When the Celtic people are mentioned, we think
of images of painted warriors, mysterious druids, and a defeated warlord, knelt before
the might of the Roman Eagle. It might remind one of the rolling hills of
Wales, the rugged Highlands of Scotland, or the Moher Cliffs of Ireland, where echoes
of their ancient languages are still spoken today. Shared Celtic heritage is still dear to tens
of millions of people worldwide. But who exactly were the Ancient Celts? Welcome to our new series, covering a 1500-year
historical span of Europe’s most enigmatic peoples. The sponsor of this video DUNGEONFOG was kind
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channel and allow us to continue our work! For the most part, the ancient Celts left
virtually no written records of their own existence, so we are reliant almost solely
on limited archaeological and etymological evidence to piece together their culture,
while in the centuries leading up to the birth of Christ, a scattering of Greek and Romans
writings give us a slightly more dynamic window into their society. Neither offer a complete survey of the Celtic
world, but they provide us with a workable set of information that, in lieu of anything
else, we have no choice but to rely on. The most popular narrative of the Celtic genesis
can be found in the town of Hallstatt, which sits nestled against a lake between the idyllic
peaks of the Alps. It was here, between the years of 1846 and
1863, that an Austrian mine operator known as Johann Georg Ramsauer excavated the derelict
cemetery of an ancient salt-mining community. The material culture discovered here was named
the Hallstatt Culture, after the town it was discovered in, and is widely considered to
be the birthplace of an early Celtic society. The Hallstatt culture has since been broken
up into four chronological phases, based on the evolution of artifacts found in its sites. Hallstatt-A and B emerged in the late Bronze
age between 1200-800BC in Central Europe. It was initially a minor deviation of the
Indo-European Urnfield Complex, an older material culture prominent across much of central Europe. Hallstatt society was based on mining salt,
copper, and tin, and trading them to outlying regions. These were crucial products, for salt was
used to preserve meat in winters, while copper and tin were used to forge Bronze, the most
precious metal of the era. The peoples of the Hallstatt heartland grew
prosperous from this trade, which remained a core part of their economy for centuries
to come. Around 800 BC, ironworking was introduced
to the Hallstatt through trade with the Hittites and Greeks. This started the Hallstatt-C era, where the
proto-Celts came into their own as a culture distinct from the Urnfield complex. They built hillforts throughout central Europe,
populating them with artisans and warriors, led by petty Chieftains. It was at this point in the early iron age
that they started developing a class system and social inequality, becoming more hierarchical. Graves excavated from the Hallstatt A and
B eras were uniformly simple and egalitarian in nature, however, burials from Hallstatt
C onwards show a great disparity in wealth and status. Clustered around their hillforts were great
barrow mounds, the resting place of wealthy tribal elites. Here, nobles were buried alongside their treasures
such as collars, brooches, axeheads, and other metalworks of bronze, iron and gold. These valuables oft featured iconic geometric
designs and animalistic motifs. The presence of ivory and amber in these barrows
suggest that they maintained trade networks that extended as far out as the Baltics and
North Africa. Equestrianism was likely a symbol of power
and nobility during this era, evidenced by the presence of a distinct style of slender
slashing sword present in many graves, best suited for cavalry warfare. Additionally, the highest tribal elites were
buried alongside ceremonial bridles, tackles, and ornate horse-drawn cult wagons. The importance of the horse in aristocratic
society was likely due to contact with the Indo-Iranian Cimmerians, from whom they adapted
the horse and wagon as symbols of tribal power. It was perhaps through the mobility of the
horse, and their economic and cultural soft power, that the Hallstatt peoples expanded
out of their traditional heartland, and exported their cultural influence across much of central
Europe. The transition from Hallstatt C to D occured
around 600 BC, and was marked by the culture shifting west along the Danube, Rhine and
Seine rivers, gravitating towards the Greek Colony of Massalia, modern Marseille. The Phocean Greeks of Massalia were the early
Celts’ gateway to the riches of the Mediterranean world. Through them they imported all sorts of southern
luxuries, including fine pottery, glass, and the most precious luxury of all, wine. Late Hallstatt peoples soon began trading
with other Mediterranean peoples, including the Phoenicians and the Etruscans, whose advanced
civilization we’ve covered in a previous episode. The first historical mention of the Celts
came in 517 BC from the Greek historian Hecataeus of Miletus, who referred to the people living
beyond Massalia as Keltoi. This word was possibly borrowed from a tribal
endonym, or was Greek for “the tall ones”, contributing to the enduring stereotype that
the average Celt stood a head taller than their Greco-Roman counterpart. Either way, it is a term that we still use
today. Late Hallstatt chieftains consolidated a great
amount of power by virtue of the foreign wealth they controlled. The many small hill forts that dotted the
landscape were largely replaced by fewer but larger population centers, such as the ruins
of an impressive tribal complex at Hueneberg in southern Germany. Meanwhile, the barrow mounds became more splendorous
than ever before, inlaid with luxury imports from Greece and Etruria. By around 500 BC the Hallstatt culture had
reached its peak in wealth, territory, and influence. But how can we be sure that the Hallstatt
material complex represents the early development of a distinct Celtic culture? First of all the swords found in late Hallstatt
graves closely resemble the weaponry that Greco-Roman writers described the Celts using
in later centuries. Secondly, the importance of the symbolic horse
and wagon in burials was considered an early form of later Celtic funeral rites, which
saw Chieftains buried within two-wheeled war chariots. The geometric and animalistic art style of
the late Hallstatt era is accepted to be an early form of Celtic artwork, and perhaps
most importantly, the name Hallstatt itself is derived from an old Celtic word meaning
“Salt Place”. This is reinforced by the fact that in the
Celtic languages of Welsh, Cornish, and Breton, the words for “Salt” are Halwyn, Haloin
and Hollein; presumably cognates of the same ancient root as the ancient word from which
the name of the modern town of Hallstatt is derived. The evidence all seems to suggest that the
Hallstatt heartland was where the Celts emerged as a visible people group, featuring an early
form of the Celtic language, tribal hierarchy, and artistic expression. However, this theory has its problems: although
by the late Hallstatt period, artifacts belonging to the culture could be found from Britain
to Croatia, it did not mean that all the peoples in those lands were early Celts. Additionally, not all Celtic speakers in the
early Iron Age would have belonged to the Hallstatt culture. The early Celtic language that became associated
with the Halstatt Heartland developed out of an older Indo-European tongue around 1500BC,
and over centuries spread across much of central and western Europe. People on the periphery of the early Celtic
world adopted the Proto-Celtic tongue due to the cultural and economic influence of
the Hallstatt elites, but did not necessarily adopt the material culture. For example, Ireland and parts of Spain were
predominantly Celtic-Speaking by the 5th century BC, but the Celtic migrants there had mixed
with the indigenous populations of those regions to form the Celtiberian and Gaelic cultures,
which had little to no cultural continuity with the Hallstatt complex. Basically, there were those who followed the
Hallstatt culture who were not Celtic speaking, and Celtic speaking peoples who were not of
the Hallstatt culture. The prosperous world of the Hallstatt Chieftains
came to a sudden end around 450 BC, when the increasingly imperialistic Massalian Greeks
decided to abandon their old trade connections to instead try and subjugate the Celts, while
the Etruscans shifted their trade routes away from the Hallstatt heartland. As a result, Celtic power shifted to the north,
evolving into Hallstatt’s dynamic successor, the La Tene. The La Tene culture lasted from around 450
to 50 BC, and is the most iconic era of ancient Celtic history. Developing in four separate tribal centers,
principally along the Moselle and Marne rivers, it soon expanded across much of Europe. By 300 BC, the La Tene culture was dominant
across Central Europe, France, Luxembourg, Belgium and Switzerland, and later would arrive
in Britain, western Spain, and Ireland. La Tene artwork was what the conventional
mind considers quintessentially Celtic, featuring cauldrons, drinking vessels, weapons, shields,
armour, and jewellery characterized by stylistic spiral patterns. It is here we slowly transition from relying
primarily on archaeological finds, and into the written attestations of Classical Greek
and Roman authors, who while often biased or misinformed, still give us a workable amount
of information in piecing together the Celtic world, its language, politics, society, and
religion. The general public may be familiar with the
word “Gaul”, a term often used to refer to the Celts of the La Tene world. This title comes from the old Germanic “walhaz”,
meaning “foreigner”, which the Celts certainly would have been in the eyes of the ancient
Germanic tribes. Meanwhile, when a young Roman Republic, encountered
the La Tene Celts across the Alps in Northern Italy, they referred to them as “Galli”,
which might have been the name of an individual tribe they applied to the entire ethnocultural
group. We will use the words “Gaul”, “Gallic”
and “Celtic” interchangeably, but generally this was not how the peoples in question referred
to themselves. Indeed, a common misconception is that there
was ever a linguistically or culturally uniform nation of Gallic people. By the La Tene period, the Celtic languages
had diverged drastically from one another. The main split were the P-Celtic languages,
spoken across North-Central Continental Europe and modern Britain, and Q-Celtic, the more
lexically conservative tongues spoken by the Gaels of Ireland and probably the Celtiberians
of Spain. This split can still be observed today in
the modern Welsh and Irish languages, which are mutually unintelligible due to belonging
to the P and Q subgroups respectively. It is unlikely that the speakers of their
ancient counterparts would see any common ground between themselves. Gaels and Celtiberians aside, the Gauls of
the continent and Britons of the isle to their north were perpetually a politically divided
people. The main form of social organization in the
Celtic world was the tribe, ruled by a hereditary Chief and his warrior aristocracy. A chief’s lands were further subdivided
into administrative districts called pagi, governed by lesser houses loyal to the chieftaincy
in a system similar to Feudalism. Mainly through Roman records, we know that
some notable tribes that existed in the late iron age include the Helvetii, Senones, Veneti,
and Tectosages. Some names live on even today, such as the
Belgae, who gave their name to modern Belgium, or the Parisii, for whom the city of Paris
is named. Still, the Gaulish peoples likely acknowledged
elements of a common culture that was shared beyond tribal lines. One constant was the social hierarchy. At the top of the pyramid was the Chieftain,
who like his Hallstatt ancestors ruled rural communities from a Hillfort, which were constructed
with timber-lace and stone ramparts the Romans called Murus Gallicus. Under the chief was an elite aristocracy of
warrior-nobles. Next were craftsmen, mostly consisting of
skilled metallurgists who lived in and around the Chief’s hillfort, supplying the warriors
with arms and armour. 90% of Gallic society were subsistence farmers,
providing a portion of their production to their Chief, who used it to maintain his warrior
aristocracy, which in turn protected the farmers from external enemies in a mutualistic relationship. Wheat, barley, beans, oats, and peas made
up the Gallic diet, while sheep, pigs and cattle were commonly raised for wool, meat,
and milk. In the south of France, the Celts cultivated
grapes and olives. Rather than being a primitive naturalistic
people as common perception implies, the Gauls were actually highly developed, with ploughs,
iron shares and coulters able to efficiently till even the heaviest soils. Most Gauls lived in small rural communities
in rectangular houses of timber, wattle, daub, and clay, well insulated for cold winters. In Britain, Ireland, and Northwestern Spain,
homes were mainly circular and built on unmortared stone. Architecture differed little between the social
classes, though the feasting hall of a warrior aristocrat would be larger than a peasant’s
sheep farm. Greek and Roman writings and sculptures have
given us a romanticized image of the average Gaul as a towering, red-maned noble savage
sporting a manly mustache, while painted head to toe in terrifying war paint. In reality, the average Gaulish man would
not have been much taller than the average Roman or Greek. While fashion differed from region to region,
the Gauls tended to dress conservatively. Men generally wore long sleeved tunics and
baggy trousers woven from flax and wool. Women tended to wear long dresses, while both
sexes were often draped in cloaks decorated with colourful plaid patterns rendered from
natural dyes of copper, berries, plants, and stale urine. Personal grooming was highly important to
the Celts. For example, both sexes were said to meticulously
and painfully pluck all their body hairs. Additionally, there is some truth to the stereotype
of the thick Gallic mustache, depicted often in both Celtic and Greco-Roman iconography,
it was likely believed to be a sign of manhood & virility. Gallic warriors were also said to have washed
their hair in a mixture of slaked lime and water which stiffened it into white spikes. Tattoos and skin dyes were not practiced by
continental Gauls, and were limited mainly to the ancient Britons, who according to Roman
accounts, rendered a bluish dye from the isatis tinctoria flower, called woad, which when
applied to their flesh was said to provide magic protection in battle. Often of cultural or spiritual significance,
jewellery was common among the upper classes. The brooch, a fastener for a cloak, was a
remarkably enduring characteristic of celtic fashion for centuries. Bracelets and arm rings were common, fashioned
in the ornate swirling style characteristic of La Tene art. The Torc, a weight metal neck-ring, was a
symbol of status and rank, said to bestow the protection of the Gods to whoever wore
it. On that note, we should take a moment to explore
the religion of the Ancient Celts. There are two major misconceptions of Ancient
Celtic Polytheism, one perpetuated by modern neo-Pagan groups, who often portray the ancient
Celtic faith as a pure, idealized form of proto-environmentalist nature worship, and
one perpetuated by the Ancient Romans, who sought to portray the Celts as backwards barbarians. The Gaulish Gods did not belong to an ordered
pantheon, and religion across the Celtic world was not uniform. Today we know of over 400 Gallic deities,
most being the holy patron of a single tribe, or a local god associated with a certain area,
like Sequana, who was worshipped only at the mouth of the River Seine. However, there were a handful of Gods who
were prominent across the Celtic world. These would include the thunder-wielding Taranis,
Maponos the God of Youth, Belenus the Sun God, Cernunnos the Horned One, Epona the Horse
goddess, and Toutatis, the war-like Tribal protector. One of their most popular Gods was Lugh, patron
of business, trade and technology, dismantling the misconception that Celtic polytheism was
purely naturalistic. Celtic religious rites were rigidly structured,
and not unlike the Olympian religion when it came to sacrifice and divination. It was facilitated by a class of professional
priests - The Druids. Today, the Druids conjure up a popular image
of mysterious, long-bearded elders in white robes. However, they actually wielded massive political
influence, often serving as peace-makers and diplomats on behalf of their chieftains, mediating
legal matters, serving as healers, and heading education in their tribe. Training in order to become a druid involved
an intense 20-year regimen, in which a dedicant had to memorize a massive array of oral histories,
lore, medicinal knowledge, astronomy, religious rituals, and divination practices. Meanwhile, magic potions that bestow superhuman
strength on their drinkers are regrettably absent from Druidic historiography. The Druids likely belonged to a common order
that existed beyond tribal lines. They hosted a pan-Gaulish meeting each year
among the Forests of the Carnutes, sacred ground where major political or religious
issues were settled between tribes, making them a key vehicle in maintaining a common
identity among the many tribes. One of the key duties of a Druid was to officiate
sacrifices to the Gods. Human sacrifice is often described as a core
part of Celtic ritual. According to the Roman author Lucan, different
Gods called for different forms of ritual slaughter. Toutatis’ victims were drowned in a vat
of water, while Taranis’ called for men to be beheaded, or burned alive in giant effigies
of straw. According to the greek historian Diodorus,
human victims were also sacrificed for the purposes of divination. The Druids never wrote anything down, keeping
their knowledge a secret restricted to members of their order. We will never have their own accounts of their
religious rites, while the Roman authors who wrote about these practices had a vested interest
in making their Celtic enemies look savage and barbarous. We can’t deny the existence of human sacrifice,
but we should also keep in mind the limited perspective that modern scholars have been
offered on the subject. In the next episode we will cover the crucial
role that warfare and warriors played in Ancient Celtic society, exploring the Gallic attacks
on the Greco-Roman world, so make sure you are subscribed to our channel and have pressed
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