Celts & Britons - Who Were They?

Where the Celts Settled in Europe

The Celts were a group of people from Northern and Central Europe that occupied lands stretching from the British Isles to Gallatia. They had many dealings with other cultures that bordered their lands occupied. There was a unifying language spoken by the Celts, old Celtic, which is still spoken in Scotland, Ireland and Wales. 

The word 'Celts' comes from the Greek word 'keltoi' meaning 'barbarians'. They were the most powerful group of people living in Europe during the Iron Age. 

They lived in extended family groups called tribes, each with its own chieftain/king or queen and laws. Women sometimes played important political roles in society as much as the men did.

The people living in Britain during the Iron Age are often called Iron Age Celts, but they were known just as the 'Britons' at the time.

The Celts arrived in two waves:  the Goidelic-speaking Celts between 2000 BC and 1200 BC and the Brythonic-speaking sometime in the period 500 BC to 400 BC. (Modern Welsh and Cornish are descended from Brythonic; modern Scottish and Irish Gaelic from the Goidelic). There was also a smaller wave of settlement of Belgic Celts in Southern England during the first century BC - possibly fleeing from the Roman invasions.

These settlers were farmers and would spend a lot of their day looking after crops; wheat for bread, barley, rye and oats. They kept cattle and sheep to provide: manure, wool or hide (leather) and food.

Dogs were probably used to help hunt animals such as wild boar. They also ate berries, nuts and fish too.

Apart from being farmers they also were fearsome warriors. They carried oval-shaped shields made from wood, sharp spears with a wooden handle and iron tip, and long swords with an iron blade when fighting in battle. 

Also they used lime to shape their hair into spikes and tattooed their skin with patterns using a blue dye called woad (to scare their enemies and to help treat wounds). Some even went into battle unprotected by helmets or armour, often fighting naked.

A Roundhouse

Britons at this time lived in roundhouses made from materials from nature, which had  just one big room for the whole family to eat, live and sleep in. The walls were made from wattle (woven wood) and daub (straw and mud) which dried hard to keep the inside well insulated and warm.

Inside you would have found: a loom for weaving cloth, a hearth or fire in the middle that would be lit all the time for: heat, light, cooking and smoking food, a dome-shaped oven for baking bread, a quern stone for grinding corn, beds with hay mattresses and woollen blankets, and baskets for storing food or belongings.

The Celts also built over 4000 hill forts on the top of large hills. These had high embankments (mounds of soil) and deep ditches (holes) around a group of roundhouses to look impressive and to defend them from raiders.

Their clothes were made from wool and dyed with natural vegetable dyes (from plants and berries) in: blue, yellow or red. Bracae (trousers) were worn under a tunic, held at the waist with a belt and over this would have been a cloak with a striped or checked pattern, fastened by a brooch. A torc (gold neck ring) would be worn by important people like chieftains and warriors.

A Celtic Burial

There was over 400 Gods and Goddesses, including: Succelos (the sky god) with a hammer that caused lightning and Nodens, who made clouds and rain. Religion was closely linked to the natural world and so they believed their Gods and Goddesses lived in places like: lakes, rivers, cliffs and bushes. The four main festivals of the Celtic year were based around the farming year: Imbolc - 1st February, Beltane (the beginning of the warm season) - 1st May, Lughnasa (the time for harvesting crops) - 1st August and Samhain - 1st November

The Celts' priests were called druids and hey sacrificed: food, precious objects and even people to their Gods and Goddesses to keep them happy and ensure they smiled upon everyone.

The Celts also believed that the human soul had an afterlife so when a person died they were buried with useful objects for the journey there (like a: helmet, sword and shield).