Questions tagged [celts]
Use this tag for speakers of the Celtic language or other groups traditionally identified as Celtic in historical sources, as well as modern Celtic nations of Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Brittany, Cornwall, and the Isle of Man.
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What was the nature of conflict between Helvetii and German in prelude to Gallic Wars?
In Caesar's diaries from Gallic Wars, he states that Helvetii battled Germans "almost daily, repelling them from their own territories or waging wars on German frontiers".
What were German ...
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How likely is it that any non-Celtic language was spoken in the British Isles when the Romans invaded?
We know from Roman writers the names (or Latinized versions of them) of many ancient British tribes that they encountered, the Iceni, Parisi, Trinovantes etc. but the Romans were rarely interested in ...
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Are the English Celts? [closed]
I was reading that a "native" English person (the average person tracing their ancestors in England say 200 years at least) has about 30% Anglo-Saxon DNA and 3% Viking DNA.
Presumably the other 67% ...
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How many people were in an average Iron Age Celtic settlement? [closed]
How many people were in an average Celtic settlement (or tribe - not sure if they correspond as one to one) in the Iron Age?
My intuitive estimation is "from 100 to 5000".
I know the Iron Age is ...
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What would a Roman education include in the years 77 - 85?
In the year 77 Gnaeus Julius Agricola under Vespasian was made consul and governor of Britannia, among a series of military campaigns into north and west Britain he also pushed for various civil and ...
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Significance of division of Caledonia by Northumbrian Advance
In Chapter 4 of The Isles by Norman Davies, he writes:
One effect of the Northumbrian advance was to split British territory
in Caledonia into two. By the eighth century at the latest, the
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Caesar's comments on Celts(?)
Recall reading somewhere a description by Julius Caesar of the Celts(?) as being fast talking, often through gestures and half words. And often saying the opposite of what was intended. Like to find ...
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When did the round house fall out of vernacular use throughout Britain and Ireland?
TL;DR
When did roundhouses fall out of vernacular use?
The time frame we have is full of gaps:
They fell out of use in South-West Britain in the 8th Century.
Wales may have had them potentially for ...
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Is there any historicity to the concept of Ghost Fences / Walls?
A Ghost Wall or Fence is a concept I keep coming across in historical fiction set around the Iron Age or Sub-Roman Britain. Generally, it appears as a boundary made of deceased peoples bones to either ...
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Do we have any surviving texts by Romano-Celtic authors?
Do we have any surviving texts or references to texts with Romano-Celtic authors and how common were 'non-Greco-Italian' (I'm not sure of the best term for that) authors? Specifically within the Roman ...
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What are the oldest Celtic and pre-Celtic settlements/oppida in France/Belgium?
I am looking for a list of old Celtic and pre-Celtic settlements/oppida in France/Belgium and the period during which they were found. I found some information on Wikipedia on cities in France that ...
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Were/are the Gaels, Picts and Britons physically distinct?
Were they only different in culture and language or were there physical differences between the three groups?
Did they all belong to the same ethnic group (Celts)?
For those who don't understand "...
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Barbarian Army sizes and how they compare to Medieval times
There're many questions about why armies of antiquity were bigger than those of medieval times, but most of the answers revolve around empires like Roman or Parthian where the explanation is pretty ...
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How much did the culture of Anatolian Gallic settlers differ from their kin in Gaul?
It is known that some Gallic tribes emigrated to Anatolia in Roman era. In Livy's History of Rome, 38.16 -
(cited from a reddit article), it is mentioned about their arrival to Anatolia by an ...
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Was Celtic society promiscuous?
I have been trying to find an answer to the above question. In pre-Roman and Roman Britain were the Celtic peoples promiscuous or did they have only one married partner? Is there strong enough ...
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Was there significant interbreeding between Romans and Native Britons?
During the days of Roman occupation in Britain (43AD to 450AD), did the Roman occupants of Britain interbreed and intermarry with the native British population substantially (is not only a couple of ...
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Major power shift in Gaul circa 350 B.C
I realize this is a little before history and therefore interpretive. I recall reading something about a shift that took place in Gaul, some time before the Romans came there. It may have been around ...
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Were the Tuatha De Danann really from India? [closed]
There is news claiming that the Irish folk gods, the Tuatha De Danann, were really Indian, and that their followers have similar practices to ancient Indians. Is that why the Celtic people are called ...
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Why were Germanic languages able to spread over much of northern Europe after 500BC? Did they mostly replace Celtic?
I understand it is usually believed (see Germanic peoples (Wikipedia)) that up till roughly 500 BC the common ancestor of the Germanic languages (which today include English, Dutch, German, Danish, ...
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In the biography of Turing by Hodges an ancient Celtic tradition is mentioned of killing the last to arrive
According to Hodges, Turing compared some modern custom to the torture and killing of the last to arrive at Celtic councils. I can find no other mention of this elsewhere; can anyone expand upon or at ...
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Is there any evidence that Celts produced chain mail?
Since I started to interest myself in history of the northen Europe, and especially the history of Celtic people, I read a lot about their inventions, in terms of warfare.
The quote from wiki
...
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History of Raetia between 15 CE to 550 CE
I know most of the history of the area of Raetia (by which I mean the Roman province, today roughly resembling the states Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg) from the first sources we have until today, ...
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Did Celtic druids teach in Greece?
Some time ago I read in a few second hand articles, that Celtic druids went to Greece to teach and study. I don't remember the sources and I couldn't find the sources on a Google search.
Are there ...
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Group term for the Celts around the Alps?
Usually when I'm trying to find something about the Celts along the Danube and North Italy, I have a hard time. What is their group term (like Gauls, Britons, Celtiberians)? Do they belong to Gaul? ...
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Was there a tax on being fat in Gaul?
I vaguely remember reading something about this but I'd like to dig up some sources. Google isn't much help on that one.
This could have applied to some tribes, Gaul or the Celtic world at large, but ...
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Is there a citable reference of druids using curved swords?
Pliny writes of druids using sickles to cut mistletoe,
and there are curved swords (coined Falcata in the 19th century) from the pre-Roman Iberian peninsula.
Are there any references to druids ...
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Did iron age Britons still use the "ritual" sites built by their neolithic predecessors?
Pre-Roman sites in Britain get lumped together as "ancient", but in reality they span a good couple of thousand years between the neolithic and the iron age.
That made me wonder whether there was any ...
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Did the Romans ever deploy troops to, or try to conquer, Ireland?
The Romans obviously conquered Ireland's nearest neighbor, Britain (at least the southern part of it), but they seem to have stayed away from Ireland, at least as far as I am aware.
Is this the ...
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What age were these Britons in A.D. 43?
I have been doing a lot of research on the Roman invasion of Britain and have come across a number of problems with information.
My question is how old specific people were in 43 AD. I have ...
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What is the primary source for this quote by Julius Caesar's on Celts and Germans?
I encountered an interesting quote on the English Wikipedia page for Germania some time ago, which seems to have persisted, albeit without citation. I was hoping someone could find a reliable source (...
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Wales and Ireland in medieval times [closed]
There is a very interesting article on wikipedia on Welsh Law. Though it defines the structure of the Court in Wales in the late medieval period, it says nothing of the status of other nobles and ...
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Did the Celts really go into battle naked?
Yes, this of-repeated tale was reported by the Romans all the time, but it sounds a lot like rumor. Stuff the victors write about their former enemies, "they were so stupid, they went into battle ...
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In Studying the peoples of pre-Roman Britain, what are our primary reference sources?
Where do we get our information on the people's of pre-Roman Britain?
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Where did the Gaels originate?
The origin and spreading out of the Celtic peoples is a topic shrouded in mystery, at least to my mind. While the Germanic migrations occurred during the late Imperial Roman period and Early Middle ...
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