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71-539: First held in 1997, the festival has featured musicians from the Celtic world and attracted visitors to Cape Breton Island around the time of peak autumn colour . The Festival presents dozens of concerts on the island, an extensive line-up of workshops, a visual art series of exhibitions, and a nightly Festival Club. Artists have traveled from Scotland , Ireland , Wales , England , Brittany , Spain , Denmark , Germany , Norway , Cuba , and Sweden , as well as from across

142-465: A Brittonic language of northern Britain. Celtic regions of mainland Europe are those whose residents claim a Celtic heritage, but where no Celtic language survives; these include western Iberia, i.e. Portugal and north-central Spain ( Galicia , Asturias , Cantabria , Castile and León , Extremadura ). Continental Celts are the Celtic-speaking people of mainland Europe and Insular Celts are

213-682: A Celtic language are the Lepontic inscriptions of Cisalpine Gaul (Northern Italy), the oldest of which pre-date the La Tène period . Other early inscriptions, appearing from the early La Tène period in the area of Massilia , are in Gaulish , which was written in the Greek alphabet until the Roman conquest. Celtiberian inscriptions, using their own Iberian script, appear later, after about 200 BC. Evidence of Insular Celtic

284-559: A borrowing from Frankish * Walholant , 'Roman-land' (see Gaul: Name ) , the root of which is Proto-Germanic * walha- , 'foreigner, Roman, Celt', whence the English word Welsh ( Old English wælisċ ). Proto-Germanic * walha comes from the name of the Volcae , a Celtic tribe who lived first in southern Germany and central Europe, then migrated to Gaul. This means that English Gaul , despite its superficial similarity,

355-798: A collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia , identified by their use of Celtic languages and other cultural similarities. Major Celtic groups included the Gauls ; the Celtiberians and Gallaeci of Iberia; the Britons , Picts , and Gaels of Britain and Ireland; the Boii ; and the Galatians . The interrelationships of ethnicity, language and culture in the Celtic world are unclear and debated; for example over

426-704: A common cultural and linguistic heritage more than a genetic one. Celtic cultures seem to have been diverse, with the use of a Celtic language being the main thing they had in common. Today, the term 'Celtic' generally refers to the languages and cultures of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall , the Isle of Man , and Brittany ; also called the Celtic nations . These are the regions where Celtic languages are still spoken to some extent. The four are Irish , Scottish Gaelic , Welsh , and Breton ; plus two recent revivals, Cornish (a Brittonic language ) and Manx (a Goidelic language ). There are also attempts to reconstruct Cumbric ,

497-522: A context of extreme aridification in the area in the wake of the 4.2-kiloyear climatic event , which roughly coincided with the transition from the Copper Age to the Bronze Age. Increased precipitation and recovery of the water table from about 1800 BC onward should have led to the forsaking of the motillas (which may have flooded) and the redefinition of the relation of the inhabitants of the territory with

568-426: A far-ranging trade network. This network imported tin and charcoal to Cyprus , where copper was mined and alloyed with the tin to produce bronze . Bronze objects were then exported far and wide and supported the trade. Isotopic analysis of the tin in some Mediterranean bronze objects indicates it came from as far away as Great Britain . Knowledge of navigation was well developed at this time and reached

639-656: A link to the East. It was preceded by the Yamnaya culture and succeeded by the western Corded Ware culture . The eastern Corded Ware culture ( Fatyanovo–Balanovo culture ) gave rise to the Abashevo culture , followed by the Sintashta culture , where the earliest known spoked-wheel chariots have been found, dating from c.  2000 BC . The Catacomb culture in the Pontic steppe was succeeded by

710-487: A network of palace states that developed rigid hierarchical, political, social and economic systems. At the head of this society was the king, known as wanax . A study in the journal Antiquity from 2013 reported the discovery of a tin bronze foil from the Pločnik archaeological site dated to c.  4650 BC , as well as 14 other artefacts from Serbia and Bulgaria dated to before 4000 BC, showed that early tin bronze

781-559: A peak of skill not exceeded until a method was discovered (or perhaps rediscovered) to determine longitude around AD 1750. Around 1600 BC, the eruption of Thera destroyed the site of Akrotiri and damaged Minoan sites in eastern Crete . The further impact of this event is poorly understood. Starting in the 15th century BC, the Mycenaeans began to spread their influence throughout the Aegean and Western Anatolia. By c.  1450 BC ,

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852-728: A result, these items quickly became associated with the Celts, so much so that by the 1870s scholars began to regard finds of the La Tène as 'the archaeological expression of the Celts'". This cultural network was overrun by the Roman Empire, though traces of La Tène style were still seen in Gallo-Roman artifacts . In Britain and Ireland, the La Tène style survived precariously to re-emerge in Insular art . The Urnfield-Hallstatt theory began to be challenged in

923-615: A rethinking of the meaning of "Celtic". John T. Koch and Barry Cunliffe have developed this 'Celtic from the West' theory. It proposes that the proto-Celtic language arose along the Atlantic coast and was the lingua franca of the Atlantic Bronze Age cultural network, later spreading inland and eastward. More recently, Cunliffe proposes that proto-Celtic had arisen in the Atlantic zone even earlier, by 3000 BC, and spread eastwards with

994-524: A revival. The first recorded use of the name 'Celts' – as Κελτοί ( Keltoi ) in Ancient Greek – was by Greek geographer Hecataeus of Miletus in 517 BC, when writing about a people living near Massilia (modern Marseille ), southern Gaul . In the fifth century BC, Herodotus referred to Keltoi living around the source of the Danube and in the far west of Europe. The etymology of Keltoi

1065-651: A single culture or ethnic group. A new theory suggested that Celtic languages arose earlier, along the Atlantic coast (including Britain, Ireland, Armorica and Iberia ), long before evidence of 'Celtic' culture is found in archaeology. Myles Dillon and Nora Kershaw Chadwick argued that "Celtic settlement of the British Isles" might date to the Bell Beaker culture of the Copper and Bronze Age (from c. 2750 BC). Martín Almagro Gorbea (2001) also proposed that Celtic arose in

1136-536: A tribal surname, which epigraphic findings have confirmed. A Latin name for the Gauls, Galli ( pl. ), may come from a Celtic ethnic name, perhaps borrowed into Latin during the Celtic expansion into Italy from the early fifth century BC. Its root may be Proto-Celtic *galno , meaning "power, strength" (whence Old Irish gal "boldness, ferocity", Welsh gallu "to be able, power"). The Greek name Γαλάται ( Galatai , Latinized Galatae ) most likely has

1207-516: Is available only from about 400 AD, in the form of Primitive Irish Ogham inscriptions . Besides epigraphic evidence, an important source of information on early Celtic is toponymy (place names). Arnaiz-Villena et al. (2017) demonstrated that Celtic-related populations of the European Atlantic (Orkney Islands, Scottish, Irish, British, Bretons, Basques, Galicians) shared a common HLA system . Pre-Celtic The European Bronze Age

1278-760: Is characterized by bronze artifacts and the use of bronze implements. The regional Bronze Age succeeds the Neolithic and Copper Age and is followed by the Iron Age . It starts with the Aegean Bronze Age in 3200 BC and spans the entire 2nd millennium BC (including the Unetice culture , Ottomány culture , British Bronze Age , Argaric culture , Nordic Bronze Age , Tumulus culture , Nuragic culture , Terramare culture , Urnfield culture and Lusatian culture ), lasting until c.  800 BC in central Europe. Arsenical bronze

1349-665: Is characterized by cremation burials. It includes the Lusatian culture in eastern Germany and Poland (1300–500 BC) that continues into the Iron Age . The Central European Bronze Age is followed by the Iron Age Hallstatt culture (800–450 BC). The Italian Bronze Age is conditionally divided into four periods: The Early Bronze Age (2300–1700 BC), the Middle Bronze Age (1700–1350 BC), the Recent Bronze Age (1350–1150 BC),

1420-439: Is divided into the periods I–VI, according to Oscar Montelius . Period Montelius V, already belongs to the Iron Age in other regions. In Great Britain , the Bronze Age is considered to have been the period from around 2100 to 700 BC. Immigration brought new people to the islands from the continent. Recent tooth enamel isotope research on bodies found in early Bronze Age graves around Stonehenge indicate that at least some of

1491-502: Is not actually derived from Latin Gallia (which should have produced * Jaille in French), though it does refer to the same ancient region. Celtic refers to a language family and, more generally, means 'of the Celts' or 'in the style of the Celts'. Several archaeological cultures are considered Celtic, based on unique sets of artefacts. The link between language and artefact is aided by

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1562-526: Is primarily a linguistic label. In his 'Celtic from the Centre' theory, he argues that the proto-Celtic language did not originate in central Europe nor the Atlantic, but in-between these two regions. He suggests that it "emerged as a distinct Indo-European dialect around the second millennium BC , probably somewhere in Gaul [centered in modern France] ... whence it spread in various directions and at various speeds in

1633-497: Is unclear. Possible roots include Indo-European * kʲel 'to hide' (seen also in Old Irish ceilid , and Modern Welsh celu ), * kʲel 'to heat' or * kel 'to impel'. It may come from the Celtic language . Linguist Kim McCone supports this view and notes that Celt- is found in the names of several ancient Gauls such as Celtillus, father of Vercingetorix . He suggests it meant the people or descendants of "the hidden one", noting

1704-641: The Histories of Herodotus, which placed the Celts at the source of the Danube . However, Stephen Oppenheimer shows that Herodotus seemed to believe the Danube rose near the Pyrenees , which would place the Ancient Celts in a region which is more in agreement with later classical writers and historians (i.e. in Gaul and Iberia). The theory was also partly based on the abundance of inscriptions bearing Celtic personal names in

1775-520: The 3rd millennium BC , suggesting that the spread of the Bell Beaker culture explained the wide dispersion of the Celts throughout western Europe, as well as the variability of the Celtic peoples. Using a multidisciplinary approach, Alberto J. Lorrio and Gonzalo Ruiz Zapatero reviewed and built on Almagro Gorbea's work to present a model for the origin of Celtic archaeological groups in Iberia and proposing

1846-584: The Cypriots , the lost waxing technique was introduced to create several hundred bronze statuettes and other tools. The Nuragic civilization survived throughout the early Iron Age when the sanctuaries were still in use, stone statues were crafted and some Nuraghi were reused as temples. In northern Germany , Denmark , Sweden and Norway , Bronze Age cultures manufactured many distinctive and artistic artifacts. This includes lur horns, horned ceremonial helmets, sun discs, gold jewelry and some unexplained finds like

1917-677: The Gaels ( Irish , Scots and Manx ) and the Celtic Britons ( Welsh , Cornish , and Bretons ) of the medieval and modern periods. A modern Celtic identity was constructed as part of the Romanticist Celtic Revival in Britain, Ireland, and other European territories such as Galicia . Today, Irish , Scottish Gaelic , Welsh , and Breton are still spoken in parts of their former territories, while Cornish and Manx are undergoing

1988-528: The Iberian Peninsula , Ireland and Britain. The languages developed into Celtiberian , Goidelic and Brittonic branches, among others. The mainstream view during most of the twentieth century is that the Celts and the proto-Celtic language arose out of the Urnfield culture of central Europe around 1000 BC, spreading westward and southward over the following few hundred years. The Urnfield culture

2059-533: The Lepontic inscriptions from the 6th century BC. Continental Celtic languages are attested almost exclusively through inscriptions and place-names. Insular Celtic languages are attested from the 4th century AD in Ogham inscriptions , though they were being spoken much earlier. Celtic literary tradition begins with Old Irish texts around the 8th century AD. Elements of Celtic mythology are recorded in early Irish and early Welsh literature. Most written evidence of

2130-653: The Multi-cordoned Ware culture , and the Srubnaya culture from c.  the 17th century BC . Important sites include: In Central Europe , the early Bronze Age Unetice culture (2300–1600 BC) includes numerous smaller groups like the Straubingen , Adlerberg and Hatvan cultures. Some very rich burials, such as the one located at Leubingen (today part of Sömmerda ) with grave gifts crafted from gold, point to an increase of social stratification already present in

2201-764: The United States and Canada . Concert venues are in cities across Cape Breton Island , including Sydney , the Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site , the Savoy Theater in Glace Bay , and the Strathspey Performing Arts Centre in Mabou . Other venues include fire halls, schools and community centres. Workshops, offered in many aspects of Celtic and Gaelic culture , allow visitors and residents alike to get

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2272-576: The bronze "gong" from Balkåkra in Sweden. Some linguists believe that an early Indo-European language was introduced to the area probably around 2000 BC, which eventually became Proto-Germanic , the last common ancestor of the Germanic languages . This would fit with the apparently unbroken evolution of the Nordic Bronze Age into the most probably ethnolinguistically Germanic Pre-Roman Iron Age . The age

2343-457: The first millennium BC ". Sims-Williams says this avoids the problematic idea "that Celtic was spoken over a vast area for a very long time yet somehow avoided major dialectal splits", and "it keeps Celtic fairly close to Italy, which suits the view that Italic and Celtic were in some way linked ". The Proto-Celtic language is usually dated to the Late Bronze Age. The earliest records of

2414-499: The 36th–23rd centuries BC. The culture was predominantly nomadic, with some agriculture practiced near rivers and a few hill-forts. The Catacomb culture , covering several related archaeological cultures, was first to introduce corded pottery decorations into the steppes and showed a profuse use of the polished battle ax, providing a link to the West. Parallels with the Afanasevo culture , including provoked cranial deformations, provide

2485-467: The Bell Beaker culture over the following millennium. His theory is partly based on glottochronology , the spread of ancient Celtic-looking placenames, and thesis that the Tartessian language was Celtic. However, the proposal that Tartessian was Celtic is widely rejected by linguists, many of whom regard it as unclassified. Celticist Patrick Sims-Williams (2020) notes that in current scholarship, 'Celt'

2556-474: The Britons resembled the Gauls in customs and religion. For at least 1,000 years the name Celt was not used at all, and nobody called themselves Celts or Celtic, until from about 1700, after the word 'Celtic' was rediscovered in classical texts, it was applied for the first time to the distinctive culture, history, traditions, language of the modern Celtic nations – Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Brittany, and

2627-554: The Celtic-speaking people of the British and Irish islands, and their descendants. The Celts of Brittany derive their language from migrating Insular Celts from Britain and so are grouped accordingly. The Celtic languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages . By the time Celts are first mentioned in written records around 400 BC, they were already split into several language groups, and spread over much of western mainland Europe,

2698-519: The Celts with the Iron Age Hallstatt culture which followed it ( c.  1200 –500 BC), named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt , Austria, and with the following La Tène culture ( c.  450 BC onward), named after the La Tène site in Switzerland. It proposes that Celtic culture spread westward and southward from these areas by diffusion or migration . A newer theory, " Celtic from

2769-558: The Eastern Hallstatt region ( Noricum ). However, Patrick Sims-Williams notes that these date to the later Roman era, and says they suggest "relatively late settlement by a Celtic-speaking elite". In the late 20th century, the Urnfield-Hallstatt theory began to fall out of favour with some scholars, which was influenced by new archaeological finds. 'Celtic' began to refer primarily to 'speakers of Celtic languages' rather than to

2840-588: The Final Bronze Age (1150–950 BC). During the second millennium BC, the Nuragic civilization flourished in the island of Sardinia . It was a rather homogeneous culture, more than 7000 imposing stone tower-buildings known as Nuraghe were built by this culture all over the island, along with other types of monuments such as the megaron temples, the monumental Giants' graves and the holy well temples . Sanctuaries and larger settlements were also built starting from

2911-1047: The Gaelic College in St. Ann's opens as the evening concerts are closing, offering an opportunity for Festival artists to perform in a more informal setting, or to get a session in with friends and colleagues from near and far. Performance is by invitation only and depends upon artist availability on any given night. Celtic Colours Website Celts Pontic Steppe Caucasus East Asia Eastern Europe Northern Europe Pontic Steppe Northern/Eastern Steppe Europe South Asia Steppe Europe Caucasus India Indo-Aryans Iranians East Asia Europe East Asia Europe Indo-Aryan Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Others European The Celts ( / k ɛ l t s / KELTS , see pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples ( / ˈ k ɛ l t ɪ k / KEL -tik ) were

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2982-502: The Gauls claimed descent from an underworld god (according to Commentarii de Bello Gallico ), and linking it with the Germanic Hel . Others view it as a name coined by Greeks; among them linguist Patrizia de Bernardo Stempel , who suggests it meant "the tall ones". In the first century BC, Roman leader Julius Caesar reported that the Gauls called themselves 'Celts', Latin : Celtae , in their own tongue . Thus whether it

3053-505: The Greeks to apply this name for the type of Keltoi that they usually encountered". Because Classical writers did not call the inhabitants of Britain and Ireland Κελτοί ( Keltoi ) or Celtae , some scholars prefer not to use the term for the Iron Age inhabitants of those islands. However, they spoke Celtic languages, shared other cultural traits, and Roman historian Tacitus says

3124-472: The Isle of Man. 'Celt' is a modern English word, first attested in 1707 in the writing of Edward Lhuyd , whose work, along with that of other late 17th-century scholars, brought academic attention to the languages and history of the early Celtic inhabitants of Great Britain. The English words Gaul , Gauls ( pl. ) and Gaulish (first recorded in the 16–17th centuries) come from French Gaule and Gaulois ,

3195-616: The Unetice culture. All in all, cemeteries of this period are rare and of small size. The Unetice culture is followed by the middle Bronze Age (1600–1200 BC) Tumulus culture , which is characterized by inhumation burials in tumuli (barrows). In the eastern Hungarian Körös tributaries, the early Bronze Age first saw the introduction of the Makó culture , followed by the Otomani and Gyulavarsánd cultures. The late Bronze Age Urnfield culture (1300–750 BC)

3266-493: The West ", suggests proto-Celtic arose earlier, was a lingua franca in the Atlantic Bronze Age coastal zone, and spread eastward. Another newer theory, "Celtic from the Centre", suggests proto-Celtic arose between these two zones, in Bronze Age Gaul, then spread in various directions. After the Celtic settlement of Southeast Europe in the 3rd century BC, Celtic culture reached as far east as central Anatolia , Turkey . The earliest undisputed examples of Celtic language are

3337-567: The burials "dated to roughly the time when Celts are mentioned near the Danube by Herodotus , Ramsauer concluded that the graves were Celtic". Similar sites and artifacts were found over a wide area, which were named the 'Hallstatt culture'. In 1857, the archaeological site of La Tène was discovered in Switzerland. The huge collection of artifacts had a distinctive style. Artifacts of this 'La Tène style' were found elsewhere in Europe, "particularly in places where people called Celts were known to have lived and early Celtic languages are attested. As

3408-452: The centuries around 2000 BC when copper was alloyed with tin and used to manufacture Ballybeg type flat axes and associated metalwork. The preceding period is known as the Copper Age and is characterised by the production of flat axes , daggers , halberds and awls in copper. The period is divided into three phases: Early Bronze Age 2000–1500 BC; Middle Bronze Age 1500–1200 BC and Late Bronze Age 1200– c.  500 BC . Ireland

3479-452: The early Celts comes from Greco-Roman writers, who often grouped the Celts as barbarian tribes. They followed an ancient Celtic religion overseen by druids . The Celts were often in conflict with the Romans , such as in the Roman–Gallic wars , the Celtiberian Wars , the conquest of Gaul and conquest of Britain . By the 1st century AD, most Celtic territories had become part of the Roman Empire . By c. 500, due to Romanisation and

3550-436: The environment, with the development of the Iberian oppida mode of settlement. The Atlantic Bronze Age is a cultural complex of the Bronze Age period of approximately 1300–700 BC that includes different cultures in Portugal , Andalusia , Galicia , France , Britain , and Ireland and is marked by economic and cultural exchange that led to the high degree of cultural similarity exhibited by coastal communities, including

3621-433: The fields of engineering, architecture and military infrastructure, while trade over vast areas of the Mediterranean was essential for the Mycenaean economy. Their syllabic script, the Linear B , offers the first written records of the Greek language and their religion already included several deities that can be also found in the Olympic Pantheon . Mycenaean Greece was dominated by a warrior elite society and consisted of

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3692-479: The first tin bronze alloys in the Near East . This bronze production lasted for c. 500 years in the Balkans but disappeared at the end of the 5th millennium, coinciding with the " collapse of large cultural complexes in north-eastern Bulgaria and Thrace in the late fifth millennium BC". Tin bronzes using cassiterite tin were subsequently reintroduced to the area some 1500 years later. The Aegean Bronze Age begins around 3200 BC when civilizations first established

3763-529: The frequent use of stones as chevaux-de-frise , the establishment of cliff castles , or the domestic architecture sometimes characterized by the round houses. Commercial contacts extended from Sweden and Denmark to the Mediterranean . The period was defined by a number of distinct regional centres of metal production, unified by a regular maritime exchange of some of their products. The major centres were southern England and Ireland, north-western France, and western Iberia. The Bronze Age in Ireland commenced in

3834-471: The hands-on experience they desire. Host communities around the island present workshops in Gaelic language and song, components of tradition, instrument instruction and traditional dance, as well as offering cultural tours, cèilidhs , and a lecture series. They also organize an extensive array of community events including meals and dances. The Festival will also offer guided tours and hikes, markets, art exhibitions and community meals. The Festival Club at

3905-415: The hills and into the fertile valleys . Large livestock ranches developed in the lowlands which appear to have contributed to economic growth and inspired increasing forest clearances. The Deverel–Rimbury culture began to emerge in the second half of the 'Middle Bronze Age' ( c.  1400 –1100 BC) to exploit these conditions. Cornwall was a major source of tin for much of western Europe and copper

3976-445: The immigrants came from the area of modern Switzerland . The Beaker people displayed different behaviors from the earlier Neolithic people and cultural change was significant. The rich Wessex culture developed in southern Britain at this time. Additionally, the climate was deteriorating; where once the weather was warm and dry it became much wetter as the Bronze Age continued, forcing the population away from easily defended sites in

4047-470: The larger hilltop settlements, and the elite using violence in practical and ideological terms to clamp down on the population. Ecological degradation, landscape opening, fires, pastoralism, and maybe tree cutting for mining have been suggested as reasons for the collapse. The culture of the motillas , developed an early system of groundwater supply plants (the so-called motillas ) in the upper Guadiana basin (in Iberian Peninsula's southern meseta ) in

4118-405: The late fifth millennium BC". Tin bronzes using cassiterite tin would be reintroduced to the area again some 1,500 years later. The Maykop culture was the major early Bronze Age culture in the North Caucasus . Some scholars date arsenical bronze artifacts in the region as far back as the mid-4th millennium BC. The Yamnaya culture was a late copper age /early Bronze Age culture dating to

4189-416: The late second millennium BC to host these religious structures along with other structures such ritual pools, fountains and tanks, large stone roundhouses with circular benches used for the meeting of the leaders of the chiefdoms and large public areas. Bronze tools and weapons were widespread and their quality increased thanks to the contacts between the Nuragic people and Eastern Mediterranean peoples such as

4260-408: The latter 20th century, when it was accepted that the oldest known Celtic-language inscriptions were those of Lepontic from the 6th century BC and Celtiberian from the 2nd century BC. These were found in northern Italy and Iberia, neither of which were part of the 'Hallstatt' nor 'La Tène' cultures at the time. The Urnfield-Hallstatt theory was partly based on ancient Greco-Roman writings, such as

4331-445: The migration of Germanic tribes, Celtic culture had mostly become restricted to Ireland, western and northern Britain, and Brittany . Between the 5th and 8th centuries, the Celtic-speaking communities in these Atlantic regions emerged as a reasonably cohesive cultural entity. They had a common linguistic, religious and artistic heritage that distinguished them from surrounding cultures. Insular Celtic culture diversified into that of

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4402-535: The most important finds were done in Isleham (more than 6500 pieces). Preceded by the Chalcolithic sites of Los Millares , the Argaric culture flourished in southeastern Iberia in from 2200 BC to 1550 BC, when depopulation of the area ensued along with disappearing of copper–bronze–arsenic metallurgy. The most accepted model for El Argar has been that of an early state society, most particularly in terms of class division, exploitation, and coercion, with agricultural production, maybe also human labour, controlled by

4473-460: The palace of Knossos was ruled by a Mycenaean elite who formed a hybrid Minoan-Mycenaean culture. Mycenaeans also colonized several other Aegean islands, reaching as far as Rhodes . Thus the Mycenaeans became the dominant power of the region, marking the beginning of the Mycenaean 'Koine' era (from Greek : Κοινή , common), a highly uniform culture that spread in mainland Greece and the Aegean. The Mycenaean Greeks introduced several innovations in

4544-462: The presence of inscriptions. The modern idea of a Celtic cultural identity or "Celticity" focuses on similarities among languages, works of art, and classical texts, and sometimes also among material artefacts, social organisation , homeland and mythology . Earlier theories held that these similarities suggest a common "racial" ( race is now a contested concept) origin for the various Celtic peoples, but more recent theories hold that they reflect

4615-483: The same origin, referring to the Gauls who invaded southeast Europe and settled in Galatia . The suffix -atai might be a Greek inflection. Linguist Kim McCone suggests it comes from Proto-Celtic *galatis ("ferocious, furious"), and was not originally an ethnic name but a name for young warrior bands . He says "If the Gauls' initial impact on the Mediterranean world was primarily a military one typically involving fierce young *galatīs , it would have been natural for

4686-532: The ways in which the Iron Age people of Britain and Ireland should be called Celts. In current scholarship, 'Celt' primarily refers to 'speakers of Celtic languages' rather than to a single ethnic group. The history of pre-Celtic Europe and Celtic origins is debated. The traditional "Celtic from the East" theory, says the proto-Celtic language arose in the late Bronze Age Urnfield culture of central Europe, named after grave sites in southern Germany, which flourished from around 1200 BC. This theory links

4757-701: Was extracted from sites such as the Great Orme mine in northern Wales . Social groups appear to have been tribal but with growing complexity and hierarchies becoming apparent. Also, the burial of dead (which until this period had usually been communal) became more individual. For example, whereas in the Neolithic a large chambered cairn or long barrow was used to house the dead, the 'Early Bronze Age' saw people buried in individual barrows (also commonly known and marked on modern British Ordnance Survey maps as Tumuli), or sometimes in cists covered with cairns . The greatest quantities of bronze objects found in England were discovered in East Cambridgeshire , where

4828-436: Was given to them by others or not, it was used by the Celts themselves. Greek geographer Strabo , writing about Gaul towards the end of the first century BC, refers to the "race which is now called both Gallic and Galatic ", though he also uses Celtica as another name for Gaul. He reports Celtic peoples in Iberia too, calling them Celtiberi and Celtici . Pliny the Elder noted the use of Celtici in Lusitania as

4899-442: Was more common than previously thought and developed independently in Europe 1,500 years before the first tin bronze alloys in the Near East . The production of complex tin bronzes lasted for c. 500 years in the Balkans. The authors reported that evidence for the production of such complex bronzes disappears at the end of the 5th millennium coinciding with the "collapse of large cultural complexes in north-eastern Bulgaria and Thrace in

4970-501: Was preeminent in central Europe during the late Bronze Age , circa 1200 BC to 700 BC. The spread of iron-working led to the Hallstatt culture (c. 800 to 500 BC) developing out of the Urnfield culture in a wide region north of the Alps. The Hallstatt culture developed into the La Tène culture from about 450 BC, which came to be identified with Celtic art . In 1846, Johann Georg Ramsauer unearthed an ancient grave field with distinctive grave goods at Hallstatt , Austria. Because

5041-451: Was produced in some areas from the 4th millennium BC onwards, prior to the introduction of tin bronze. Tin bronze foil had already been produced in southeastern Europe on a small scale in the Chalcolithic era, with examples from Pločnik in Serbia dated to c.  4650 BC , as well as 14 other artefacts from Bulgaria and Serbia dated to before 4000 BC, showing that early tin bronze developed independently in Europe 1500 years before

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