There are historians and archaeologists who are sceptical of the whole notion of a "Celtic" culture/people which covered the British Isles and a large chunk of the Continent. I get the impression that they prefer to reserve the word for the language family. Knowledge of the language(s) used on the relevant parts of the Continent before Roman times seems to be a bit sketchy, being based on small numbers of short inscriptions.
It's hard to know what to make of Greek writing about the Keltoi because the Greeks apparently had rather inaccurate ideas about the geography of Western Europe.
I'd be quite interested to learn more about the debate but am unsure where to begin my reading.
There is stuff passed off as the pre-history of Ireland but Mallory says that the archaeology suggests it's bogus, invented by medieval monks.
@d - I prefer the old term 'Ancient Britons' but probably that's over-inclusive, and from what I've seen Celtic seems to have somewhat replaced Iron Age. Iron Age has problems too. But we've got to call the pre-Romans something, and the name can't keep being changed every half-generation!
3 comments:
There are historians and archaeologists who are sceptical of the whole notion of a "Celtic" culture/people which covered the British Isles and a large chunk of the Continent. I get the impression that they prefer to reserve the word for the language family. Knowledge of the language(s) used on the relevant parts of the Continent before Roman times seems to be a bit sketchy, being based on small numbers of short inscriptions.
It's hard to know what to make of Greek writing about the Keltoi because the Greeks apparently had rather inaccurate ideas about the geography of Western Europe.
I'd be quite interested to learn more about the debate but am unsure where to begin my reading.
There is stuff passed off as the pre-history of Ireland but Mallory says that the archaeology suggests it's bogus, invented by medieval monks.
@d - I prefer the old term 'Ancient Britons' but probably that's over-inclusive, and from what I've seen Celtic seems to have somewhat replaced Iron Age. Iron Age has problems too. But we've got to call the pre-Romans something, and the name can't keep being changed every half-generation!
I think Ancient Britons is just fine. It's what we called them in primary school, when our blood was frozen by tales of their head-hunting. Ooooh!
Post a Comment