Question concerning the Celts of the British Isles

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

The issue is not really whether they were "Celts" its more about how you define "Celt." Certainly a fairly Celtic culture suplanted what went before but there is a bigger question of whether the Celtic race supllanted the local islanders.

Previously it was thought they did, now it is though they not. Personnally I would say the Celts did exactly what the Saxons did later. The decapitated or supplanted the local elite and took over.

[-Praetor-]

I think that it`s more proper, and eludes a lot of troubles, to designate the peoples not as Celts, but as the culture to which they belonged, such as Hallstatt A-B-C-D or La Téne. That way you classificate the groupings by their tecnological development, and subsequently by historical periods, rather than by Gaul Celts, Celtiberians, etc.

For example, talking about La Téne celts, you incluide every celt in the med world by I BC, without the risk of letting anyone outside...



Image provided by wikipedia.

Cheers!

PS: BTW, I`m a total ignorant about the Celts, I`m just saying what my common sense dictates .

[zakalwe]

As an ex-archaeologist who worked primarily on Iron Age Scotland sites - I'm generally a suporter of this way at looking at the British Iron Age - I dislike the terminology of 'Celt' or 'Celtic' with reference to this period, although i would agree that it has its place regarding the Linguistic Group and artistic styling. The archaeological evidence is more and more interpreted as emphasising the diversity and regionalism of IA Britain rather than a 'pan-celtic' grouping

I really don't have time to get into the arguments behind this except to say that there are obviously differeneces of opinion but the theories are certainly considered mainstream in archaeological circles. They certainly are nothing to do with any concept of anti-modern celts, pro english nationalism or post-devolution opinions despite the claims by some (eejit imho) commentators and old school archaeologists.

I would recommend reading

Simon James' 'The Atlantic Celts' - http://www.amazon.com/Atlantic-Celts...e=UTF8&s=books
John Collis - The Celts - Origins, Myths and Inventions http://www.shef.ac.uk/archaeology/pu...oks/celts.html
Malcolm Chapman - The Celts - The Construction of a myth

Simon James has some info on the issues on his website -
http://www.le.ac.uk/archaeology/stj/intro.htm

All very respected UK academic archaeologists.

It is easy to react to the claims which are interpreted by the usual hysterical media. They usually rant about 'offensive', hate and all that crap without even reading any of books and articles or speaking with the proponents. In fact the arguments are well thought out and i believe credible. They will probably change and develop over the years, but i think that they have give a real boost and needed adrenaline shot to the study of the iron age in the UK. Even many of the traditional names - like Cunliffe - have taken alot out of these arguments and bought into many of the elements of reassessing our previous approaches.

I do believe that Ranika and I will find ourselves in the opposite side of this debate though :p (the debate often divides down archaeologist vs historian/linguist lines)

Anyway just passing for the first time in a couple of months and couldn't resist posting :)

[Eberhard]

Thank you for those sources, zakalwe, I'll definately pick up those books from the local store.

I hardly even know what the real evidence is behind the claims made concerning Atlantic origins. It'll be a good change to see the actual text which is causing so many arguments.