Celts

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

Distribution of Celtic peoples over time, in the traditional view:
  •   Core Hallstatt territory, by the sixth century BC
  •   Greatest Celtic expansion by 275 BC
  •   Lusitanian area of Iberia where Celtic presence is uncertain
  •   Areas in which Celtic languages were spoken throughout the Middle Ages
  •   Areas where Celtic languages remain widely spoken today
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The Dying Gaul, an ancient Roman statue

The Celts (/kɛlts/ KELTS, see pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples (/ˈkɛltɪk/ KEL-tik) were a collection of Indo-European peoples[1] in Europe and Anatolia, identified by their use of Celtic languages and other cultural similarities.[2][3][4][5] Major Celtic groups included the Gauls; the Celtiberians and Gallaeci[6][7] 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;[8] for example over the ways in which the Iron Age people of Britain and Ireland should be called Celts.[5][8][9][10] In current scholarship, 'Celt' primarily refers to 'speakers of Celtic languages' rather than to a single ethnic group.[11]

La Tène–style ceremonial Agris Helmet, 350 BC, Angoulême city Museum in France

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,[12][13] which flourished from around 1200 BC.[14] This theory links the Celts with the Iron Age Hallstatt culture which followed it (c. 1200–500 BC), named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria,[14][15] 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.[16] A newer theory, "Celtic from the West", suggests proto-Celtic arose earlier, was a lingua franca in the Atlantic Bronze Age coastal zone, and spread eastward.[17] Another newer theory, "Celtic from the Centre", suggests proto-Celtic arose between these two zones, in Bronze Age Gaul, then spread in various directions.[11] After the Celtic settlement of Southeast Europe in the 3rd century BC, Celtic culture reached as far east as central Anatolia, Turkey.

Reconstruction of the Hochdorf Chieftain's Grave, Stuttgart, Germany

The earliest undisputed examples of Celtic language are the Lepontic inscriptions from the 6th century BC.[18] 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 the early Celts comes from Greco-Roman writers, who often grouped the Celts as barbarian tribes. They followed an ancient Celtic religion overseen by druids.

The Celts were often in conflict with the Romans, such as in the Roman–Gallic wars, the Celtiberian Wars, the conquest of Gaul and conquest of Britain. By the 1st century AD, most Celtic territories had become part of the Roman Empire. By c. 500, due to Romanisation and the migration of Germanic tribes, Celtic culture had mostly become restricted to Ireland, western and northern Britain, and Brittany. Between the 5th and 8th centuries, the Celtic-speaking communities in these Atlantic regions emerged as a reasonably cohesive cultural entity. They had a common linguistic, religious and artistic heritage that distinguished them from surrounding cultures.[19]

Insular Celtic culture diversified into that of the Gaels (Irish, Scots and Manx) and the Celtic Britons (Welsh, Cornish, and Bretons) of the medieval and modern periods.[2][20][21] A modern Celtic identity[22] was constructed as part of the Romanticist Celtic Revival in Britain, Ireland, and other European territories such as Galicia.[23] Today, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, and Breton are still spoken in parts of their former territories, while Cornish and Manx are undergoing a revival.

  1. ^ Mac Cana & Dillon. "The Celts, an ancient Indo-European people, reached the apogee of their influence and territorial expansion during the 4th century BC, extending across the length of Europe from Britain to Asia Minor."; Puhvel, Fee & Leeming 2003, p. 67. "[T]he Celts, were Indo-Europeans, a fact that explains a certain compatibility between Celtic, Roman, and Germanic mythology."; Riché 2005, p. 150. "The Celts and Germans were two Indo-European groups whose civilizations had some common characteristics."; Todd 1975, p. 42. "Celts and Germans were of course derived from the same Indo-European stock."; Encyclopedia Britannica. Celt. "Celt, also spelled Kelt, Latin Celta, plural Celtae, a member of an early Indo-European people who from the 2nd millennium bce to the 1st century bce spread over much of Europe."
  2. ^ a b Drinkwater 2012, p. 295. "Celts, a name applied by ancient writers to a population group occupying lands mainly north of the Mediterranean region from Galicia in the west to Galatia in the east. (Its application to the Welsh, the Scots, and the Irish is modern.) Their unity is recognizable by common speech and common artistic traditions.
  3. ^ Waldman & Mason 2006, p. 144. "Celts, in its modern usage, is an encompassing term referring to all Celtic-speaking peoples."
  4. ^ Encyclopedia Britannica. Celt. "Celt, also spelled Kelt, Latin Celta, plural Celtae, a member of an early Indo-European people who from the 2nd millennium bce to the 1st century bce spread over much of Europe. Their tribes and groups eventually ranged from the British Isles and northern Spain to as far east as Transylvania, the Black Sea coasts, and Galatia in Anatolia and were in part absorbed into the Roman Empire as Britons, Gauls, Boii, Galatians, and Celtiberians. Linguistically they survive in the modern Celtic speakers of Ireland, Highland Scotland, the Isle of Man, Wales, and Brittany.
  5. ^ a b Koch, John T. (2005). Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. p. xix–xxi. ISBN 978-1-85109-440-0. Retrieved 9 June 2010. This Encyclopedia is designed for the use of everyone interested in Celtic studies and also for those interested in many related and subsidiary fields, including the individual CELTIC COUNTRIES and their languages, literatures, archaeology, folklore, and mythology. In its chronological scope, the Encyclopedia covers subjects from the HALLSTATT and LA TENE periods of the later pre-Roman Iron Age to the beginning of the 21st century.
  6. ^ Luján, E. R. (2006). "Pueblo Celtas y no Celtas de la Galicia antigua:: Fuentes literarias frente a fuentes epigráficas" (PDF). XXII seminario de lenguas y epigrafía antigua. Archived (PDF) from the original on 25 December 2009. Retrieved 16 July 2021.
  7. ^ "If, as is the first criterion of this Encyclopedia, one bases the concept of 'Celticity' on language, one can apply the term 'Celtic' to ancient Galicia", Koch, John T., ed. (2006). Celtic culture: a historical encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. pp. 790. ISBN 1-85109-440-7.
  8. ^ a b James, Simon (1999). The Atlantic Celts – Ancient People or Modern Invention. University of Wisconsin Press.
  9. ^ Collis, John (2003). The Celts: Origins, Myths and Inventions. Stroud: Tempus Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7524-2913-7.
  10. ^ Pryor, Francis (2004). Britain BC. Harper Perennial. ISBN 978-0-00-712693-4.
  11. ^ a b Sims-Williams (August 2020). "An Alternative to 'Celtic from the East' and 'Celtic from the West'". Cambridge Archaeological Journal. 30 (3): 511–529. doi:10.1017/S0959774320000098. hdl:2160/317fdc72-f7ad-4a66-8335-db8f5d911437.
  12. ^ Louwen, A. J. (2021). Breaking and making the ancestors. Piecing together the urnfield mortuary process in the Lower-Rhine-Basin, ca. 1300 – 400 BC (PhD). Leiden University. Archived from the original on 11 April 2023. Retrieved 13 January 2023.
  13. ^ Probst 1996, pp. 258.
  14. ^ a b Chadwick, Nora; Corcoran, J. X. W. P. (1970). The Celts. Penguin Books. pp. 28–33.
  15. ^ Cunliffe, Barry (1997). The Ancient Celts. Penguin Books. pp. 39–67.
  16. ^ Koch, John T. (2010). Celtic from the West Chapter 9: Paradigm Shift? Interpreting Tartessian as Celtic – see map 9.3 The Ancient Celtic Languages c. 440/430 BC – see third map in PDF at URL provided which is essentially the same map (PDF). Oxford: Oxbow Books. p. 193. ISBN 978-1-84217-410-4. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 July 2012.
  17. ^ Koch, John T. (2010). Celtic from the West Chapter 9: Paradigm Shift? Interpreting Tartessian as Celtic – see map 9.2 Celtic expansion from Hallstatt/La Tene central Europe – see second map in PDF at URL provided which is essentially the same map (PDF). Oxford: Oxbow Books. p. 190. ISBN 978-1-84217-410-4. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 July 2012.
  18. ^ Stifter, David (2008). Old Celtic Languages (PDF). pp. 24–37. Archived (PDF) from the original on 30 June 2011.
  19. ^ Cunliffe, Barry (2003). The Celts – a very short introduction. Oxford University Press. p. 109. ISBN 978-0-19-280418-1.
  20. ^ Minahan, James (2000). One Europe, Many Nations: A Historical Dictionary of European National Groups. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 179. ISBN 978-0-313-30984-7. Archived from the original on 16 January 2023. Retrieved 11 July 2018. The Cornish are related to the other Celtic peoples of Europe, the Bretons, Irish, Scots, Manx, Welsh, and the Galicians of northwestern Spain
  21. ^ Minahan, James (2000). One Europe, Many Nations: A Historical Dictionary of European National Groups. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 766. ISBN 978-0-313-30984-7. Archived from the original on 16 January 2023. Retrieved 11 July 2018. Celts, 257, 278, 523, 533, 555, 643; Bretons, 129–33; Cornish, 178–81; Galicians, 277–80; Irish, 330–37; Manx, 452–55; Scots, 607–12; Welsh
  22. ^ Waldman & Mason 2006, p. 144. "CELTS location: Greater Europe time period: Second millennium B.C.E. to present ancestry: Celtic
  23. ^ McKevitt, Kerry Ann (2006). "Mythologizing Identity and History: a look at the Celtic past of Galicia" (PDF). E-Keltoi. 6: 651–73. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 June 2011. Retrieved 8 April 2011.