Celts

The Celts are a collection of Indo-European peoples in parts of Europe and Anatolia identified by their use of the Celtic languages and other cultural similarities. The history of pre-Celtic Europe and the relationship between ethnicity, language and culture in the Celtic world is unclear and controversial. In particular, there is dispute over the ways in which the Iron Age inhabitants of Britain and Ireland should be regarded as Celts.

According to one theory, the proto-Celtic language arose in the Late Bronze Age Urnfield culture of central Europe, which flourished from around 1200 BC. This theory links the Celts with the Iron Age Hallstatt culture which followed it (c. 800–450 BC), named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria. Therefor, this area of central Europe is sometimes called the “Celtic homeland”. It proposes that by the following La Tène cultural period (c. 450 BC onward), named after the La Tène site in Switzerland, Celtic culture had spread by trans-cultural diffusion or migration to most of central Europe, France and the Low Countries (Gauls), the British Isles (Insular Celts), the Iberian Peninsula (Celtiberians, Celtici and Gallaeci) and northern Italy (Lepontii and Cisalpine Gauls). Another theory suggests that proto-Celtic arose earlier in the Atlantic Bronze Age coastal area and spread eastwards.