Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
PART ONE.
If one looks very closely at the design on the gold it suggests very
strongly ‘Celtic’.
THE CELTS.
There is I should point out still much debate on this. I being Irish born,
my parents being Irish borne.
All my old family traces also being Irish born.
My Irish names being Ronan O’Carroll yet does that make me a Celt?
“Celts were a mix of Alpine and Nordic, part Beaker, part Battle Ax
mingled with Urn people. W Europe Celts pressured by northern
Teutonic tribes and eastern Illyrians moved to central England with the
Urn people who adopted their finer tools.”
The problem here at that time that Gaulish and spoken at one time by
the ancient Gauls of France was found, though slowly, to be related to
the old Irish, and Scots gaelic, Welsh, Cornwall, and even to the Manx
language. A new name then was chosen: ‘Celtic’ for all the tribes of
people who spoke the language in its many forms.
This shows that Classical writing and history runs side by side of
archaeology today and both at times may cross over when looking for
clues and evidence of any culture, though here it is the Celts.
In my opinion we who work in the field of archaeology can say that the
Celts were a homogeneous family of peoples who were conscious of an
ethnic identity nor had any form of Empire.
Carleton © 2009-10-05
“True Celts were either Goidels (Gaels) in Northern Ireland and high
Scotland or Brythons /Britons in Wales; close in kin, especially the
Belgi. The religious Druids dominated all.”
Again this is another broad statement because the evidence lacking and
should be Iron Age Celts, the Roman Period, all documentary, linguistic
and archaeology evidence and as the Celts left very little ‘written’
language of their past. We can however look for place names and some
words in the old Classical texts. Some of the ancient Celtic languages
are long extinct as I discovered in parts of Spain or Gaul dialects and
only six, if even that, still exist.
We must therefore divide the two families into Q-Celtic or Goidelic and
P-Celtic or Brithonic. There is in fact, and my opinion holds fast on this,
that there is no such thing as “True Celts” and I suggest that there are
many affiliations to the Celtic language. I have laid out in a diagram
below to show that the language known as ‘Celtic’ has major affiliations
to the Indo-European language family.
Indo
European
Anatolian Latin Slavonic Germanic Armenian Tocharian
Greek IIIyrian Baltic Celtic Indo-
Iranian
Hispano- Gallic Lepontic Q-Celtic P-Celtic
celtic
(Carleton © 2009-10-05)
Archaeology on its own however can only give us part of the picture on
the canvas but for the most when it comes to the Celts most of the
discovered evidence points to fact. Putting therefore known and well
researched archaeology with well researched history on the Celts
should give us some idea of past life in the Celtic world.
It should be noted that the Celts were linked at some time to the Hallstatt
culture in Europe and the Iron Age. (Hallstatt was from late Bronze Age
and early Iron Age 1200-600 BC) and found in continental Europe. There
was two phases of the Hallstatt culture and these are A and B but with
the Iron Age beginning with phase C. The site on the shores of Lake
Hallstatt was in the west which is in the Austrian Alps and it is here that
at vast cemetery with 2000 graves were discovered in the Alpine Valley.
There was recorded both cremations and inhumations here along with
grave goods some of shows evidence of having being imported and
some local. Swords with amber and ivory pommels are a good example
which suggests trade with Africa and to the Baltic and local salt mines
in the Alpine area that suggests that salt was a source of ‘currency’ at
one time.
Around the same time, 500 BC> in the zone from the east of France to
Bohemia the new Celtic culture was born and named after the La Te’ne
archaeology site. By 400BC the La Te’ne Celts had moved in force over
the Alps and settled in the Po Valley and sacking Rome around 390BC>
with much bloodshed, looting and rape.
Other Celtic groups also migrated through the Balkans and into Greece
where they may have sacked Delphi in 279 BC. They also had a fixed
kingdom in Turkey (Galatia) This Celtic La Te’ne culture spread across
France, Spain and the British isles around 400BC and there is evidence
of art on metal work discovered at sites. Ireland therefore escaped the
Roman invaders and therefore had much to find and also to find about
the Celts. Ireland therefore had a cultural golden age from 600-800AD
and the Celtic tribes grew here, invaded other parts of British Isles.
End of Part 1