THE CELTS

Celts become from a long time. A cave was founded, dated 2.600 years, where ritual rests had been found. Human bodies' parts were founded mutilated! Some archeologists identified it as a sacrifice. Moreover, little statues and many decorations were founded, whom between a skull used to drink was found. Interesting is to that some representations were about sacrifices, maybe to Gods. From the rests we can know say that they worshipped sun and other natural elements, and the horse was a very important animal to them! Alterations in climates forced Celts to move to West with their horses. Some of them moved to Anatolia and in the Central Europe, like Austria. They became great horse-riders because of the journeys they had made. Another important aspect of the Celtic is their ability in working iron. Hallstatt, a little lakeside village, gave the name to the first period of Celts' life. A lot of salt mines were dicovered by archeologists, who are working today to discover more of this population. This probably means that they already knew that salt was good to preserve food! Miners' stuff were also found in this caves, perfectly conserved. Miners probably lived in caves, sleeping and eating there, conducing a cheap and horrible life. The rests of the miner found in a cave show that probably he was also a slave. In 1846 a famous archeologist made important discoveries of the Iron age, as graves and other objects. Many iron swords were founded: they were richly decorated. A reccurent symbol in the decorations is the “spiked wheel”, representing the sun, sacred to them. Their life war very shorts: according to bones, a graphic shows us that most of the women died between 15 and 25 years of age. Another grave discovered in Austria had burnt bones of men. Many writers has described the Celts as tall and masculine. The society was probably organised into a hierarchy. During the Iron age the society was maybe leaned by aristocracy, and this make me think that there were a lot of slaves working in salt mines, as I said above. The Celts used to defend themselves building hillforts with banks and closed walls as defenses. There were not houses made of stone: houses were covered with tatched roofs. Heuneburg, in Europe, is one of the most well-discovered hillforts of the Celts. The rests in this area were decorated with typical Mediterranean patterns, while other show how the Celts used to copy the Greek culture in many aspects. Almost 25 years ago some people made important discoveries near a farm, in Central Europe: a magnificent statue decorated with a lot of gold objects. Probably the statue of a Celtic chief. The chief was the leader of the Celtic population. It could sound weird, but the discovery of many bowls, objects to drink, and a well-decorated calderon make think that drinking was fundamental to them. Other hillforts were discovered, like the one in Mont Lassois, showing another time the grat Greek influence, for example they brought wine to the Celts. There another skeleton was discovered: it has been argued on the sex of the person, even if we are almost sure it was female, a princess, because of the precious things sourrounding the body. There were period of peace and war periods: the object found in this grave could mean that the chies was a peace chief, because the were not war tools or weapons. Most of the rests found there shows the connection the Celts had with nature and with supernatural world. They considered wine, brought by the Greeks as I said, really important. The containers of wine were decorated with lions and other animals that they couldn't have never seen: another example of the Greek culture mixed with theirs. Mont Lassois is the last tape of this great period of the Celts. Another important tape of the Celtic world is surely Ireland, but also other Isles in the North. They probably used to live along the coast. It was believed that the Celts invaded these sea land, as Ireland. They probably invaded Britain a thousand of years before Christ and they lived along the coast, as said above. The  analysis of the population living there today has shown that the Celts occuped northern lands thousands of year ago, and they had already their own languages, but it has also shown, according to studies made on the DNA, that probably Celts has never lived in the Central Europe, and that many primitive buildings, as Stonehenge, have been built by the Celts. So the story of Celts is being discuss, there are a lot of uncertainties about when they moved to Britain and where they have lived!