Essay on how Celtic is Iron Age Britain?
The concept of classifying a period of prehistory as the Iron Age was first introduced in the 19th century, and later validated by the massively significant discoveries at Hallstatt and La Tène. Subsequently, the era was broken down into chronological periods, against which the British Iron Age is now defined. For ease of definition, The British Iron Age tends to be broken into three periods, Early, Middle and Late, spanning roughly 1000 years, from 800 BC to the 2nd century AD, and is so named owing to the discovery and development of iron taking prevalence over the use of bronze.
The term Celtic, having passed into the vernacular, is now nothing more than a vague generic term. The traditional view was that Iron Age Britons were part of a vast Celtic Commonwealth which then stretched across Europe, a world of peoples who spoke related languages, and who shared a distinctive set of values, social institutions, spirituality, art and other aspects of life and culture. (James 1997, 2). This is now acknowledged to be a massive oversimplification, a romanticised notion born of theories put forward by 18th century scholars, based on classical Latin and Greek sources. Edward Lhuyd proposed that Welsh, Scottish and Irish languages all stem from the ancient Gaulish. The label Celtic was then transposed from the languages to the people themselves, landscapes, and their perceived culture and art.
Historically and archaeologically speaking, this word is unhelpful and uninformative. Indeed, Simon James has suggested that calling the Iron Age Celtic is so misleading that it is best abandoned. (James S. 01.06.98) As the term Celtic is virtually meaningless, for the purpose of this piece we shall investigate to what extent the indigenous population of Britain were influenced by their continental counterparts.
It was thought that the Iron Age Britons…
Would you like to read the rest of
"Essay on how Celtic is Iron Age Britain?"?
Simply use the form below to login or register now - it is completely FREE.
You well get access to hundreds more Archeology essays, just like this one!
Loading...
Login or Register:
Login or register and get access to hundreds of essays FOR FREE.
Either click here to register, or use the form below to login...
Register
Retrieve password
Tags: 19th century, archaeological evidence, Britain, Celtic, Celtic art, Iron Age, prehistoric Britain
