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The word Celt (kelt) was first used by the Greeks in the 6th century BC to refer to the tribes of the ancient European peoples scattered across Europe north of the Alps and the River Danube. The Celts were warlike, muscular, light-haired wanderers who probably came from the distant steppes beyond the Caspian Sea. By 500 BC they were living in northeastern France, southwestern Germany, and Bohemia. The Celts, who were also called Gauls, continued to migrate in all directions.

About 400 BC Celtic tribes crossed the Swiss Alps into northern Italy. In 387 B.C.,

the Celts sacked Rome, scaring the tunics off the leather-shielded Romans by hurling themselves at the Romans clad only in blue paint and weapons, with their light hair molded into fearsome spikes by the application of lime and grease. The Celts rarely took prisoners, preferring to behead those they had vanquished. They are said by many sources to have hung the heads above the doors to their dwellings, like hunting trophies. At the same time other groups of Celts pushed down into France and Spain, eastward to Asia Minor, and westward to the British Isles. To what is now France they gave the ancient name of Gaul. In Asia Minor they founded the kingdom of Galatia. In Britain, Celtic warriors overran and conquered the islands.

In the first century AD, Julius Caesar began his war to conquer the Gauls (the continental Celts). Caesar was very successful. In just a few years he killed large numbers of them and forced the survivors to adapt to Roman civilization. He also drove many westward to Britain, Scotland, and Ireland. In the British Isles, the Celts were further killed and driven toward the western fringes of Europe by the Romans, Saxons, Normans, and various English rulers, including Queen Elizabeth I, Henry VIII, and Oliver Cromwell. It is a wonder that the Celts have survived at all.

HOW DID THEY LIVE?

Although Celtic people were fierce and as wild as fighters, most of them were farmers who lived in small settlements which were usually built close to supplies of water and animals for hunting. They needed timber to build their homes and farmland to grow crops and graze livestock. Farmers grew wheat and barley, and reared sheep, goats, pigs and cattle.

These small villages often started as the homes of a family group, with pens for the animals. All of the buildings were round. They were built around a central pole with horizontal poles radiating outwards from it. They rested on vertical poles. Walls were of wattle and daub and roofs were thatched.