When did the Celts live? Origin of the Celtic Civilization

For two thousand years, tribes and peoples united under the name Celts, attract the attention of historians, linguists, politicians, nationalists and, consequently, the general public. Historians are attracted, in particular, by the contribution of the Celts to the material and cultural development of Europe, linguists are attracted by the fact that the Celts, according to their concepts, spoke an archaic (or not necessarily archaic) type of Indo-European language, attributed to the middle of the 1st millennium BC. AD Politicians and nationalists are playing the "Celtic card", which has become a brand and an important factor in the struggle for political independence under the name "Celtic separatism".

A lot of literature has been written about the Celts, and, for example, entering the words "Celtic civilization" into the search engine of the famous bookstore Amazom.com returns 838 book titles. Two years ago there were 130 fewer books. This is overwhelmingly what can be called recycling, chewing on what has long been known, or fantasies about the Celts. We are not interested in this here. We are interested in questions related to DNA genealogy, namely - who were the Celts and is it possible to identify their descendants by the DNA, whether they “originally” (as they became known as “Celts”) belonged to the same genus, or is this a collective name, such as “Soviet people”, and if it was originally a genus or tribe with any dominant haplogroup, then where did they come from, who were their ancestors on the Y chromosome, what language they spoke - both ancestors and "Celts" at the time of their identification in the historical literature. This is probably the clearest statement of the question that can be presented in this context.

As soon as we ask these questions, the range of literature immediately narrows sharply, literally to a few primary sources, and even to a few quotations. It is amazing how much verbal ink is shed on the basis of just a few quotations, and what a heap of fantasies, including professional historians, is made on such a limited basis. Naturally, many works of historians have been and are being done according to archeological data, many objects have been excavated that are attributed to the “Celts”, a huge amount of literature has been produced about the contribution of the Celts to the cultural and material development of Europe, but few people address the question of whether these are the Celts that they spoke about historians of antiquity, and they made a connection with the data of archeology and cultural studies, as well as with the data of linguistics, according to which the Celts in the middle of the 1st millennium BC. spoke Indo-European (IE) languages.

The question remains - where did the IE languages come from among the Celts in the middle of the 1st millennium BC? Were there “from the very beginning”, that is, millennia earlier, or was the IE language adopted from others? After all, the history of the IE language has at least 6-9 thousand years, the Celts appear on the European stage only 2500 years ago, a maximum of 3200 years ago. What was before? Who were the Celts before? Moreover, the Celtic languages are mainly referred to as the circle of (British) insular languages, and this circle was formulated only three hundred years ago. Are these the same Celtic languages spoken by the "original" Celts in Central Europe in the middle of the 1st millennium BC?

These are questions of DNA genealogy and related disciplines. But the ancient authors do not answer these questions, there are no answers to them in serious books and articles, pseudo-scientific and non-scientific literature proclaims any fantasies, without naturally bothering to substantiate them.

As a consequence of this situation, serious historians generally try not to use the term "Celts". This is because the definitions of "Celts" are ambiguous, multiple, they seem to cover in general the ancient population of Europe, a lot of different tribes, especially those that already spoke Indo-European languages by the beginning of our era. They are all "Celts". We know that in Europe by the beginning of our era there were already many tribes of the haplogroup R1a, who, of course, spoke Indo-European languages. All of them, too, therefore, "Celts". Or not? Where are the criteria?

Now the Celts (their descendants) are understood to be the population primarily of the British Isles, and primarily the Irish. Therefore, the carriers of the haplogroup R1b in the first place. But were the first (known) "Celts" carriers of the haplogroup R1b? For obvious reasons, the literature does not talk about this, but many who understand what the R1b haplogroup is mean that the first Celts were, of course, the R1b haplogroup. This means that they were most likely descendants of the archaeological culture of bell-shaped goblets. And those, therefore, spoke Indo-European languages. But what about the Basques, also R1b, but non-Indo-European languages? They do not answer this question, or put forward different versions that the Basque language is not Basque, but someone else, it happened.

In other words, the fact that R1b (Celts, or "secondary Celts") borrowed an IE language from another people, for example, speakers of R1a, could not be, but the fact that the Basques (R1b) borrowed a non-IE language from another people, so could be. Good logic, correct. So to speak.

In contrast to this, I can offer a completely consistent picture, namely, that the first “Celts” in Europe are carriers of the haplogroup R1a, who, of course, spoke the IE language, and who arrived by migration route from the east, from the Russian Plain, in the first half 1st millennium BC Candidates for this may be at least a dozen branches of the haplogroup R1a, and they will be shown below.

Before moving on to ancient authors, it is worth quoting from the book of French authors "La civilization celtique" (Christian-J Guyonvarc'h, Françoise Le Roux; Payot, 1995, 285 pp.): " We insist on what we have repeatedly taken for ourselves as an axiom, namely, that Celtic research should be based not so much on the search for new sources, but on a new interpretation of existing ones: texts that need a new reading, or insufficiently described archaeological sites.».

At first glance, the position is reasonable, but it hides the roots of the problem, why in two thousand years, since the time of ancient historians, the understanding of the essence of the Celts has hardly advanced. There are actually two problems. The first is that "a new interpretation of already existing texts" multiplies fantasies if not supplemented by new and independent material. For two thousand years, several quotes from ancient authors have been “interpreted”, and things are still there. But new books are written and written, and all on the same topic - what exactly ancient historians said, and what they had in mind. Here comes another book, Celts and the Classsical World (by David Rankin, 1987, Croom Helm Ltd., 319 pp.), which begins exactly like this: “To observe the Celts through the eyes the Greek and Romans is the first aim of this book". That is, "the main purpose of this book is to look at the Celts through the eyes of the (ancient) Greeks and Romans." Reviews - that the book is a "diamond". In fact, it is well written, verses of antiquity are quoted, those very few quotations of ancient authors are discussed on three hundred pages. The book is educational and entertaining, can be recommended to those who want to educate themselves and read an interesting book. Only the answers to our questions above are not there. In fact, the book is the same recycling that has been going on for two thousand years. Moreover, the author in his passion distorts, changes the material of the historians of antiquity, since it is necessary to mention the Celts more often, but the ancient authors did not mention them. We need to correct them. If this is a “new interpretation”, then it is unimportant.

As for the "insufficiently described archaeological sites", the French authors essentially call for the same thing - to bring archeology closer to the Celts created by our imagination. There is no inscription “Celts” on the excavated items, this is all a zone of interpretations. The principle of "similarity" is at work, an important principle of archaeological interpretation. Of course, archaeologists cannot be blamed, this is their apparatus and their conceptual tool. They don't have anything else.

French authors put forward, and in fact repeat a rather common position of Celtology: Those who think that a satisfactory definition of the Celtic civilization can be given only from the moment when it becomes the subject of discussion of the Greek authors of the 6th or 5th century BC, and not related to the general Indo-European context, are deeply mistaken.

The position is correct, it remains only to determine what the "general Indo-European context" is. If the "original Celts" are R1a haplogroups, then the general Indo-European context is considered correctly, and it can be justified by linking the R1a tribes and their Indo-European language. If they are, as is now accepted by many - haplogroups R1b, descendants of the culture of bell-shaped cups (KKK) - then the "general Indo-European context" hangs, because the KKK, most likely, had nothing to do with any IE context until the end of the 2nd millennium BC AD, and rather until the first half of the 1st millennium AD. The French authors, having proclaimed this IE context, did not go one iota further. And again - you can’t blame them, they are also engaged in “recycling”. They do not have new, independent data, and cannot be, because the methodology is not the same. In this regard, archeology has already worked out its fundamental resource, and linguistics, apparently, cannot and does not want to go deeper.

Let's look at what today's science says about the Celts in the context of those DNA genealogy issues that we addressed above, then take a look at what exactly the ancient authors said about the Celts. And we will try to understand if there are any answers to the questions formulated by us, and how the hypothesis about the “original Celts” of the haplogroup R1a looks against this background, and whether the hypothesis about the Celts as the original R1b is stronger, better justified.

The first is the location of the Celts on the maps, according to various authors. The maps are taken from Wikipedia, assuming that this online edition reflects the modern views of at least those who compiled this section.

Settlement of the Celts
So, we see that the Celts are fixed here on the territory of the Hallstatt culture, in the Iron Age (the culture is usually limited to the time frame of 900-400 BC, in Central Europe and the Balkans). The Celts are placed in Central Europe, in the Balkans - Thracians and Illyrians, also attributed to the same culture. Interestingly, both the Thracian and Illyrian languages are classified as Indo-European languages, and according to the ancient Greek historian Xenophanes, the Thracians were fair-haired and blue-eyed. The history of the Thracians goes back at least 4 thousand years. In the 2nd millennium BC. (that is, 4000-3000 years ago), some of them migrated from the Carpathians to the southern bank of the Danube. It is worth noting here that all three young Carpathian branches of R1a - northern, eastern, and western (all - the 1st millennium BC, see above), as well as the Balto-Carpathian branch of R1a (4300 ± 500 years ago , with its two sub-branches), are branches of the subclade R1a-Z280 (4900±500 years ago). So here, too, there is scope for the Hallstatt Celts of the 1st millennium BC, and even earlier, to be carriers of the haplogroup R1a and, accordingly, the Indo-European language.

It should be noted that the Hallstatt culture quite soon, after 150-200 years, develops into the La Tène culture, or the La Tène culture. This "outgrowth" is more commonly referred to as decay. It is not clear whether R1a was replaced by R1b, or vice versa, but this is of no particular importance for our consideration. We know that those regions are still inhabited by carriers of both haplogroups, plus others, primarily I1 and I2.

More importantly, on the map, we see that the Celts are rapidly expanding from the 6th to the 3rd century BC. It is clear that this is not the haplogroup R1b in Europe - that it should expand, it has lived in those territories for two thousand years, from the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. That is, this expansion is not of the haplogroup itself, but of culture, language, material signs - what archeology operates with. Moreover, this expansion is most likely in the environment of the haplogroup R1b, as the map indicates. This is an extension to France (now and, apparently, then mainly R1b), to the Pyrenees (there are almost continuous R1b), to the British Isles (solid R1b, R1a will appear there only after one and a half thousand years, from the Vikings and their descendants with the troops of William the Conqueror) . So we got the first fairly confident evidence of how the Celts of the haplogroup R1a could become the Celts of the haplogroup R1b. This seems to have happened between the 6th and 3rd centuries BC. By the time of the ancient authors writing about the Celts - mainly the 2nd century BC. - 1st century AD, the Celts had already become R1b, and lived as indicated on the map - from the Pyrenees (they were usually called Celtiberians) through France (Celts) and to the Alps, as well as in the British Isles. Here are their ancient authors and described.

For reference, we will cite which of the ancient authors wrote about the Celts, and when these authors lived. Below we will describe what exactly they wrote about the Celts. Is it primarily or only:

- Hecetaeus of Miletos (Hecateus of Miletus) 550-476. BC. (550-490)
- Herodotus of Halicarnassus (Herodotus), 484-425. BC.
- Polybius (Polybius), 200-118. BC.
- Julius Caesar, 102-44 BC. (Notes on the Gallic War - 51 BC)
- Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Dionysius of Halicarnassus) 60-7 years. BC.
- Strabo (Strabo), 63 BC - 24 AD
- Livy (Livy), 59 BC - 17 AD
— Diodorus Siculus, 60g. BC. - 30g. AD
- Plutarch (Plutarch), 46-127. AD
- Jordan (Jordan), 6th century AD

The next map is similar to the first, but Hallstatt and La Tène are marked on it.

Distribution of the first Celts in Europe: Hallstatt and La Tène cultures
The following map shows how different the data is in the same Wikipedia. The map is the same, but the dates are completely different. It is no coincidence that they are marked by the editor of Wikipedia as "needing clarification." Indeed, they do not fit with other data at all. And this is the main Wikipedia article on the topic, called "Celts".

Approximate settlement area of the Celtic tribes in Europe.
The area of settlement of the Celts in 1500-1000 is highlighted in blue. BC.; pink - in 400 BC
The last map shows the settlement of the Celtic tribes at the beginning of our era.

The resettlement of the Celtic tribes in the 1st century AD.
The fact that the "pre-Celtic tribes" of Europe are usually called those who lived in Europe before the 1st century BC shows that the Celts spread across Europe only at the beginning of our era. Then, at the end of our era, the Gallic wars of Julius Caesar radically changed the ethnic, tribal landscape of Europe. According to Plutarch, about a million Gauls (according to Caesar, the same Celts) died, and the same number were driven into slavery. According to a number of historians, the "Celtic period" in Europe begins from the 9th century BC, according to others - from the 6th century BC, according to the third - it is formed in the second half of the 1st millennium BC. AD It is recognized by many historians that the pre-Celtic population of Europe, that is, what is largely related to R1b, was most likely non-Indo-European. It is noted that the bearers of the culture of bell-shaped cups were by no means necessarily the ancestors of the Celts. This is generally consistent with the fact that the first Celts were R1a and not R1b, but by the end of the 1st millennium BC. the concept of "Celts" was transferred to the carriers of R1b, to the territories shown on the maps above.

When historians write that “by the time the Celts were first mentioned in written sources, around 600 BC. e., they were already widespread in Iberia, Gaul and Central Europe", then it must be understood that anyone can be called "Celts" here. There are no criteria for "Celts" in such descriptions. In other words, this quote actually says that before the 6th century BC. various tribes lived in Europe. It is clear that this is beyond doubt. One movement of the KKK across Europe took place from 4800 years ago and in any case until the end of the 2nd millennium BC. But they were not Celts by many criteria. They do not fall under the definition of Celts.

It is known that the word "Celtic" itself entered the English language only three hundred years ago, to refer to a similar group of languages in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall and Brittany. Prior to this, this term had an extremely narrow meaning, like dozens and hundreds of names of other ancient tribes. Since then, this term - "Celts" - has been used to refer to a set of ethnic groups, and, for example, "Gauls" to refer to a people, a tribe. Having accepted such a classification, it becomes clear that these terms are not identical, and one cannot be substituted for the other, although the quotation from the book of Julius Caesar "Notes on the Gallic War" is commonplace - "... tribes that in their own language are called Celts, but in our - galls. One can draw an analogy that "there are peoples who are called Russians in their language, and Slavs in ours." Or vice versa. However, many people juggle these concepts, easily replacing one with another.

A typical example. In the book of Plutarch's "Biographies", in the third volume in the section "Camille" tells about the famous story of weighing a thousand pounds of gold. This gold was a ransom that the defeated Romans had to give to the Gauls, led by their leader Brennus. It happened in 390 BC. Here is how the Russian translation from the book of Plutarch tells about this:

However, things were no better for the besieged either: hunger intensified, the absence of news about Camille, from whom no one appeared, was cruelly depressing, since galls vigilantly guarded the city. Since both sides were in distress, negotiations began - first through the guards, most often communicating with each other. Then, when the authorities approved of their initiative, Brennus and the military tribune Sulpicius met and agreed that the Romans would pay a thousand pounds of gold, and galls, having received a ransom, will immediately leave the city and Roman possessions. These conditions were confirmed by an oath, but when the gold was brought, Celts behaved dishonestly, at first slowly, and then openly tipping the scales. The Romans were indignant, and Brenn, as if mocking them, unfastened his sword along with his belt and threw it on the scales. "What is it?" asked Sulpicius. "Woe to the vanquished, that's what!" Brenn responded. His answer has long been a proverb. The opinions of the Romans were divided: some indignantly demanded to take away the gold and, returning to the fortress, to endure the siege further, others advised to close their eyes to this insignificant insult and, giving more than what was appointed, not to consider it a shame, since by the will of circumstances they generally agreed to give their good, which by no means sweet, but, alas, necessary.

We see here that Gauls and Celts are used interchangeably. But this was not the case in the original, this is the liberty of the translator. In the English translation of this story by Plutarch, there is no word "Celts" at all, only Gauls. Plutarch lived, as indicated above, in 46-127 years. ad. But the same story was described by Livy almost a hundred years before the life of Plutarch (Titus Livius Patavinus, 59 BC - 17 AD) in his Ab Urbe Condita Libri, Liber V:

Sed ante omnia obsidionis bellique mala fames utrimque exercitum urgebat, gallos pestilentia etiam, cum loco iacente inter tumulos castra habentes, tum ab incendiis torrido et uaporis pleno cineremque non puluerem modo ferente cum quid uenti motum esset. Quorum intolerantissima gens umorique ac frigori adsueta cum aestu et angore uexati uolgatis uelut in pecua morbis morerentur, iam pigritia singulos sepeliendi promisce aceruatos cumulos hominum urebant, bustorumque inde Gallicorum nomine insignem locum fecere. Indutiae deinde cum Romanis factae et conloquia permissu imperatorum habita; in quibus cum identidem Galli famem obicerent eaque necessitate ad deditionem uocarent, dicitur auertendae eius opinionis causa multis locis panis de Capitolio iactatus esse in hostium stationes. Sed iam neque dissimulari neque ferri ultra fames poterat. itaque dum dictator dilectum per se Ardeae habet, magistrum equitum L. Valerium a Veiis adducere exercitum iubet, parat instruitque quibus haud impar adoriatur hostes, interim Capitolinus exercitus, stationibus uigiliis fessus, superatis tamen humanis omnibus malis cum famem unam natura uinci non sineret, diem de die prospectans ecquod auxilium ab dictatore appareret, postremo spe quoque iam non solum cibo deficiente et cum stationes procederent prope obruentibus infirmum corpus armis, uel dedi uel redimi se quacumque pactione possint iussit, iactantibus non obscure Gallis haud magna mercede se adduci posse ut obsidionem relinquant. Tum senatus habitus tribunisque militum negotium datum ut paciscerentur. Inde inter Q. Sulpicium tribunum militum et Brennum regulum Gallorum conloquio transacta res est, et mille pondo auri pretium populi gentibus mox imperaturi factum. Rei foedissimae per se adiecta indignitas est: pondera ab Gallis allata iniqua et tribuno recusante additus ab insolente Gallo ponderi gladius, auditaque intoleranda Romanis uox, uae uictis.

As we can see, the word "Celts" is not used by Livy either. By the way, the last two words are the famous "woe to the vanquished", pronounced by Brenn, in an archaic version of Latin. Now these words are spelled vae victis, in the English translation woe to the conqured, or woe to the vanquished. Finally, here is Plutarch's version in English translation:

All this, however, brought no relief to the besieged, for famine increased upon them, and their ignorance of what Camillus was doing made them dejected. No messenger could come from him because the city was now closely watched by the Barbarians. Wherefore, both parties being in such a plight, a compromise was proposed, at first by the outposts as they encountered one another. Then, since those in authority thought it best, Sulpicius, the military tribune of the Romans, held a conference with Brennus, and it was agreed that on the delivery of a thousand pounds of gold by the Romans, the Gauls should straightaway depart out of the city and the country. Oaths were sworn to these terms, and the gold was brought to be weighed. But the Gauls tampered with the scales, secretly at first, then they openly pulled the balance back out of its poise. The Romans were incensed at this, but Brennus, with a mocking laugh, stripped off his sword, and added, belt and all, to the weights. When Sulpicius asked, "What does this mean?" "What else", said Brennus, "but woe to the vanquished?" and the phrase passed at once into a proverb. Some of the Romans were incensed, and thought they ought to go back again with their gold, and endure the siege. Others urged acquiescence in the mild injustice. Their shame lay, they argued, not in giving more, but in giving at all. This they consented to do because of the emergency; it was not honorable, but it was necessary.

As you can see, Plutarch does not have the word "Celts", only "Gauls" and "barbarians". For the sake of completeness, here is another translation of Plutarch's story into English (The John Dryden Translation, 1683-1686, revised in the 1859 edition by Arthur Hugh Clough, published by The Folio Society, 2010):

Neither, indeed, were things on that account any better with the besieged, for famine increased upon them, and despondency with not hearing anything of Camillus, is being impossible to send anyone to him, the city was so guarded by the barbarians. Things being in this sad condition on both sides, a motion of treaty was made at first by some of the outposts, as they happened to speak with one another; which being embraced by the leading men, Sulpicius, tribune of the Romans, came to a parley with Brennus, in which it was agreed, that the Romans laying down a thousand weight of gold, the Gauls upon the receipt of it should immediately quit the city and territories. The agreement being confirmed by oath on both sides, and the gold brought forth, the Gauls used false dealing in the weights, secretly at first, but afterwords openly pulled back and disturbed the balance; at which the Romans indignantly complaining, Brennus in a scoffing and insulting manner pulled off his sword and belt, and threw them both into the scales; and when Sulpicius asked what that meant, "What should it mean", says he, "but woe to the conquered?" which later became a proverbial saying. As for the Romans, some were so incensed that they were for taking their gold back again and returning, to endure the siege. Others were for passing by and dissembling a petty injury, and not to account that the indignity of the thing lay in paying more than was due, since the paying anything at all was itself a dishonor only submitted to as a necesssity of the times.

As you can see, again only Gauls, no Celts. Russian academic translation showed an unacceptable license.

The author of the book “Celts and the Classical World”, which has already been mentioned above (David Rankin, 1987), allows a similar liberty with the names of tribes on the verge of distortion. After describing the story with Brenn, Rankin writes: “ The Romans… correctly identified the people whom they called Galli, who attacked their city in 390 BC: the individual tribes were known by name, and the tribal names were Celtic (The Romans correctly identified the people they called Gauls, and who attacked their city in 390 BC: specific tribes were known by name, and the names of the tribes were Celtic).

Actually it is not. That same tribe of Brennus was called "Senones", and Livy wrote about this in the same volume 5, section 34 (emphasis added by me, AAC):

Is quod eius ex populis abundabat, Bituriges, Aruernos,
Senones, Haeduos, Ambarros, Carnutes, Aulercos exciuit.

The word "Celts" was known to Livy, although in the surviving 35 volumes of his writings it occurs (Celtico) only once. But Livy wrote a lot about the Celtiberis (Celtiberis), however, mainly in the last volumes, 34, 35, 39, 40, 41 and 42, with several references to that. Let's continue about which of the ancient authors wrote about the Celts, and what exactly.

Hecateus of Miletus (550-476 BC; other dates of life 550-490). Apparently, he has the very first mention of the Celts, as people living near the Greek colony of Massalia (Marseille), in the south of France. In retelling (the works of Hecataeus have not been preserved), this presentation looks like this: “ The Scythians live on the northern coast of the Black Sea, to the west of them - the Celts, next to the Massaliotes».

Herodotus of Helicarnassus (484-425 BC). In his nine-volume "History", in book II ("Euterpe"), Herodotus writes: " ... The river Istr begins in the country of the Celts near the city of Pyrenees and flows, crossing Europe in the middle. The Celts, on the other hand, live beyond the Pillars of Hercules, next to the Cynetes, who live in the extreme west of Europe. The Istres flows into the Euxine Pontus, flowing through all of Europe where the Milesian settlers founded the city of Istria.».

In book IV ("Melpomene") he repeats - " After all, the Istres flows through the whole of Europe, starting in the land of the Celts - the westernmost people in Europe after the Kinets. So the Istres crosses all of Europe and flows into the sea on the outskirts of Scythia". (link)

In addition, the Celts of Herodotus are not mentioned in the rest of the volumes of the History. In this passage, as we see, Herodotus identifies the Celts both on the Pyrenees and on the Danube. One can only guess on what basis Herodotus unites them, or rather connects them, but with his light hand, subsequent historians continued to call them the Celtiberians in the Pyrenees, the Celts in continental Europe. Modern historians usually write that since Herodotus is a reliable and reliable historian, he knew what he was writing about, so be it. Herodotus did not report anything about the language of the Celts. A good illustration of the approach of historians and linguists is the reasoning of David Rankin in the book “Celts and the Classical World” cited above - he concluded that since Herodotus did not write anything about the language of the Celts, it should be assumed that the language was Indo-European (! - AAK), both in Europe and in the Pyrenees.

Polybius (200-118 BC). Further, the Celts were mentioned by the Greek historian Polybius (Polybius, The Histories), who lived in 200-118 years. BC. He left 39 volumes of his Histories, and he mentioned the Celts in volumes 1, 2, 3, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 18 and 34, often one word or one phrase per volume. So, in volume 1, he mentioned "Celts" and "Italian Celts", and that's it. Volume 2 states that " the Italian Celts were close neighbors of the Etruscans, and were often associated with them". This did not prevent the Celts " attack the Etruscans with a large army, drive them out of the Po plain, and occupy the plain themselves". He also mentioned " Celts who arrived in Etruria", and that the Romans " approximately 50,000 Celts were killed and at least 10,000 were taken prisoner».

Beginning with volume 3, Polybius increasingly switches to references to the Celtiberians, especially in connection with Hannibal's Pyrenean wars. Polybius was a contemporary of Hannibal (247-183 BC), intersecting with the last 17 years of his life, and therefore his descriptions in many respects should be reliable. Through volumes 3 to 34, there is a description of the Celtiberians as the worst enemies of Rome, a description of their betrayals of both Rome and Hannibal, retreats and flights. In his descriptions, Iberia and Celtiberia border each other. By the term "Celts" Polybius usually describes the peoples north of Celtiberia, living "on both sides of the Alps". In his descriptions the Celts live from the river Narbo not far west of Marseille, and from the mouth of the Rhone, which flows into the Sardinian Sea, and to the chain of the Pyrenees to the Outer Sea". Further, " The Pyrenees separate the Celts from the Iberians».

In volume 11, Polybius describes the troops of Hannibal, in which " included Africans, Spaniards, Ligurians, Celts, Phoenicians, Italians and Greeks", adding that these" people in their laws, customs, language and in general had nothing in common". From this we can conditionally conclude that the Celts, if we accept that they spoke Indo-European languages, did not understand the language of Ligurians, Spaniards (Basque?), Italians (non-Indo-European languages?) and others. Volume 12 again mentions Ligurians, Celts and Iberians as different peoples. Volume 14 describes the deaths of more than 4,000 Celtiberians, mercenaries of Carthage, in battle and in flight. On other pages of the same volume, the deaths of 10,000 and 30,000 Celtiberians are mentioned. The same descriptions continue in subsequent volumes. In contrast to the Celtiberians, the Celts are described by Polybius as "of a quiet and orderly character" (vol. 34).

Julius Caesar (102-44 BC). In his Notes on the Gallic War, Caesar writes a lot about the Gauls, and almost nothing about the Celts. Perhaps this is because at the very beginning of the book he actually made these names synonymous, writing - " Gaul in its totality is divided into three parts. In one of them live the Belgians, in the other the Aquitani, in the third those tribes which in their own language are called Celts, but in ours they are called Gauls.". On the whole, this book is of little information about the Celts.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus (60-7 BC). In his book Roman Antiquities (Roman antiquities) he mentions Keltika.

Strabo (63 BC - 24 AD). In his main work "Geography" Strabo pointed out: The regions beyond the Rhine, facing east and lying beyond the territory of the Celts, are inhabited by the Germans. The latter differ little from the Celtic tribe: greater savagery, stature and lighter hair, in all other respects they are similar: in physique, manners and way of life they are as I have described the Celts. Therefore, it seems to me, the Romans also called them Germans, as if wishing to indicate that they were "true" Gallates. After all, the word "germani" in the language of the Romans means "genuine".

An interesting statement by Strabo regarding the mixed names "Celtiberians" or "Celto-Scythians": " I affirm, in accordance with the opinion of the ancient Hellenes, that, just as the known peoples of the northern countries were called by the same name of the Scythians or Nomads, as Homer calls them, and later, when the western countries also became known, their inhabitants were called Celts and Iberians or mixed Celtoiberians and the Celto-Scythians, because, due to ignorance, individual peoples in each country were brought under one common name».

This can be understood in two ways - either Strabo considers the Celts to be Scythians, or the Celtiberians and Celto-Scythians are not related to the Celts, and are simply summed up under an already known name, which Strabo makes fun of. Yu.N. Drozdov in his book “The Turkic Ethnonymy of Ancient European Peoples” (Moscow, 2008, p. 168) also tries to decipher this statement of Strabo: “ in other words, the Celts were first called Celto-Scythians, since they belonged to the already known Scythian people».

Diodorus Siculus (90-30 BC). In his Bibliotheca Historica, the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus wrote that, having killed the enemy, the Celts " they cut off their heads and hang them on the necks of their horses, and when they bring them home, they nail them to the entrances of their dwellings. They kept the severed heads of defeated enemies in cedar oil... And some boasted that they would not give these heads even for the same weight of gold...».

Plutarch (46-127 AD). Above were excerpts from the writings of Plutarch, although they are about the Gauls, and not about the Celts. As indicated, technically these could be different concepts, such as Slavs and Poles. But the name "Celts" was certainly familiar to Plutarch, although he used it only a few times. For example, in the biography of Marcus Cato, Plutarch wrote that Cato was "called upon his neighbors, called Celtiberians, for help" (Cato turned to neighbors, called Celtiberians, for help). In the biography of Caius Marius, Plutarch wrote - “... the country of the Celti ... to that part of Scythia which is near Pontus” (the country of the Celts ... [refers] to that part of Scythia that [is] near the Black Sea), again, like a number of ancient authors, linking the Celts with the Scythians. And further - "whole army was called by the common name of Celto-Scythians" (the whole army was called by the common name of the Celto-Scythians).

Jordan (6th century CE). Little is known about Jordan, and might not have been known at all if he had not mentioned his name in his writings. In the book Getica (another name is De origine actibuscque Getarum, or “On the origin and deeds of the Getae”), he mentioned the Celtic warriors as part of the Vezigot army, but these are already late times - Attila and Emperor Valentinian: “ And now Theodorides, the king of the Vezegots, brings out an innumerable army; leaving at home four sons, namely: Frederic and Eurich, Retemer and Himnerit, he takes with him to participate in battles only the elders by birth, Thorismud and Theoderic. The army is happy; On the part of the Romans, great foresight was shown by the patrician Aetius, who was responsible for the Hesperian side of the empire; from everywhere he gathered warriors, so as not to appear unequal against a ferocious and countless crowd. He had such auxiliary units: Franks, Sarmatians, Armoricians, Lititsians, Burgundians, Saxons, Riparioles, Brions - former Roman soldiers, and then already among the auxiliary troops, and many others both from Celtics and from Germany».

In the original language, it looks like this: ...producitur itaque a rege Theodorido Vesegotharum innumerabilis multitudo; qui quattuor filios domi dimissos, id est Friderichum et Eurichum, Betemerim et Himnerith secum tantum Thorismud et Theodericum maiores natu participes laboris adsumit, felix procinctum, auxilium tutum, suave collegium habere solacia illorum, quibus delectat ipsa etiam simul subire vero Romanor discriminate, a parte discriminate tanta patricii Aetii providentia fuit, cui tunc innitebatur res publica Hesperiae plagae, ut undique bellatoribus congregatis adversus ferocem et infinitam multitudinem non impar occurreret. hi enim adfuerunt auxiliares: Franci, Sarmatae, Armoriciani, Liticiani, Burgundiones, Saxones, Ripari, Olibriones, quondam milites Romani, tunc vero iam in numero auxiliarium exquisiti, aliaeque nonnulli Celticae vel Germanie nations…

And now, after such a detailed consideration of the form in which the ancient authors mentioned and described the Celts, we come to the main issue of our presentation: where did the celts come from? What people, namely the clan, gave birth to them? What previous people, genus, population are they genetically related to? Where did the Celtic language come from? What was this language?

It is clear that no nation appears out of nowhere, as well as its language. The Celts should have had a predominant haplogroup, or subclade, that goes back thousands of years, and almost unambiguously associate haplogroups and language with their corresponding branch in the DNA genealogy system, from which the regional binding of the Celts, or those who became this name, almost unambiguously appears call the classical authors, and it is possible that they began to name not themselves, but those who carried their name further centuries after the original, “real” Celts.

And who could these "original", "real" Celts be? For coherence and historicity of presentation, we must accept that the "original" Celts were the first recorded bearers of the Hallstatt culture, whose cemetery was discovered at Hallstatt, southeast of modern Salzburg in Austria, and dated to about 700 BC. In the next three or four centuries, the Celts spread like wildfire in different directions, and this spread was hardly primarily physical, rather, it was the spread of their Indo-European language, culture, technology. This, in turn, leads to the important position that the language in those days in Europe was not Indo-European, otherwise why spread there in their own linguistic environment. So, of course, it was, and the fact that the language in Europe at that time was non-Indo-European is evidenced by various data - and the abundance of non-Indo-European languages in Europe at that time and earlier, and, most importantly, the general lack of data that in Europe in 2nd millennium BC there were IE languages, in addition to the IE languages of the previously expelled carriers of the haplogroup R1a, who transferred these languages to the Russian Plain and further to Anatolia-Mitanni, Iran, India in the middle of the 2nd millennium BC.

It is precisely for this reason that we mentioned above that classical authors could already call Celts not the "original" Celts, but those who carried their name further centuries later. It was already the language of the Celts "acquired". As will be shown below, this is one of the many confusions regarding the origin of the Celts and their language. Historians take the Indo-European language brought by the “acquired” Celts to, say, Iberia, and proclaim that this IE language has been there since ancient times, and was spoken by the speakers of the bell-shaped cup culture (KKK) two thousand years before.

Cultural objects of bell-shaped goblets
A typical example of this approach is the recent book The Celts from the West: The Bronze Age Revisited and the Arrival of the Indo-Europeans in Atlantic Europe (2013, Oxbow Books, 237 pp., eds. Johm T. Koch, Barry Cunliffe), which acknowledges that in According to established views, Atlantean Europe in the Bronze Age was entirely non-Indo-European, but it is argued that the Celtic language appeared there, and it was in the Bronze Age. Where he came from remains a mystery, but the editors of the book claim that he is not from the Hallstatt and La Tène culture of Iron Age Central Europe. Where and who brought it - again, the book is a lot of fantasy. The book does not provide any data for this.

So, speaking about the origin of the "first" Celts, we note that their language was the Indo-European language, which at that time was characteristic of the R1a haplogroup, but not the R1b haplogroup. In Europe, where the Celtic language soon began to spread like a "forest fire", the population at that time belonged to a large extent to the haplogroup R1b, the main haplogroup of the KKK. In other words, the time from about the 7th to the 4th century BC. - this is the time of the formation of the "Celtic" Indo-European language as the lingua franca of Central Europe. Why did this happen? Apparently, advanced metallurgical technology, amazingly beautiful decorations, many in the traditional Scythian "animal style", which again suggests the haplogroup R1a of the first Celts.

Where did the first Celts get the Indo-European language, and what is the source of their haplogroup R1a? The simplest and most reasonable explanation is that the first Celts, carriers of the haplogroup R1a, and who, of course, spoke the IE language, arrived by migration from the east, from the Russian Plain, at the end of the 2nd millennium or the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. e. Candidates for this may be at least a dozen branches of the haplogroup R1a, as given below. In other words, there were plenty of candidates for the first "Celts" in Europe speaking IE languages. And then - R1b speakers adopt the language and carry it around Europe. At the same time, it was not at all necessary to displace or physically destroy those from whom the language was adopted. Then it is clear why the ancient authors mentioned the Scythians in connection with the territory of the settlement of the Celts, and mentioned the territories up to the Black Sea.

In this regard, a reference can be made to the book by V.E. Eremenko “”Celtic veil” and Zarubinets culture. Experience in the reconstruction of ethnopolitical processes of the III-I centuries. BC. in Central and Eastern Europe "(St. Petersburg, 1997), and the abstract of his Ph.D. thesis ( Eremenko V.E. The process of latenization of archaeological communities in the Late Pre-Roman period of Eastern Europe and the formation of the Zarubintsy culture. Candidate's abstract. ist. Sciences. L. 1990). According to the author, V. Eremenko, some finds of the Pomeranian culture, which is considered by a number of researchers as Proto-Slavic, have analogues in the Laten. True, the author considers them as possible evidence of "contacts between the Pomeranian population and the Celts", even, apparently, without assuming that the Pomors could turn out to be those same Celts. As V. Eremenko notes, consideration of the chronology of the La Tène antiquities of Transcarpathian Ukraine and a detailed study of dated analogues of Transcarpathian finds, determination of the narrow dates of the existing complexes allows us to conclude that the first contacts with the Celtic world took place in the 5th-4th centuries. BC, that is, at least 200-300 years after the appearance of the "initial Celts" in Hallstatt.

An interesting message from Plutarch is that the Roman intelligence officer, going to the camp of the Cimbri, learned the Celtic language and dressed in the Celtic way (cited by V. Eremenko, aft. cand. diss.). Since the origin of the Cimbri remains unknown, and I.L. Rozhansky refers them to the carriers of the haplogroup R1a, who arrived from the east to Central Europe ( Rozhansky I.L. Mystery of the Cimbri. Experience of historical and genealogical investigation. Bulletin of DNA genealogy, vol. 3, no. 4, 2010, p. 545-594), then the “trace of R1a” is again visible in the origin of the Celts.

Thus, we put forward a solution to the problem of the origin of the Indo-European language of the first Celts of the Hallstatt archaeological culture, and the mechanism of its distribution as the lingua franca of Europe. This coincided in time with the destruction of the Etruscan empire and the formation of ancient Rome.

Are there any other clues about the origin of the first Celts? Immediately we have to put aside all the descriptions of the ancient Celts by the classics. None of them is suitable for this purpose, none of them concerns the origin of the Celts or their language.

Consider modern sources on the Celts, which already include archaeological and linguistic data. It is striking how poor the linguistic data on the Celtic language (or languages) is. All sources repeat the proposition about the Indo-European nature of the Celtic language, but either completely unfounded, or mentioning the corresponding isoglosses on the go, or fantasize uncontrollably about the sources of IE roots in the Celtic language. Let's take a look at the following books as examples:

— Christian-J. Guyonvarc'h, Françoise Le Roux (1995). La civilization celtique Payot, 285 pp.
— Theodor Mommsen (1909). History of Rome. Edition 2010, Moscow, "Veche", 383 pages.
— Jean-Louis Brunaux (2008). Les Gaulois, Les Belles Lettres, Paris; Russian edition by Jean-Louis Bruno. Gauls, Moscow, "Veche", 2011, 399 pp.
— Nora Chadwick (1971). The Celts. London. The Folio Society, 317 pp.
— Gudz-Markov, A.V. (2004). Indo-Europeans of Eurasia and Slavs. Moscow, "Veche", 231 pages.
- and several articles on Celtic linguistics in the academic press.

So, what is there about the origin of the Celts and their language?

Guyonvarch and Leroux's book contains many critical remarks, such as " Celtic is a misnomer”, that the ethnonym Celts denotes a set of ethnic groups (whereas the ethnonyms Gauls, Bretons, Galatians are used to refer to different peoples). Characteristically, the authors honestly write - " we do not know what language was spoken in Gaul before the Celtic languages". Many other authors, without batting an eyelid, write that in Europe the “pro-Celts” spoke Indo-European languages for thousands of years. Quotes (from Guyonvarch and Leroux's book):

1. The Celts were part of the invaders moving in successive waves, especially since the second millennium BC, and Celtic is the oldest language in Western Europe to which a certain geographical region can be associated.

2. The Celts must have been preceded by the "Proto-Celts". However, we have absolutely no idea how everything happened between the fifth and fourth millennia BC, in an era whose only archives are Chinese, Egyptian or Mesopotamian.

3. Many French archaeologists still find it more convenient to date the appearance of the Celts in Gaul around 500 BC. e., which hardly leaves the last time to the III century. BC. reach the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean, not to mention Britain and Ireland. Linguistic dating, on the contrary, suggests that the Celts were already present in Europe from the end of the third millennium BC.

4. In relation to the totality of Indo-European studies, Celtology breaks a kind of (negative) "record", due to both an insignificant number of specialists (who initially came from other disciplines: Greek in France and Sanskrit in Germany - due to the fact that the Celtic languages are marginal only a few universities in Western Europe), and the extreme dialectal fragmentation of modern Celtic languages.

5. The pre-Celtic substratum of Western Europe can be defined at best and with the greatest precautions only in relation to toponyms. And what was this substrate? Nobody will say this.

6. The study of linguistic layers also gives a lot: without it, we would have no idea about the diffusion of Celtic languages throughout Europe.

7. One of the most fantastic conjectures belongs to Polybius, who tells in the most serious way that the swords of the Gauls, as soon as they strike, bend and twist, so that the warrior must straighten them. This statement is in absolute contradiction with the amazing abilities of the Celtic metallurgists. Information that seems erroneous to us got into the annals because at the time of their compilation no one thought to check it. For example, in the 5th c. BC. Herodotus located the sources of the Danube in the regions of the Celts, and Hecateus of Miletus claimed that Marseille (Massalia) was founded in Liguria. ... However, there can be no question of any clarification, since in the 4th century the Greeks distinguished only four barbarian (that is, those who did not speak Greek) people: Celts, Scythians, Persians and Libyans.

8. Even less did the Greeks attach importance to internal differences, and modern scholars only indulge in self-deception, trying to find in the Greek-Latin terminology the difference between Celtae, Galatae and Galli. Galatians is the Greek name for the Gauls and nothing more: they did not necessarily live in Galatia in Asia Minor; and Galli is the Latin name for the Gauls. But Celtae are also Gauls from Gaul.

9. It is often preferred to speak of "proto-Celts", and this term indicates not so much the facts as the lack of documentation and the costs of methodology. ... The purpose of this term, willy-nilly, has to be narrowed down, since it suggests a certain process of formation, not confirmed by any archaeological or linguistic data. Dotten, skeptical by nature and little inclined to original hypotheses, in his textbook speaks directly of the "Celts of the Bronze Age", and such a great archaeologist as Henri Hubert, to whom we are indebted for the only attempt at a synthesis in this area, wasted a lot of time trying to find in Gaul, linguistic or toponymic traces of the first Celtic invasion.

10. The funeral burning, which was the most characteristic rite of the Hallstatt era, was replaced by burial in the ground, which became generally accepted in the La Tène period, although no changes in the ethnic composition of the population of these eras can be detected. However, Caesar, speaking of the magnificent funerary rites of the Gauls, does not forget to mention fires, while the most archaic Irish texts, perhaps influenced by Christianity, do not allude a word about them. The Celts took part in the spread of the Hallstatt culture and were its bearers, they were also the bearers of the La Tène culture. But what are you supposed to think about all this and what conclusions to draw if, as it seems obvious, from the Bronze Age to Hallstatt and La Tène there were no changes in the composition of the population?

11. The geography of the Celtic world is not difficult to describe, at least if only general questions are concerned. After a period of alleged Indo-European invasions, Central Europe, especially Bohemia, became the main center of expansion - this took place at the junction of the Hallstatt and La Tène eras. ... In any case, indisputable traces of the presence of the Celts are found in Western and Southern Poland, in Hungary and in the Balkans, where the advance of the Celts went along the Danube. But the main area of their settlement from Hallstatt to the end of La Tène was Gaul as such from the English Channel to the Mediterranean, from the Atlantic to the Alps and the Rhine, and, according to Titus Livy ... it was from there that waves of conquerors flooded the Black Forest and Northern Italy.

Be that as it may, the Celtic invasion soon reached the Iberian Peninsula, northern Italy, the south of France, all the Rhine regions from Switzerland to the Netherlands and, probably from Belgium, the British Isles, which were then destined to become the last and only refuge of the Celts. On the other hand, the Greeks and Romans brought us evidence of Celtic invasions of Italy and the Balkans. Celtic material is present in Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria; Celtic traces are found right up to Odessa ...

12. At the junctions of the Celtic and Germanic worlds, it is impossible to determine with sufficient clarity where the Celts begin and where the Germans end. And yet, apart from their ancient Indo-European kinship, there has never been a linguistic or cultural Celto-Germanic unity.

13. Celtic languages belong to the "Italo-Celtic" group of Indo-European languages; they are divided into two branches, each of which has its own distinctive feature: the Indo-European rounded back lingual (labiovelar) *kw- is reduced to the back lingual /X/ in Goidelic and to the labial /p/ in British. *ekwo-s (lat. equus) "horse" became ech in Old Irish and epo-s in Gaulish. Therefore, the Goidels are called "Q-Celts", and the Britons and Gauls are called "P-Celts". But the true classification is morphological. It is also chronological in that it contrasts the Celtic insular languages, known since the end of antiquity (the new Celtic languages), and the Celtic continental languages, which disappeared before the beginning of the Middle Ages.

14. Here is a brief definition of Indo-European from Jean Haudry (Jean Haudry, L'indo-européen, Paris, 1980, p. 3): noted in most of the languages of Europe and in many languages of Asia.

15. The irreparable weakness, or rather the abnormally small role, of the Celtic languages in most, if not all, works of Indo-European studies is a fact which must be emphasized at the outset of a review of this subject. Not to mention the fact that Celtologists who specialize in ancient languages and occupy a place at the university can be counted on the fingers of one hand, at least in France, and it is difficult to say that their research is respected and supported.

16. Insular languages are chronologically opposed to Continental Celtic, more often called Gaulish for the sake of simplicity of terminology. But this opposition is not morphological or even geographical: Gaulish belongs to the Brythonic group. This opposition is chronological: thus, we agree to call the above-mentioned language ancient Celtic. In fact, we are talking about a language or a group of languages that were spoken not only in Gaul, but also in other areas of Europe inhabited by the Celts. The name "Gaulish" only indicates the area where this language was better preserved and lasted longer. In fact, you will need to talk about the Celtic. So, Celtic was also spoken in Belgium, Switzerland and the Rhineland, where the Germanic peoples, for example, the Trevirs, were obviously Celticized; in Cisalpine Gaul, where Latin finally took root only in the 1st century. ad; in Spain, Central Europe, on the Black Sea coast and in Asia Minor. Celtiberian in Spain, Galatian in Asia Minor, insofar as they are identifiable from the scanty traces left of them, are Celtic continental languages, and do not seem to differ much from the Celtic spoken in Belgian Gaul or among the Helvetians. .

17. Direct documents, all epigraphic without exception (there is not a single Celtic text, similar to the texts of classical writers, which would be transmitted through the written tradition until the early Middle Ages), consist of short inscriptions (there are about three hundred in total), mostly tombstones, and sometimes dedicatory, discovered between northern Italy, southern France and Spain, where classical influence determined the origin of writing based on the Greek, Latin, Iberian or Lepontian (Etruscan) alphabets. The discovery of a Gaulish inscription in Belgium or in West or South Germany would be a significant philological event, not to be hoped for too much.

18. List of Celtic languages: Goidelic - Irish; Scottish Gaelic; Mank (extinct in the first half of the 20th century); British - Gallic or ancient Celtic (extinct by the 5th century AD); Welsh; Cornish (extinguished by the end of the 18th century); Breton.

Such a large number of quotations are here to create a certain "priming of the canvas", on which considerations dictated by DNA genealogy can now be imposed. Let's go through some of the quotes above.

1. The quote is actually about the fact that the Indo-European, Celtic language appeared in Europe no earlier than the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. This is consistent with our assumption that this language was brought to Europe by migrants of the R1a haplogroup speaking IE languages. This was the resettlement of Europe by R1a speakers and the return of Indo-European languages to Europe.

2. The Celts must have been preceded by the "Proto-Celts". This provision can be interpreted in two ways. If we are talking about the “original” Celts, R1a carriers who arrived from the east, then the “proto-Celts” are actually Proto-Slavs, or other R1a carriers, like the Scythians. If we are talking about the “secondary” Celts who carried the IE language throughout Europe, then these are mainly carriers of the haplogroup R1b, and the “proto-Celts” are the descendants of the culture of bell-shaped cups that arrived in the Pyrenees and further to the continent starting from 4800 years ago, from the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC When the authors write: However, we have absolutely no idea how everything happened between the fifth and fourth millennia BC.”, that is, 7-6 thousand years ago, then DNA genealogy gives a very clear answer: the ethnic and tribal (haplogroup) landscape in Europe was completely different, there were no R1b carriers in Europe, they were at that time on the Russian Plain and on Caucasus, gradually moving towards Anatolia and the territory of the future Sumerians, and in Europe lived, in particular (and, probably, in particular) carriers of the haplogroups R1a, I1, I2, G, which in two thousand years will be forced out or destroyed by the arriving carriers of the haplogroup R1b, who will become the "Celts" in the British Isles at the end of the old era and at the beginning of the new era. This is their language, in the British Isles, then called "Celtic languages" (see paragraph 18 above).

3. Linguistic dates, on the contrary, suggest that the Celts were already present in Europe from the end of the third millennium BC.. Since we are talking specifically about the Indo-European languages, then under the "Celts" here we should take the carriers of R1a in Europe. And then, naturally, 4500-4000 years ago, the "Celts" as R1a lived on the Russian Plain, were Aryans, and were already heading in this capacity to the south, to the Caucasus, to Anatolia, Mitanni and further to the Arabian Peninsula, to the southeast, to become Avestan Aryans, to the east, to create Andronovo culture, Sintashta, and then go to Hindustan. It is clear that the "linguistic dates" here simply cannot refer to the non-Indo-European languages of Europe, since they were not "Celtic".

6. This paragraph refers to " diffusion of Celtic languages throughout Europe". Indeed, the exceptionally rapid spread of the Celts across Europe is due more to the rapid diffusion of languages than to the physical migration of people who spoke foreign languages, which would hardly have been peaceful.

9. ... Wasted a lot of time trying to find linguistic or toponymic traces of the first Celtic invasion in Gaul. See paragraph 6. There was no Celtic "invasion", except for the arrival of carriers of the haplogroup R1a from the east as "original" Celts. The spread of the Celtic language, culture, technology in the second half of the 1st millennium was quite peaceful and efficient. Apparently, the appropriate cultural and economic prerequisites for the transition of Europe to the Indo-European languages have matured.

13. ... Contrasts the Celtic insular languages, known since the end of antiquity (new Celtic languages), and the Celtic continental languages, which disappeared before the beginning of the Middle Ages. Since it is the insular languages that are now considered Celtic languages, linguists attribute the main conclusions about their structure and patterns of addition to them. Celtic continental, as follows from this paragraph, and which, perhaps, were the closest to the Proto-Slavic, disappeared.

In Theodor Mommsen's book (1909) "History of Rome", which brought the author the Nobel Prize, the Celts are hardly mentioned. It is reported that in the 4th century BC. a powerful tribe of Celts appears on the Apennine Peninsula, who belonged to the “Indo-European tribe”, that “in time immemorial they occupied the space of present-day France”, and further it is described how the Gauls occupied Rome, repeating the description of Plutarch. This, in fact, is all Mommsen has about the Celts. Mommsen has nothing about their origin and in more detail about the language.

In the book of J.-L. Bruno "Gauls" about the origin and language of the ancient Celts is also nothing. It is reported that the Gauls were part of the Celts, that the Cimbri and Teutons had Gaulish names. The author notes that in Gallic history it is extremely difficult to find a starting point, just as it is almost impossible to determine the time of its completion. Another detail - as the author writes, the Celts were known to other peoples at least from the 5th century BC, and the people under the name "Gauls" appear only in the 3rd century. The author writes that " there is no doubt that there was once an ancient people - the Indo-Europeans, who settled throughout Europe and Western Asia, and the Celts definitely came out of their midst". This, of course, is a somewhat naive statement, since there were no people "Indo-Europeans", but there was an Indo-European language. Since these were the carriers of the haplogroup R1a in antiquity, the author, perhaps, unintentionally refers the ancestors of the Celts to the haplogroup R1a.

A few words about the "Celts in the British Isles". This is largely mystical, and it explains why the pursuit of Celtic history and languages is so unpopular in the West, as evidenced by the few quotes above. It seems that there were no Celts in the British Isles at all, just as there was no their language, and this whole story about the island Celts has a purely political significance. The usual “argument” is how there were no Celts, because there are Celtic languages? - basically does not work. There are no Celtic languages as such on the islands. The term "Celtic languages" is artificial, introduced only at the end of the 17th - beginning of the 18th century. Welsh linguist Edward Lluyd drew attention to the similarities inherent in the languages spoken in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall and Brittany. He called these languages "Celtic" - and this name entered linguistics, and then into everyday language. Therefore, the word "Celtic languages" simply by definition refers to insular languages.

But the mysticism of the Celts in the British Isles is far from being reduced to the artificial introduction of the concept of "Celtic languages". The leading Celtologists of the Isles themselves have already come to an actual agreement that there were no Celts as such on the Isles, and they did not occupy Ireland, like the rest of the islands. The archeology of the Isles does not find any traces of the invasion or arrival of the Celts in the 1st millennium BC, including after 700-400 BC. All finds, including arrowheads, spears, round stone structures attributed to the Celts, all date from the Bronze Age, long before the supposed arrival of the Celts.

Nora Chadwick's The Celts, published 40 years ago, is an excellent read on the history of Europe in the 1st millennium BC. and the 1st millennium AD, but also says little about the origin of the Celts and their language. In fact, the same general phrases about the Indo-European language of the Celts, about the transition of the funeral ritual of the Celts from the burials of the culture of burial fields (1300-750 BC), namely the burial of the remains of cremation in clay vessels to cremation with horses, weapons, wagons, as well as burials in wooden coffins. Some archaeologists interpret this as a transfer of burial customs from the east, in particular, from the Black Sea steppes.

Chadwick again returns to the point discussed above - that the spread of the Celts across Europe was far from necessarily connected with invasions or migrations. Otherwise, the book is an interesting, fascinating account of the life of the Gauls and Celts, but nothing new about their possible origin.

In the book of A.V. Gudz-Markov “Indo-Europeans of Eurasia and Slavs” the Celts are mentioned in the chapters “The Hallstatt of Europe. General overview of the cultures of Europe in the first half of the 1st millennium BC” and “The Late Age in Europe. expansion of the Celts. Is there anything there about the origin of the Celts on the Russian Plain and their migration to the Austrian Alps, and about their language?

Attention immediately attracts the attention of a typical misconception, so characteristic of historians who are not familiar with the picture of the Indo-European languages in Europe at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. The picture is simple - they were not there at all. Europe of the 2nd millennium and the first half of the 1st millennium BC did not speak IE languages at all, they were spoken only by carriers of the haplogroup R1a on the Russian Plain, and those branches of the haplogroup R1a that began to move to Europe. That is why the Celtic languages, which were the languages of the haplogroup R1a, began to spread so quickly across Europe, in a non-Indo-European language environment. But this was already after the 7th-6th century BC.

What does A. Gudz-Markov write? Speaking about the first half of the 1st millennium BC, he reports that “ the movements of Iranian nomads (Cimmerians, Scythians) in the south of Eastern Europe caused a kind of new barrow renaissance in the center and partly in the west of Europe. Many Indo-European population groups in France, Germany, and partly in the center of Europe departed from the traditions of the era of burial fields and returned to the customs of the time of the dominance of the kurgan culture of the 15th-14th centuries. BC. Burials of the early Hallstatt (8th century BC) are replete with items of horse harness, the prototypes of which are found in the steppes of southern Russia in the 10th-8th centuries. BC.". But the fact is that there were no "many Indo-European population groups in France, the center of Europe", etc. If there were, then these were precisely the recently arrived carriers of R1a, Indo-Europeans in language, and these were them ancient burial customs, which they did. There was no adoption of burial customs by Central Europeans (mainly carriers of the haplogroup R1b), burial customs are too conservative to be adopted so immediately.

That is, in fact, A. Gudz-Markov writes that carriers of the haplogroup R1a began to arrive in Central Europe at the beginning of the 1st millennium, as evidenced by DNA genealogy. They continued to carry out burials as they always did on the Russian Plain, continued the customs of putting horse harness items in the graves, as their relatives in the R1a haplogroup did in the steppes of southern Russia. This was not observed in early Hallstatt burials from the 8th century BC. A. Gudz-Markov stopped right at the threshold of the conclusion that the "initial" Hallstatt Celts were migrants from the Russian Plain.

And then he writes that " around 6th c. BC. separate detachments of Scythians, significant in number, passed in the west to France, in the north to the Oder and Vistula basins, leaving treasures of things of the famous “animal style” of the steppe Iranian world of the 1st millennium BC.". Naturally, the “Iranian world” here has nothing to do with Iran, it is the Aryan world, we are talking about the speakers of the languages of the Iranian group, the Aryan languages. Thus, this further strengthens the position that the "primary" Celts are carriers of the haplogroup R1a from the Russian Plain. And further A. Gudz-Markov writes that “ The central motif of the Hallstatt ornament is a classical Indo-European geometric element. And the forms of ceramic ware of the Hallstatt era are based on the Lusatian traditions of the 13th-8th centuries. BC. era of burial fields". Again, we are talking about the Indo-Indo-European elements of R1a in the non-Indo-European world, which will not be such in Europe for long. From the middle of the 1st millennium BC. the unrestrained spread of the Indo-European language across Europe will begin, which will begin in Central Europe (Hallstatt is one of the central places where its spread began), will overwhelm Gallic France, the Apennines, Iberia, and go to the British Isles - again not as an invasion of migrants, but as a diffusion of language and culture.

In many places, there was a gradual displacement of R1a carriers by R1b carriers, that is, alien Aryans were replaced by local Erbins. As a consequence of this, there was again a rollback to the traditional rite of burial, and the cremation of the Aryans was replaced by the cremation of the Erbins.

As A. Gudz-Markov writes, “ the era of Hallstatt seems to be the time of further, and in many respects the final crystallization of individual Indo-European communities in Europe and Asia". This phrase seems too evasive to be informative. The picture actually seems to be different - the Hallstatt era seems to be the time of the beginning of the rapid Indo-Europeanization of Europe, which became final. This was laid down by the resettlement of carriers of the haplogroup R1a in Europe, starting from the beginning of the 1st millennium BC.

Consider three almost random articles on Celtic linguistics: one by the French author Patrice Brun, L'origine des Celtes. Communautės linguistiques et rėseaux sociaux, from Celtes et Gaulois, l'Archeologie face a l'Histoire, 2: la Prehistoire des Celtes, Center archeologique europeen, 2006, p. 29-44; another by the Welsh author, John Koch (Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, University of Wales), entitled "A case for Tartessian as a Celtic language" (Acta Palaeohispanica X, Palaeohispanica 9 (2009) pp. 339-351), and an article by C. Gibson and D.S. Wodtko "The background of the Celtic languages: theories from archeology and linguistics" from the same Center for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, University of Wales, published in 2010. I thought that such recent articles and from such specialized centers for Celtic studies would give a good idea of the level of linguistics of the Celtic languages.

The first article, to be honest, disappointed me from the very beginning. The article “suggests” (no data available) that the family of Celtic languages arose in the 3rd millennium BC, that is, about 5,000 years ago, “on the substrate of the bell-shaped goblets culture.” Throughout the article, there is talk of "the new social networks of interaction through fellowships and exchanges that have preserved the Kelian languages for these five thousand years." No evidence is provided in the article. Herodotus, Polybius and other historians of antiquity are again cited.

In the second article, the author proceeds from the assumption that if the Celtic languages spread from the cultures of Hallstatt and La Tene, then these languages in Iberia will differ from those in the British Isles. An alternative assumption, according to the author, is that the Celtic languages arose for the first time in Western Europe, in the Atlantic. The author is a supporter of the second hypothesis (he is also the editor of the book cited above, in which he rests on his hypothesis). He goes further and suggests that Tartessian (a dead Paleo-Spanish language related to Iberian) was an Indo-European, and specifically a Celtic language. On the other hand, he allows for the alternative possibility that Tartessian was a non-Indo-European language, and may have included elements of an acquired Celtic language. The examples given by the author refer to the period between 625 and 545. BC.

The third article, "The background of the Celtic languages: theories from archeology and linguistics", suggests that as a result of the expansion of the Celtic languages, they supplanted other languages, Indo-European or not. This again shows that the author does not quite imagine the linguistic landscape of Europe during the spread of the Celtic languages. There is no evidence that there were other IE languages that Celtic would have supplanted. Significantly, the author refers to the work of Mac Eoin (2007), who argues that the Celtic language in Europe was preceded only by non-Indo-European languages. However, the author constantly returns to the culture of bell-shaped cups as a possible predecessor of the Celtic languages, mentioning, however, that Pokorny (1936) considered this option and rejected it.

We bring our consideration to an end. It is difficult to deny the possibility that the "primary" Celts are carriers of the haplogroup R1a who arrived from the east. As options for tribes, or branches of the haplogroup R1a, which moved westward into Europe in the 1st millennium BC, the following can be cited (Rozhanskii & Klyosov, Advances in Anthropology, 2012) (the column on the right indicates the time of occurrence or the beginning of the expansion of the branch, years BC):

The next step in the development of this hypothesis would be to carefully consider the archeology of the Celts, on the one hand, and the indicated branches of the haplogroup R1a, and to identify common "artifacts".

Summing up, the hypothesis put forward has multi-layered grounds that the carriers of the haplogroup R1a, in fact, the Proto-Slavs, or, in any case, their brothers, transformed not only the east in the 2nd millennium BC, acting as Aryans (India, Iran, Central Asia , the Middle East, northern China), but no less (perhaps more) radically transformed the west, acting as the original Celts (western and central Europe), bringing there in the 1st millennium BC. their language and their culture. In this sense, the west and center of Europe is a cultural product of the Proto-Slavic Russian Plain.

Anatoly A. Klyosov,
doctor of chemical sciences, professor

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80 comments: Where did the Celts come from?

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The Celts are called tribes of Indo-European origin in antiquity and at the turn of the eras who occupied vast areas in Western and Central Europe. It was a very warlike people, which in 390 BC. even captured and sacked Rome. But internecine wars weakened the warlike people. As a result, the Germans and Romans ousted the Celts from their lands. These tribes remained surrounded by numerous secrets, intrigues, and, therefore, myths. Let's try to understand who they really were.

The Celts lived in what is now Britain and Ireland.

It is difficult to say anything definite about the origin of the Celts. Some historians believe that they inhabited Britain as early as 3200 years ago, while others believe that they were long before that. But one thing is clear - the Celtic migration began around 400 BC. from Central Europe. The tribes began to spread in all directions, but to the south they had to face the strong Romans. It turned out that the warlike but scattered Celts were opposed by a single unified empire. The tribes were constantly at war with each other, not thinking about uniting against a common enemy. As a result, some of the tribes were completely destroyed, others submitted to the Romans, adopting their culture, and still others went to the remote corners of that world - to Ireland, Scotland and Wales. There are still communities of modern Celts who even strive to preserve their culture. And in their travels, the Celts even reached Greece and Egypt.

The Celts fought naked

When mentioning the Celts, there will always be someone who will mention their traditions of fighting naked with a golden band around his neck, a neck torc. This myth about the Celts is one of the most popular. But one has only to think about such a statement, as its absurdity immediately becomes clear. And this false statement appeared thanks to the Romans. Today, almost all the information that we have about these ancient tribes is obtained from the records of the historians of Rome. There is no doubt that they exaggerated their exploits, and the enemy was described as absolutely primitive savages. In this case, history was made by the victors, was it worth expecting honesty from it in relation to the defeated? But there is another side to this story. The Celts lived during a period of history called the Iron Age. Then, instead of bronze, they just began to use iron. It went to the manufacture of armor, weapons and tools. The Celts had the opportunity to arm themselves with swords, axes, hammers, create metal armor, chain mail, and rivet leather. Given the existence of armor, it would be foolish to assume that warriors abandoned them and fought naked.

Druids were ancient wizards

For that time, the Celtic druids were really powerful characters. They didn't just wear white clothes and do human sacrifice, but they did some really incredible things. Druids acted as advisers to tribal leaders and even kings. With their help, laws were born, just as today the English parliament “suggests” the queen to sign acts. The druids often acted as judges, enforcing the rules they had introduced. For the Celts, the druids were the personification of wisdom. No wonder it was supposed to study for 20 years to deserve such a title. The Druids possessed knowledge in the field of astronomy, they kept folk traditions and cultivated natural philosophy. Celtic wise men informed the villagers when they should start sowing. Druids even believed they could predict the future.

Celtic traditions died with them

Thanks to the Celtic Druids, one interesting tradition appeared and was preserved, which we know today. The fact is that in those days the oak was considered a sacred tree. The Druids believed that the gods lived in everything that surrounds us, including rocks, water, and plants. No less holy than the oak was the mistletoe that grew on it. Beliefs in the power of these plants have survived to this day. It is no coincidence that in the English-speaking world there is a tradition of kissing under the mistletoe at Christmas.

Celtic women were sullen

Based on the assumption that the Celts were savages (thanks to the Romans!), it is logical to consider them gloomy and downtrodden women. But this is a myth. In fact, Celtic women could be very powerful and influential, own their own land, and even divorce at will. For those times, such freedoms seem incredible. Roman women were essentially limited in their rights, but among the Celts, women could make a career, climbing the social ladder. High status could be both inherited and acquired through merit. Among the Celts, the landowners followed the leader into battle. If a woman turned out to be such, then she went into battle too. In fact, among the Celts, warrior women even trained boys and girls in the art of war. Women could even become druids, creating the laws of society. These norms protected everyone in the Celtic tribe, including the elderly, the sick and infirm, and children. It was believed that the latter were still innocent, and therefore they should be protected. But in Roman society, children were often abandoned, leaving to die starving in the garbage heaps. So the Celts were not savages at all, as the Romans convince us.

The Celts didn't build roads

It is difficult to argue with the fact that it was thanks to Roman engineers that a network of roads appeared that enveloped the whole of Europe. In fact, we cannot agree with this. After all, long before the Romans, the Celts built a whole network of wooden roads that connected neighboring tribes. These communication routes allowed the Celts to trade with each other. It’s just that wooden roads turned out to be short-lived, there was practically nothing left of this material - it rotted. But today in the swamps of France, England and Ireland there are still some wooden boards, parts of the road. Based on the fact that the Romans were never able to conquer Ireland, we can safely assume that the old boards were created by the Celts, as part of the roadbed. In the same Ireland, there is the Corlea Trail, on which there are many parts of the old road. In some places, it was even reconstructed so that you could see which way the Celtic tribes moved at one time.

The Celts had strange but uniform helmets

Based on the fact that the Celts had metal armor, it is logical to assume the existence of helmets corresponding to it. They were often unusual - the Celts were not shy about experimenting with designs. One such piece of equipment was found in the Romanian village of Chumeshti, where these tribes also climbed. Here, archaeologists have found an old cemetery dating back to the Iron Age. Among the 34 graves, there was also one that belonged to a Celtic leader. He was buried along with numerous items, among which were bronze axes and rich armor. It was believed that they were supposed to help the deceased in the afterlife. But an unusual helmet stood out among all the vestments. On it, an unknown master forged a large bird of prey, spreading its bronze wings. The design of this decoration looks unusual - the bird's wings turned out to be suspended on hinges, so when the helmet owner walked, the creature seemed to be flying. Historians believe that the fluttering helmet in battle was still rather impractical and the leader wore it only on special occasions. But the helmet has become one of the most famous and copied masterpieces of Celtic art. Even Asterisk and Obelix have something similar.

The Celts only thought about who to fight

This people became famous not only for their travels, but also for their love of battles. However, the Celts fought on anyone's side, but not for free. These warriors were taken as mercenaries even by King Ptolemy II, a representative of the glorious Egyptian dynasty. And the European tribes turned out to be such great soldiers that the king was afraid that they might take over his country. Ptolemy therefore ordered the landing of the Celts on an uninhabited island in the Nile. Met with the Celts and the Greeks. In those days, the tribes were just expanding their territories. Those events are known in history as the Gallic invasion of the Balkans. Its culmination was the Battle of Delphi, which ended in the defeat of the intruders. The fact is that again the scattered Celts were opposed by trained united armies. So in 270 BC. The Celts were expelled from Delphi.

The Celts cut off the heads of their enemies

This fact is perhaps the most famous about the Celts, it is still true. Indeed, the tribes conducted a real headhunt. It was this part of the body of the defeated enemy that was considered the most coveted trophy for the Celts. The reason for this is religion, which asserted the existence of spirits in everything that exists. So the human head was presented as a place where the souls of defeated enemies live. The warrior who had such a collection was surrounded by honor. And the heads of the enemies around gave the Celts self-confidence, a sense of significance. It was customary to decorate the saddles and doors of houses with the severed heads of enemies. It was something of owning a collection of luxury expensive cars in today's world. Today, people brag about a new stylish car, and then they boasted about the head of a powerful hostile leader that appeared in the collection.

The Celts were a poor people

To debunk this myth, it's worth a little bit of history. For the time being, the Celts and Romans coexisted peacefully side by side. But then Julius Caesar appeared on the scene. His political career did not develop, besides, burdensome debts hung on him. It seemed obvious that a small victorious war against the primitive barbarians, the Celts, could improve the situation. The Gallic Wars are often considered the most important military manifestation of the genius of Julius Caesar. Thanks to that campaign, the border of the empire began to expand rapidly. At the same time, Caesar defeated the Celtic tribes one by one and seized their territories. This victory changed the fate of the area known in the ancient world as Gaul, with the Celtic tribes living on it. Caesar himself gained fame and influence. But why exactly did he attack Gaul? The Roman himself wrote that he was trying to push back the barbarian tribes that threatened Rome. But historians see the reasons somewhat differently. One of these predatory tribes were the Helvetii, who lived near the Alps. Caesar promised them protection during their resettlement in Gaul. But then Rome changed its mind, and the barbarians decided to act on their own. Caesar declared that it was necessary to protect the Celts living in Gaul. As a result, the Romans exterminated more than a quarter of a million "invaders", in the process of protecting the territories, almost all the Celts were destroyed. Gaul itself became part of a powerful empire. And it has the most direct relation to wealth. Caesar needed money to pay off his debts and gain influence for his career. Not only did Gaul bring him the glory of a commander, this territory was very rich in gold deposits. The Celts were known to have gold coins and jewelry, but it was believed that they were obtained through trade. But Caesar did not believe it. It turned out that more than four hundred gold mines were located on the territory of Gaul. This testified to the incredible wealth of the Celts, which was the reason for Caesar's such interest in them. Interestingly, Rome began minting its gold coins just after the conquest of Gaul.

The Celts were uneducated

And again, it is worthwhile to understand that the Romans tried in every possible way to expose their rivals in the most bad light. In fact, these people were not at all as simple as they are presented. Moreover, the Celts owned something that even the Romans did not have - an accurate calendar. Yes, there was a Julian calendar, but the Celts had their own calendar from Coligny. It was found in this French city back in 1897, which gave its name to the discovery. Not only does it have an unusual appearance, but the calendar turned out to be made of mysterious metal plates with numerous marks: holes, numbers, lines, a set of Greek and Roman letters. For a hundred years, scientists could only understand that they were dealing with a calendar, but the principle of its operation remained a mystery. Only in 1989 the invention of the Celts was deciphered. It turned out that the find was a solar-lunar calendar, which, based on the cycles of the appearance of heavenly bodies, calculated the time of year. For that state of civilization, the calendar was highly accurate, a cutting edge invention. With it, the Celts could predict where the sun would be in the sky in the coming months. This find clearly proved that the Celts had developed scientific and mathematical thinking. It would be interesting to compare the invention of the "barbarians" with the calendar used by the Romans. It was also considered fairly accurate for its time, with an error of only 11.5 minutes per year with the real solar calendar. But over the centuries, this error accumulates rapidly. As a result, in our time, the Romans would celebrate the beginning of spring when August would be in our yard. But the Celtic calendar, even today, could correctly predict the time of year. So the Romans had a lot to learn from the "uneducated" barbarians.

Celts- one of the most famous and mysterious ancient peoples. There was a time when the sphere of their military activity covered most of Europe, but by the beginning of a new era, only a tiny part of this people in the very north-west of the continent retained its independence. During the period of maximum power ancient celts their speech was from Spain and Brittany in the west to Asia Minor in the east, from Britain in the north to Italy in the south. Celtic culture refers to the basic foundations of a number of cultures of modern Western and Central Europe. Some of the Celtic peoples still exist today. The peculiar art of the Celts still amazes both professional art historians and a wide range of connoisseurs, and the religion that embodied their subtle and complex worldview remains a mystery. Even after the unified Celtic civilization left the historical stage, its heritage in various forms experienced a revival more than once.

These people were called Celts, the Romans called them galls(roosters), but how they called themselves, and whether they had a single name is unknown. The ancient Greek and Latin (Roman) authors probably wrote more about the Celts than about other peoples of Europe, which is consistent with the significance of these northern neighbors in the life of ancient civilization.

Map. Celts in Europe in the 1st millennium BC

The entry of the Celts into the historical arena

First news about the ancient Celts found in written sources around 500 BC. e. It says that these people had several cities and were warlike neighbors of the Ligures, a tribe that lived near the Greek colony of Massalia (now the French city of Marseille).

In the work of the "father of history" Herodotus, completed no later than 431 or 425 BC. e., it was reported that the Celts inhabited the upper reaches of the Danube (and, according to the Greeks, the source of this river is in the Pyrenees), their neighborhood with the Cynetes, the westernmost people of Europe, is mentioned.

Around 400 BC e. the tribes of this people invaded Northern Italy and occupied it, subjugating the Etruscans, Ligurians, and Umbrians who lived here. Around 396 BC. e. The Celts-Insubras founded the city of Mediolan (now Italian Milan). In 387 BC. e. the Celtic people, led by Brennus, defeated the Roman army at Alia, and then. True, the city Kremlin (Capitol) could not be captured. This campaign is associated with the origin of the Roman proverb " Geese saved Rome". According to legend, the Celts moved at night to storm the Capitol. The Roman guard was asleep. But the invaders were noticed by geese from the temple of the goddess Vesta. They made a noise and woke the guards. The attack was repulsed, and Rome was saved from capture.

In those years, the Celtic raids reached the south of Italy, until Rome put a limit to them, striving for hegemony in Italy and relying on a reformed army. Faced with such a rebuff, some groups in 358 BC. e. moved to Illyria (north-west of the Balkan Peninsula), where their movement ran into a counter onslaught of the Macedonians. And already in 335 BC. e. Celtic ambassadors entered into negotiations with Alexander the Great. Probably, the concluded agreement on the division of spheres of influence allowed the Macedonians and Greeks to go to 334 BC. e. to the conquest of Persia, without fear for their rear, and gave the Celts the opportunity to establish themselves on the Middle Danube.

From 299 BC e. the military activity of the Celts in Italy resumed, they managed to defeat the Romans at Clusium, to attach a number of tribes dissatisfied with Rome. However, four years later, in 295 BC. e., the Romans took revenge, uniting and subjugating a significant part of Italy. In 283 BC. e. they occupied the lands of the Senon Celts, cutting off their other tribesmen access to the Adriatic Sea. In 280 BC. e. inflicted a crushing defeat on the northern Italian Celts with the allies on Lake Vadimon.

Then it intensified military expansion of the Celts in southeastern Europe. Perhaps it was the outflow of forces in this direction that weakened their onslaught in Italy. By 298 BC. e. include information about their penetration into the territory of modern Bulgaria, though unsuccessful. In 281 BC. e. numerous Celtic detachments flooded a number of areas of the Balkan Peninsula, and the 20th thousandth army of the Galatian Celts was hired by Nicomedes I, king of Bithynia (on the territory of modern Turkey), for the war in Asia Minor. A huge army of Celts led by Brennus in 279 BC. e. , plundering, among other things, the sanctuary in Delphi, especially revered by the Greeks. And although the barbarians managed to be ousted from Greece and Macedonia, they remained the dominant force in the more northern regions of the Balkans, establishing several kingdoms there. In 278 BC. e. Nicomedes I again invited the Galatians to Asia Minor, where they strengthened themselves by establishing in 270 BC. e. in the area of \u200b\u200bmodern Ankara, a federation under the control of 12 leaders. The federation did not last long: after the defeats of 240-230. BC e. she lost her independence. The same or some other Galatians in the second half of the 3rd or at the beginning of the 2nd c. BC e. appear among the tribes that threatened Olbia on the northern coast of the Black Sea.

In 232 BC. e. again conflict broke out and the Celts in Italy, and in 225 BC. e. the local Gauls and the relatives called by them from behind the Alps were brutally defeated. At the site of the battle, the Romans built a memorial temple, where many years later they thanked the gods for the victory. This defeat was the beginning of the decline of the military power of the Celts. The Carthaginian commander Hannibal, who moved in 218 BC. e. from Africa through Spain, south of France and the Alps to Rome, counted on an alliance with the Celts in Italy, but the latter, weakened by previous defeats, could not help him to the extent that he expected. In 212 BC. e. uprisings of the local population put an end to Celtic domination in the Balkans.

Having finished the wars with Carthage, the Celtic people. In 196 BC. e. defeated the Insubres, in 192 BC. e. - Boii, and their center Bononia (modern Bologna) was destroyed. The remnants of the Boii went north and settled on the territory of the present Czech Republic (the name of one of the regions of the Czech Republic - Bohemia - came from them). By 190 BC. e. all the lands south of the Alps were captured by the Romans, later (82 BC) establishing the province of Cisalpine Gaul here. In 181 BC. e. not far from modern Venice, Roman colonists founded Aquileia, which became a stronghold for the expansion of Roman influence in the Danube region. During another war, by 146 BC. e. the Romans took possession of Iberia (present-day Spain) from the Carthaginians, and by 133 BC. e. finally subjugated the Celtic-Iberian tribes living there, taking their last stronghold - Numatia. In 121 BC. e. under the pretext of protecting Massalia from the raids of its neighbors, Rome occupied the south of modern France, subjugating the local Celts and Ligures, and in 118g. BC e. the province of Gallia Narbonne was created there.

At the end of the II century. BC e. Roman historians wrote about the onslaught on the Celts from their northeastern neighbors - the Germans. Shortly before 113. BC e. the Boii repulsed the attack of the Germanic tribe of the Cimbri. But they moved south, united with the Teutons (who were probably Celts), defeated a number of Celtic tribes and Roman armies, but in 101 BC. e. The Cimbri were almost completely destroyed by the Roman general Marius. Later, other Germanic tribes nevertheless ousted the Boii from the Czech Republic to the Danube regions.

By 85 BC. e. The Romans broke the resistance of the Scordisci, who lived at the mouth of the Sava, the last stronghold of the Celts in the north of the Balkans. About 60 BC e. The Dacians under the leadership of Burebista almost destroyed the Tevrisci and Boii, which is probably part of the events associated with the expansion of the Thracian tribes, which crushed the Celtic domination in the territory to the east and north of the Middle Danube.

Shortly before 59 BC. e., taking advantage of civil strife in Gaul, the Suebi and some other Germanic tribes, led by Ariovistus, captured part of the territory of the Sequans, one of the strongest Celtic tribes. This was the reason for the intervention of the Romans. In 58 BC. e. Julius Caesar, then proconsul of Illyria, Cisalpine and Narbonne Gaul, defeated the Ariovista union, and soon basically took control of the rest, "shaggy" Gaul. In response, the ancient Celts rebelled (54 BC), but in 52 BC. e. fell Alesia, the base of the most active leader of the rebels - Vercingetorix, and by 51 BC. e. Caesar crushed the resistance of the Celts completely.

During a series of campaigns from 35 to 9 BC. e. the Romans established themselves on the right bank of the Middle Danube, conquering the Celtic and other local tribes. Later, the province of Pannonia arose here. In 25 BC. e. Galatia in Asia Minor submitted to Rome, having lost the remnants of independence, but the descendants of the Celts continued to live in these lands, preserving their language for several more centuries. In 16 BC. e. part of the Roman state became the "kingdom of Norik", uniting their possessions in the Upper Danube, in 16 AD. e. Here the Roman provinces of Noricus and Raetia were formed.

Following waves of Celtic settlers, the Romans also came to Britain. Julius Caesar visited there in 55 and 54. BC e. By 43 AD e., under the emperor Caligula, the Romans, having crushed the stubborn resistance of the Celts, captured South Britain, and by 80, during the reign of Agricola, the border of Roman possessions on these islands took shape.

Thus, in the I century. the Celts remained free only in Ireland.

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Normanists believe that the Celts belong to the Germanic tribes. Let's look at how the term "Celts" arose. Neither the Romans nor the Greeks indicate this. The Romans first mention them and call the Celts "Selts". In later times, under Julius Caesar, the Celts were described as "a ferocious people, terrible with their axes," which were difficult to defeat. They were a harsh and warlike tribe. From Roman authors, the nickname of this little-known people (who lived northwest of the Greeks) passed to the Greeks and began to be pronounced by them in their own way, according to the phonetic features of the language - Celtoi (according to Strabo - Celtai).

When the Greek language became scientific, classical, this word went down in history. So there was a replacement of the Latin "Celta" by the Greek "Celts". According to the concepts of ancient authors, the Selts are descendants of the Kimry or Cimmerians (some called them Kimbri), but these are phonetic features of different languages.

Before the advent of the Romans as the conquerors of Europe, it was believed that the Celts were the numerous people of Europe, which they inhabited throughout, from the north of Germany to the "Pillars of Hercules" or Gibraltar. When Rome took possession of all of Europe, capturing lands as far as the Rhine, this territory was divided into three main regions: Celtica, Gaul and Belgica, each of which was subdivided into provinces, districts and other small formations.

Since the war of Julius Caesar with the Celts-Gauls-Belgas, a lot of different peoples and tribes have appeared in history, ending in "chi": Lemovichi, Lyakhovichi, Norichi, Illyrichi, etc., and then on "i", "s": Belovaki , Wends, Ruthenians, Belgae. Then the Lemovichi turned into Poles, the Norichs into Noriki, and so on. At first they were all considered Selts. When the division into regions began, they began to be considered either Selts or Gauls, and those who managed to flee across the Rhine to Germany were considered Germans. So it is known that the Lyakhovichi at one time lived southwest of the Sekvani (Seine) River, the Lyutichi east of them along the same river (their main city is Lutetia, now Paris).

Under the onslaught of the Roman legions, the Poles went to the sources of the Danube River and settled along its tributary, the Lyakh, which was so named by them and their neighbors by their nominal nickname. The sources of the Danube River were in Germany. The Lyakhoviches became Poles and, moreover, Germans.

The Lyutichi went to the lower reaches of the Danube, later we find them next to the Tivertsy near the Black Sea.

Until the third or second centuries BC. Ruthenians, Lemovichi, Kadurians, Gebals lived north of the Pyrenees along the Harumna River and its tributaries. They still live there. These are Ruthenians, Lemkos (Lemko Rus), Khabals and Kadurs, being on the way of the Huns, were captured by them and, apparently, disappeared into them. In today's Hungary, two villages of Khabala and Kakadura have been preserved. In the Leningrad Region, in the Kingisepp (Yamsky) district, there is Khabalovskoye Lake and the Khabalovka River. This is all that remains of these tribes.

Boii lived along the Liger River (now Laura), and to the south, to the east of Garumna (now the Garona River), lived "tectosaga wolves". It was in the III - II centuries. BC. These peoples also lived in other places. So the Boii became Bohemians, and the “wolves of the Tektosagas” became Moravians who settled along the Morava River. All these peoples, called Celts or Selts, living in the south of present-day France (according to ancient - Celtia), turned out to be close to us in language. Their languages are included in the Slavic language group. We must not forget the testimonies of ancient authors that the Selts were European descendants of the Kimry or Cimmerians, whose lands are now occupied by the Russian People. They entered into its composition as the most ancient and basic ethnic element. We must also remember the indication of the author of the Book of Veles that the Kimry are our fathers. F. M. Appendini pointed out that the Celts and Getae spoke the Slavic language.

That the Celts are Slavs is confirmed by the indications of some chronicles, where it is said that the Scythian swears by the highest gods and the sword, in particular Zamolk, the god of the wind. The nickname of the Celts by the Celtic existed in the German chronicles in the 7th century. and referred to the Sorbs or Sorabs of Lusatia and the Sorbs in the city of Sorava.

The ending "chi" exists only in Slavic dialects (Rusichi, Bodrichi, Lyutichi, etc.).

The Romans called the Celts the Celtic-Scythians, and the Scythians were the ancestors of the Slavs. Even the German chronicles speak of this. Therefore, this once again confirms that the Celts were Slavs. “Silence” is a Slavic word denoting the good attitude of the deity when the fierce blowing ceased.

Most of the Celtic cities and tracts near Nitara bear Slavic names. For example: Chepyana, Ore, Tula, Lake Plesso, Mount Shar, Bryansk, Brislavl.

The closest connection between the Slavs, Venets, Celts, traced at all times - from the III millennium BC. e. to the Middle Ages, the absence of a clear ethnic and geographical border between them is reflected in the works of A. G. Kuzmin and A. L. Nikitin.

The famous discovery by archaeologist V.V. Khvoyko of the Tripoli culture, 20 versts from Kyiv on the right bank of the Dnieper, fully confirms the kinship of the Selts to the Cimmerians, for these Selts were actually Cimmerians who migrated to the west. These new places for them were called the Greek word Germany - "foreign land". This is the most important discovery of V.V. Khvoyko, changing the entire initial history of Europe and proving that the Russian people had a different initial history, different from the one we were told. The discovery was, of course, rejected by the Normanists and is not recognized to this day.

The Slavs spread in various Eurasian directions. Recent discoveries bear witness to this. So the famous British historian Howard Reed proved that the character of chivalric legends, King Arthur, the owner of the famous Round Table, was a Slavic-Russian prince. He is in the 2nd century. AD together with his retinue, he was part of the army of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, crossed from the continent to the British Isles. Prior to that, he was the leader of one of the South Russian Slavic tribes, famous for its tall and blond horsemen, who terrified the steppes.

Arthur's cavalrymen, as the 8000th "barbarian" auxiliary detachment, were taken into imperial service, participated in many battles, and after the conquest of Britain remained on its territory. The main evidence of Horvard Reed are: previously unpublished fragments of the poem by Geoffrey of Monmouth about King Arthur, as well as a comparative analysis of the symbols from ancient burials in Russia and in the drawings of the banners under which the warriors of the legendary Arthur, the Russian prince, fought.

Archaeologists have traced the path of these Cimmerian settlers or Selts through open ancient settlements or villages, which goes straight to the west, towards Germany. All this is synchronized chronologically by things, the remains of the residential layer of these settlements. Foreign scientists claim that the Cimmerians left the Trypillian culture, and our Normanists say that this culture cannot belong to the Russian People.

Later, new monuments of this culture were discovered in the village of Usatovo, in the village of Vladimirovka and many other places. The study of the remains of the residential layer indicated that there was a continuous connection between this and later cultures up to the time of the glades. This is a consistently progressive culture with the addition of a large number of new phases of development.

Now we know that the Scythians came from the Balkan Peninsula to the Ister River, and then further. Their movement went on for centuries and was noted in the residential layers and their stratigraphy, which is documented. Over time, the Scythians merged with the Cimmerians, and the descendants of the Suromats joined them. Passing by Krivichi, northerners and other peoples also left their traces. All this is our beginning, our initial history. This is the initial history of the Russian south.

On the Old Valdai Upland, from where most of the rivers of European Russia originate, there was a new, but equally ancient Fatyanovo culture. It begins south of the Sukhona River, goes along the Sheksna River to the Mologa River, covers the region of the cities of Yaroslavl, Kostroma, descends to Tver and Suzdal, covers Moscow, extends to the Ugra River and is lost in Transnistria. Both cultures developed around the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. And how many cultures are not discovered yet?

According to the testimony of a linguist, a specialist in ancient languages (Sumerian, Assyrian, Celtic, Cuman (Pechenegs), Gypsy and ancient dialects of the German language), Columbia University professor John D. Prince, the Celts or Selts in language belong to a Slavic group that is close in religion and customs .

To confirm the interethnic ties and contacts of the Neolithic and Bronze Age tribes, the finds on our lands of the centers of the Aryan and Ural culture, called Andronovskaya (II millennium BC), are especially indicative. They are found in vast areas up to the Right Bank of the Dnieper, where they were located surrounded by Slavic settlements.

In addition to the similarity of the language and religious cults of the Aryans and Slavs, a common sign system of symbols and magical inscriptions was developed for centuries before the written period, which were included in the ornament of utensils and other types of arts and crafts and fine arts.

At the turn of II-I millennium BC. in the middle Dnieper region there was the Chernolesskaya culture, certainly defined as Proto-Slavic, around the core, which formed a strong union of Slavic tribes on the lands from the Dnieper to the Bug. The tribes of this union are known in history under the name of Skoloty, already used by Herodotus, who reports on the deep rivers of this land, along which large ships sail, and on large settlements-cities.

On the Valdai Upland, along the rivers that originate here, there were tribes of Belarusians, geloni, nerves, Roxolans, Yatsigs, Ludotsi, etc. The Romans called them Sarmatians, and the Greeks Scythians, Suromats - all these are Russian tribes.

The Lutic tribe came to the Baltic coast at the very beginning of our era from the Sequana River (the Seine River in present-day France) from the area where modern Paris is located, and from its banks. Here they had the city of Lutetia. In ancient times, this tribe was part of the 12 tribal federation of the state of Rasena, or, as the Romans called them, Etruria, with its center in the city of Lutsa (Luka) on the Auzer (Ozer) River. From here they were driven out by the Latins and captured the city of Rasen. The Etrurians left for the Gallic Transpadida, settled for a short time near the city of Milin, and then left with the Cymrogalls to the Sequane River. They apparently came to Russian territory in the 7th or early 8th centuries. AD from the Baltic Sea, where several of their tribes lived. Some of them remained in place, while the other went east, to the Russian lands. On Russian territory, they lived in a corner of the northwestern coast of the Black Sea and were known as streets. From here, during the time of the great princes Igor and Svyatoslav, they moved to the region of the Carpathian Mountains. Another part of them settled in central and northern Russia.

About 400g. BC. the Celts moved east from the Rhine and Upper Danube regions. They moved down in several waves along the Danube and its tributaries.

About 380-350 AD. BC. the Celts settled in the area of Lake Balaton. They built the settlements of Vindoboka (modern Vienna), Singidunum (Belgrade), and others. At the beginning of the 3rd century. BC. one of the streams of the Celts headed for the Balkan Peninsula.

In 279 BC. under the leadership of Brennus, they passed through the lands of Illyria, devastated Macedonia, invaded Thrace and Greece and reached Delphi, where they were defeated by the Greeks.

Another group of Celts (Gauls) around 270 BC. BC. settled in Anatolia, in the region of modern Ankara, where she formed the state of Galatia. From Greece, the warriors of Brenna retreated to the north and settled in the Danube region, between the Sava and Morava rivers. Here arose the state of the Celtic tribe of Scordis with the main city of Singidun.

In the first half of the III century. BC. part of the Celts settled in Transylvania, Olteni and Bukovina, and the other on the lower Danube. The Celts easily mixed with the local population and spread La Tène culture everywhere.

In the II century. BC. another group of Celts crossed the Carpathians and settled in Silesia and the upper reaches of the Vistula, coming into contact with the Slavs.

The name of the La Tène culture comes from the settlement of La Tène near Lake Neuchâtel in Switzerland.

In the V-I centuries. BC. The Celts made a great contribution to the development of metallurgy and metalworking. Celtic metallurgy became the basis for the development of all subsequent Central European metallurgy. The Celts developed blacksmithing. They created an iron plow, scythes, saws, pincers, a file, drills with spiral cuts, scissors, improved axes. Invented door locks and keys. They also developed glass-making. The Celts invented the lathe, in agriculture they used fertilizer and liming of the soil.

The strongest influence of the Celts on the development of the tribes of the Podkleshevo culture falls on the 2nd century BC. BC. As a result, a new culture was created - Przeworsk. It is named after the remains found near the city of Przeworsk in southeastern Poland. The culture spread and covered the regions of the middle reaches of the Oder and the upper reaches of the Vistula. Przeworsk culture existed until the first half of the 5th century. AD Under the influence of the Celts, new types of weapons became widespread in the Przeworsk environment: two-bladed swords, spearheads with a wavy edge, hemispherical shield umbras.

Studies of recent decades have shown that the Slavic blacksmith craft of the 1st millennium AD. in terms of its features and technological culture, it is closest to the metalworking production of the Celts and the provinces of the Roman Empire.

The range of the Przeworsk culture from the right bank of the Oder in the west to the upper reaches of the Bug in the east. Western neighbors are Germans. The settlements are not fortified. Buildings are cumulus, unsystematic, which were common in the Slavic world and in subsequent times in Russia. Sometimes they were built in rows, along the banks of the rivers. The buildings were ground, pole or semi-dugout. This culture had a two-field farming system. The Slavs sowed rye. The Germans took over the cultivation of rye from them.

Przeworsk culture in the Polish scientific literature began to be called "Venedian".

Wends are the largest tribe of European Sarmatia. According to Ptolemy (second half of the 2nd century AD), it is located in the Vistula region. From the south, Sarmatia was limited by the Carpathians and the northern coast of Pontus (Black Sea). From the north - the Venedsky Gulf of the Sarmatian Ocean (Baltic Sea).

In the last third of the 3rd c. BC. the Celts developed the Zarubinets culture 2.3–1.7 thousand years ago (in the village of Zarubinets in the bend of the Dnieper). It covers the Pripyat Polissya, the middle Dnieper region and the adjacent lands of the upper Dnieper region.

PN Tretyakov draws attention to the presence of local Scythian and Milograd components in the Zarubinets antiquities. He considers the formation of the Zarubinets culture as a synthesis of local Dnieper and alien Western elements. This culture is characterized by semi-dugout structures that sink into the ground up to 1 meter. In the middle of the Dnieper region, above-ground dwellings were built with a floor lowered into the ground up to 30–50 centimeters. The walls were frame-wattle and plastered with clay. All dwellings had a square or rectangular shape. Heating was provided by open hearths. Most of the settlements consisted of 7-12 dwellings, large ones are also known - up to 80 residential buildings. Burial grounds were barrowless, there was cremation. Pottery, iron knives, sickles, scythes, chisels, chisels, drills, needles with an eye, darts and arrowheads were found. The main occupation of the inhabitants was agriculture, cattle breeding was also developed. In the southern regions of the middle Dnieper region, blacksmiths knew how to make steel; this skill came to them from the Scythians.

Zarubintsy culture in the Upper Dnieper region ended at the end of the 1st and beginning of the 2nd centuries. AD Part of the population near the middle Dnieper at the beginning of the III century. became part of the Kievan culture. Most researchers consider the Zarubinets culture as early Slavic. This was first expressed by V.V. Khvoyko at the beginning of the 20th century.

At the end of the II century. in the Middle Black Sea basin, excavations of burial grounds discovered the Chernyakhov culture of the Slavs 1.8–1.5 thousand years ago (in the village of Chernyakhovo in the Kiev region). In the III-IV centuries. it spread from the lower Danube in the west to the northern Donets in the east. The tribes of this culture developed metalworking, pottery and other crafts. The villages were located in 1, 2 or 3 rows along the coastline. Dwellings were built in the form of semi-dugouts with an area of 10–25 sq.m. Large dwellings of 40–50 sq.m. are known. Above-ground Chernyakhov dwellings were large - 30–40 sq.m. The walls were frame-pillar. In the southern part of the habitat, stone dwellings were built with walls from 3.5 to 50 cm thick. The dwellings were surrounded by a rampart and a moat. The basis of the economy is agriculture and animal husbandry. They sowed wheat, barley, millet, peas, flax, and hemp. Bread was harvested with sickles. Blacksmiths mastered the technology of processing iron and steel. Plows with iron tips were also made. A calendar was found with marked Vedic holidays associated with agricultural rituals. The year was divided into 12 months of 30 days each.

The history of the Sarmatians begins from the 1st-8th centuries. BC. The Sarmatians were allies of Mithridates, who fought with Rome. They destroyed Olbia. No chronological gap between the Sarmatian and Chernyakhov cultures was found. The main part of the Sarmatian population belongs to the Chernyakhov culture.

In Volyn since the end of the II century. AD tribes of the Velbar culture lived. Its population included Slavs, Western Balts, Goths and Goth-Gepids.

Ants, known from historical writings of the 6th–7th centuries, was a group of Slavs that formed under the conditions of the Slavic-Iranian symbiosis, mainly in the Podolsk-Dnieper region of the Chernyakhiv culture.

The early medieval Penkovo culture (V-VII centuries), which developed on the basis of the remains of the Chernyakhov culture, is identified with the Antes and spreads, along Procopius of Caesarea, from the northern bank of the Danube to the Sea of Azov. It is known that in the IV century. the Antes repulsed the attack of the Goths, but after a while the Gothic king Venitarius defeated the Antes and executed their prince God with 70 foremen.

The Chernyakhov culture ceased to exist after the invasion of the Huns.

All of these cultures were created by our ancestors, the superethnos from which all the peoples of Europe and a significant part of the peoples of Asia originated.

World history has left many mysteries to humanity in the form of unusual architectural structures that scientists find from time to time. Most of the questions about their existence were left to the descendants of the ancient Celts. Until now, information about this civilization reaches us in the form of fragmentary and not always reliable legends and myths.

Who are the Celts?

Europe has become a home for many tribes and nationalities. In the process of their development and spread across the European territory, they often mixed up and became a single whole. In this case, it was difficult to separate the traditions and culture of one people from another.

The history of the Celts looks quite different. They appeared in Europe unexpectedly and quickly filled almost all territories. The barbarian tribes were not afraid to attack the Greeks and Romans. Most often, their raids were successful and brought a large amount of booty to the tribes.

The name of the nationality was given by the Greeks, it was they who first introduced the word "Celts" into use. It is still unknown where this name came from. Historians come to the conclusion that only one of the many tribes could be called that way. But in the end, the name was assigned to the entire nation that settled on the territory of modern Britain and had a similar language. In the future, the tribes united, which affected the expansion of the vocabulary and the commonality of cultural traditions.

History of the Celts: several centuries of mystery

Traces of the Celts are found throughout Europe, archaeologists attribute this to the fact that they preferred a nomadic lifestyle and often moved long distances. It is still unknown how the Celtic tribes lived until the fifth century, there is no information about them.

Only from the period of their appearance in Europe they began to be spoken about and mentioned in written sources. It is surprising that somewhere for many centuries lived a people about whom no one knew. After all, neither the Greeks nor the Romans had any idea who the Celt was. This seems incredible and is the reason for the myths about the mystical origin of the people.

Scientists reliably know that the Celts had a clear hierarchy based not on military power, but on mythology and religious beliefs, which significantly distinguishes this people from other nomadic tribes.

To date, almost all data on the cultural heritage of the Celts are falsified. All the unusual finds of past centuries in Europe had one single explanation - the Celt. This has led to the fact that it is now incredibly difficult to separate fact from fiction.

Archaeologists and historians of our time are bit by bit collecting material that has a scientific justification. But the study of the history of the Celts is difficult because they did not have a written language. This is another mystery of the Celtic civilization, because it had a fairly high level of development. Why did the Celts not recognize written sources? This secret died with them.

The hierarchy of the Celts was represented by three estates:

druids;
warriors;
peasants.

Each estate was extremely isolated and never intersected. Marriages between members of different classes were suppressed.

The decline of the Celtic civilization is associated with the conquests of the Roman Empire. She managed to capture all the territories where the Celts lived. They were forced to hide in forests and caves. In Ireland, they built entire underground cities, as the locals believed, using ancient magic and sorcery.

At that time, the Irish were still in awe of the mere word "Celt". This was due to the enormous power of the priests, who possessed extraordinary knowledge, transmitted only by word of mouth. With the spread of Christianity in Europe, the Celts began to disappear, and over time they moved into the category of civilizations lost to the world.

Druids - carriers of ancient sacred knowledge

The Celtic priest was a member of a special caste of druids. They lived separately, but willingly shared their knowledge. Education in the school of druids took twenty years, the boys were selected from childhood and passed on knowledge to them orally.

Until now, no one knows what was available to the priests. But throughout Europe there are legends about the abilities of the druids, who could talk with trees and animals, move huge stones and build structures from them, as well as heal the most terrible wounds and move through the air.

Druids performed sacrifices in a sacred oak grove and, based on the results of communication with the gods, made decisions about important matters in the tribe. The priests kept a lunar calendar, according to which the whole tribe lived.

Religious beliefs and the gods of the Celts: a set of paradoxes

The religion of the Druids is difficult to understand for modern man. She combined high knowledge about the existent and spiritual with cruel rites. Analyzing this fact, it is difficult to imagine that such actions were done by the same Celt. It doesn't fit in my head. After all, it is impossible to stand up for balance and protect all living things from their interference, and to perform exemplary murders of enemies that last several nights.

It is difficult to say how beliefs in a single god, represented in three forms (which surprisingly echoes Christianity), coexisted in the Celtic tribes with nightly orgies of priestesses, accompanied by torchlight processions.

Some scientists put forward the version that the druids and the Celts are completely different races. But so far this theory has not found either confirmation or refutation.

The influence of the Celts on the culture of Europe

Despite the fact that in the minds of many Europeans the words "barbarian" and "Celt" are synonymous, this is fundamentally wrong. The Germanic peoples, for example, borrowed Celtic technologies and motifs for the manufacture of jewelry and ceramics. The Roman conquerors used well-established trade relations, and the Irish adopted from the Celts unity with nature and the ability to find inspiration in it.

It is not known how much the modern peoples of Europe learned from the Celts. Perhaps all our achievements and cultural values are just a faint reflection of the once majestic and magical civilization of the Celts.