THE CELTS

When talking about the Celts, people still wonder a lot of things that
have an explanation in the mysterious times of prehistory. During these
times the Celts have developed their culture and their civilization and they
have evolved with the centuries, expanding their horizons.
After the Ice Age, the European continent became the shelter for a lot
of migratory populations who started to set up villages near watercourses so
that they could back up their agrarian productivity. All these migratory
populations have had a great influence on developing the agrarian society
from prehistoric times. In this context, the Celts have a special role, a role
which is proved by the archaeological discoveries that reveal a fascinating
world.
The Neolithic people established in the Northern and Central Europe
have evolved gradually, according to their necessities and their capacities. At
first, the stone axe was their major tool, but the migrations from todays
Russia have improved their work instruments by changing the stone with the
metals as a raw material. The metal was widely used in Eastern Europe,
where the people were in a superior phase of evolution comparing to the
migratory populations in Europe. Another archaeological proof of the
originality of these past civilizations is the clay pot patterned with ropes. All
these tools date back from a period when the nomads have founded their
cultures.
The Celts were a group of peoples that occupied lands stretching from
the British Isles to Gallatia. The Celts had many dealings with other cultures

that bordered the lands occupied by these peoples, and even though there is
no written record of the Celts stemming from their own documents, we can
piece together a fair picture of them from archeological evidence as well as
historical accounts from other cultures.
What we do know is that the people we call Celts gradually infiltrated
Britain over the course of the centuries between about 500 and 100 B.C.
There was probably never an organized Celtic invasion; for one thing the
Celts were so fragmented and given to fighting among themselves that the
idea of a concerted invasion would have been ludicrous.
The Celts were a group of peoples loosely tied by similar language,
religion, and cultural expression. They were not centrally governed, and
quite as happy to fight each other as any non-Celt. They were warriors,
living for the glories of battle and plunder. They were also the people who
brought iron working to the British Isles.
The first historical recorded encounter of a people displaying the
cultural traits associated with the Celts comes from northern Italy around
400 BC, when a previously unkown group of barbarians came down from
the Alps and displaced the Etruscans from the fertile Po valley, a
displacment that helped to push the Etruscans from history's limelight. The
next encounter with the Celts came with the still young Roman Empire,
directly to the south of the Po. The Romans in fact had sent three envoys to
the beseiged Etruscans to study this new force. We know from Livy's The
Early History of Rome that this first encounter with Rome was quite
civilized.
Although there are several archaeological discoveries about the lives
of these populations, the feature that can divide these civilizations is related
to death and their funeral rituals. In 1500 before Christ most of the

populations in Europe used to bury the dead in common or separate tumuli.

Such tombs were found in Great Britain as well. The Tumulous People
called that way by the archaeologists were not the only ones who had special
funeral rituals. The Urnfield Culture is based on the cremation of the
corpses the evidences of this culture were found in Poland, Bohemia and
Saxony.
From what we know of the Celts from Roman commentators, who
are, remember, witnesses with an axe to grind, they held many of their
religious ceremonies in woodland groves and near sacred water, such as
wells and springs. The Romans speak of human sacrifice as being a part of
Celtic religion. One thing we do know, the Celts revered human heads.
Celtic warriors would cut off the heads of their enemies in battle and
display them as trophies. They mounted heads in doorposts and hung them
from their belts. This might seem barbaric to us, but to the Celt the seat of
spiritual power was the head, so by taking the head of a vanquished foe they
were appropriating that power for themselves. It was a kind of bloody
religious observance.
The Iron Age is when we first find cemeteries of ordinary peoples
burials (in hole-in-the-ground graves) as opposed to the elaborate barrows of
the elite few that provide our main records of burials in earlier periods.
Starting with the year 800 before Christ the history of the Celts seems
to become a bit more clear because of the passionate work of an
archaeologist called Georg Ramsauer. In 1846 at Hallstatt in Austria the
specialists have found a huge prehistoric cemetery. The objects that were
found there proved that the Celts used the iron as a raw material for their
tools. Until the discovery of the Hallstatt Culture the term civilisation was
applied especially to the greek and roman culture. In fact, the Greeks and

Romans mention a population from Central Europe, calling them Keltoi.

This way the Hallstatt Culture reflects the celtic civilization from the IXth
century before Christ to the VIIth century before Christ. However, the next
period of the Celts social development is discovered at the same time when
Ramsauer found the Hallstatt Culture. It is called La Tene and it reveals the
beauty of the celtic culture.
The terms Hallstatt and La Tene became the main reference points
that indicate the evolution of the celtic culture. As a consequence of their
evolution, the Celts started to carry on several expeditions, conquering more
territories. They were known as redoubtable, fierce fighters who had no
respect for their opponents.
Despite their skillfulness and their originality, the Celts could not
manage to form an organized nation. They were grouped in tribes and big
families with lots of experience in wars because they were always defending
their proprieties and they could not obey one single leader.
The Celts have migrated to Great Britain during several centuries,
representing two thirds of the existent population which Julius Caesar tried
to describe in De Bello Gallico. The Celts from Great Britain have the
same traits and the same origins in the Hallstat and La Tene culture. It is
proved that the Celts have migrated here from France by the year 700 before
Christ, bringing here their customs and culture at the same time. However,
they have not made profit of their political potential, although their
fortification gave the romans many troubles.
While textbooks stress the descent of Europe from classical culture,
the face of Europe throughout most of the historical period was dominated
by a single cultural group, a powerful, culturally diverse group of peoples,
the Celts. By the start of the Middle Ages, the Celts had been struck on two

fronts by two very powerful cultures, Rome in the south, and the Germans,
who were derived from Celtic culture, from the north. Through the period of
classical Greece (corresponding to the La Tne culture in central Europe) to
first centuries AD, most of Europe was under the shadow of this culture
which, in its diverse forms, still represented a fairly unified culture.
This monolithic culture spread from Ireland to Asia Minor (the
Galatians of the New Testament). The Celts even sacked Rome in 390 BC
and successfully invaded and sacked several Greek cities in 280 BC. Though
the Celts were preliterate during most of the classical period, the Greeks and
Romans discuss them quite a bit, usually disfavorably.
From this great culture would arise the Germans (we think) and
many of the cultural forms, ideas, and values of medieval Europe. For not
only did medieval Europe look back to the Celtic world as a golden age of
Europe, they also lived with social structures and world views that
ultimately owe their origin to the Celts as well as to the Romans and Greeks.
The period of Celtic dominance in Europe began to unravel in the first
centuries AD, with the expansion of Rome, the migrations of the Germans,
and later the influx of an Asian immigrant population, the Huns. By the time
Rome fell to Gothic invaders, the Celts had been pushed west and north, to
England, Wales and Ireland and later to Scotland and the northern coast of
France.
Despite Julius Caesars attempts to attach Britain to the Roman
Empire, history admits the independence of the Celts.
Nicoleta Kotoi - Engleza - Franceza