45-593: The Latobrigi (or Latovici ) were a Celtic tribe mentioned in Julius Caesar 's Commentarii . According to Caesar, 14,000 Latobrigi joined the Helvetii in their attempted migration to southwestern France in 58 BC, together with several larger contingents from other tribes. After the defeat at Bibracte , they were ordered to return to their homes and are not mentioned again in the Commentarii . Due to
90-472: 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 ). Continental Celts are the Celtic-speaking people of mainland Europe and Insular Celts are
135-705: 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
180-568: 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 , a Celtic tribe who lived first in southern Germany and central Europe, then migrated to Gaul. This means that English Gaul , despite its superficial similarity,
225-830: A collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia , identified by their use of Celtic languages and other cultural similarities. Major Celtic groups included the Gauls ; the Celtiberians and Gallaeci of Iberia; the Britons , Picts , and Gaels of Britain and Ireland; the Boii ; and the Galatians . The interrelationships of ethnicity, language and culture in the Celtic world are unclear and debated; for example over
270-760: 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. 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 ,
315-754: 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'". 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 . The Urnfield-Hallstatt theory began to be challenged in
360-633: A rethinking of the meaning of "Celtic". John T. Koch and Barry Cunliffe 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. More recently, Cunliffe proposes that proto-Celtic had arisen in the Atlantic zone even earlier, by 3000 BC, and spread eastwards with
405-535: A revival. The first recorded use of the name 'Celts' – as Κελτοί ( Keltoi ) in Ancient Greek – was by Greek geographer Hecataeus of Miletus in 517 BC, when writing about a people living near Massilia (modern Marseille ), southern Gaul . In the fifth century BC, Herodotus referred to Keltoi living around the source of the Danube and in the far west of Europe. The etymology of Keltoi
450-668: A single culture or ethnic group. 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). Martín Almagro Gorbea (2001) also proposed that Celtic arose in
495-540: A tribal surname, which epigraphic findings have confirmed. 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
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#1732772951807540-571: A variety of bronze swords , including carp-tongue swords, are usually found buried in lakes, rivers, or rocky outcrops. Elite feasting equipment such as spits, kettles, and meat hooks have also been found from central Portugal to Scotland. It is during this period that the Celts rose to prominence in Europe In particular, the Celtic language may have developed as an Atlantic lingua franca . Communities may have adopted elite status markers such as grip-tongue swords and bronze sheet metalwork from
585-520: Is a term that has never been formally defined. Some take its meaning to be a label for the period spanning approximately 1300–700 BC in Britain, France, Ireland, Portugal and Spain; that is, the Atlantic coast of Europe. Others assign it to a cultural complex of the Bronze Age period in prehistoric Europe that is defined by the culture prevalent at this time and location. The Atlantic Bronze Age
630-533: Is available only from about 400 AD, in the form of Primitive Irish Ogham inscriptions . Besides epigraphic evidence, an important source of information on early Celtic is toponymy (place names). 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 . Atlantic Bronze Age The Atlantic Bronze Age
675-400: Is characterized by economic and cultural exchange between far-flung communities, resulting in a high degree of cultural similarity seen in coastal communities ranging from central Portugal in the south of coastal Europe, through Galicia (Spain), the Atlantic coast of France, including Armorica (Brittany) to Cornwall in southwest England and as far north as Scotland . This is evidenced by
720-510: 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 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
765-534: 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
810-502: 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'. 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
855-662: 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). The theory was also partly based on the abundance of inscriptions bearing Celtic personal names in
900-530: 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. 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
945-649: The Gaels ( Irish , Scots and Manx ) and the Celtic Britons ( Welsh , Cornish , and Bretons ) of the medieval and modern periods. A modern Celtic identity was constructed as part of the Romanticist Celtic Revival in Britain, Ireland, and other European territories such as Galicia . Today, Irish , Scottish Gaelic , Welsh , and Breton are still spoken in parts of their former territories, while Cornish and Manx are undergoing
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#1732772951807990-541: The Iberian Peninsula , Ireland and Britain. The languages developed into Celtiberian , Goidelic and Brittonic branches, among others. 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. The Urnfield culture
1035-537: The Lepontic inscriptions from the 6th century BC. 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 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
1080-430: The Urnfield period (Bronze D and Hallstatt A) and they must also have acquired the skills for their production, and ritual knowledge about their proper treatment involving deposition. These changes may indicate processes related to language change. The emergence of Celtic languages with a Proto-Celtic homeland in west-central Europe can be explained by elite contact from east to west. However, this view contrasts with
1125-464: 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 ". The Proto-Celtic language is usually dated to the Late Bronze Age. The earliest records of
1170-473: 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. However, the proposal that Tartessian was Celtic is widely rejected by linguists, many of whom regard it as unclassified. Celticist Patrick Sims-Williams (2020) notes that in current scholarship, 'Celt'
1215-479: The Britons resembled the Gauls in customs and religion. For at least 1,000 years the name Celt was not used at all, and nobody called themselves Celts or Celtic, until from about 1700, after the word 'Celtic' was rediscovered in classical texts, it was applied for the first time to the distinctive culture, history, traditions, language of the modern Celtic nations – Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Brittany, and
1260-566: 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. 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,
1305-599: The Celts with the Iron Age Hallstatt culture which followed it ( c. 1200 –500 BC), named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt , Austria, 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 westward and southward from these areas by diffusion or migration . A newer theory, " Celtic from
1350-574: 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". 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
1395-508: The Gauls claimed descent from an underworld god (according to Commentarii de Bello Gallico ), and linking it with the Germanic Hel . Others view it as a name coined by Greeks; among them linguist Patrizia de Bernardo Stempel , who suggests it meant "the tall ones". In the first century BC, Roman leader Julius Caesar reported that the Gauls called themselves 'Celts', Latin : Celtae , in their own tongue . Thus whether it
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1440-514: The Greeks to apply this name for the type of Keltoi that they usually encountered". Because Classical writers did not call the inhabitants of Britain and Ireland Κελτοί ( Keltoi ) or Celtae , some scholars prefer not to use the term for the Iron Age inhabitants of those islands. However, they spoke Celtic languages, shared other cultural traits, and Roman historian Tacitus says
1485-476: The Isle of Man. '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. The English words Gaul , Gauls ( pl. ) and Gaulish (first recorded in the 16–17th centuries) come from French Gaule and Gaulois ,
1530-558: The West ", suggests proto-Celtic arose earlier, was a lingua franca in the Atlantic Bronze Age coastal zone, and spread eastward. Another newer theory, "Celtic from the Centre", suggests proto-Celtic arose between these two zones, in Bronze Age Gaul, then spread in various directions. 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
1575-672: The burials "dated to roughly the time when Celts are mentioned near the Danube by Herodotus , Ramsauer concluded that the graves were Celtic". 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. 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
1620-684: 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
1665-1081: The frequent use of stone as chevaux-de-frise , the construction of cliff castles, and a similarity of domestic architecture and living spaces, sometimes characterized by roundhouses. Trade contacts extended northwards and eastwards to Sweden and Denmark and eastwards as far as the Mediterranean. This Bronze Age culture was characterized by distinct regional centers of metal production, linked by regular maritime trade. The main centers were in southern England and Ireland, northwestern France, and western Iberia (Spain and Portugal). Items associated with this culture are often found in hoards or deposited in ritual areas. Metal finds have typically been preserved in watery contexts such as rivers, lakes, and bogs. This cultural complex includes various items, such as socketed and double-ring bronze axes, sometimes found buried in large hoards in Brittany and Galicia. Military equipment such as lunate spearheads, V-notched shields, and
1710-1169: The lack of sources, their localisation remains largely speculative, though an area close to the Helvetian territory is usually assumed. It has been suggested that they may be attested in an inscription from Brigantia -Bregenz , Austria , or that Juliomagus -Schleitheim might have been their tribal centre. They are normally not identified with the Pannonian tribe of a similar name, the Latobici . Celt Pontic Steppe Caucasus East Asia Eastern Europe Northern Europe Pontic Steppe Northern/Eastern Steppe Europe South Asia Steppe Europe Caucasus India Indo-Aryans Iranians East Asia Europe East Asia Europe Indo-Aryan Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Others European The Celts ( / k ɛ l t s / KELTS , see pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples ( / ˈ k ɛ l t ɪ k / KEL -tik ) were
1755-408: 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. The Urnfield-Hallstatt theory was partly based on ancient Greco-Roman writings, such as
1800-445: 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. Insular Celtic culture diversified into that of
1845-462: The presence of inscriptions. The modern idea of a Celtic cultural identity or "Celticity" focuses on similarities among languages, works of art, and classical texts, and sometimes also among material artefacts, social organisation , homeland and mythology . Earlier theories held that these similarities suggest a common "racial" ( race is now a contested concept) origin for the various Celtic peoples, but more recent theories hold that they reflect
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1890-537: The same origin, referring to the Gauls who invaded southeast Europe and settled in Galatia . The suffix -atai might be a Greek inflection. 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
1935-638: The ways in which the Iron Age people of Britain and Ireland should be called Celts. In current scholarship, 'Celt' primarily refers to 'speakers of Celtic languages' rather than to a single ethnic group. 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, which flourished from around 1200 BC. This theory links
1980-596: 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 . Pliny the Elder noted the use of Celtici in Lusitania as
2025-608: 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 . In 1846, Johann Georg Ramsauer unearthed an ancient grave field with distinctive grave goods at Hallstatt , Austria. Because
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