From: dunkelza@titan.ucs.umass.edu (KEITH C MCCORMIC)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: Celts
Date: 21 Jan 1993 15:04:11 -0500
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst
NNTP-Posting-Host: titan.ucs.umass.edu
Keywords: Celts, neolithic europeans

In article <1993Jan20.231904.4187@ncsu.edu> dmseay@eos.ncsu.edu (DOUGLAS MICHAEL SEAY) writes:

>Aren't the "battle axe people" really just a phase of another culture?  One
>was "right around the time of" the urn field culture? I may be going somewhat
>senile, but I thought that battle axe people were being phased out as more
>information has been found.

  Could be.  As of yet, though, I have not heard them say for sure
either way.

>Here I disagree.  The northerns (may I call them aryans? *) were also a bronze
>age people, although with a somewhat inferior state of technology.  If a celtic

  The Aryans were a group of Indo-Europeans who settled in Northern India.
Not in Germany.  However, if you are speaking in terms of the Hitler Aryan,
then you should read my little post awhile back.  The Celts of the Danube
Valley were "aryan" in Hitler's terms.

>tribe were to fight an aryan tribe, sure it might win.  But are you saying
>that the home field advantage was meaningless in the bogs of jutland?  I don't
>think so.  Expansion was mostly disorganized.  As the La Tene# culture moved
>into England, they pushed the older celts out of the lowlands, into wales and
>whatnot.  This makes me think that at least some of the celtic expansion was
>by defeated tribes, which may be effective in eastern europe (poland and such)
>where there were no strong powers, but not of much use else where.  The celtic
>presure against the greeks was for less than a century and comes from the
>danube region, a stronghold of celtic power before the La Tene.  They were the
>natives in northern italy ("cisalpine gaul" means land of the celts (gauls) on
>this side of the alps), so it was native vs. native when they sacked rome about
>350 BC.  And for the most part the main enemy of the celts was other celtic
>tribes.  The romans used this against them rather effectively.

 It's actually the only reason the Romans won.  I will agree that much of the
expansion was probably by tribes that had been defeated.  However, the Celts
were notoriously good warriors.  Even the bad ones were good.  Like I said,
it is like saying the Huns were held back by tribesmen weilding stone tools.
Home field advantage....  Hmmm.  This is true.  However, the Celts were
not any bunch of sword weilding marauders.  They build fortresses, cities,
roads, bridges, etc.  And they had the capability to mess up all the other
peoples of europe.  Why not the (even if you are correct that they had bronze)
similarly disorganized and much less populous peoples to the north?  If the
Proto-Germans were so hot, how come people hired Celtic Mercenaries instead
of these bronze equipped demon warriors from the north?


>This may be true, that I cannot say.  But by about 500 expansion from the
>aryans was causing the celts to lose lands in what is modern germany.  As this
>was happening the celts (in modern france and the rhein region) were iron
>age and the aryans were still bronze age (kinda strange considering the iron
>ore in sweden, but fact is stranger than fiction).  By the time the romans
>showed up, an oversimplified map would have the celts one west of the rhein
>and the aryans (now germans) on the east.

  Actually, the Germanic tribes did not forces the Celts out until after the
Gallic Wars, when the major celtic cities and trade centers in Gaul were
ransacked.  Places like Avaricum, where the celtic forts held off a roman
army for jeez, I don't remember how many days.

>While there are a number of us who are talking about this, are there any 
>"real experts" out there?  Anyone with a research grant to go and dig up
>the facts (pun intended)?  If not, maybe we should collectively post a
>bibliography and continue this discussion via email.  We're eatin' up a
>good deal of bandwidth for a non-RPG topic.
>
  No, but a bunch of us at UMass are trying to get a Celtic Studies program 
started.


>* I would use the word "tutones" and "tutonic", but this term comes from the
>name of a major "germanic" tribe.   But unfortunately the data insist that
>this tribe was actually a celtic tribe west of the rhein or possiblly one of
>the mixed celtic/germanic tribes (sorry for all you genetic purists, but there
>was quite a bit of this, especially near the end of the celtic era).
>
># Le Tene comes from the first site of this culture to be un-earthed.  That
>site was NOT a major point in any celtic culture.  Just another example of
>not having to be the best, just the first.

  Your * comment actually strengthens the argument for the "Germanic" tribes
if not being Celts, being influenced by them.  My point though all this 
is actually that English is a Celtic tongue and not a Germanic one.  Yes, I
know that people will try to flame me for this, but when you look at the
history of England, the only people to have held it for any length of
time, and the only people who were rpesent throughout english history were
the celtic tribes.  The Angles and Saxons only controlled britain for a
few hundred years before the French/Norse/Germanic/Celtic Normans invaded
and took over in 1066.  Yet through all this, the descendants of the Celtic 
tribes, still speaking their native tongues, lived in England, Scotland,
Wales, and Ireland.  Something I feel definitely needs some research put 
into it.

Dunkelzahn


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