Celtic group

Celt (Celtic/Celts) [CP]. 1. The name given by classical authors such as Hecataeus and Herodotus> to the proto-historic peoples occupying Spain, Gaul, and central Europe. These writers distinguished the Celts from neighbouring peoples by their appearance, customs, language, and political organization. They spoke of them as tall, fair, excitable, ostentatious, and fierce people. They are portrayed by themselves as having wavy swept-back hair, heavy moustaches on the men, and wearing a metal torc or neck-ring. Many authorities extend this fairly narrow, if slightly ambiguous, definition to include the pre-Roman inhabitants of Britain and parts of northern Europe, and even more fancifully to include those same communities living outside the roman Empire who survived down into the later 1st millennium BC and beyond—the so-called ‘Celtic fringe’. In fact there is no archaeological evidence for such a widespread and enduring common culture. As a cultural label the term should be seen as a blanket description for a whole series of more or less autonomous groups superficially linked through common ancestries, kinship ties, and shared artistic tastes.

2. A branch of the INDO-EUROPEAN language group, that is traditionally divided into two main sections: Q-Celtic (Goidelic) which is now represented by Irish, Manx, and Scots Gaelic; and P-Celtic (Brithonic) which is now represented by Welsh, Cornish, and Breton. See also CELTIC ART.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology. Timothy Darvill. Oxford University Press, 2002.