[[Image:Celts in Europe.png|300px|thumb|right|Diachronic
distribution of Celtic peoples:
]]
Celts ( or , see
names of the Celts; the most common
academic usage is with a velar "c", pronounced as "k") is a modern
term used to describe any of the
European peoples who spoke, or
speak, a
Celtic language. The term
is also used in a wider sense to describe the
modern descendants of those peoples, notably
those who participate in a
Celtic
culture.
The historical Celts were a diverse group of
tribal societies in
Iron Age Europe.
Proto-Celtic culture formed in the
Early Iron Age (1200 BC-400 AD) in
Central Europe (
Hallstatt period, named for the site in
present-day Austria).
By the later Iron Age (La
Tène
period), Celts had expanded over a wide range of
lands: as far west as Ireland
and the
Iberian
Peninsula
, as far east
as Galatia (central Anatolia
), and as far
north as Scotland
.
The earliest direct attestation of a Celtic language are the
Lepontic inscriptions, beginning
from the
6th century BC.
Continental Celtic languages
are attested only in inscriptions and place-names.
Insular Celtic is attested from about the
fourth century AD in
ogham inscriptions. Literary tradition
begins with
Old Irish from about the
eighth century. Coherent texts of
Early Irish literature, such
as the
Táin Bó
Cúailnge (
The Cattle Raid of Cooley), survive in
12th century recensions.
By the early
first millennium AD,
following the expansion of the
Roman
Empire and the
Great Migration
(
Migration Period) of
Germanic peoples, Celtic culture had
become
restricted to the British Isles
(Insular Celtic), and
the Continental Celtic
languages ceased to be widely used by the sixth century.
"Celtic Europe" today refers to the lands
surrounding the Irish
Sea
, as well as Cornwall
and Brittany on either side of the English Channel
. Galicia (NW Spain), Northern and Central
Portugal (together with Galicia, part of ancient Gallacea) and
Asturias (Northern Spain) are also clearly seen as Celtic lands,
but without a surviving Celtic language.
Names and terminology
The origin of the various names used since
classical times for the people known
today as the Celts is obscure and has been controversial. The Latin
name
Celtus (pl.
Celti or
Celtae) seems
to have been borrowed from Greek (; Greek Κέλτης pl. Κέλται or
Κελτός pl. Κελτοί,
Keltai or
Keltoi), itself
taken from a native Celtic tribal name (cf.
Celtici).
In Greek,
the first literary reference to the Celtic people, as Κελτοί
(Κeltoi), is by the Greek
historian Hecataeus of Miletus in 517 BC; he says
that the town of Massilia (Marseille
) is near the Celts and also mentions a Celtic town
of Nyrex (possibly Noreia in Austria). Herodotus seems to locate the Keltoi at the source
of the Danube and/or in Iberia, but the
passage is unclear.
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.
Latin
Gallus might originally be from a Celtic ethnic or
tribal name, perhaps borrowed into Latin
during the early
400s BC Celtic
expansions into Italy. Its root may be the
Common Celtic *galno, meaning 'power'
or 'strength'. 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
simply an ethnic name indicator).
(see Galatia in Anatolia)
The English form
Gaul comes from the French
Gaule
and
Gaulois, which is the traditional rendering of Latin
Gallia and
Gallus, -icus respectively. However,
the diphthong
au points to a different origin, namely a
Romance adaptation of the Germanic *
Walha-.
(see
Gaul: Name) The English word 'Welsh'
originates from the word
wælisc, the
Anglo-Saxon form of
walhiska-, the Germanic word for "foreign".
'Celticity' generally refers to the
cultural
commonalities of these peoples, based on similarities in language,
material artifacts,
social
organisation and
mythological
factors. 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.
'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.
(see Celtic 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 revive the
Cumbric
language (a Brythonic language from
Northwest England and Southwest
Scotland).
'Celtic' is also sometimes used to describe
regions of Continental Europe
that have 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
), and to a lesser degree, France
.
(see Modern Celts)
'Continental Celts' refers to the Celtic-speaking people of
mainland Europe.
'Insular Celts' refers to the Celtic-speaking
people of the British
Isles and their descendants. The Celts of Brittany
derive their language from migrating insular Celts from west
Britain and so are grouped accordingly.
Origins
[[Image:Hallstatt
LaTene.png|thumb|300px|Overview of the Hallstatt and La
Tène cultures.
The territories of some major
Celtic tribes of the late La Tène
period are labeled.]]
The
Celtic languages form a branch
of the larger
Indo-European
family.
By the time speakers of Celtic languages
enter history around 400 BC (Brennus's attack on Rome
in 387 BC),
they were already split into several language groups, and spread
over much of Central Europe, the Iberian peninsula, Ireland and Britain.
Some scholars think that the
Urnfield
culture of
northern Germany and
the Netherlands 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 fourth century BC, believed that
the Celts came from the islands off the mouth of the Rhine
who 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 (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
first 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 ca. 500 BC. Over the centuries they developed into the
separate
Celtiberian, Goidelic
and
Brythonic languages.
The Hallstatt culture was succeeded by the La Tène culture of
central Europe, and during the final stages of the
Iron Age gradually transformed into the explicitly
Celtic culture of early historical times. 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
Encyclopedia Britannica for
1813.
Martín Almagro Gorbea
proposed the origins of the Celts could be traced back to the
third 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.
Meanwhile, genetics, history, and archaeological researcher and
writer Stephen Oppenheimer suggests the Celts were a Mediterranean
people first established in what is now southern France by the end
of the last glacial maxum, around 11,000BC. From there through
further integration with what might have been proto-Basque
populations, these people spread outward into Italy, Spain, the
British Isles and Germany. Indeed, Celtic origin legends recorded
in
Medieval
Scotland and Ireland suggest a possible beginning in Anatolia
and then to Iberia via Egypt.
But, in his 2006 book The Origins of the
British, revised in 2007, he argued that neither Anglo-Saxons nor Celts had much impact on the
genetics of the inhabitants of the British Isles, and that British ancestry mainly traces back to
the Palaeolithic Iberian people, now represented by Basques, instead. More recently, it has
been noted that the distribution of the gene for lactase persistence apparently
originating near the Baltic
Sea
between 4,800 and 6,000 B.P. indicates a spread
from there to both the British Isles and to Iberia later than the
original paleolithic population spread.
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
AD 400, in the form of
Primitive
Irish Ogham
inscriptions.Besides epigraphical evidence, an important source
of information on early Celtic is
toponymy.
Archaeological evidence
Map of the Hallstatt Culture
In various
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 Hallstatt and La Tène
cultures were rare in the Iberian Peninsula, 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 Celticization having
its initial roots in the Bronze Age
Bell
Beaker culture.
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.
The La
Tène culture developed and flourished during the late Iron Age
(from 450 BCE to the Roman conquest in the 1st century BCE) 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
civilizations
. 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".
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.
Hallstatt & La Tene cultures
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
second 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
first 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 first century History.
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
organization was similar to that of the Romans, with large towns.
From the
third century BC the Gauls
adopted coinage, and texts with Greek characters are known in
southern Gaul from the second 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 second 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, 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 and Marne .
Iberia
Until the
end of the 19th century, traditional scholarship dealing with the
Celts acknowledged the celts of the Iberian Peninsula as a material culture relatable to the
Hallstatt
and La
Tène
cultures. Since according to the definition
of the
Iron Age in the 19th century Celtic
populations were rare in Iberia and did not provide a cultural
scenario that could easily be linked to that of Central Europe.
Three divisions of the Celts of the Iberian Peninsula were assumed
to have existed: the
Celtiberians in
the mountains near the center of the peninsula, the
Celtici in the southwest, and the celts in the
northwest.
Modern scholarship, however, has clearly proven that Celtic
presence and influences were most substantial in Iberia (with
perhaps the highest settlement saturation in Western Europe),
particularly in the western and northern regions. The Celts in
Iberia were divided into two main archaeological and cultural
groups, even though that division is not very clear:
The origins of the Celtiberians might provide a key to
understanding the Celticization process in the rest of the
Peninsula. The process of celticization 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 and
Bracari in northwestern Portugal are providing new
approaches to understanding Celtic culture (language, art and
religion) in western Iberia.
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 sixth 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
.
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.
The Celts
had some scattered settlement further south of the Po River
than some maps show. Remnants in the town of
Doccia, in the province of
Emilia-Romagna, showcase Celtic houses in
very good condition dating from about the 4th century BC.
Eastward expansion
Celtic tribes in S.E.E c.
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 seven hundred years.
St Jerome, who
visited Ancyra (modern-day Ankara
) in 373 AD,
likened their language to that of the Treveri of northern Gaul.
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 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 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.c
nvas
Insular Celts
Principal sites in Roman Britain, with
indication of the Celtic tribes.
Tribes of Wales at the time of the
Roman invasion.
Exact boundaries are conjectural.
Celtic dagger found in Britain.
A large portion of the indigenous populations of
Britain and Ireland today may be
partially 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 of the latter may
remain in the names of some geographical features, such as the
rivers
Clyde,
Tamar and
Thames, whose
etymology is unclear but possibly derive from a
pre-Celtic substrate
(Gelling). 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 the Celtic languages spoken on the European mainland.
Historians explained this as the result of successive
invasions from the European continent by diverse
Celtic-speaking peoples over the course of several centuries,
though this is now generally seen as only the elite . 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 Iberia. In 1946 the Celtic scholar
T. F.
O'Rahilly published his extremely
influential model of the
early
history of Ireland which postulated four separate waves of
Celtic invaders. It is still not known what languages were spoken
by the peoples of Ireland and Britain before the arrival of the
Celts.
Later research indicated that the culture may have developed
gradually and continuously between the Celts and the indigenous
people of Britain or Spain. Similarly in Ireland little
archaeological evidence was found for large intrusive groups of
Celtic immigrants, suggesting to archaeologists such as
Colin Renfrew
that the native late Bronze Age inhabitants gradually absorbed
European Celtic influences and language.
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 BC, although with a significant
overlay of selectively-adopted elements of La Tène culture. There
are claims of continental-style states appearing in
southern England close to the end of the
period, possibly reflecting in part immigration by élites from
various Gallic states such as those of the Belgae. However, this
immigration would be far too late to account for the origins of
Insular Celtic languages.
In the
1970s the continuity model was popularized by Colin Burgess in his book The Age
of Stonehenge
which theorised 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.
Genetic studies have supported the
prevalence of native populations, ruling out any model of
post-Bronze Age cultural and language intrusion that ignore a very
high degree of genetic absorpsion.
A study by Christian Capelli, David
Goldstein and others at University College
, London
showed
that genetic markers associated with
Gaelic names in Ireland and Scotland are also common in certain
parts of Wales and England (in most cases, The Southeast of England
with the lowest counts of these markers) are similar to the genetic
markers of the Basque people, who speak a non-Indo-European
language. This similarity supported earlier findings in
suggesting a large pre-Celtic genetic ancestry, likely going back
to the
Paleolithic. They suggest that
Celtic culture and the Celtic language may have been imported to
Britain by cultural contact, not mass invasions around 600
BC.
Some recent studies have suggested that, contrary to long-standing
beliefs, the Germanic tribes (
Angles,
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
Gaels may have spread over Northern
Britain. This view is supported by the Celtic, or at least
non-Germanic, names of some prominent early members of a number of
"Anglo-Saxon" dynasties, such as
Cerdic
of Wessex and
Penda of Mercia.
The
Pennines remained a stronghold for
Brythonic culture in England, the
Cumbric language survived until the 12th
Century, whereas in isolated areas of East Anglia, a Brythonic
language was only recorded as late as the Saxon period. Parts of
the Brythonic culture still survives in the form of the
Northumbrian smallpipes and
Wrestling (Lancashire and Cumbrian wrestling).
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, probably because these are
eastern areas which were exposed to invasion from the East by
Angles, Saxons and Vikings."By analyzing 1772 Y chromosomes
from 25 predominantly small urban locations, we found that
different parts of the British Isles have sharply different
paternal histories; the degree of population replacement and
genetic continuity shows systematic variation across the sampled
areas."
The
Celtic invasion of the British
Isles is difficult to document genetically.
Two published books -
The Blood of the Isles by Bryan
Sykes and The Origins of the British: a Genetic Detective
Story by Stephen
Oppenheimer - are based upon recent genetic studies, and show
that the vast 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.
Sykes sees little genetic evidence relating to people from the
heartland of the Hallstatt and La Tene cultures. On the paternal
side he finds that the "Oisin" (R1b) clan is in the majority which
has strong affinities to Iberia, with no evidence of a large scale
arrival from Central Europe. He considers that the genetic
structure of Britain and Ireland is "Celtic, if by that we mean
descent from people who were here before the Romans and who spoke a
Celtic language." But this language was the result of diffusion
rather than migration, and the vast majority of the inhabitants of
the British Isles, whether they consider themselves to be "Anglo
Saxon", "Celt" or otherwise, are descended from the original
Mesolithic
hunter-gatherers who
migrated north from Iberia approximately 13,000 years ago at the
end of the last ice age.
Evidence
for Celts in England
can be found in place names, such as those
including the Old English element, 'wealh', meaning 'foreigner' or
'stranger'. A smattering of villages around the Fenland
town of Wisbech hint at this. West Walton
, Walsoken
, and the Walpoles indicate
the continued presence of an indigenous population, and Wisbech
, King's
Lynn
and Chatteris
retain proto-Celtic topographical elements.
Villages
which exhibit Tydd in their name, eg Tydd St.
Giles
may obtain that element from the Brythonic word for
"small holding". Compare the
Welsh "tyddyn".
Saxon Etheldreda's 'Liber Eliensis' documents the Fenland tribe of the Girvii (Gywre), who are cited elsewhere as being an
independent people with dark hair and their own (Brythonic?)
language. It is entirely possible that the
Girvii were formed in part by migrating Britons,
displaced by Saxon settlers after the legions left the Isles.
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.
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 (see
Roman Gaul,
Roman Britain). In the case of the continental
Celts, this eventually resulted in a
language shift to
Vulgar Latin (see also
Gallo-Roman culture), while the Insular
Celts retained their language. However, the Celts were master
horsemen, which so impressed the Romans that they adopted
Epona, the Celtic horse goddess, into their pantheon.
During and after the fall of the Roman Empire many parts of France
threw out their Roman administrators .
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. It is written in Latin
inscriptional capitals, and is in the
Gallic language. The restored tablet
contains sixteen vertical columns, with sixty-two 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.
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. Two of these festivals, Beltaine and
Lúnasa 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.
Imbolc does
not seem to be shown at all however.
The Celtic Calendar seems to be based on astronomy but how any
astrology system would have worked is harder to tell. We have to
base our knowledge on
Old Irish
manuscripts, none of which have been published or fully translated.
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.
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
first century BC.
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. There are
instances recorded where women participated both in warfare and in
kingship, although they were in the minority in these areas. 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. Patterns of
settlement varied from decentralised to the urban. The popular
stereotype of non-urbanised societies settled in
hillforts and
duns, drawn from
Britain and Ireland (there are over 2000
hill forts known in Britain)
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 practiced by the Celts was very
likely similar to the better documented
practice in ancient Greece and Rome.
Slaves were acquired from war, raids, penal and debt servitude.
Slavery was hereditary, although
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. In the Middle Ages, slavery was
especially prevalent in the
Celtic
countries. Manumissions were discouraged by law and the word
for "female slave",
cumal, was used as a general unit of
value in Ireland.
There is archaeological evidence to suggest that the pre-Roman
Celtic societies were linked to the network of overland
trade routes that spanned Eurasia. Large
prehistoric trackways crossing bogs in Ireland and Germany have
been found by archaeologists. They are believed to have been
created for wheeled transport as part of an extensive roadway
system that facilitated trade, because of their substantial nature.
The territory held by the Celts contained tin, lead, iron, silver
and gold. Celtic smiths and metalworkers created weapons and
jewelry 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 these coin items it is assumed that
"proto-money" was used, which is the collective name given to the
bronze items made from the early La Tene period onwards, and were
often in the shape of axeheads, rings and 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,
but also were minted in gold, silver and bronze of higher value,
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.
Gold coinage was much more
common than
silver coinage, despite
being worth substantially more, as there were around 100 mines in
Southern Britain and Central France, but silver was more rarely
mined, partly due to the comparative sparcity of mines and the
amount of effort needed for extraction compared to the profit
gained. Silver and bronze coinage became more common with the rise
of the Roman civilisation, due to trade with them, and this
coincided with a major increase in gold production in the Celtic
world to meet the Roman demand, made by the high value romans put
on it. 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 and is a transcription of a
much older
epic poem, leading some
scholars to claim that the Celts invented
Rhyme. They 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.
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.
According to Diodorus Siculus:
Clothing
During the later Iron Age the Gauls generally wore long-sleeved
shirts or tunics and long trousers (called
braccae by the Romans). Clothes were made of
wool or linen, with some silk being used by the rich. Cloaks were
worn in winter. Brooches and armlets were used but the most famous
item of jewellery was the
torc, a
rigid piece of adornment made from twisted metal.
Gender and sexual norms
According to
Aristotle, most "belligerent
nations" are strongly influenced by their women, but the Celts were
unusual because of openly preferred male lovers (
Politics II 1269b). 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." In book VIII of his
Deipnosophists, the Roman Greek
rhetorician and grammarian
Athenaeus,
repeating assertions made by
Diodorus
Siculus in the 1st century BC, wrote that Celtic women were
beautiful but that the men preferred to sleep together and "the
young men will offer themselves to strangers and are insulted if
the offer is refused" (Diod 5:32). 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"
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 maritial duties
due to impotence, obesity, homosexual inclination or preference for
other women.
The
sexual freedom of women in Britain
was noted by
Cassius Dio:
Very few reliable sources exist regarding Celtic views towards
gender divisions, though some archaeological evidence does suggest
that their views towards
gender roles
may have been different from those of their contemporary classical
counterparts.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 4th century BC.
There are some general indications coming 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 portions of the La Tène period. The evidence is, however,
far from conclusive.Examples of individuals buried with both
torcs (generally associated as being female
grave goods ), and weaponry have been identified, and there are
some questions regarding the sexing of some skeletons that were
buried with warrior assemblages.
Among the insular Celts, there is a greater amount of historic
documentation to suggest warrior roles for women however. 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 to for fear of death and the women ripped each other
apart. Other writers, such as
Ammianus Marcellinus and
Tacitus, mentioned Celtic women inciting,
participating, and leading battles. Poseidonius' anthropological
comments on the Celts had common themes, primarily
primitivism, extreme ferocity, cruel sacrificial
practices, and the strength and courage of their women.
Warfare and weapons
A Gallic statue of a Celtic warrior,
in the Museum of Brittany
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.
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". Such descriptions
have been challenged by contemporary historians.
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. 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.
Polybius also asserts that Celts typically 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."
According to Livy this was also true of the Celts of Asia
Minor.
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."
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:
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
The Celts had an
indigenous
polytheistic religion and
culture.
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). Rites and sacrifices were carried out
by priests, known as Druids. The Celts did not see their gods as
having a human shape 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 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 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.
Triplicity is a common theme in Celtic cosmology, and a number of
deities were seen as threefold.
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 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.
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 pool.
Druids fulfilled a variety of roles in
Celtic religion, as priests and religious
officiants, but also as judges, sacrificers, teachers, and
lore-keepers. Druids organized and ran the religious ceremonies,
and they memorized and taught the
calendar. Other classes of druids performed
ceremonial sacrifices of crops and
animals for the perceived benefit of the
community.
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
Celtic
Christianity in the fifth 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
development of Christianity in
Ireland and Britain
brought an early medieval
renaissance of Celtic art between 390 and
1200 AD , developing many of the styles now thought of as typically
Celtic, and found throughout much of Ireland and Britain, including
the northeast and far north of Scotland, Orkney and
Shetland
. This Celtic renaissance was ended by the
Norman Conquest of Ireland in the
late 12th century. 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 revival from the 19th century.
See also
Notes
- Britannica (Turkey) People and Culture
- Julius
Caesar, Commentarii de Bello
Gallico 1.1: "All Gaul is
divided into three parts, one of which the Belgae live, another in
which the Aquitani live, and the third are those who in their own
tongue are called Celts (Celtae), in our language Gauls
(Galli).
- (Lhuyd, p. 290) Lhuyd, E. "Archaeologia Britannica; An
account of the languages, histories, and customs of the original
inhabitants of Great Britain." (reprint ed.) Irish University
Press, 1971. ISBN 0-7165-0031-0
- 2001 p 95. La lengua de los Celtas y otros pueblos indoeuropeos
de la península ibérica. In Almagro-Gorbea, M., Mariné, M. and
Álvarez-Sanchís, J.R. (eds) Celtas y Vettones, pp. 115-121. Ávila:
Diputación Provincial de Ávila.
- Barbara Arredi, Estella Poloni, Chris Tyler-Smith. The Peopling
of Europe, in Anthropological Genetics, ed. Michael
Crawford, Cambridge Press, 2007, pp. 380-408
- e.g. Patrick Sims-Williams, Ancient Celtic Placenames in
Europe and Asia Minor, Publications of the Philological
Society, No. 39 (2006); Bethany Fox, The P-Celtic Place-Names of North-East England and
South-East Scotland See also List of Celtic place
names in Portugal.
- [1] The Celts in Iberia: An Overview - Alberto
J. Lorrio (Universidad de Alicante) & Gonzalo Ruiz Zapatero
(Universidad Complutense de
Madrid) - Journal of Interdisciplinary Celtic Studies, Volume
6: 167-254 The Celts in the Iberian Peninsula, February 1,
2005
- F. Fleming, Heroes of the Dawn: Celtic Myth, 1996. p.
9 & 134.
- * Otto Hermann Frey, "A new approach to early Celtic
art". Setting the Glauberg finds in context of shifting
iconography, Royal Irish Academy (2004)
- Chambers's information for the people pg50
- Brownson's Quarterly Review pg505
- Researches Into the Physical History of
Mankind
- Coutinhas, José Manuel (2006), Aproximação à identidade
etno-cultural dos Callaici Bracari, Porto.
- Archeological site of Tavira, official
website
- "Records of the West Saxon dynasties survive in versions which
have been subject to later manipulation, which may make it all the
more significant that some of the founding 'Saxon' fathers have
British names: Cerdic, Ceawlin, Cenwalh." in: Hills, C.,
Origins of the English, Duckworth (2003), p. 105. Also
"The names Cerdic, Ceawlin and Caedwalla, all in the genealogy of
the West Saxon kings, are apparently British." in:
Ward-Perkins, B., Why did the Anglo-Saxons not become more
British? The English Historical Review 115.462 (June 2000):
p513.
- P. Sims-Williams, Religion and Literature [in Western
England, 600–800], Cambridge 1990, p. 26.
- Irish genes from Galicia
- Lambert, Pierre-Yves (2003). La langue gauloise.
Paris, Editions Errance. 2nd edition. ISBN 2-87772-224-4. Chapter 9
is titled "Un calandrier gaulois"
- Lehoux, D. R. Parapegmata: or Astrology, Weather, and
Calendars in the Ancient World, pp63-5. PhD Dissertation, University of Toronto,
2000.
- James, Simon (1993). "Exploring the World of the Celts"
Reprint, 2002. pp-155.
- The Coligny Calendar, Roman Britain, 2/10/01
- Celtic Astrology
- The Iron Age, smr.herefordshire.gov.uk
- Simmons, op.cit., citing Wendy Davies, Wales in the
Early Middle
Ages, 64.
- Simmons, op.cit., at 1616, citing Kelly, Guide to
Early Irish Law, 96.
- Beatrice Cauuet (Université Toulouse Le Mirail, UTAH,
France)
- Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica
- ; Rankin, H.D. Celts and the Classical World,
p.55
- Rankin, p. 55
- Rankin, p.78
- University College, Cork. Cáin Lánamna (Couples Law) .
2005.[2] Access date: 7 March 2006.
- Roman History Volume IX
Books 71-80, Dio Cassiuss and Earnest Carry translator (1927),
Loeb Classical Library ISBN
0674991966.
- Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities p259
Excerpts from Book XIV
- "Noricus ensis," Horace, Odes, i. 16.9
- Vagn Fabritius Buchwald, Iron and steel in ancient times, 2005,
p.127
- Radomir Pleiner, in The Celtic Sword, Oxford:
Clarendon Press (1993), p.159.
- Polybius, Histories II.28
- Livy, History XXII.46 and XXXVIII.21
- Paul Jacobsthal Early Celtic Art
- Sjoestedt, Marie-Louise (originally
published in French, 1940, reissued 1982) Gods and Heroes of
the Celts. Translated by Myles Dillon, Berkeley, CA, Turtle
Island Foundation ISBN 0-913666-52-1, pp. 24-46.
- Sjoestedt (1940) pp.16, 24-46.
- Sjoestedt (1940) pp.xiv-xvi, 14-46.
- Cunliffe, Barry, (1997) The Ancient Celts. Oxford,
Oxford University Press ISBN
0-19-815010-5, pp.202, 204-8. p. 183 (religion)
- Sjoestedt (1982) pp.xxvi-xix.
Literature
- Alberro, Manuel and Arnold, Bettina (eds.),
e-Keltoi: Journal of Interdisciplinary Celtic Studies,
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University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-19-815010-5.
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2004. ISBN 0-7134-8839-5
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2003
- Freeman, Philip Mitchell The
Earliest Classical Sources on the Celts: A Linguistic and
Historical Study. Diss. Harvard University
, 1994. (link)
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Invention? Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, August
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- 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
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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,
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Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN 0-19-280120-1
- 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,
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- O'Rahilly, T. F. Early Irish History Dublin Institute for
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External links
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- 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
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