§3. The Celtic period.

§ 3.1. The Celts.

Iron tools appeared in Britain only after a new stream of invaders poured from the continent, from what is now France and Germany. Whole tribes migrated to the British Isles, warriors with their chiefs, their women and children. The invasion of these tribes known as Celtic tribes went on from 8^th-7^th cc. BC to 1^st c. BC.

The first Celtic comers were the Gaels, but the Brythons arrived some two centuries later and pushed the Gaels to Wales, Scotland, Ireland, taking possession of the south and east. Then, after a considerable lapse of time somewhere about the 1^st c. BC a very powerful tribe, the Belgae, claimed possession of the south-east part of Britain, Part of the Brythons was pushed on to Wales though the rest stayed in what is England today, and gave their name to the whole country. Thus the whole of Britain was occupied by the Celts who merged with the Picts and Scots, as well the other parts of the population. Later the Celts and the Celt-dominated mixture of Picts, Scots and other ingredients became known as Britons.

By mid 1st millennium AD, following the expansion of the Roman Empire and the Great Migrations (Migration Period) of Germanic peoples, Celtic culture and Insular Celtic had become restricted to Ireland, to the western and northern parts of Great Britain (Wales, Scotland, Cornwall and the Isle of Man), and to northern France (Brittany). Between the fifth and eighth centuries the Celtic-speaking communities of the Atlantic regions had emerged as a reasonably cohesive cultural entity. In language, religion, and art they shared a common heritage that distinguished them from the culture of surrounding polities.

The Celtic languages form a branch of the larger Indo-European family. By the time speakers of Celtic languages enter history around 400 BC, they were already split into several language groups, and spread over much of Western continental Europe, the Iberian Peninsula, Ireland and Britain. The Proto-Celtic language is usually dated to the Late Bronze Age [13, pp. 28-33].

§ 3.2. The Structure of the Celtic Society.

Gradually the British Isles became distinctly Celtic in language and the structure of society. The social unit of the Celts, the clan, superseded the earlier family groups; clans were united into large kinship groups, and those into tribes. The clan was the chief economic unit, the main organizational unit for the basic activities of the Celts, farming. The society of the Celts was a patriarchal clan society based on common ownership of land. The Celts must have traded with the Phoenicians who were attracted by the British tin and lead. ‘The Tin Islands’ they called them.

When the primitive ways of land-tilling began to give way to improved methods, social differentiation began to develop. The tribal chiefs used the labour of semi-dependent native population and showed tendencies of using military force to rob other tribes.

Fortresses were built on hilltops; tribal centers in fact, towns began to appear in the more wealthy south-east. Among the first towns such places as Camulodunum, Londinium and Verulamium are mentioned.

There are only very limited records from pre-Christian times written in Celtic languages. These are mostly inscriptions in the Roman and sometimes Greek alphabets. The Ogham script, an Early Medieval alphabet, was mostly used in early Christian times in Ireland and Scotland (but also in Wales and England), and was only used for ceremonial purposes such as inscriptions on gravestones. The available evidence is of a strong oral tradition, such as that preserved by bards in Ireland, and eventually recorded by monasteries. The oldest recorded rhyming poetry in the world is of Irish origin and is a transcription of a much older epic poem, leading some scholars to claim that the Celts invented rhyme. Celtic art also produced a great deal of intricate and beautiful metalwork, examples of which have been preserved by their distinctive burial rites [14].

Celtic art is generally used by art historians to refer to art of the La Tène period across Europe, while the Early Medieval art of Britain and Ireland, that is what "Celtic art" evokes for much of the general public, is called Insular art in art history. Both styles absorbed considerable influences from non-Celtic sources, but retained a preference for geometrical decoration over figurative subjects, which are often extremely stylised when they do appear; narrative scenes only appear under outside influence. Energetic circular forms, triskeles and spirals are characteristic. Much of the surviving material is in precious metal, which no doubt gives a very unrepresentative picture, but apart from Pictish stones and the Insular high crosses, large monumental sculpture, even with decorative carving, is very rare; possibly it was originally common in wood.