Who were the Celts?

In the early 1700’s Welch linguist Edward Lhuyd identified similarities between the native languages of Ireland, Wales, Cornwall and Brittany (northwestern France). He called this grouping of languages “Celtic”, drawing a connection to the Celts identified in ancient Greek and Roman stories. Lhuyd speculated that the variations in the local languages may represent waves of invasion from eastward in Europe and into the British Isles and Ireland. His work helped spark a modern interest in Celtic history, Celtic ancestry and also Celtic pride within the UK and Ireland.

In the mid-1800s archeologists in Austria began to study bodies being uncovered in and around the ancient salt mines near Hallstatt. Some amazing finds were made indicating that a relatively advanced culture had occupied the area in the early Iron Age, bringing wealth to the area through the mining and trading of salt. This culture was identified by archeologists as “Celtic”. Soon archeologists were affirming the theory of “waves of invasion” of peoples from the “Halstatt culture” westward across Europe.

Much of what is known about Europe before the Romans is fragmentary. The peoples who lived in Europe prior to Roman expansion left little in the way of written records. The Greeks and the Romans who encountered native European populations found their cultures strange, and in the Roman telling “barbaric”. The Romans themselves recorded an invasion in 390 BC of Rome itself by an army of Celts, before these barbarians were driven off again.

These are some of the fragments that Alice Roberts draws on in her journey across Europe in search of answers to the enigma of who exactly these ancient people were. Her book, published ten years ago, was a companion to a BBC series called “The Celts: Blood, Iron and Sacrifice”.

What you get from this book is a look at many of these fragments, which in and off themselves are really interesting, but which are very difficult to put into context or into anything we could think of as a history of the Celts.

The Celts as a tribe of people were identified by the Greeks as far back as the sixth century BC, but the extent of their lands is somewhat of a puzzle. The Greeks seem to believe they occupied a “wide expanse” across Europe. Celtic place names are found in many places across Europe, which may lend credence to that interpretation of the Greek accounts.

But whether a single people who called themselves Celts occupied a wide range of Europe, or whether a language spread among different peoples of different cultures as trade and technology spread across Europe is something we cannot know for sure.

Recent theories from linguistics suggest that Celtic as a language actually first arose among seafaring people along the western, Atlantic, coast of Europe, spreading from Portugal through Ireland and Great Britain, and later westward across Europe. This all seems to have happened as early as the Bronze Age. And yet, Celtic is considered an Indo-European language, related to Greek and Sanskrit, so how does an Indo-European language start so far west and then move back east?

Art tells another story. There are disconnects between the crafts and artwork found among early people identified by archeologists as “Celts”. Do these indicate different cultures speaking a common language? Or a common culture with regional differences? Do these people think of themselves as “Celts”?

The next to the last chapter of the book look at the myths we now think of as “Celtic” and relate to stories written down in the early medieval times (1000 years ago or more) documenting previously oral traditional stories of the Irish, Welsh, Scottish and Cornish. Among those are the stories of The Mabinogion, the earliest known Welch stories - a modern translation of which I reviewed here. I found this chapter a bit out of place - it didn’t seem to relate to the other parts of the book that focused on linguistics and archeology.

In the end, we don’t really have definitive answers to the enigma of the Celts. Different views of the limited evidence seem to point in different directions. Meanwhile, “Celtic” as an ancestry has become a source of pride among many modern Irish and UK residents, so that any new interpretation of that evidence about early Europe has ramifications not only for archeology and linguistics but for politics too.

RATING: Three and a Half Stars ⭐⭐⭐🌠

RATING COMMENTS: Roberts writes well and draws us into the stories of ancient Europe, and the stories themselves are pretty fascinating. But the fragments of pre-history aren’t conclusive enough to piece together into a fuller understanding of “the Celts”, and in the end there’s a bit of a letdown realizing how much is really unknown. The framing of the book seems to me to be aimed at a UK and Irish audience who may be invested in the notion of their Celtic heritage. For other readers the book provides a fascinating tour of the highlights of what is known about prehistoric Europe.

WHERE I GOT MY COPY: I purchased a copy of the paperback at a QBD bookstore here in Australia. The book is still in print and can be ordered from several booksellers in the US.