First Published: 08/09/2012, 9:08 AM
Question:
“Hello Monsieur Soup
Concerning the Celts. It seems many archaeologists are coming forth and stating that there were really no Celts, and that the idea of Celts was for a modern-day European identity of some sort.
Yet from what I’ve read, many convincing archaeological finds and sites have shown that the Celts certainly did have a pan-European culture in their styles of art, in their trade, and in their beliefs.
Oh what am I to believe Great Soup-sayer?
Confoudedly yours,
Gaul Gravy”
Response:
Hello,
In about a week’s time we’re going on a two-week journey to visit friends and family in Southern England and Wales. Next week’s ‘Question of Doom’ is already ‘taken’ so I thought, rather than wait for a few weeks, I would respond to your email with an email… and possibly post this on the Archaeosoup blog.
Yes! It can be extremely confusing when it comes to the Celts. However, there are several ways of conceptualising the situation which might help:
1) Modern Countries:
If one considers the area covered by ancient and modern Celtic cultures, it’s a huge area! From Anatolia to Iberia; Northern Italy to the tip of Scotland, an area of approximately 9,000,000 km-sq. Today, this area contains approximately 30 countries.
Now, if an alien was to classify this area today they may well be tempted to say that we collectively represent a ‘European’ culture and to a certain extent they’d be right. There are similar clothing, belief, economic and political systems across the continent. Increasingly Britain, for example, contains foods from France, Italy, Spain, Poland – pretty much every cuisine in Europe (nevermind the rest of the world).
However, we all know that things aren’t that simple. Within Britain alone there are four distinct National identities (Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish and English) – and that’s not considering sub-areas like Cornish identity, the Isle of Wight/ Isle of Mann… And when one examines the rest of the Continent there are many, many more National and sub-National identities. You wouldn’t DARE call a Frenchman, English or confuse someone from Turkey with an Irishman!
Now, I am certainly not arguing that these Nations and National boundaries map directly back onto the past. However they illustrate how easy it is to confuse general cultural similarities with a distinct identity.
2) Tribes:
The Iron Age peoples of Europe certainly did share artistic developments and styles. It even seems that they migrated from place to place. Consider the Parisii moving from the Paris basin to North Yorkshire! However, it seems that they had distinct tribal identities too. It is thought that the differences between these groups ranged from subtle shifts in dress, colours of cloth etc to differences in language, cultural values and the gods.
The goddess Epona the protector of horses, donkeys and mules is a good example of this. This goddess quite possibly has her roots in the Danube and spread west with riders into Gaul. She appears to have had limited appeal in the rest of the continent until the Romans – yes the Romans, took her to Spain, Britain and back home to the Mediterranean.
Apologists of a Pan-European Celtic culture often glorify the war-like nature of the Celts. However this warfare was usually fought between tribes. In 2011 the Fin Cop find of massacred individuals reminded the world that different Iron Age groups, neighbours, made war upon each other. This is not the behaviour of a coherent, continental empire…. Rather the result of culturally similar, distinct groups living next door to each other.
3) Language:
The Celtic language branch of the Indo-European tree immediately indicates that there is, at least, a distinction to be made between Iron Age folk on the continent and the British Isles. The so-called ‘Proto or Common Celtic’ branch is divided into four sub-branches:
- Gaulish and its close relatives Galatian (from Anatolia/ Turkey), Lepontic (Cisalpine Gaul), and Noric (Austria/ Slovenia).
- Hispano-Celtic and its close relatives: Celtiberian (once spoken in the Iberian Peninsula), Gallaecian (North-West Spain and North Portugal) and two other languages which are vaguely attested to in the Portugal area.
- Brythonic, including the living languages Breton, Cornish, and Welsh and the extinct languages Cumbric and Pictish.
- Goidelic, including the living languages Irish, Manx, and Scottish Gaelic.
And these are only the languages for which there is good evidence! There are many other Celtic languages which have probably been lost over the past 2,000 years and who knows how many more local dialects!?
Once again, this points to a language family rather than a single coherent language. I speak Welsh (Cymraeg) but I don’t have a clue about Irish Gaelic. There are some intriguing similarities but more often than not I have no clue how to pronounce it (let alone speak Irish fluently). This is similar to modern languages. Italian and French are connected but not the same. Even English has some connections with French (due to historical connections/ conflicts) but they are distinct languages and natives cannot easily converse.
These sub-groups of Proto-Celtic point to different languages, or at least strong dialects being spoken across Europe. Certainly there appears to be a distinction between Gaulish and Brythonic, Britain and the Continent. Indeed the language which bound Europe together through trade and common interests is likely to have been… Greek! Greek traders were in Britain in the Bronze Age! And Greek wine, followed by Roman exports were making there way across the continent, all the way to Britain.
4) Time:
When people talk or think about Celtic culture, they often forget about the dimension of time! They will happily mix objects from the Hallstatt Cultures (C8th-6th BC) with La Tene and others in Britain (C5th – 1st BC), not to mention Pictish art which developed up until AD 900! They observe similar art styles and lump them together, forgetting that they can be separated by many hundreds of miles and up to two thousand years!
Ofcourse there are similarities and in this way they are part of a Celtic cultural tradition but they are neither Geo-Politically the same nor contemporaneous.
5) Arbitrary Distinctions:
I have long been fascinated by the way in which people who take an interest in the Iron Age of Europe are often eager to connect Celtic cultures together as a homogeneous mass identity. This is particularly interesting when compared to distinctions made by those very same folk.
An excellent example of this tendency is with regards to the Saxons and Vikings! For large periods of time, these groups are arguably indistinguishable. They have a similar Germanic artistic and linguistic heritage, they behaved the same for much of history and if you’d described a Viking (raiding, pillaging from the sea etc) to people in East Anglia during the Roman period they would have identified Saxon raiders!
People who mould ‘The Celts’ together would never say that Saxons and Vikings were the same even though the closer one looks the harder it is to distinguish them. They became more distinct over time… and this is the point… They are a little closer to our own times.
I rather suspect that the conceptual pens into which popular ideas of the past force ancient peoples are largely formed by how much we can ‘identify’ with their distinctions – by how close they are to us in history. For some reason it is acceptable to talk of ‘The Celts’ yet to mix the Saxon and Viking cultures together is a bizarre notion for many… Why? Because it’s what our cultural idea of the past dictates!
So it’s not a case of who to believe but rather how to understand the evidence. I do not pretend to know for certain but that’s the whole point. When we think of the Iron Age peoples of Europe we’re relying upon relatively scant evidence. There is much beautiful artwork, yes but accounts of these peoples are filtered via Roman and Greek writers. Even the names of ‘Celtic’ leaders we have such as ‘Togidubnus’ sound suspiciously like a Roman trying to wrap their tongue around a foreign name.
While there is undeniably a Celtic cultural block, I do not believe that there has ever been such thing as ‘A’ Celt. Rather Iron Age Europe held a whole series of peoples who shared as many distinguishing ideas and attitudes as they did similarities.
As proud as I am to speak a Celtic language and to come from a ‘modern Celtic’ country, I try to be aware that 2,000 – 3,000 years have passed since the Celtic art traditions and cultural similarities were formed. It would be naïve to assume that this span of time and space has resulted in a simple story.
But I like a complicated story far more than a picture book!
(Having said that, I also love a good graphic novel ;p)
Hopefully this has gone some way to answering your question? If you have any follow up Q’s please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Thanks,
Marc.
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