Back to the Iron Age calendar
Over the last 300 years people had been
coming to Great Britain from all over Europe. These people were mainly farmers and had lived in village communities in their homeland but they were also very
fierce and lived in tribes in their countries. These people we call Celts. You can see the way they spread across Europe from the map on the left.
The word “Celt” comes from the Greek word "keltoi" and means barbarian which in turn means uncivilized. I’m not saying the Greeks had a high
opinion of themselves but basically anyone who wasn’t Greek they considered uncivilised.
Much later, as you will find out, when the Romans came to our island they never called the people who were living there Celts. To the Romans,
we were Britons and the whole island was called Britannia
At this time the Celts, as we will call them, were the most powerful group of people in Central and Northern Europe. As I said there were loads
of different tribes but they sort of spoke a common language. They didn’t make much, if any, use of writing.
You could get a modern atlas and try to see what these countries are now called, apart of course from Great Britain. The Celts had begun their
existence in the area that is now Switzerland. There, I’ve given you one answer.
Forward to 380BC
