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) on the island during  interglacial periods at least since 600,000 BC and Homo Sapiens Sapiens on the Islands throughout the current interglacial 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-Celticburials 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 Celtic conquests 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 political/ideological reasons.


Celtic warriors as depicted by the Romans and more recetly.




Celtic tribal areas 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.

We are still dependent on how the Romans described and depicted the Brittons.
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.



The "standard" Celtic dwelling was the "roundhous", but, well before the Romans arrived, more complicated residences, including with rectangular or subrectangular features had started to be built.


Hill Forts were spotted around the Islands and in continental Iron Age Europe.  This one, Maiden Castle was the largest one in Britain.  Recent (21st century) archeology has shown conclusively that the atrocious killings of iron age men buried in the cemetery outside the gate was not a Roman massacre but rather the result of Inter-tribal warfare before the Romans arrived, and that the killings occurred over several generations.  The Roman massacre story was the result of a 1930s misinterpretation by noted British archeologist C. Leonard Wooley, and

Over time Celtic structures became more complicated, adding upper stories, having rectangular floor plans, and replacing wattle and daub walls with more robust walls. The British Celts however didn't add many new features until well after the beginning of the Roman occupation, although it is thought that some Celtic elites started to emulate simple Roman style "villas" as early as the second century.


A Celtic "Royal" compound? Rathcroghan reconstruction drawing

Rathcroghan overview today



Celtic Religion

Ancient Celtic religion, commonly known as Celtic paganism,was the religion of the ancient Celtic peoples of Europe. Because there are no extant native records of their beliefs, evidence about their religion is gleaned from archaeology, Greco-Roman accounts (some of them hostile and  probably not well-informed), and literature from the early Christian period.  Celtic paganism was one of a larger group of polytheistic Indo-European religions of Iron Age Europe.

Celtic Pantheon


How gods and goddesses were portrayed:

A crowned stone god   
 Horned Cernunnos
Horse Goddess Epona 


 


Several Celtic gods and goddesses were depicted as threesomes, either in three aspects or sometimes three-headed.  The three-headed Celtic god most prominently identified in historical artifacts, particularly a bust from Reims, is likely Lugus (also known as Lugh), a powerful and ancient Gaulish deity.  While it is debated whether this represents a single god with three faces, three distinct gods, or a trifrons (a single deity with three faces), the imagery of a three-headed figure is common in Celtic art, and Lugus was often depicted with this form. 


There were also many representations of multiple female goddess, often in threes ("mothers of this, that, and the other).

<---Corinium Mothers -- In Corinium Museum, Romano-Brittish "Three Mothers", Cirincester

<---Three Mother Goddesses, Gallo Roman, Vertillum, Burgundy

Everyone had clothes that needed to be fastened (although macho Celtic men often took their clothes off when going into battle to prove they weren't afraid to risk "everything").

Before the Romans arrived in Britain, British Celts has already adopted Roman style brooches as fasteners for their clothing.  The sequence will probably never be known, but CeltiRoman style "Annular" (= "ring shaped" and derivative) and "Bow" (= "bow shaped" and derivative) brooches were already beng made on the islands.  They were often decorated in "La Tene" styles or other local designs and/or colors.



British-Anglo-Saxon 8th century annular brooch with la Tene style decoration, which had become a widespread decorative jewelry stye and remained (and still remains today as a copied stye) throughout Roman and former Roman territories


It also has been proposed that La tene twisty and swirly repousse metal work may have been influenced by earlier twisted wire work.

Scottish pre-plaid and colors -- local variation on a Bow Brooch theme.


Gold Eye good luck sharm -- not all repousse pieces were pins.

to

torc neck pieces and armlets were worn by Celt into battle as indicators that they had been rewarded for valor in previous frays. They often had massive and decorative end-pieces.

Examples of Britton Celtic art.



The Gundestrup Cauldron

The Gundestrup cauldron is a richly decorated silver vessel, thought to date from between 200 BC and 300 AD, or more narrowly between 150 BC and 1 BC.This places it within the late La Tène period or early Roman Iron Age. The cauldron is the largest known example of European Iron Age silver work (diameter: 69 cm (27 in); height: 42 cm (17 in)). It was found dismantled, with the other pieces stacked inside the base, in 1891, in a peat bog near the hamlet of Gundestrup in the Aars parish of Himmerland, Denmark (56°49′N 9°33′E).It is now usually on display in the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen, with replicas at other museums; it was in the UK on a travelling exhibition called The Celts during 2015–2016.
^]

Rebirth scene, Gundestrop Cauldron

Bull slaying scene, Gundestrup Cauldron


Medallion from the rounded bottom of the Gundestrup cauldron

Lulingstone Bowl -- Post RomanExcavated in Kent, England in the 19th century, dated on stylistic grounds to the 7th or 8th century CE. Bronze and silver. Now in the British Museum.





Silver Repouse plaque -- god?, hero, notable person?


Unique pre-Roman donative recovered near Waterloo bridge over the Thames




Modern replica of a more standard Celtic helm.


<-- Full Celtic Gear is clearly replica but very
close to accurate

Although some disass

Celtic chariots were two-man operations, with a driver and an armed fighter.  The driver is often shown well up on the "tree" between the horses. Roman description say that the chariot was sometimes just used as a way to deliver a fighter to an infantry battle.  I suppose it was left to the fighter whether he wanted the more macho infantry experience, or to just chuck his spear, fight from the platform until exhausted, and then have an escape vehicle.  Nobody knows for sure, because descriptions vary.



Stone-cut chariot images are, of course, less common than coins, but this one appears to show that chariots could  had segmented seven spoked wheels (unless we have an inattentive sculptor).  The personnel manning the vehicle are less clear.

<-- Replica of a Carnyx         
a metal HORN six or more feet tall with To an
animal head where bell would be.  To hear the
soun of a single carnyx use the following link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVFGT2NX-YQ

Then imagine the reaction of opposing troops if
they heard dozens of them braying at the same
time.    
                                                                     

<-- Gundestrup Cauldron Carnyxes






Celtic swords grew to as long as 42 inches and were normally used as slashing weapons.  The blade of the general issue Roman infantry sword, the Gladius, had shrunk to 22 inches and was used to stab out from behind shield walls.  The Celts would make wild undisciplined charges at massed Roman maniples and usually were easily slaughtered.

Celtic Pottery