Continental Gaul The Romans knew the Celts then living in present-day France as Gauls. The territory of these peoples probably included the
Low Countries, the Alps and present-day northern Italy.
Julius Caesar in his
Gallic Wars described the 1st-century BC descendants of those Gauls. Eastern Gaul became the centre of the western La Tène culture. In later Iron Age Gaul, the social organisation resembled that of the Romans, with large towns. From the 3rd century BC the Gauls adopted coinage. Texts with Greek characters from southern Gaul have survived from the 2nd century BC. Greek traders founded
Massalia about 600 BC, with some objects (mostly drinking ceramic vessels) being traded up the
Rhône valley. But trade became disrupted soon after 500 BC and re-oriented over the Alps to the Po valley in the Italian peninsula. The
Romans arrived in the Rhone valley in the 2nd century BC and encountered a mostly Celtic-speaking Gaul. Rome wanted land communications with its Iberian provinces and fought a major battle with the
Saluvii at
Entremont in 124–123 BC. Gradually Roman control extended, and the
Roman province of
Gallia Transalpina developed along the Mediterranean coast. The Romans knew the remainder of Gaul as , 'Long-haired Gaul'. In 58 BC, the
Helvetii planned to migrate westward but Julius Caesar forced them back. He then became involved in fighting the various tribes in Gaul, and by 55 BC had overrun most of Gaul. In 52 BC,
Vercingetorix led a revolt against Roman occupation but was defeated at the
Battle of Alesia and surrendered. Following the Gallic Wars of 58–51 BC, Caesar's
Celtica formed the main part of Roman Gaul, becoming the province of
Gallia Lugdunensis. This territory of the Celtic tribes was bounded on the south by the Garonne and on the north by the Seine and the Marne. The Romans attached large swathes of this region to neighbouring provinces
Belgica and
Aquitania, particularly under
Augustus. Place- and personal-name analysis and inscriptions suggest that
Gaulish was spoken over most of what is now France.
Iberia , showing Celtic languages in beige, c. 300 BC. Until the end of the 19th century, traditional scholarship dealing with the Celts did acknowledge their presence in the Iberian Peninsula as a
material culture relatable to the
Hallstatt and
La Tène cultures. However, since according to the definition of the
Iron Age in the 19th century Celtic populations were supposedly rare in Iberia and did not provide a cultural scenario that could easily be linked to that of Central Europe, the presence of Celtic culture in that region was generally not fully recognised. Modern scholarship, however, has proven that Celtic presence and influences were most substantial in what is today Spain and
Portugal (with perhaps the highest settlement saturation in Western Europe), particularly in the central, western and northern regions. In addition to
Gauls infiltrating from the north of the
Pyrenees, the Roman and Greek sources mention Celtic populations in three parts of the Iberian Peninsula: the eastern part of the
Meseta (inhabited by the
Celtiberians), the southwest (
Celtici, in modern-day
Alentejo) and the northwest (
Gallaecia and
Asturias). A modern scholarly review found several archaeological groups of Celts in Spain: • The
Celtiberian group in the Upper-Douro Upper-Tagus Upper-Jalón area. Archaeological data suggest a continuity at least from the 6th century BC. In this early period, the Celtiberians inhabited in hill-forts (
Castros). Around the end of the 3rd century BC, Celtiberians adopted more urban ways of life. From the 2nd century BC, they minted coins and wrote inscriptions using the
Celtiberian script. These inscriptions make the
Celtiberian Language the only Hispano-Celtic language classified as Celtic with unanimous agreement. In the late period, before the Roman Conquest, both archaeological evidence and Roman sources suggest that the
Celtiberians were expanding into different areas in the Peninsula (e.g. Celtic Baeturia). • The
Vetton group in the western Meseta, between the Tormes, Douro and Tagus Rivers. They were characterised by the production of
Verracos, sculptures of bulls and pigs carved in granite. • The
Vaccean group in the central Douro valley. They were mentioned by Roman sources already in the 220 BC. Some of their funerary rituals suggest strong influences from their
Celtiberian neighbours. terminal, Museum of Castro de Santa Tegra,
A Guarda. • The
Castro Culture in northwestern Iberia, modern day
Galicia and Northern
Portugal. Its high degree of continuity, from the Late Bronze Age, makes it difficult to support that the introduction of Celtic elements was due to the same process of Celticisation of the western Iberia, from the nucleus area of Celtiberia. Two typical elements are the sauna baths with monumental entrances, and the "Gallaecian Warriors", stone sculptures built in the 1st century AD. A large group of Latin inscriptions contain Celtic linguistic features, while others are similar to those found in the non-Celtic
Lusitanian language. The origins of the Celtiberians might provide a key to understanding the Celticisation process in the rest of the Peninsula. The process of Celticisation of the southwestern area of the peninsula by the Keltoi and of the northwestern area is, however, not a simple Celtiberian question. Recent investigations about the
Callaici and
Bracari in northwestern
Portugal are providing new approaches to understanding Celtic culture (language, art and religion) in western Iberia. John T. Koch of
Aberystwyth University suggested that
Tartessian inscriptions of the 8th century BC might be classified as Celtic. This would mean that Tartessian is the earliest attested trace of Celtic by a margin of more than a century.
Germany, Alps and Italy by the Danube, Germany, c. 600 BC, the oldest city north of the Alps. into
Central Europe, helping press its previous Celts further south and southeast. In Germany by the late
Bronze Age, the
Urnfield culture () had replaced the
Bell Beaker,
Unetice and
Tumulus cultures in central Europe, whilst the
Nordic Bronze Age had developed in Scandinavia and northern Germany. The
Hallstatt culture, which had developed from the Urnfield culture, was the predominant Western and Central European culture from the 12th to 8th centuries BC and during the early
Iron Age (8th to 6th centuries BC). It was followed by the
La Tène culture (5th to 1st centuries BC). The people who had adopted these cultural characteristics in central and southern Germany are regarded as Celts. Celtic cultural centres developed in central Europe during the late Bronze Age ( until 700 BC). Some, like the
Heuneburg, the oldest city north of the Alps, grew to become important cultural centres of the Iron Age in Central Europe, that maintained trade routes to the
Mediterranean. In the 5th century BC the Greek historian
Herodotus mentioned a Celtic city at the Danube –
Pyrene, that historians attribute to the Heuneburg. Beginning around 700 BC (or later),
Germanic peoples (Germanic tribes) from
southern Scandinavia and northern Germany expanded south and gradually replaced the Celtic peoples in Central Europe. The
Canegrate culture represented the first migratory wave of the proto-Celtic population from the northwest part of the Alps that, through the
Alpine passes, had already penetrated and settled in the western
Po valley between
Lake Maggiore and
Lake Como (
Scamozzina culture). It has also been proposed that a more ancient proto-Celtic presence can be traced back to the beginning of the Middle
Bronze Age, when North Westwern Italy appears closely linked regarding the production of bronze artefacts, including ornaments, to the western groups of the
Tumulus culture. La Tène cultural material appeared over a large area of mainland Italy, the southernmost example being the Celtic helmet from
Canosa di Puglia. Italy is home to
Lepontic, the oldest attested Celtic language (from the 6th century BC). Anciently spoken in
Switzerland and in Northern-Central
Italy, from the
Alps to
Umbria. According to the
Recueil des Inscriptions Gauloises, more than 760 Gaulish inscriptions have been found throughout present-day
France – with the notable exception of
Aquitaine – and in
Italy, which testifies the importance of Celtic heritage in the peninsula. 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
Apennine 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 390 BC by the
Senones. At the
battle of Telamon in 225 BC, a large Celtic army was trapped between two Roman forces; the Celtic army was 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.
Expansion east and south The Celts also expanded down the
Danube river and its tributaries. One of the most influential tribes, the
Scordisci, established their capital at
Singidunum (present-day
Belgrade, Serbia) in the 3rd century BC. The concentration of hill-forts and cemeteries shows a
dense population in the
Tisza valley of modern-day
Vojvodina, Serbia, Hungary and into
Ukraine. Expansion into
Romania was however blocked by the
Dacians. The
Serdi were a Celtic tribe inhabiting
Thrace. They were located around and founded
Serdika (, , ), now
Sofia in
Bulgaria, which reflects their ethnonym. They would have established themselves in this area during the Celtic migrations at the end of the 4th century BC, though there is no evidence for their existence before the 1st century BC.
Serdi are among traditional tribal names reported into the Roman era. They were gradually Thracianized over the centuries but retained their Celtic character in material culture up to a late date. According to other sources they may have been simply of Thracian origin, according to others they may have become of mixed Thraco-Celtic origin. Further south, Celts settled in
Thrace (
Bulgaria), which they ruled for over a century, and
Anatolia, where they settled as the
Galatians
(see also: Gallic Invasion of Greece). Despite their
geographical isolation from the rest of the Celtic world, the Galatians maintained their Celtic language for at least 700 years.
St Jerome, who visited Ancyra (modern-day
Ankara) in 373 AD, likened their language to that of the
Treveri of northern Gaul. For
Venceslas Kruta, Galatia in central Turkey was an area of dense Celtic settlement. The
Boii tribe gave their name to
Bohemia,
Bologna and possibly
Bavaria, and Celtic artefacts and cemeteries have been discovered further east in what is now Poland and
Slovakia. A Celtic coin (
Biatec) from
Bratislava's mint was displayed on the old 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 and the
expedition in Greece and western Anatolia, are well documented in Greek and Latin history. 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
Ptolemy II.
Insular . All living Celtic languages today belong to the
Insular Celtic languages, derived from the Celtic languages spoken in
Iron Age Britain and
Ireland. They separated into a
Goidelic and a
Brittonic branch early on. By the time of the
Roman conquest of Britain in the 1st century AD, the Insular Celts were made up of the
Celtic Britons, the
Gaels (or
Scoti), and the
Picts (or
Caledonians). The renown of insular Celts has caused a popular belief that Celtic clans only lived in the British Isles. Linguists have debated whether a Celtic language came to the British Isles and then split, or whether the two branches arrived separately. The older view was that Celtic influence in the Isles was the result of successive migrations or invasions from the European mainland by diverse Celtic-speaking peoples over several centuries, accounting for the
P-Celtic vs.
Q-Celtic isogloss. This view has been challenged by the hypothesis that the islands' Celtic languages form an
Insular Celtic dialect group. In the 19th and 20th centuries, scholars often dated the "arrival" of Celtic culture in Britain (via an invasion model) to the 6th century BC, corresponding to archaeological evidence of
Hallstatt influence and the appearance of
chariot burials in what is now England. Cunliffe and Koch propose in their newer
'Celtic from the West' theory that Celtic languages reached the Isles earlier, with the Bell Beaker culture c.2500 BC, or even before this. More recently, a major
archaeogenetics study uncovered a migration into southern Britain in the Bronze Age from 1300 to 800 BC. The newcomers were genetically most similar to ancient individuals from Gaul. but not northern Britain. Like many Celtic peoples on the mainland, the Insular Celts followed an
Ancient Celtic religion overseen by
druids. Some of the southern British tribes had strong links with Gaul and
Belgica, and
minted their own coins. During the Roman occupation of Britain, a
Romano-British culture emerged in the southeast. The Britons and Picts in the north, and the Gaels of Ireland, remained outside the empire. During the
end of Roman rule in Britain in the 400s AD, there was significant
Anglo-Saxon settlement of eastern and southern Britain, and some Gaelic settlement of its western coast. During this time, some Britons migrated to the
Armorican peninsula, where their culture became dominant. Meanwhile, much of northern Britain (
Scotland) became Gaelic. By the 10th century AD, the Insular Celtic peoples had diversified into the Brittonic-speaking
Welsh (in
Wales),
Cornish (in
Cornwall),
Bretons (in
Brittany) and Cumbrians (in the
Old North); and the Gaelic-speaking
Irish (in Ireland),
Scots (in Scotland) and
Manx (on the
Isle of Man). Classical writers did not call the inhabitants of Britain and Ireland or ''
(), In general, classical writers referred to the Britons as Pretannoi
(in Greek) or Britanni'' (in Latin). Strabo, writing in Roman times, distinguished between the Celts and Britons. However, Roman historian
Tacitus says the Britons resembled the Celts of Gaul in customs and religion. ==Romanisation==