Celts in the Steppe

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

Hello,

I was reading Cunliffe's the Ancient Celts, and I went through an interesting map which detailed Celtic finds in the Pontic Steppe - I searched the book a bit more, and it indeed denotes that there was a certain Celtic presence in modern-day Ukraine.

... Is there any chance we'll see some sort of Celtic AOR or Celtic culture buildings and units in the EBII Pontic Steppe?

[Epimetheus]

Though it's only a vague nod to this, I think there's a little of this in EB1 already. Generals with the Contini Celtic ethnicity become available if you own Lucarottea, Gawjam Bastarnoz, or Olbia in Scythia.

[Belisarius II]

Perhaps some of the rebel armies that pop up could consist of Celtic units, perhaps led by a Celtic general. It would create a bit more diversity up in the steppes.

[MeinPanzer]

Hello,

I was reading Cunliffe's the Ancient Celts, and I went through an interesting map which detailed Celtic finds in the Pontic Steppe - I searched the book a bit more, and it indeed denotes that there was a certain Celtic presence in modern-day Ukraine.

... Is there any chance we'll see some sort of Celtic AOR or Celtic culture buildings and units in the EBII Pontic Steppe?

The presence of Celts in the northern Pontic littoral is a very complicated issue which requires that the material evidence be handled with a lot of finesse, which it often hasn't been in the past. Many people make claims to the presence of Celts in the Crimea, but they are all based on a slight amount of material evidence which can be interpreted any number of ways.

A prime example is the fact that thureoi appear around the middle of the third century BC on the coins of Leukon II, king of the Bosporan kingdom, and that a mural was found some decades ago in Panticapaeum that dates to around the same time period and shows an Egyptian ship with some soldiers on deck carrying thureoi. Several scholars immediately combined these two pieces of evidence and assumed that Ptolemaic Galatian mercenaries had come to the Crimea for whatever reason and had introduced the thureos to the army of the Bosporan kingdom.

However, this still derives from the flawed assumption that the thureos was at this time exclusively the weapon of the Celts in the Hellenistic east, when we know quite well that it wasn't. For all we know, some Thracian or Cappadocian mercenaries, whom we know the Bosporan kings employed, could have introduced it. Let's not forget, also, that in the last centuries BC the Montefortino, a northern Italian helmet, becomes extremely popular among the nomads around the Crimea and its hinterland. Should we thus assume an Italian presence there? It all just shows that this evidence has to be treated with caution.

[G. Septimus]

Well, the Goths could get there. Dacia is close to Pontus, So it's not very hard to get to the Pontic steppes.

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

Goths are Germanic though, not Celtic.

[MeinPanzer]

Well, the Goths could get there. Dacia is close to Pontus, So it's not very hard to get to the Pontic steppes.

About the closest thing to having Celts around the north of the Black Sea is that we know that the Bastarnae invaded the northwestern littoral around the last quarter of the 3rd c. BC. The decree of Protogenes of Olbia from around the end of the 3rd c. BC mentions "Galatai," but these are almost certainly Bastarnae, and not Galatians. The ancient sources are contradictory as to whether the Bastarnae are Celtic or Germanic, and their material culture seems to be more Geto-Thracian than Celtic, so speaking of using the term Celt to refer to them would be a misnomer.

[Cyclops]

Yes the success of the Celtic material culture means they cast a massive archaeological shadow. Heck, there are new-age trinket shops full of the stuff here in Melbourne (yet to see Gesaetae wandering the streets though, we haven't built the MIC up enough).

While the Celts weren't quite the universal merchants that the Hellenes or Carthaginians were I'm sure they "culturally colonised" areas at least as often as they invaded them. Is this a case of the locals adopting cool Celtic imports rather than being conquered?

However ATHM's question is a fair one. Does the presence of Celtic material culture (eg in the Pontic Steppe) suggest an area would be more amenable to a celtic* overlord than somewhere without Celtic material remains? What about Celtic style troops? AOR perhaps, or Mercs? The engine has a few tools for the team to play with here.

*I suppose this means Gallic or Brithonic in EB2 terms, unless we're getting Bastarnae...

[MeinPanzer]

While the Celts weren't quite the universal merchants that the Hellenes or Carthaginians were I'm sure they "culturally colonised" areas at least as often as they invaded them. Is this a case of the locals adopting cool Celtic imports rather than being conquered?

However ATHM's question is a fair one. Does the presence of Celtic material culture (eg in the Pontic Steppe) suggest an area would be more amenable to a celtic* overlord than somewhere without Celtic material remains? What about Celtic style troops? AOR perhaps, or Mercs? The engine has a few tools for the team to play with here.

*I suppose this means Gallic or Brithonic in EB2 terms, unless we're getting Bastarnae...

No, it doesn't. The only major contribution the Celts made to the material culture in this region is in arms and armour, and since that is one of the most fluid categories of cultural transfer, it is hardly an indicator of any sort of actual Celtic presence at all. If it was, it could just as easily be argued that Bactria should revolt to a Galatian general because the Bactrians employed the thureos. I've reviewed this topic a fair bit, and so far I've not seen any compelling evidence that there were significant numbers of Celts in the northern Black Sea littoral in any capacity in the Hellenistic period.

[Power2the1]

While the Celts weren't quite the universal merchants that the Hellenes or Carthaginians were I'm sure they "culturally colonised" areas at least as often as they invaded them. Is this a case of the locals adopting cool Celtic imports rather than being conquered?

However ATHM's question is a fair one. Does the presence of Celtic material culture (eg in the Pontic Steppe) suggest an area would be more amenable to a celtic* overlord than somewhere without Celtic material remains? What about Celtic style troops? AOR perhaps, or Mercs? The engine has a few tools for the team to play with here.

*I suppose this means Gallic or Brithonic in EB2 terms, unless we're getting Bastarnae...

Good thread.

The extensive duration the Celts settled in Galatia, you think that there would be plenty of oppida, swords, helmets, shied bosses, etc... the 'normal' stuff you'd find in other places like Western Europe. Well there isn't much to be found there despite the solid knowledge the Celts were settled there for many hundreds of years. It probable that the same situation could have existed elsewhere on a smaller scale.

The mercenary activity of the Celts after their 278/9 B.C. explosion into the east and the subsequent movements and migrations afterward certain make it very possible that unrecorded instances of Celtic warbands, settlers, raiding parties, etc... could have made it to the Black Sea without much difficulty, though theres no telling how large or what size these groups could have been. Being on the move could partly explain the lack of overwhelming archeological findings at dig sites; that the Celtic presence was brief; or they were rather a smaller migration and thus assimilated into the surrounding culture(s) before their own culture could really take hold in the region.

Also keep in mind that in the following generations after the 270's B.C. La Tene culture was flowering all over Europe and this was brought eastward through migration, trade, and the transmission of technology introduced by the Celts to others they came in touch with. Mercenary activity directed eastward was at a high point in the following decades as well. Although speaking primarily about the Successor kingdoms, I think that Henri Hubert put it best when he wrote: "No oriental sovereign was able to do without his contingent of Gauls." Basically true

my two cents

[Visarion]

let's not forget about trade... a possible explanation why there were celtic objects in that area...

[G. Septimus]

Trade is where people could go even to china....
but the celts are like, in France..

[The General]

Trade is where people could go even to china....
but the celts are like, in France..

Wut?


From Wikipedia, yet again.

[MeinPanzer]

Good thread.

The extensive duration the Celts settled in Galatia, you think that there would be plenty of oppida, swords, helmets, shied bosses, etc... the 'normal' stuff you'd find in other places like Western Europe. Well there isn't much to be found there despite the solid knowledge the Celts were settled there for many hundreds of years. It probable that the same situation could have existed elsewhere on a smaller scale.

Then again, there hasn't been much excavation of Galatian sites or burials, and most of what has been found prior to Roman occupation is quite late (like the monumental tomb from Karalar, and the excavated cemetary from Bogazkoy).

The mercenary activity of the Celts after their 278/9 B.C. explosion into the east and the subsequent movements and migrations afterward certain make it very possible that unrecorded instances of Celtic warbands, settlers, raiding parties, etc... could have made it to the Black Sea without much difficulty, though theres no telling how large or what size these groups could have been. Being on the move could partly explain the lack of overwhelming archeological findings at dig sites; that the Celtic presence was brief; or they were rather a smaller migration and thus assimilated into the surrounding culture(s) before their own culture could really take hold in the region.

Also keep in mind that in the following generations after the 270's B.C. La Tene culture was flowering all over Europe and this was brought eastward through migration, trade, and the transmission of technology introduced by the Celts to others they came in touch with. Mercenary activity directed eastward was at a high point in the following decades as well. Although speaking primarily about the Successor kingdoms, I think that Henri Hubert put it best when he wrote: "No oriental sovereign was able to do without his contingent of Gauls." Basically true

The problem with taking the evidence into account is that we basically have two models of Celtic material culture's presence in the east to draw upon. The first is in Galatia (and to a much lesser extent Tylis), where we know there was a large settled Celtic presence, but in which we find only a thin smattering of evidence. The second is in much of the Hellenistic east, where Galatians did not settle (this is excluding areas where Galatian mercenaries were settled as cleruchs) but where we find a lot of Celtic style material culture in the forms of arms and armour. Almost all the evidence we have for the northern Black Sea region is also in the form of Celtic arms and armour (i.e. the sword from the late Scythian royal burial at Scythian Neapolis, numerous helmets from around the Crimea), and so this immediately draws us more towards the latter model than the former.

In addition, we have a fair amount of information from ancient epigraphic (the Protogenes decree, etc.) and literary sources outlining the movements of peoples into and around the northern Black Sea littoral at this time, and beyond the Galatians of the Protogenes decree (which are certainly not Galatians, but the Bastarnae, and which is only around Olbia in the northwest, anyway), there is no mention of any sort of Celtic movement or presence in that region, with the exception of one mention of a contingent of Galatian mercenaries being present in the Bosporan kingdom during Mithridates VI's rule, but that is one mention of one contingent around the middle of the 1st c. BC.

I'm not saying it wasn't possible that there were Celts in the northern Black Sea region; however, there is no real evidence pointing to an actual Celtic presence in the region at all, and such an extraordinary event would either have been recorded, as the movements of Thraco-Getic, Scythian, and Sarmatian tribes were in that dynamic region, or they would have been so insignificant as to have no effective influence on the EB-scale of events.

[Cyclops]

Really helpful and informative responses from Power2the1 and especially MeinPanzer.

I wonder about groups identified as a single ethnic group (Celts" or "Anglo-Saxons" are two in my mind at the moment) who have a (famous, indeed bankable) military history, some sort of material footprint that doesn't exactly match and a linguisitic "shadow" not quite fitting either of those.

We get these "snapshots" from a contemporary literary source or a burial site but our intrepid team members have to job of marrying them up so they fit a moment in time in a long series of events. If the sword was in position A but we know the makers are only found in location B, then how do we explain place name C? Its not just history, its a working model: EB2 as a virtual Jurassic park.

If only the ancients had filled out comprehensive life-surveys and kept them as part of the their Iron Age tribal rituals. "Do you identify as a Celt? Have you ever worn stormtrooper armour in combat*? Please complete you name, age and current AOR")

* of course they didn't, they used second hand Roman LS until it rusted to nothing).