Caesar wrote, " The Britons have a huge number of cattle, they use gold coins or iron bars as their money, and produce tin and iron. " That description helps to explain why Caesar and his army decided to pile over here to Britain to try to invade. Rome wanted to get its hand on all those British resources to make itself even richer. Meanwhile, the Roman army is busy conquering Wales. But messengers soon bring them news of Boudicca's campaign, and their plans are changed. 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 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. [19]

Settlements of the Celts Ancient Celtic settlement of Chysauster Village, a late Iron Age and Romano-British village of courtyard houses in Cornwall, England, via history.com The druids were the priests and teachers of the Celts. They were responsible for educating the people in the ways of their religious customs and traditions. The druids used oral tradition to preserve their teachings, since they did not approve of writing down sacred matters. Most of their religious rites were performed in sacred forests. There is some evidence that they occasionally used dedicated buildings — temples — but these were evidently extremely rare. Notably, the Celts performed human sacrifice as part of their worship. One specific practice involved constructing a large wooden-framed statue of a man, filling it with victims, and then setting it alight. The native peoples under Roman rule became Romanised and keen to adopt Roman ways. Celtic art had already incorporated classical influences, and surviving Gallo-Roman pieces interpret classical subjects or keep faith with old traditions despite a Roman overlay. [ citation needed] 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 the presence of inscriptions. [41] The modern idea of a Celtic cultural identity or "Celticity" focuses on similarities among languages, works of art, and classical texts, [42] and sometimes also among material artefacts, social organisation, homeland and mythology. [43] Earlier theories held that these similarities suggest a common "racial" ("race" is contemporarily an invalid epistemolical and genetic concept) origin for the various Celtic peoples, but more recent theories hold that they reflect 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. [5]All living Celtic languages today belong to the Insular Celtic languages, derived from the Celtic languages spoken in Iron Age Britain and Ireland. [117] They separated into a Goidelic and a Brittonic branch early on. By the time of the Roman conquest of Britain in the 1st century AD, the Insular Celts were made up of the Celtic Britons, the Gaels (or Scoti), and the Picts (or Caledonians). [ citation needed] 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, 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). [44] which were used across Europe. In the British Isles, there were at least two dialects in use: Brittonic Roman soldiers are put into groups of around 6,000 men known as legions. The Roman army is well armed, very skilled at working together and heavily protected by armour.

After burning down Colchester, Boudicca's army destroyed the Roman town of London, before heading north to St Albans. DNA studies have found native Cornish people are genetically different from their counterparts across the Tamar. The study, by researchers at Oxford University, drew up a genetic map of the British Isles based on an analysis of DNA variations in thousands of people in rural areas. It found the Welsh, followed by the Cornish, could claim to be the most ancient Britons and the most genetically distinct of all the groups on mainland Britain.

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Ancient Celtic settlement Chysauster Village, a late Iron Age and Romano-British village of courtyard houses in Cornwall, England. 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. [14] [48] [49] [50] The Urnfield culture 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. [ citation needed]

John T. Koch [57] and Barry Cunliffe [58] 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. [11] More recently, Cunliffe proposes that proto-Celtic had arisen in the Atlantic zone even earlier, by 3000 BC, and spread eastwards with 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. [11] However, the proposal that Tartessian was Celtic is widely rejected by linguists, many of whom regard it as unclassified. [59] [60] 'Celtic from the Centre' theory The name ‘Camulodunum’ (Colchester) appeared on the coins of Celtic rulers such as Cunobelinus, whom the Romans called ‘Great King of the Britons’. The capital of the Trinovantes tribe, Camulodunum was the main target of the invading Roman army in AD 43, later becoming the first town in the new province.(Photo by Werner Forman/Universal Images Group/Getty Images) FoodArnaiz-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. [ clarification needed] [62]

Vercingetorix ( Latin: [wɛrkɪŋˈɡɛtɔriːks]; Greek: Οὐερκιγγετόριξ [u.erkiŋɡeˈtoriks]; c. 80 – 46 BC) was a Gallic king and chieftain of the Arverni tribe who united the Gauls in a failed revolt against Roman forces during the last phase of Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars. After surrendering to Caesar and spending almost six years in prison, he was executed in Rome.Evidence of Galatian tradition remains in the region today. Descendants of the Galatians still participate in ancient outdoor dances, accompanied by bagpipes, an instrument that is often associated with more well-known Celtic nations such as Scotland and Ireland. The earliest undisputed examples of Celtic language are the Lepontic inscriptions from the 6th century BC. [18] 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 clearly 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 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.