Celts

Home > History > Modern Europe > British and Irish History

Celts. From the 5th cent. bc, Greek ethnographers such as Hecataeus of Miletus and Herodotus described the Celts as one of the major ethnic groups of central and western Europe, locating them inland from Marseilles, or around the headwaters of the Danube. Later Latin and Greek authors equated them with the Galli and Galatae who invaded northern Italy, Greece, and Asia Minor in the 4th and 3rd cents. bc, though Posidonius, writing around 100 bc, contrasted the Celts of Gaul with the less civilized Galatae of central Europe. Caesar, in the opening passage of the De bello Gallico, states that only the Gauls of central and southern Gaul called themselves Celts, with Belgae living in the north of Gaul and Aquitani in the south-west; these contrasted with surrounding ethnic groups such as the Germani and Britanni.

Interest was revived in the Celts during the Renaissance, as the earliest named inhabitants of temperate Europe. In 1582 George Buchanan claimed that the former inhabitants of Britain were Celts or Gauls on the basis of similarity in ancient place-names in Gaul and Britain. This linguistic similarity was developed by authors such as Pezron and Llywd in the 17th cent. to define a group of related languages spoken in ancient Gaul, and still surviving in parts of Brittany and Britain, and which they termed ‘Celtic’. The term ‘Celt’ was thus extended to refer to speakers of these languages, or those whose recent ancestors had spoken it—Bretons, Celts, Cornish, Welsh, Irish, Manx, and Scottish.

To identify the ancient Celts, 18th- and 19th-cent. scholars turned to archaeology, describing certain objects and burial rites as ‘Celtic’. In 1871 de Mortillet noted the similarity between burials in Champagne and northern Italy, suggesting this was the evidence for the historically documented Gallic invasion of northern Italy in the 4th cent. bc. Kemble and Franks, as early as 1863, had referred to objects from Britain decorated in a distinctive curvilinear art style as ‘Celtic’. This art style was also found on the objects fished out at La Tène on Lake Neuchâtel in Switzerland, a site used by Hildebrand in 1874 to define the later Iron Age in central Europe; the cemetery of Hallstatt in Austria represented the earlier phase. Hildebrand considered both periods to be ‘Celtic’.

By the late 19th cent. archaeologists had defined a La Tène ‘culture’, with distinctive artefact types (brooches, swords, etc.), art style, and burial rites, and following the theoretical assumptions of Kossinna and Childe that archaeological cultures could be equated with ancient peoples, the La Tène culture became that of the Celtic peoples, and La Tène art became ‘Celtic’ art. It was also assumed that there was a close correlation between ethnicity, language, art, and material culture, and by using classical and Irish sources that an ancient ‘Celtic’ society and ‘Celtic’ religion could also be defined, and the former distribution of the Celts mapped, using a combination of historical, archaeological, and linguistic (especially place-name) evidence. On this model, the modern existence of Celtic languages along the Atlantic seaboard implies a ‘survival’ of Celtic ways, supported further by the La Tène art style and early Christian art in Ireland, and also in descriptions of Irish society. Thus the Irish and the classical sources are often combined to produce a ‘timeless’ and ‘placeless’ description of Celtic society and religion.

Scholars such as Powell (1958) and Filip (1962) used archaeology to seek the origin and spread of the La Tène culture. On the evidence of the continuity of burial rites from the preceding Hallstatt period, and of a concentration of richly decorated early La Tène art objects, the centre of origin was identified as northern France–western Germany, more specifically in Champagne, and the hill-ranges of the Hunsrück and Eifel on either side of the river Mosel. From these areas it was claimed the Celts expanded in the 4th and 3rd cents. bc by migrating into southern and western France, Britain, and central Europe, and, as documented by the historical sources, into Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, and Asia Minor. Subsequent revisions of this theory have extended the core area to include southern Germany and Bohemia, and back in time to the late Hallstatt period, to include the rich burials and ‘princely residences’ such as Asperg, the Heuneburg, and Mont Lassois.

This model has come under increasing criticism. It fails to account for Celtic-speaking groups in Iberia where La Tène objects are rare or unknown; the supposed invasion of Britain in the 4th–3rd cents. bc corresponds with the period when insular–continental contacts were at their lowest; and continuity from the early to the late Iron Age is seen as the norm in virtually all areas where the archaeological record is sufficiently complete (e.g. Britain). The supposed ‘expansion’ of the Celts is largely a product of the misinterpretation of the archaeological record. Most art objects, ornaments, and weapons are deposited either in graves or in ritual contexts; neither of these are characteristic of the 6th–3rd cents. bc in much of Britain, and, more pertinently, in the areas of Gaul described by Caesar as ‘Celtic’. It is therefore not surprising that early La Tène objects are rare or absent from these areas. Attempts to tie in the expansion of the Celts with early archaeological cultures (e.g. the late Bronze Age Urnfield culture) are equally unsatisfactory, and many archaeologists reject the simplistic correlation between language and material culture assumed by traditional approaches.

This fresh, and still disputed, view of the Celts is forcing us to adopt new models for the diffusion and adoption of language, material culture, and art styles, independent of one another. The naming of the language group as ‘Celtic’ is seen as an arbitrary choice by 17th-cent. scholars—it could have equally been Britannic, Belgic, or Gallic—as the Celts were only one of a number of ethnic groups using these languages. If we accept that there were never any Celts in antiquity in Britain, it follows that terms such as the ‘Celtic’ church (for the Scottish church of Bede), Celtic art (for early Christian Irish art), or indeed the description of the Welsh, Irish, and Scots as ‘Celts’ are without historical foundations, and any direct connection between the ancient and modern Celts must be rejected.

John Collis

Bibliography

Collis, J. , The European Iron Age (1984);
James, S. , Exploring the World of the Celts (1993);
Kruta, V., Frey, O. H., Raftery, B., and Szabo, M. (eds.), The Celts (1991);
Raftery, B. (ed.), Celtic Art (Paris, 1991).

Celts From the 5th cent. BC, Greek ethnographers described the Celts as one of the major ethnic groups of central and western Europe, locating them inland from Marseilles. Caesar in De bello Gallico states that only the Gauls of central and southern Gaul called themselves Celts, with Belgae living in the north of Gaul and Aquitani in the south‐west.

Interest revived in the Celts during the Renaissance. In 1582 George Buchanan claimed that the former inhabitants of Britain were Celts or Gauls on the basis of similarity in ancient place‐names in Gaul and Britain. The term ‘Celt’ was thus extended to refer to speakers of these languages—Bretons, Celts, Cornish, Welsh, Irish, Manx, and Scottish.

To identify the ancient Celts, 18th‐ and 19th‐cent. scholars turned to archaeology, describing certain objects and burial rites as ‘Celtic’. Kemble and Franks, as early as 1863, had referred to objects from Britain decorated in a distinctive curvilinear art style as ‘Celtic’. This art style was also found on the objects fished out at La Tène on Lake Neuchaˆtel in Switzerland. By the late 19th cent. the La Tène culture became that of the Celtic peoples, and La Tène art became ‘Celtic’ art. It was also assumed that there was a close correlation between ethnicity, language, art, and material culture. Scholars such as Powell (1958) and Filip (1962) used archaeology to seek the origin and spread of the La Tène culture. On the evidence of the continuity of burial rites from the preceding Hallstatt period, and of a concentration of richly decorated early La Tène art objects, the centre of origin was identified as northern France–western Germany, more specifically in Champagne. From these areas it was claimed the Celts expanded in the 4th and 3rd cents. BC by migrating into southern and western France, Britain, and central Europe.

This model has come under increasing criticism. It fails to account for Celtic‐speaking groups in Iberia where La Tène objects are rare; the supposed invasion of Britain in the 4th–3rd cents. BC corresponds with the period when insular–continental contacts were at their lowest; and continuity from the early to the late Iron Age is seen as the norm in virtually all areas where the archaeological record is sufficiently complete (e.g. Britain). The supposed ‘expansion’ of the Celts is largely a product of the misinterpretation of the archaeological record. This new, and still disputed, view of the Celts is forcing us to adopt new models for the diffusion and adoption of language, material culture, and art styles, independent of one another. The naming of the language group as ‘Celtic’ is seen as an arbitrary choice by 17th‐cent. scholars—it could have equally been Britannic, Belgic, or Gallic. If we accept that there were never any Celts in antiquity in Britain, it follows that terms such as the ‘Celtic’ church, Celtic art, or indeed the description of the Welsh, Irish, and Scots as ‘Celts’ are without historical foundations.