Historical Celts Dichotomy

Currently, there is a dichotomy within the concept Celt as it has different connotations for linguistics and archaeologists. From a linguistic point of view, scholars set the concept of Celtic to label the assortment of languages spoken in Central and Western Europe since the first millennium BC, which belong to the Indo-European branch, and only survived in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Brittany (Dietler 586). On the other hand, there is a more restricted concept of the term, referred in this case to the so-called historical Celts, traditionally understood as the group of tribal societies in Europe, who shared a material culture during the Iron Age.
In terms of archaeology, it has been discovered from some artefacts and inscriptions several
The archaeologists have identified two differentiated phases of the Celtic society, termed Hallstatt and La Tenè, for being the places where the vestiges were found. According to Chadwick, “the Hallstatt culture and its successor, that of La Tenè, together represent archaeologically the iron-using prehistoric peoples of Central, Western and, temporarily at least, some other parts of Europe” (pp. 30-31). In the period of the Hallstatt culture, around 800 B.C. – 500 B.C., in Europe was developed a remarkable technological advance, they started using iron instead of bronze so as to produce weapons and tools. This society marked the beginning of the Celtic culture and the Iron Age in Europe. The Hallstatt Culture takes its name from a homonymous necropolis, in territories of Austria, where hundreds of tombs and objects were found. Its people upheld a large production of nitrate, which allowed a growing commercial exchange with neighbouring regions. In its period of maximum expansion, between the fifth and
“Celtic is a term used to describe a branch of the Indo-European languages” (7). This group of languages belonging to the Indo-European family consists of: Breton, Cornish, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, Irish, Manx, and all those dead languages of this family that once were spoken by the Celtic peoples in Europe. Some scholars point out the fact that language is a concept liked to the idea of nation, as it is formed by a group of people that speak the same language (Chapman 16). Celtic languages are divided into two groups: P-Celtic and Q-Celtic languages. The linguistic criterion that separated them lies in how the sound ‘kw’ evolved, which became ‘p’ in the first case and ‘k’ in the second. Several evidence states that the Q-Celtic languages had derived from the first cultural waves of the Hallstatt culture between the 8th and 6th centuries B.C., that were spread on the centre and northwest of Europe, comprising the Iberian Peninsula. The common language this society, which would later be bifurcated, retained various features of the original Indo-European, including the above-mentioned conservation of sound ‘kw’. Likewise, the P-Celtic languages would come from a second Celtic cultural movement, also from Central Europe, but with different cultural patterns marked by the culture of La Tène, and that occupied Central and Western Europe from the island of Great Britain, through the north of Italy, even from the Danube Valley and