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Celt, normally pronounced /ˈkɛlt/ (see Pronunciation of Celtic), 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. Celts were a diverse group of independent, indigenous tribal societies. While similarities in language, artifacts, religion and social structures are known, each culture had its own language and traditions.^[1]

The focus of this article is the ancient peoples of Europe; for Celts of the present day, see Modern Celts.

During the Iron Age, Celtic culture was spread from the Iberian Peninsula to Anatolia (Turkey), but the ultimate origin of the Celts is a subject of controversy. Traditionally, scholars have placed the Celtic homeland in what is now southern Germany and Austria, associating the earliest Celtic peoples with the Hallstatt culture. (see List of Celtic tribes for the names of specific, early Celtic peoples).

Although more recently restricted to the Atlantic coast of Western Europe (known as the 'Celtic fringe'), Celtic languages were once predominant over much of Europe, with territory largely ceded to expanding Germanic tribes and the invading Roman Empire. Archaeological and historical sources show that at their maximum extent in the third century BC, Celtic peoples were also present in areas of Eastern Europe and Asia Minor.^[2]

'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 (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). '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 northern Iberian Peninsula (northern Portugal, and the Spanish historical regions of Galicia, Asturias and Cantabria), 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 the British Isles and so are grouped accordingly.

Main article: Names of the Celts

The origin of the various names used since classical times for the people known today as the Celts is obscure and has been controversial. In particular, there is no record of the term 'Celt' being used in connection with the inhabitants of Ireland and Britain prior to the 19th century.

The Latin name Celtus (pl. Celti or Celtae; Greek Κέλτης pl. Κέλται or Κελτός pl. Κελτοί, Keltai or Keltoi) seems to be based on a native Celtic ethnic name.^[3]

The first literary reference to the Celtic people, as Κελτοί (Κeltoi), is by the Greek historian Hecataeus of Miletus in 517 BC; he locates the Keltoi tribe in Rhenania (West/Southwest Germany).

The English word 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.^[4]

English "Gaul(s)" and Latin Gallus or Galli might be from an originally 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 word 'Welsh' originates from word wælisc, which is Anglo-Saxon for 'foreigner'.^[5]

The Celts in Europe, past and present:
     present-day Celtic-speaking areas      other parts of the six most commonly recognized 'Celtic nations' and where a Celtic language is spoken but not the dominating language      other parts of Europe once peopled by Celts; modern-day inhabitants of many of these areas often claim a Celtic heritage and/or culture

Most human genes are inherited as a mixture of genetic material from both parents, but there are two exceptions. Mitochondrial DNA is passed down from mothers unchanged and so can be traced back from daughter to mother. Similarly all boys inherit their Y chromosome from their father and since women do not have a Y chromosome, this can be traced back from son to father. Population genetics studies the patterns in the minor variations in this DNA to obtain information on the movement of populations.^{[citation needed]}

In his book Neanderthal, archaeologist Douglas Palmer refers to genetic research conducted across Europe, then states the original modern genetic group in Europe arrived between 9,000 and 5,000 years ago with the spread of farming, displacing the earlier hunter gatherer populations. Such displacement coincided with a population explosion, since farming is capable of supporting up to sixty times greater population than the hunter-gatherer lifestyle in the same area:

However, modern genetic studies have shown that the original spread of modern man across Europe took place more than 20,000 years ago and re-expanded from refuges after the last Ice Age about 10,000 years ago. It now seems likely that the farmers from the Middle East did not generally displace the hunter-gatherers but that farming was slowly adopted by the latter.^{[citation needed]} However, the association of the Indo-European language family with farming remains unproven.

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 from the Iberian refuge after the last major ice age. According to the most recently published studies of European haplogroups, around half of the current male population of that portion of Eurasia is a descendant of the R1b haplogroup(subgroup of Central Asian haplogroup K). Haplotype R1b exceeds 90% of Y-chromosomes in parts of Wales, Ireland, Portugal and Spain.^[6][7][8]

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 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.^[9][10]

Sykes says that the maternal and paternal origin of the British and Irish are different, with the former going back to Palaeolithic and Mesolithic times. He identifies close matches between the maternal clans of Iberia and those of the western half of the Isles. Once in the Isles the maternal lines mutated and diversified. He 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":

Oppenheimer's theory is that the modern day people of Wales, Ireland and Cornwall are mainly descended from Iberians who did not speak a Celtic language. In Origins of the British (2006), Stephen Oppenheimer states (pages 375 and 378):

Oppenheimer challenges the idea that all of Britain spoke a Celtic language (chapter 7).

There are 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 BC, with it reaching Britain and Ireland by 3200 BC, according to Forster and Toth. However, generally a later date is considered more likely by most scholars. Gray and Atkinson put the splitting off of Celtic languages at around 5000 BC. Mallory argues for a date no earlier than about 4,500 B.C. for a unified Proto-Indo-European-speaking people, so that the split that included Celtic could not have emerged until sometime later.

Several studies have been carried out of the Celtic place names of Europe. A recent one is that by Sims-Williams. The map of this data in Oppenheimer shows that the remaining placenames are mainly in Britain and northern France but extend from Iberia to the Danube.

A direct clue that the different names used by the Greek (who normally called any Celts Κελτοί or Γαλᾶται) and the Latin authors (preferring Galli) actually referred to speakers of the same or similar languages is given by Hieronymos (AD 342-419). In his commentary on St Paul's epistle to the Galatians, he notes that the language of the Anatolian Galatians in his day was still very similar to the language of the Treveri.^[11] St Jerome probably had first-hand knowledge of these Celtic languages, as he had both visited Augusta Treverorum and Galatia.^[12]

The green area suggests a possible extent of (proto-)Celtic influence around 1000 BC. The yellow area shows the region of birth of the La Tène style. The orange area indicates an idea of the possible region of Celtic influence around 400 BC.

The only direct archaeological evidence for Celtic speaking peoples comes from coins and inscriptions. However it has been assumed that the Hallstatt (c. 1200-475 BC) and La Tene (c. 500-50 BC) cultures are associated with the Celts.^{[citation needed]} 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.^{[citation needed]}

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 Spain, 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.

The question of the original homeland of the Celts has caused much controversy, with many competing theories.

The Celtic language family is a branch of the larger Indo-European family, which leads some scholars to a hypothesis that the original speakers of the Celtic proto-language may have arisen in the Pontic-Caspian steppes (see Kurgan). It is not generally accepted, however, that Celtic became differentiated from other branches of Indo-European at such an early stage. By the time speakers of Celtic languages enter history around 600 BC, they were already split into several language groups, and spread over much of Central Europe, the Iberian peninsula, Ireland and Britain.^{[citation needed]}

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, the earliest chariot burials in Britain dating to ca. 500 BC. Over the centuries they developed into the separate Celtiberian, Goidelic and Brythonic languages. Whether Goidelic and Brythonic are descended from a common Insular-Celtic language, or reflect two separate waves of migration, is disputed.^{[citation needed]}

The prehistoric Beaker culture (2800 – 1900 BC) has often been pointed at as ancestral to the Celtic people. This people derive from the western extremity of Corded Ware in the Netherlands, where otherwise marginal groups took advantage of their contacts by sea and rivers and started a diaspora of North West European culture from Ireland to the Carpatian Basin and south along the Atlantic coast and following the Rhone valley until Portugal, North Africa and Sicily, even penetrating northern and central Italy. ^[13] The new international trade routes opened by the Beaker people where there to remain and the culture was succeeded by a number of Bronze Age cultures, among them the Unetice culture (Central Europe), ca. 2300 BC, and by the Nordic Bronze Age, a culture of Scandinavia and northernmost Germany-Poland, ca. 1800 BC. Almost all of this areas emerge to history as Celtic. Bodmer(1992)^[14] suggested that the Celtic populations of Britain trace their origins to an early settlement of the British Isles by Paleolithic Europeans, rather than by a later migration from central Europe in the first millennium B.C., also associated with the spread of the Celtic culture.

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. Others however believe that the fact that the La Tène culture is too late to explain the original Celtic homeland; rather its extent demonstrates the subsequent spread of a pre-existing Celtic culture throughout Switzerland, Austria, southern and central Germany, northern regions of Italy, eastern France, Bohemia, Moravia, Portugal, Slovakia and parts of Hungary and Ukraine. The technologies, decorative practices and metal-working styles of the La Tène were certainly influential on the continental Celts, but they were highly derivative from the Greek, Etruscan and Scythian decorative styles with whom the La Tène settlers frequently traded.^{[citation needed]}

Today's Celtic nations are clustered along the Atlantic coast of Europe. Genetic studies now suggest (see above) that certain Celtic-speaking peoples share genetic ancestry with the Basque people on the Atlantic coast of Spain and France.^[15] J. F. del Giorgio in The Oldest Europeans mentions that mythologists like Robert Graves reached a similar conclusion through comparative mythology and the study of Celtic customs. Celtic scholars however believe that such similarities reflect an earlier common heritage of the indigenous populations of the Atlantic fringe, long before the arrival of the Celts.^{[citation needed]}

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.

At odds with all the above theories is the assertion of Pliny the Elder that Celtica (the country of origin of the Celts) was in the delta of the river Guadalquivir in the south of Portugal and Spain: "praeter haec in Celtica Acinippo, Arunda, Arunci, Turobriga, Lastigi, Salpesa, Saepone, Serippo. altera Baeturia, quam diximus Turdulorum et conventus Cordubensis, habet oppida non ignobilia Arsam, Mellariam, Mirobrigam Reginam, Sosintigi, Sisaponem."^[16] This view is not shared by modern Celtic scholars, although the recent genetic research discussed above seem to support the Iberian origins of the peoples that were later called 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.

A large portion of the indigenous populations of Britain and Ireland today may be partially descended from the ancient peoples, such as picts, 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.^{[citation needed]} 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-speaking 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. 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.

Celtic dagger found in Britain.

Later research indicated that the culture may have developed gradually and continuously between the Celts and the indigenous "Basque" people of Britain.^{[citation needed]} 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. Although archaeological evidence has often been proved unreliable in the past. It should also be noted that genetic evidence proves that most Celtic people of coastal and northern Ireland have little traces of R1b genes, therefore indicating that when the Celts came to Ireland, the absorption of the indigenous inhabitants was regional (mainly central).^[17]

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.^{[citation needed]} 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 is numismatic and other evidence 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.^{[citation needed]} However, this immigration would be far too late to account for the origins of Insular Celtic languages. In the 1970s the continuity model was taken to an extreme, 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. 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.

More recently a number of genetic studies have also supported this model of culture and language being absorbed by native populations. A study by Christian Capelli, David Goldstein and others at University College, London showed that genes associated with Gaelic names in Ireland and Scotland are also common in certain parts of Wales (in most cases) are similar to the genes of the Basque people, who speak a non-Indo-European language. This similarity supported earlier findings in suggesting a large pre-Celtic genetic ancestry, possibly 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. A different possibility is that the Celtic language should differentiated from the Celtic culture.

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 (this may also be the case with the Celts and basques of Ireland), much as the Gaels may have spread over Northern Britain. 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.^[18]

Repartition of Gaul ca. 54 BC

Main article: 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 Tene culture. In later Iron Age Gaul, the social organisation 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 600BC, with exchange up the Rhone valley, but trade was disrupted soon after 500BC 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 found that a large part of Gaul was Celtic speaking. Rome needed land communications with its Spanish provinces and fought a major battle with the Saluvii at Entremont in 124-123 BC. Gradually Roman control extended, the Roman Province of Gallia Transalpina being 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-Marne. However, the Celtic language did not survive, having been replaced by a Romance language, French.

Main language areas in Iberia, showing Celtic and Proto-Celtic languages in green, and Iberian languages in purple, circa 250 BC.

Main language areas in Iberia circa 200 BC. showing Celtic and Proto-Celtic languages in green.

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

Traditional 18th/19th centuries scholarship surrounding the Celts virtually ignored the Iberian Peninsula, since material culture 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 and along the Iberian 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, which both present special, local features. The group originated when Celts migrated from what is now France and integrated with the local Iberian people.

The origins of the Celtiberians might provide a key to unlocking the Celticization process in the rest of the Peninsula. The process of celticization of the southwest by the Keltoi and of the northwest is however not a simple celtiberian question. Recent investigation about the Callaici Bracari in northwest Portugal is bringing new approaches to understand Celtic culture evidences (language, art and religion) in western Iberia.^[19]

There was an early Celtic presence in northern Italy since inscriptions dated to the sixth century BC have been found there. 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 Appeninne 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 390BC.

At the battle of Telemon 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 settled much further south of the Po River than many 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.

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. 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. Then, having taken advantage of easing of Macedon after civil war, the Celts have destroyed an army of its king Ptolemeus Keravn and have plundered 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 (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. Examine the Map of Celtic Lands for more information.^[20]

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 Ptolomy II.

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 Gaul, this eventually resulted in a language shift from Gaulish to Vulgar Latin (see also Gallo-Roman culture). However, the Celts were master horsemen,^{[citation needed]} which so impressed the Romans^{[citation needed]} 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.

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.^[21] It is written in Latin inscriptional capitals, and is in the Gaulish 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 ^[22]

There were four major festivals in the Celtic Calendar: "Imbolc" on the 1st of February, possibly linked to the lactation of the ewes and sacred to the Irish Goddess Brigid. "Beltaine" on the 1st of May, connected to fertility and warmth, possibly linked to the Sun God Belenos. "Lúnasa" on the 1st of August, connected with the harvest and associated with the God Lugh. And finally "Samhain" on the 1st of November, possibly the start of the year.^[23] 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.^[24]

The Celtic Calendar seems to be based on astronomy^[25] 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.^[26]

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 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.

Archaeological discoveries at the Vix Burial indicate that women could achieve high status and power within at least one Celtic society. 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.^[27] 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 mentally handicapped be looked after.

Little is known of family structure among the Celts. Athenaeus in his Deipnosophists, 13.603, claims that "the Celts, in spite of the fact that their women are the most beautiful of all the barbarian tribes, prefer boys as sexual partners. There are some of them who will regularly go to bed – on those animal skins of theirs – with a pair of lovers", implying a woman and a boy. Such reports reflect an outsiders observation of Celtic culture.^[28] It is unknown whether Athenaeus, born in Egypt of Greek origin ever visited any Celts since little is known about him beyond his surviving writings.

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 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.

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.^[29] The territory held by the Celts contained tin, lead, iron, silver and gold.^[30] 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 1600 BC.

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, 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.

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 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.

The Dying Gaul, a Roman marble copy of a Hellenistic work of the late third century BC Capitoline Museums, Rome

According to Didorus Siculus :

During the later Iron Age the Gauls generally wore long-sleeved shirts or tunics and long trousers (called braccae by the Romans^[31]). 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 jewellery was the torc.

According to Aristotle, most "beligerent nations" are strongly influenced by their women, but the Celts were unusual because of openly preferred male lovers (Politics II 1269b).^[32] 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"^[33] 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^{[34][35][36][37]} There are no direct sources from ancient Celtic cultures to confirm or contradict these statements. Rankin speculates that these authors may be recording male "bonding rituals".

Under Brehon Law which 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.^[38]

The sexual freedom of women in Britain was noted by Cassius Dio:^[39]

In fact 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 to those of their contemporary classical counterparts.^[40] 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 BC.^[41]

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. ^[42] 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. ^[43] While such archaeological remains do suggest the possibility that women had a role in warfare, they are not conclusive as to that fact. Women could have been buried with these objects to show a social role, or in some cases the bi-engendered gravegood burials could represent men buried with female associated objects. Regardless, such archaeological evidence does suggest that women could have served as warriors within the Celtic populations, but certainly indicate that gender roles were not as readily divided into the classic male/female divide as is normally interpreted.

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.

Despite the fact that Celtic Princesses and the badb were cross-dressing symbols of sex and politics, rather than historical representations of real fighting women, Posidonius and Strabo described an island of women, where men could not venture for fear of death, and women ripped each other apart.^[44] Other writers such as Ammianus Marcellinus, Tacitus mentioned Celtic women inciting, participating, and leading battles.^[45] Poseidonius anthropological comments on the Celts had common themes, primarily primitivism, extreme ferocity, cruel sacrificial practices, and the strength and courage of their women.^[46] Contemporary historians ascribe this to the Romans and Greeks want for a upside-down world for the barbarians, who both frightened and fascinated them. It is interesting to note that the Celtic God of Martial Arts was, in fact, a woman.

This short section requires expansion.

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".^[47] Such descriptions have been challenged by contemporary historians.^[48]

"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 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 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, 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, a translation of early Irish mythology by prominent Irish translator Lady Gregory, 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 Morrigu (the Irish trinity of war-goddesses).

The Celts believed that if they attached the head of their enemy to a pole or a fence near their house, the head would start crying when the enemy was near. If the head was taken from an enemy who was important enough, they would put it in a church and pray to it believing it had supernatural powers.

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.

Main article: Celtic 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, some 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 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.^[49]

Triplicities are a common theme in Celtic cosmology and a number of deities were seen as threefold.^[50]

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.^[51]

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.^[52]

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.^[53]

A Celtic cross.

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 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). This brought the early medieval renaissance of Celtic art between 390 and 1200 A.D.^{[citation needed]}, 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.

The development of Christianity in Ireland and Britain brought an early medieval renaissance of Celtic art between 400 and 1200, only ended by the Norman Conquest of Ireland in the late 12th century.^{[citation needed]} 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 in areas where the use of Celtic languages had continued.^{[citation needed]}

• Modern Celts
• Celtic nations
• Celtic languages