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The Ancient Celts

Barry Cunliffe, editor of the Oxford Illustrated History Prehistory of Europe (1994), explores the true nature of the Celtic identity and presents the first thorough and up-to-date account of a people who were famous throughout the Ancient Mediterranean World and whose origins still provoke heated-debate. The Celts were the archetypal barbarians from the north and were feared by both Greeks and Romans. Napoleon III spent much time and money searching for the ancestral Gauls, and the concept of the Celt has been used many times by the nations fringing the Atlantic in their search for identity. In this volume Barry Cunliffe explores the archaeological reality of the Iron Age inhabitants of barbarian Europe, tracing the emergence of chiefdoms, patterns of expansion and migration, and the development of a mature urbanized society, thus assessing how the vision of the Celts and the archaeological evidence compare. Through his consideration of cultural diversity, social and religious systems, art, language, law, and oral traditions, Cunliffe is able to draw a distinction between societies which conform to an ethnic Celtic model and those subjected to Celtization.

RRP £14.99 Paperback