Iron Age British "Celts" -- Before the Romans Arrived
"Celtic" Brittons were only identified as Celts by the Romans, specifically by Julius Caesar in his Gallic Wars and only because he could easily see that there were learned cultural and linguistic affinities between the Brittons and the European mainland tribes who had been called Keltoi by the Greeks starting around 600 BC.

The Romans accepted the Keltoi appelation for the tribal peoples of central and western Europe, but also knew that the inhabitants of the British Islands had been considered by the Greeks to have been called Prytanoi (= Brittons) and that the Islands were called Albion.

There had been pre-humans (proto-Neanderthals -- homo antecessor) on the island during interglacial periods at least since 600,000 BC and Homo Sapiens Sapiens (like us) on the Islands throughout the current interglacial (Holocene), which has been underway since about 10,000 BC.

Twentieth and 21st century anthropologists have noted that "proto-Celtic" language and culture seems to have first risen as the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age "Hallstatt Culture" (ca. 1000 to ca. 700 BC), named after the culture's original earliest findspot near the Austrian Alp lake Hallstatt.  Hundreds of well preserved Hallstatt pre-Celtic burials were found in a cemetery in a prehistoric salt mining area.  Grave goods has "early celtic" decoration. 


 Hallstatt Culture Artifacts


Part of the records of the Hallstatt cemetery archeological dig

The next known Celtic landmark culture is called the La Tene culture, named for its findspot at the archeological site at the eastern end of Lake Neuchatel: La Tene = "the shallows" in French.  The La Tene name has since been extended to denominate the Late Iron age culture of European Celts.


Spears, shields and long swords. Gods, heroes, notables were often depicted only as their heads, where celts believed resided the personality or personhood.  Lower right is an example of La Tene repousse metal work characteristic of European Celtic Art.


European Celtic tribal areas.  Tribal names and areas were only recorded by Greco-Roman sources. (The Celts had no writing system/written language of their own and so, essentially recorded nothing independently).  Tribal names, individual names, Celtic place names, incident names/times/places during Roman mainland and British Island conquests of Celts, and subsequent military occupations were variously and inconsistently reported by Roman historians and letter writers, and, thus, are still disputed both for academic and, also, more recently, for current (i.e., today) political/ideological reasons.


Celtic warriors as depicted by the Romans and more recently.




Celtic tribal areas in Britania as recorded by the Romans.  Tribal borders often changed as a result of inter-tribal disputes, population growth or declines, and, later, favor or disfavor of the Roman military government.  Strongholds were often marked by iron age Hill Forts.











We are still dependent on how the Romans described and depicted the Britons.
Notice the "tartan" looking textiles, which call into question the idea that such patterns were developed much later.




Well before the Romans came, the Brithish Celts had become agriculturalists and most of the population of the Islands remained farmers throughout the occupation.

Near the coasts and internal waterways fishing augmented the Celtic food supply.  During the Roman occupation, Britain became a foodstuffs exporter.