importance of the severed head at the religious centre at Roquepertuse (southern France), destroyed by the Romans in 124 BC, where stone pillars with prominent niches for displaying severed heads were found.

A further example of this regeneration after beheading lies in the tales of Connemara‘s St. Feichin, who after being beheaded by Viking pirates carried his head to the Holy Well on Omey Island and on dipping the head into the well placed it back upon his neck and was restored to full health.

Diodorus Siculus, in his 1st-century History had this to say about Celtic head-hunting:

They cut off the heads of enemies slain in battle and attach them to the necks of their horses. The blood-stained spoils they hand over to their attendants and striking up a paean and singing a song of victory; and they nail up these first fruits upon their houses, just as do those who lay low wild animals in certain kinds of hunting. They embalm in cedar oil the heads of the most distinguished enemies, and preserve them carefully in a chest, and display them with pride to strangers, saying that for this head one of their ancestors, or his father, or the man himself, refused the offer of a large sum of money. They say that some of them boast that they refused the weight of the head in gold.

In Gods and Fighting Men, Lady Gregory‘s Celtic Revival translation of Irish mythology, heads of men killed in battle are described in the beginning of the story The Fight with the Fir Bolgs as pleasing to Macha, one aspect of the war goddess Morrigu.

Religion

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Polytheism

Like other European Iron Age tribal societies, the Celts practised a polytheistic religion.^[132]
Many Celtic gods are known from texts and inscriptions from the Roman period.
Rites and sacrifices were carried out by priests known as druids. The Celts did not see their gods as having human shapes until late in the Iron Age. Celtic shrines were situated in remote areas such as hilltops, groves, and lakes.

Celtic religious patterns were regionally variable; however, some patterns of deity forms, and ways of worshipping these deities, appeared over a wide geographical and temporal range. The Celts worshipped both gods and goddesses. In general, Celtic gods were deities of particular skills, such as the many-skilled Lugh and Dagda, while goddesses were associated with natural features, particularly rivers (such as Boann, goddess of the River Boyne). This was not universal, however, as goddesses such as Brighid and The Morrígan were associated with both natural features (holy wells and the River Unius) and skills such as blacksmithing and healing.^[133]

Triplicity is a common theme in Celtic cosmology, and a number of deities were seen as threefold.^[134] This trait is exhibited by The Three Mothers, a group of goddesses worshipped by many Celtic tribes (with regional variations).^[135]

The Celts had hundreds of deities, some of which were unknown outside a single family or tribe, while others were popular enough to have a following that crossed lingual and cultural barriers. For instance, the Irish god Lugh, associated with storms, lightning, and culture, is seen in similar forms as Lugos in Gaul and Lleu in Wales. Similar patterns are also seen with the continental Celtic horse goddess Epona and what may well be her Irish and Welsh counterparts, Macha and Rhiannon, respectively.^[136]

Roman reports of the druids mention ceremonies being held in sacred groves. La Tène Celts built temples of varying size and shape, though they also maintained shrines at sacred trees and votive pools.^[132]

Druids fulfilled a variety of roles in Celtic religion, serving as priests and religious officiants, but also as judges, sacrificers, teachers, and lore-keepers. Druids organised and ran religious ceremonies, and they memorised and taught the calendar. Other classes of druids performed ceremonial sacrifices of crops and animals for the perceived benefit of the community.^[137]

Gallic calendar

The Coligny calendar, which was found in 1897 in Coligny, Ain, was engraved on a bronze tablet, preserved in 73 fragments, that originally was 1.48 metres (4 feet 10 inches) wide and 0.9 metres (2 feet 11 inches) high (Lambert p. 111). Based on the style of lettering and the accompanying objects, it probably dates to the end of the 2nd century.^[138] It is written in Latin inscriptional capitals, and is in the Gallic language. The restored tablet contains 16 vertical columns, with 62 months distributed over 5 years.

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The French archaeologist J. Monard speculated that it was recorded by druids wishing to preserve their tradition of timekeeping in a time when the Julian calendar was imposed throughout the Roman Empire. However, the general form of the calendar suggests the public peg calendars (or parapegmata) found throughout the Greek and Roman world.^[139]

Roman influence

Further information: Gallo-Roman culture

The Roman invasion of Gaul brought a great deal of Celtic peoples into the Roman Empire. Roman culture had a profound effect on the Celtic tribes which came under the empire’s control. Roman influence led to many changes in Celtic religion, the most noticeable of which was the weakening of the druid class, especially religiously; the druids were to eventually disappear altogether. Romano-Celtic deities also began to appear: these deities often had both Roman and Celtic attributes, combined the names of Roman and Celtic deities, and/or included couples with one Roman and one Celtic deity. Other changes included the adaptation of the Jupiter Column, a sacred column set up in many Celtic regions of the empire, primarily in northern and eastern Gaul. Another major change in religious practice was the use of stone monuments to represent gods and goddesses. The Celts had only created wooden idols (including monuments carved into trees, which were known as sacred poles) previously to Roman conquest.^[135]

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Celtic Christianity

Main article: Celtic Christianity

While the regions under Roman rule adopted Christianity along with the rest of the Roman empire, unconquered areas of Ireland and Scotland began to move from Celtic polytheism to Christianity in the 5th century. Ireland was converted by missionaries from Britain, such as Saint Patrick. Later missionaries from Ireland were a major source of missionary work in Scotland, Anglo-Saxon parts of Britain, and central Europe (see Hiberno-Scottish mission). Celtic Christianity, the forms of Christianity that took hold in Britain and Ireland at this time, had for some centuries only limited and intermittent contact with Rome and continental Christianity, as well as some contacts with Coptic Christianity. Some elements of Celtic Christianity developed, or retained, features that made them distinct from the rest of Western Christianity, most famously their conservative method of calculating the date of Easter. In 664, the Synod of Whitby began to resolve these differences, mostly by adopting the current Roman practices, which the Gregorian Mission from Rome had introduced to Anglo-Saxon England.

Genetics

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (January 2020)

See also: Yamnaya culture § Archaeogenetics, Corded Ware culture § Genetic studies, and Bell Beaker culture § Genetic studies

In a March 2019 genetic study published in Science, the Y-DNA of a Celtiberian male buried at La Hoya, Salamanca between 360 BC and 195 BC was extracted. He was found to be carrying haplogroup I2a1a1a.^[140]

See also

• List of ancient Celtic peoples and tribes
• Ethnic groups in Europe

References

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Bibliography

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External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to [[commons:Category:Celts}}||Celts}}}}]].

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• Ancient Celtic music – in the Citizendium
• Essays on Celtiberian topics – in e-Keltoi, University of Wisconsin, Madison
• Ancient Celtic Warriors in History
• Celts descended from Spanish fishermen, study finds
• Discussion – with academic Barry Cunliffe, on BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time, 21 February 2002. (Streaming RealPlayer format)

Geography

• An interactive map showing the lands of the Celts between 800 BC and 305 AD.
• Detailed map of the Pre-Roman Peoples of Iberia (around 200 BC), showing the Celtic territories
• Map of Celtic lands

Organisations

• newworldcelts.org
• XIII. International Congress of Celtic Studies in Bonn

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The term Celt, normally pronounced /kɛlt/ now refers primarily to a member of any of a number of peoples in Europe using the Celtic languages, which form a branch of the Indo-European languages. It can refer in a wider sense to a user of Celtic culture. However, in ancient times the term «Celt» was used either to refer generally to barbarians in north-western Europe or to specific groups of tribes in the Iberian Peninsula and Gaul.

Although today restricted to the Atlantic coast of Western Europe, the so-called «Celtic fringe,» Celtic languages were once predominant over much of Europe, from Ireland and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to northern Italy and Serbia in the east. Archaeological and historical sources show that at their maximum extent in the third century B.C.E., Celtic peoples were also present in areas of Eastern Europe and Asia Minor.

Little is known about their lifestyle due to the numerous conflicts and combinations of cultures that occurred in European history, culminating in loss of power by the Celts even in areas where their language and traditions survive to some extent to this day. Nevertheless, a revival of interest in Celtic culture, including religion, art, music, and language beginning the eighteenth century and blossoming in the latter part of the twentieth century has ignited recognition around the world for the positive contributions this culture makes to modern civilization.

History

The term Celt

The term Celt has been adopted as a label of self-identity for a variety of peoples at different times. However, it does not seem to have been used to refer to Celtic language speakers as a whole before the eighteenth century.

In a historical context, the terms «Celt» and «Celtic» have been used in several senses: they can denote peoples speaking Celtic languages; the peoples of prehistoric and early historic Europe who shared common cultural traits which are thought to have originated in the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures; or the peoples known to the Greeks as Keltoi, to the Romans as Celtae, and to either by cognate terms such as Gallae or Galatae. The extent to which each of these meanings refers to the same group of people is a matter of debate.

In a modern context, the term «Celt» or «Celtic» can be used to denote areas where Celtic languages are spoken—this is the criterion employed by the Celtic League and the Celtic Congress. In this sense, there are six modern «nations» that can be defined as Celtic: Brittany, Cornwall, Ireland, the Isle of Man, Scotland, and Wales. Only four, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and Brittany have native speakers of Celtic languages and in none of them is it the language of the majority. However, all six have significant traces of a Celtic language in personal and place names, and in culture and traditions.

Traditionally, scholars have placed the Celtic homeland in what is now southern Germany and Austria, associating the earliest Celtic peoples with the Hallstatt culture. However, modern linguistic studies seem to point to a north Balkan origin. The expansion of the Roman Empire from the south and expansion of the Germanic tribes from the north and east led to the end of Celtic culture on the European mainland where Brittany alone maintained its Celtic language and identity, probably due to later immigrants from the British Isles.

Some people in Galicia, Asturias, and Cantabria, in north-western Spain, and Entre Douro e Minho, Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro in Northern Portugal wish to be considered Celtic because of the strong Celtic cultural identity and acknowledgment of their Celtic past.

Genetic evidence of origin

The Y-chromosomes of populations of the Atlantic Celtic countries have been found in several studies to belong primarily to haplogroup R1b, which implies that they are descendants of the first people to migrate into north-western Europe after the last major ice age. According to the studies of European haplogroups, around half of the male population of that portion of Eurasia is a descendant of the R1b haplogroup (subgroup of Central Asian haplogroup K). Haplotype R1b exceeds 90 percent of Y-chromosomes in parts of Wales, Ireland, Portugal and Spain.^[1]

Two published books — The Blood of the Isles by Bryan Sykes and The Origins of the British: a Genetic Detective Story by Stephen Oppenheimer — based upon genetic studies, show that the majority of Britons have ancestors from the Iberian Peninsula, as a result of a series of migrations that took place during the Mesolithic and, to a lesser extent, the Neolithic eras. Genetic studies have confirmed people in areas traditionally known as Celtic, such as Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Brittany, and Cornwall, to have strong links with each other. However, they also found that the Irish and Scots have as much, if not more, in common with the people of north-western Spain, suggesting the possibility that Celtic migrants moved from the Iberian peninsula to Ireland as far back as 6,000 years ago up until 3,000 years ago.^[2]

Archaeological evidence

The only direct archaeological evidence for Celtic speaking peoples comes from coins and inscriptions. It has been assumed that the Hallstatt (c. 1200-475 B.C.E.) and La Tene (c. 500-50 B.C.E.) cultures are associated with the Celts. Only in the final phase of La Tene are coins found. It has been suggested that the Hallstatt culture may have been adopted by speakers of different languages, whereas the La Tene culture is more definitely associated with the Celts.

Historical evidence

Polybius published a history of Rome about 150 B.C.E. in which he described the Gauls of Italy and their conflict with Rome. Pausianias in the second century B.C.E. says that the Gauls «originally called Celts live on the remotest region of Europe on the coast of an enormous tidal sea.» Posidonius described the southern Gauls about 100 B.C.E. Though his original work is lost it was used by later writers such as Strabo. Writing in the early first century C.E., Strabo deals with Britain and Gaul as well as Spain, Italy and Galatia. Caesar wrote extensively about his Gallic Wars in 58-51 B.C.E. Diodorus Siculus wrote about the Celts of Gaul and Britain in his first century history.

Celts in Britain and Ireland

The indigenous populations of Britain and Ireland today may be primarily descended from the ancient peoples that have long inhabited these lands, before the coming of Celtic and later Germanic peoples, language, and culture. Little is known of their original culture and language, but remnants may remain in the names of some geographical features, such as the rivers Clyde, Tamar, and Thames, whose etymology is unclear but almost certainly derive from a pre-Celtic substrate. By the Roman period, however, most of the inhabitants of the isles of Ireland and Britain were speaking Goidelic or Brythonic languages, close counterparts to Gallic languages spoken on the European mainland.

Historians explained this as the result of successive invasions from the European continent by diverse Celtic peoples over the course of several centuries. The Book of Leinster, written in the twelfth century but drawing on a much earlier Irish oral tradition, states that the first Celts to arrive in Ireland were from Spain.

Later research indicated that the culture had developed gradually and continuously. In Ireland little archaeological evidence was found for large intrusive groups of Celtic immigrants, suggesting to historians such as Colin Renfrew that the native late Bronze Age inhabitants gradually absorbed European Celtic influences and language. The very few continental La Tène culture style objects which had been found in Ireland could have been imports, the possessions of a few rich immigrants, or the result of selectively absorbing cultural influences from outside elites, further supporting this theory of cultural exchange rather than migration.

Julius Caesar wrote of people in Britain who came from Belgium (the Belgae), but archaeological evidence which was interpreted in the 1930s as confirming this was contradicted by later interpretations. The archaeological evidence is of substantial cultural continuity through the first millennium B.C.E., although with a significant overlay of selectively-adopted elements of La Tène culture. In the 1970s the continuity model was taken to an extreme, popularized by Colin Burgess in his book The Age of Stonehenge which theorized that Celtic culture in Great Britain «emerged» rather than resulted from invasion and that the Celts were not invading aliens, but the descendants of the people of Stonehenge. The existence of Celtic language elsewhere in Europe, however, and the dating of the Proto-Celtic culture and language to the Bronze Age, makes the most extreme claims of continuity impossible.

Some studies have suggested that, contrary to long-standing beliefs, the Germanic tribes (Angles and Saxons) did not wipe out the Romano-British of England but rather, over the course of six centuries, conquered the native Brythonic people of what is now England and south-east Scotland and imposed their culture and language upon them, much as the Irish may have spread over the west of Scotland. Still others maintain that the picture is mixed and that in some places the indigenous population was indeed wiped out while in others it was assimilated. According to this school of thought the populations of Yorkshire, East Anglia, Northumberland, and the Orkney and Shetland Islands are those populations with the fewest traces of ancient (Celtic) British continuation.^[3]

Celts in Gaul

The Celts in present-day France were known as Gauls to the Romans. Gaul probably included Belgium and Switzerland. Eastern Gaul was the center of the western La Tene culture.

The Romans arrived in the Rhone valley in the second century B.C.E. and found that a large part of Gaul was Celtic speaking. Gradually Roman control extended, the Roman Province of Gallia Transalpina being along the Mediterranean coast. The remainder was known as Gallia Comata «Hairy Gaul.»

Julius Caesar became involved in fighting the various tribes in Gaul, and by 55 B.C.E. most of Gaul had been overrun. In 52 B.C.E. Vercingetorix led a revolt against the Roman occupation but was defeated at the siege of Alesia and surrendered.

Following the Gallic Wars of 58-51 B.C.E., Celticia formed the main part of Roman Gaul. Place name analysis shows that Celtic was used east of the Garonne river and south of the Seine-Marne. However, the Celtic language did not survive, being replaced by a Romance language, French.

Celts in Iberia

Traditional eighteenth and nineteenth century scholarship surrounding the Celts virtually ignored the Iberian Peninsula, since archaeological material relatable to the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures that have defined Iron Age Celts was rare in Iberia, and did not provide a cultural scenario that could easily be linked to that of Central Europe.

Modern scholarship, however, has proven that Celtic presence and influences were very substantial in Iberia. The Celts in Iberia were divided in two main archaeological and cultural groups, even if the divide is not very clear.
One group, from Galicia (Spain) and along the Atlantic shores. They were made up of the Lusitanians (in Portugal and the Celtic region that Strabo called Celtica in the southwest including the Algarve, inhabited by the Celtici), the Vettones and Vacceani peoples (of central west Spain and Portugal), and the Gallaecian, Astures, and Cantabrian peoples of the Castro culture of north and northwest Spain and Portugal.

The Celtiberian group of central Spain and the upper Ebro valley originated when Celts migrated from what is now France and integrated with the local Iberian people.

Celts in Italy

There was an early Celtic presence in northern Italy; inscriptions dated to the sixth century B.C.E. have been found there. In 391 B.C.E. Celts «who had their homes beyond the Alps streamed through the passes in great strength and seized the territory that lay between the Apeninne mountains and the Alps» according to Diodorus Siculus. The Po Valley and the rest of northern Italy (known to the Romans as Cisalpine Gaul) was inhabited by Celtic-speakers who founded cities such as Milan. Later the Roman army was routed at the battle of Allia and Rome was sacked in 390 B.C.E. by Celts.

At the battle of Telemon in 225 B.C.E. a large Celtic army was trapped between two Roman forces and crushed.

The defeat of the combined Samnite, Celtic, and Etruscan alliance by the Romans in the Third Samnite War sounded the beginning of the end of the Celtic domination in mainland Europe, but it was not until 192 B.C.E. that the Roman armies conquered the last remaining independent Celtic kingdoms in Italy.

Celts in other regions

The Celts also expanded down the Danube river and its tributaries. One of the most influential tribes, the Scordisci, had established their capital at Singidunum in third century B.C.E., which is present-day Belgrade. The concentration of hill-forts and cemeteries shows a density of population in the Tisza valley of modern-day Vojvodina, Hungary and into Ukraine. Expansion into Romania was however blocked by the Dacians.

Further south, Celts settled in Thrace (Bulgaria), which they ruled for over a century, and Anatolia, where they settled as the Galatians. Despite their geographical isolation from the rest of the Celtic world, the Galatians maintained their Celtic language for at least seven hundred years. St Jerome, who visited Ancyra (modern-day Ankara) in 373 C.E., likened their language to that of the Treveri of northern Gaul.

The Boii Celtic tribe gave their name to Bohemia (Czech Republic) and Celtic artifacts and cemeteries have been discovered further east in both Poland and Slovakia. A Celtic coin (Biatec) from Bratislava’s mint is displayed on today’s Slovak 5 crown coin.

As there is no archaeological evidence for large scale invasions in some of the other areas, one current school of thought holds that Celtic language and culture spread to those areas by contact rather than invasion. However, the Celtic invasions of Italy, Greece, and western Anatolia are well documented in Greek and Latin history.^[4]

Romanization

The Romans conquered Celtic Gaul, and from Claudius onward the Roman empire absorbed parts of Britain. Roman local government of these regions closely mirrored pre-Roman ‘tribal’ boundaries, and archaeological finds suggest native involvement in local government. Latin was the official language of these regions after the conquests.

The native peoples under Roman rule became Romanized and keen to adopt Roman ways. Celtic art had already incorporated classical influences, and surviving Gallo-Roman pieces interpret classical subjects or keep faith with old traditions despite a Roman overlay.

The Roman occupation of Gaul, and to a lesser extent of Britain, led to Roman-Celtic syncretism, Roman Britain). In the case of Gaul, this eventually resulted in a language shift from Gaulish to Vulgar Latin.

Culture

Tribal warfare appears to have been a regular feature of Celtic societies. While epic literature depicts this as more of a sport focused on raids and hunting rather than organized territorial conquest, the historical record is more of tribes using warfare to exert political control and harass rivals, for economic advantage, and in some instances to conquer territory.

The Celts were described by classical writers such as Strabo, Livy, Pausanias, and Florus as fighting like «wild beasts,» and as hordes. Thus, at least some tribes earned the epithet «barbarian.»

In some regards the Atlantic Celts were conservative, for example they still used chariots in combat long after they had been reduced to ceremonial roles by the Greeks and Romans, though when faced with the Romans in Britain, their chariot tactics defeated the invasion attempted by Julius Caesar. However, the Celts were master horsemen, which so impressed the Romans that they adopted Epona, the Celtic horse goddess, into their pantheon.

There are only very limited records from pre-Christian times written in Celtic languages. These are mostly inscriptions in the Roman, and sometimes Greek, alphabets. The Ogham script was mostly used in early Christian times in Ireland and Scotland (but also in Wales and England), and was only used for ceremonial purposes such as inscriptions on gravestones. The available evidence is of a strong oral tradition, such as that preserved by bards in Ireland, and eventually recorded by scribes at Christian monasteries. The oldest recorded rhyming poetry in the world is of Irish origin and is a transcription of a much older epic poem, leading some scholars to claim that the Celts invented Rhyme.

To the extent that sources are available, they depict a pre-Christian Celtic social structure based formally on class and kinship. Patron-client relationships similar to those of Roman society are also described by Caesar and others in the Gaul of the first century B.C.E.

In the main, the evidence is of tribes being led by kings, although some argue that there is evidence of oligarchical republican forms of government eventually emerging in areas in close contact with Rome. Most descriptions of Celtic societies describe them as being divided into three groups: a warrior aristocracy; an intellectual class including professions such as druid, poet, and jurist; and everyone else. In historical times, the offices of high and low kings in Ireland and Scotland were filled by election under the system of tanistry, which eventually came into conflict with the feudal principle of primogeniture where the succession goes to the first born son.

Little is known of family structure among the Celts. Archaeological discoveries at the Vix Burial indicate that women could achieve high status and power within at least one Celtic society.^[5] There are instances recorded where women participated both in warfare and in kingship, although they were in the minority in these areas. Plutarch reports Celtic women acting as ambassadors to avoid a war amongst Celts chiefdoms on the Po valley during the fourth century B.C.E.^[6]

As Celtic history was only carried forward by oral tradition, it has been advanced that the traditions finally recorded in the seventh century can be projected back through Celtic history.^[7] If this is so then, according to the Cáin Lánamna, a woman had the right to demand divorce, take back whatever property she brought into the marriage and be free to remarry. If later Celtic tradition can be projected back, and from Ireland to Britain and the continent, then Celtic law demanded that children, the elderly, and the developmentally-handicapped be looked after.

Patterns of settlement varied from decentralized to the urban. The popular stereotype of non-urbanized societies settled in hill forts and duns, drawn from Britain and Ireland, contrasts with the urban settlements present in the core Hallstatt and La Tene areas, with the many significant oppida of Gaul late in the first millennium B.C.E., and with the towns of Gallia Cisalpina.

Local trade was largely in the form of barter, but as with most tribal societies they probably had a reciprocal economy in which goods and other services are not exchanged, but are given on the basis of mutual relationships and the obligations of kinship. Low value coinages of potin^[8], silver, and bronze, suitable for use in trade, were minted in most Celtic areas of the continent, and in South-East Britain prior to the Roman conquest of these areas.

Celtic smiths and metalworkers created weapons and jewelry for international trade, particularly with the Romans. Celtic traders were also in contact with the Phoenicians: gold works made in pre-Roman Ireland have been unearthed in archaeological digs in Palestine and trade routes between Atlantic societies and Palestine dating back to at least the 1600s B.C.E..

During the later Iron Age the Gauls generally wore long-sleeved shirts of tunics and long trousers. Clothes were made of wool or linen, with some silk being used by the rich. Cloaks were worn in winter. Broaches and armlets were used but the most famous item of jewelery was the torc, a rigid circular neck ring or necklace that is open-ended at the front.

Celtic language

Unfortunately, there are very few written records of the ancient Celtic languages produced by the Celts themselves. Generally these are names on coins and stone inscriptions. Mostly the evidence is of personal names and place names in works by Greek and Roman authors. The date at which the proto-Celtic language split from Indo-European is disputed but may be as early as 6000 B.C.E., with it reaching Britain and Ireland by 3200 B.C.E. In both cases there is a large estimating uncertainty.

Proto-Celtic apparently divided into four sub-families:

• Gaulish and its close relatives, Lepontic, Noric and Galatian. These languages were once spoken in a wide arc from France to Turkey and from Belgium to northern Italy.

• Celtiberian, anciently spoken in the Iberian peninsula, namely in the areas of modern Northern Portugal, and Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, Aragón and León in Spain.

• Goidelic, including Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx.

• Brythonic (also called Brittonic), including Welsh, Breton, Cornish, Cumbric, the hypothetical Ivernic, and possibly also Pictish.^[9][10]

During the first millennium B.C.E., Celtic languages were spoken across Europe, from the Bay of Biscay and the North Sea, up the Rhine and down the Danube to the Black Sea and the Upper Balkan Peninsula, and into Asia Minor (Galatia). Today, Celtic languages are limited to a few areas in Great Britain, the Isle of Man, Ireland, Cape Breton Island, Patagonia, and on the peninsula of Brittany in France.

The Celtic calendar

There were four major festivals in the Celtic Calendar: «Imbolc» on the first of February, possibly linked to the lactation of the ewes and sacred to the Irish Goddess Brigid. «Beltain» on the first of May, connected to fertility and warmth, possibly linked to the Sun God Belenos. «Lughnasa» on the first of August, connected with the harvest and associated with the God Lugh. And finally «Samhain» on the first of November, possibly the start of the year.^[11] Two of these festivals, Beltain and Lugnasa are shown on the Coligny Calendar by sigils, and it is not too much of a stretch of the imagination to match the first month on the Calendar (Samonios) to Samhain. Lughnasa does not seem to be shown at all however.^[12]

The Celtic Calendar appears to be based on astrology, focusing on passages or cycles of time, rather than a linear progression.^[13] It seems to have been based on an indigenous Irish symbol system, and not that of any of the more commonly-known astrological systems such as Western, Chinese or Vedic astrology.^[14]

The Coligny Calendar, which was found in 1897 in Coligny, Ain, was engraved on a bronze tablet, preserved in 73 fragments, that originally was 1.48 m wide and 0.9 m high ^[15]. Based on the style of lettering and the accompanying objects, it probably dates to the end of the second century.^[16] It is written in Latin inscriptional capitals, and is in the Gaulish language. The restored tablet contains 16 vertical columns, with 62 months distributed over five years.

The French archaeologist J. Monard speculated that it was recorded by druids wishing to preserve their tradition of timekeeping in a time when the Julian calendar was imposed throughout the Roman Empire. However, the general form of the calendar suggests the public peg calendars (or parapegmata) found throughout the Greek and Roman world.^[17]

Celtic religion

Many Celtic gods are known from texts and inscriptions from the Roman period, such as Aquae Sulis, while others have been inferred from place names such as Lugdunum «stronghold of Lug.» The Celts did not see their gods as having a human shape until late in the Iron Age. Rites and sacrifices were carried out by priests, some known as Druids. Shrines were situated in remote areas such as hilltops, groves, and lakes.

Celtic religious patterns were regionally variable, however some patterns of deity forms, and ways of worshiping these deities, appear over a wide geographical and temporal range. The Celts worshipped both gods and goddesses. In general, the gods were deities of particular skills, such as the many-skilled Lugh and Dagda, and the goddesses associated with natural features, most particularly rivers, such as Boann, goddess of the River Boyne. This was not universal, however, as Goddesses such as Brighid and The Morrígan were associated with both natural features (holy wells and the River Unius) and skills such as blacksmithing, healing, and warfare.^[18]

Triplicities are a common theme in Celtic cosmology and a number of deities were seen as threefold.^[18]

The Celts had literally hundreds of deities, some unknown outside of a single family or tribe, while others were popular enough to have a following that crossed boundaries of language and culture. For instance, the Irish god Lugh, associated with storms, lightning, and culture, is seen in a similar form as Lugos in Gaul and Lleu in Wales. Similar patterns are also seen with the Continental Celtic horse goddess Epona, and what may well be her Irish and Welsh counterparts, Macha and Rhiannon, respectively.^[18]

Druids fulfilled a variety of roles in Celtic religion, as priests and religious officiants, but also as judges, sacrificers, teachers, and lore-keepers. In general, they were the «college professors» of their time. Druids organized and ran the religious ceremonies, as well as memorizing and teaching the calendar. Though generally quite accurate, the Celtic calendar required manual correction about every 40 years, therefore knowledge of mathematics was required. Other classes of druids performed ceremonial sacrifices of crops and animals for the perceived benefit of the community.^[18]

While the regions under Roman rule adopted Christianity along with the rest of the Roman empire, unconquered areas of Scotland and Ireland moved from Celtic polytheism to Celtic Christianity in the fifth century C.E. under missionaries from Britain such as Saint Patrick. Later missionaries from Ireland were a major source of missionary work in Scotland, Saxon parts of Britain, and central Europe. This brought the early medieval renaissance of Celtic art between 390 and 1200 C.E. developing many of the styles now thought of as typically Celtic, and found through much of Ireland and Britain, including the north-east and far north of Scotland, Orkney and Shetland. This was brought to an end by Roman Catholic and Norman influence, though the Celtic languages, as well as some and some influences from Celtic art, continued.

Celtic mythology

In addition to the specifically religious beliefs, Celtic culture also has a rich mythology and understanding of the spiritual world. Numerous mythical creatures were known to the Celts, from the inhabitants of the waters, such as the kelpie, mermaid, and lake monsters such as the world-famous Loch Ness Monster, to the many humanoids—the faeries, pixies, banshees and so forth—some of whom helped and others hindered their human neighbors.

Cult of the severed head

«Amongst the Celts the human head was venerated above all else, since the head was to the Celt the soul, centre of the emotions as well as of life itself, a symbol of divinity and of the powers of the other-world.» —Paul Jacobsthal, Early Celtic Art.

The Celtic cult of the severed head is documented not only in the many sculptured representations of severed heads in La Tène carvings, but in the surviving Celtic mythology, which is full of stories of the severed heads of heroes and the saints who carry their decapitated heads, right down to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, where the Green Knight picks up his own severed head after Gawain has struck it off, just as Saint Denis carried his head to the top of Montmartre. Separated from the mundane body, although still alive, the animated head acquires the ability to see into the mythic realm.

Diodorus Siculus, in his History V, 29, 4- 5; first century B.C.E. had this to say about Celtic head-hunting:

They cut off the heads of enemies slain in battle and attach them to the necks of their horses. The blood-stained spoils they hand over to their attendants and carry off as booty, while striking up a paean and singing a song of victory; and they nail up these first fruits upon their houses, just as do those who lay low wild animals in certain kinds of hunting. They embalm in cedar oil the heads of the most distinguished enemies, and preserve them carefully in a chest, and display them with pride to strangers.

The Celtic headhunters venerated the image of the severed head as a continuing source of spiritual power. If the head is the seat of the soul, possessing the severed head of an enemy, honorably reaped in battle, added prestige to any warrior’s reputation. According to tradition the buried head of a god or hero named Bran the Blessed protected Britain from invasion across the English Channel.

Celtic art

The Celts were highly skilled in visual arts and Celtic art produced a great deal of intricate and beautiful metalwork, examples of which have been preserved by their distinctive burial rites. Ancient Celtic artisans recreated many of their sacred animals into metalworks and embroidery. Celtic art is well-known in the forms of intricate Celtic designs, ornamented tools, jewelry, and weapons. Animals, birds, and reptiles interlaced with Celtic knots are known as «zoomorphics.»

Ancient Celts took great pride in ornamenting their lives, from ornate necklaces, earrings, and bracelets to the common kitchen utensils and bowls. The nomadic tribespeople of the steppes lovingly adorned their horses with impressive stirrups, and brandished equally impressive weapons with highly decorated handles and straps.

Celtic symbolism plays an integral role in Celtic art forms. As it was often forbidden to make exact replicas of God’s work, anthropologists have theorized that the Celts turned to symbols in form of geometry and mathematics, abstraction and exaggeration. Highly detailed knotwork was incorporated to diffuse evil and malignant forces, and the repetition of a particular design was thought to give it more power.

Celtic music

Celtic music may denote Breton or Galician music in addition to Irish, Scottish, and Welsh.

Celtic music has a wistful quality and uses fretted instruments to convey folklore, traditional legends, free-verse, and rhythmic poetry through song format. Some of these instruments are the wire-strung harp, breton harp, Irish harp, indigenous Irish fiddles, the baritone violin, and the Irish banjo. There are also several reed and wind instruments which include the Scottish Lute and the Irish flute, which are incorporated into many traditional and contemporary Celtic songs. An Irish folksong is often referred to as a «bard,» and many traveling musicians in the Celtic culture were known as minstrals, singing of tales they learned on the road, spreading both practical news and epic legend through the use of a melody.

Contemporary Celts

At the present time, every aspect of Celtic culture is a very visible part of a multicultural world. Everyone whose family roots lie in central, western, and northwestern Europe has a Celtic connection of some sort.

The English word is modern, attested from 1707 in the writings of Edward Lhuyd whose work, along with that of other late seventeenth century scholars, brought academic attention to the languages and history of these early inhabitants of Great Britain.^[19]

In the eighteenth century the interest in «primitivism» which led to the idea of the «noble savage» brought a wave of enthusiasm for all things «Celtic.» The antiquarian William Stukeley pictured a race of «Ancient Britons» putting up the «Temples of the Ancient Celts» such as Stonehenge before he decided in 1733 to recast the Celts in his book as Druids. The Ossian fables written by James Macpherson and portrayed as ancient Scottish Gaelic language poems added to this romantic enthusiasm. The «Irish revival» came after the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 as a conscious attempt to demonstrate an Irish national identity, and with its counterpart in other countries subsequently became the «Celtic revival».^[20]

Celtic culture is very ancient, yet it is still a living force in the modern world, through Celtic art, Celtic music, Celtic writing, and Celtic spirituality. The civilization of the Celts has continued without break over the centuries. This tradition can be experienced in the oldest literature from Northern Europe, that is, in the Welsh and Irish languages. The earliest Welsh and Irish writings preserve the ancient Celtic world-view that is nature-venerating and poetic, where the spiritual and the material worlds come together to enrich one another.

Throughout history, the Celtic tradition and belief has not remained stagnant, but has progressively evolved and continued in keeping up with the times. In olden days, the early beliefs of the Celts were taken over and reformed by the Druids, who in turn were influenced by Roman religion. In time, this was transformed by Christianity in the form of the Celtic Church. This was not a break with tradition, but a continuation of the Celtic essence in a new form.

The Celts were great warriors, living clannishly for centuries, but they were also deep thinkers. They were mathematicians, artisans, astronomers, musicians, and scientists, and the legacy of the Celtic people is carried on today. Tourists from all around the globe flock to the emerald isles of Ireland and Scotland seeking out the mystical, drawn towards the mysteries of the Brittanic peoples known as the Celts.

Any music company that specializes in both Irish and Scottish records as well as Canadian folk music and northern English music, all of which have similar repertoires of jigs, reels, airs, and folksongs, can claim to specialize in Celtic music. Celtic music is a vast collection of many different regions and subregions of medieval Europe, and as such, belongs to the entire world. The existence of «Celtic» music is thus a result of the commodification and marketing of certain musical forms.

Brittany is a world leader in developing one of the largest and most successful recording industries in the world, which ensures that music of all genres, including Gaelic and Celtic music both traditional and contemporary, becomes released in mass distribution. The widespread collection of folk music has been revamped by a new generation of musicians, and remade with a modern sound. This is why the revitalization of Celtic music has been such an impacting force in ethnic world music, and made such an international comeback.

Many Celtic songs are played on modern acoustic guitars, tuned to the open DADGAD tuning, which is a popular alternative to the standard EADGBE tuning of the strings, which lends Celtic songs their unique sound.

Notable Celts

Women

• Cartimandua, (or Cartismandua, ruled ca. 43 B.C.E. — 69 B.C.E.), was a queen of the Brigante], a Celtic tribe that lived between the rivers Tyne and Humber, that formed a large tribal agglomeration in northern England. She was the only queen in early Roman Britain, identified as regina by Tacitus.
• Camma, priestess of Brigandu, wife of Sinatos.
• Boudica, (also spelled Boudicca), and often referred to as Boadicea, outside academic circles, (d. 60/61 B.C.E.) was a queen of the Brythonic Celtic Iceni people of Norfolk in Eastern Roman Britain who led a major but ultimately failed uprising of the tribes against the occupying forces of the Roman Empire. (See Battle of Watling Street)
• Scáthach (Shadowy), a legendary Scottish warrior woman and martial arts teacher who trained the legendary Ulster hero Cúchulainn in the arts of combat. Texts describe her homeland as «Alpi,» which commentators associate with Alba, the Gaelic name of Scotland, and associated with the Isle of Skye, where her residence Dún Scáith (Fort of Shadows) stands.

Celtic Men

• Bolgios Leader of the Galatii in Macedonia.
• Brennus Leader of the Celts who sacked Rome.
• Cassivellaunus Leader of Britons against Julius Caesar.
• Commius Leader of the Belgae who settled in Britain.
• Cunobelinus Leader of the Catuvellauni against Claudius.
• Vercingetorix Led revolt in Gaul against Julius Caesar.
• Verica Leader of the Atrebates whose flight to Rome was the pretext for the invasion of Britain.

Notes

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

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• Renfrew, Colin. 1990. Archaeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521386756.
• Sjoestedt, Marie-Louise. Gods and Heroes of the Celts, Translated by Myles Dillon. Berkeley, CA: Turtle Island Foundation, 1982. ISBN 0913666521
• Sykes, Bryan. 2006. Blood of the Isles: Exploring the Genetic Roots of our Tribal History. London: Bantam. ISBN 0593056523

External links

All links retrieved January 20, 2017.

• Celtic Studies at UW-MilwaukeeThe Celts in Iberia: An Overview
• The Celts with Barry Cunliffe on BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time, February 21, 2002.
• An interactive map showing the lands of the Celts between 800B.C.E. and 305C.E.
• «English and Welsh are races apart» BBC.
• How Celtic was Britain?
• We’re nearly all Celts under the skin
• Y Chromosome Evidence for Anglo-Saxon Mass Migration