Picture a mist -covered Bronze Age battlefield.
You've got these like incredibly fierce tattooed
warriors charging over the hill. Oh yeah, the
classic image. Right, and they're blowing into
these massive towering bronze trumpets that are
shaped like snarling wolf heads, creating this
terrifying chaotic wall of sound. Pure unfiltered
intimidation. Exactly, but then... Imagine those
same terrifying warriors going home, taking off
their armor, and carefully burying themselves
with sacred, untouchable chickens. It sounds
like a joke, but it is a phenomenal image, and
it's entirely based on historical and archaeological
fact. Welcome to your custom deep dive. Today
we are taking a massive stack of source material
centered around a really comprehensive Wikipedia
article on the Celtic Britons. And we're throwing
out every stereotype you've ever heard about
ancient history. Oh, absolutely. We're going
far beyond the whole cavemen and animal skins
trope. Our mission today is to uncover the true
story of the ancient Celtic people who inhabited
Great Britain from the Iron Age straight through
to the Middle Ages. We're talking about complex
art. bizarre dietary laws and a genetic legacy
that completely defies what the history books
have been pushing for centuries. Yeah, and the
reason this should matter to you sitting there
right now is that the echoes of these ancient
Britons are quite literally all around us. They
really are. I mean, if you've ever looked at
a map of the U .K. and wondered why it's fractured
the way it is. Right. Like why Wales and Scotland
have completely distinct national identity. Exactly.
Or why certain languages clung to the rocky edges
of the island while others vanished entirely.
Or, you know, how an ancient identity survives
a thousand years of nonstop military invasion.
This is the alternate origin story. It is. The
Celtic Britons are basically the cipher for the
modern map of the British Isles. Okay, let's
unpack this, because before we can get into the
war trumpets and the sacred poultry, we have
to figure out who these people actually were
and, well, how they got to the island in the
first place. Which reading through the sources
is not a simple answer. No, it seems to be a
massive ongoing fight in the archaeological community.
Yeah, fight is putting it mildly. For most of
the 20th century, historians relied on this very
tidy traditional view called the Hallstatt culture
theory. And that was the idea of a big invasion,
right? Right. The assumption was that Celtic
culture and language originated in central Europe.
And then sometime in the first millennium BC,
an iron -wielding army of Celts simply marched
and sailed their way over to Britain. conquered
the locals and imposed their culture. Very neat
and tidy. Very neat. But in recent decades, newer
theories have completely dismantled that tidy
narrative. Right. Because the sources mentioned
a theory called Celtic from the West, which argues
that the Celtic language didn't arrive via a
conquering army from Central Europe at all. No,
not at all. It says it started as a maritime
trade language, which sounds interesting, but
I need to stop you there. How does an entire
country change its native language just because
of trade? Like, that doesn't make sense to me.
I get that. But think about the geography of
the Atlantic coast during the Bronze Age. You
have communities in modern -day Spain, France,
Ireland, and Britain heavily engaged in trading
tin and copper. Which you need to make bronze.
Exactly. They are essential. So if you're a merchant
sailing up and down that coast, you need a shared
vocabulary, a lingua franca, to negotiate with
people who don't speak your native tongue. Oh,
okay. I see where this is going. Yeah, so over
generations that useful trade language becomes
more common, it seeps into daily life, and eventually
it just replaces the isolated local languages.
Okay, that makes so much more sense. It's less
like an invading army coming in and forcing everyone
at Swordpoint to change their language, and more
like, um... a technological operating system.
Oh, I like that. Yeah, like the Celtic OS. It
wasn't that Apple sent an army to kill off all
the flip phone users. Right. It's that the network,
the tools and the language of this Celtic operating
system were so incredibly useful for survival
and trade that everyone on the island eventually
just downloaded it. That is a brilliant way to
frame it. And the hard science backs up that
kind of gradual integration too. Like the genetics.
Yes. A massive 2021 archaeogenetic study completely
shifted our understanding. They didn't find evidence
of a sudden violent invasion. Instead, they found
evidence of a massive migration into southern
Britain that occurred over like a few years,
over a 500 -year period. between roughly 1300
BC and 800 BC. A 500 -year migration. Again,
that completely changes the picture in my head.
That is a centuries -long process of families
moving a few miles up the coast, intermarrying,
and slowly blending into the neighborhood. Exactly,
a centuries -long neighborhood integration. But
how do scientists actually know that? When they
say archaeogenetics, what are they looking for?
Well, they are extracting ancient DNA, usually
from the dense bone of the inner ear or the teeth
of excavated skeletons. OK, well. Yeah, and when
geneticists mapped the genomes of these Bronze
Age individuals, they found a sudden influx of
what we call early European farmer ancestry.
Wait, who are the early European farmers? They
were the populations who originally brought agriculture
to Europe from the Near East thousands of years
earlier. The local Britons already had some of
this DNA, but the incoming migrants had much
higher levels of it. And where were those migrants
coming from? Genetically, they were most similar
to ancient populations from modern -day France.
And by 875 BC, those genetic markers made up
about half the ancestry of the people in southern
Britain. Half? That's a huge shift. It really
is. What's fascinating here is that it shows
ancient identities were incredibly fluid. Celtic
might have arrived as a cultural or linguistic
network rather than a single genetic sweep. It
wasn't a bloodline you conquered with. It was
a culture you blended into. The very name we
use for them is a blend, too. Based on the sources,
it wasn't even the Britons who wrote down their
own name first, was it? No, not at all. The first
written record actually comes from a Greek geographer
named Pythias. OK. He sailed around the British
Isles somewhere between 330 and 320 BC, and he
recorded the local name for the people as the
Pretanoi, or Bretanoi. Bretanoi, so that's where
Britain comes from. Exactly. Though interestingly,
earlier Roman writers like Plainy noted that
the older name for the island itself was Albion.
Oh, I've heard of Albion. But the word Pretanoi,
what did it actually mean to the people living
there? Well, it derives from a P Celtic ethnonym
reconstructed as Pretani, which translates roughly
to people of the forms or the shapely people.
Hold on, you just dropped a major linguistics
term. What on earth is P Celtic? Is there a whole
other alphabet of Celts? No, no, it refers to
a major split in the Celtic language family based
on how they pronounced certain sounds. OK, late
on me. So Goidelic languages, like Irish and
Scottish Gaelic, are Q -Celtic. They retained
a hard K or Q sound. Got it. But Bretonic languages,
like Welsh, are P -Celtic, meaning they shifted
that sound to a P. So for example, the word for
sun in Q -Celtic Scottish is Mac. Oh, like McDonald?
Right. But in P -Celtic Welsh, it's map. Oh wow,
so McDonald versus MapDonald. Exactly. That's
fascinating. Okay, so these p -teltic speaking
people are calling themselves the shapely people.
That is such an evocative name. It is, and it
connects directly to what the Romans later called
the tribes in the far north, the Picti, or the
Picts, which translates from Latin as the painted
people. Ah, so there's a theme there. Definitely.
Both names suggest a culture deeply obsessed
with physical and visual expression. Likely through
elaborate tattoos, body paint, or incredibly
intricate clothing, they define themselves by
their visual forms. Which is the perfect transition
into what their day -to -day culture actually
looked like on the ground. Because if they were
obsessed with visual expression, it definitely
showed up in their physical artifact. Oh, absolutely.
The source material mentions they followed a
religion overseen by Druids, and they belong
to dozens of distinct tribes, like the Catuvlone,
the Bregantes, the Iceni. Right, Boutechius tribe.
Yes. And their art was categorized as the Insular
-Laten style. Yeah. But what does that actually
look like if you're holding it in your hands?
OK, if you look at something like the Battersea
Shield, it's this stunning bronze ceremonial
shield from the third to first century BC, you
don't see crude primitive tool marks. No. Insular
La Tène is characterized by sweeping asymmetrical
curves. It's full of interlocking spirals, swelling
teardrop shapes, and motifs that seem to constantly
shift. Shift how? Like, depending on how the
light hits them, the shapes shift between abstract
geometry and the faces of animals or birds. It
is highly sophisticated, almost psychedelic metalwork.
And they applied that same metalworking genius
to their warfare, which brings us back to those
trumpets from the intro. The carnix? Yes, the
carnix. I was reading descriptions of this thing.
It's a bronze wind instrument, but it's held
vertically so it towers over the heads of the
soldiers. Yeah, it's massive. And the bell at
the top is shaped like the head of a wild boar
or a wolf with an articulated jaw and a wooden
tongue that would vibrate when played. Exactly.
The Romans actually wrote about how deeply unsettling
it was, to face it. The Carnix wasn't just for
musical accompaniment. No. No, it was designed
to emit a harsh, piercing shriek that would cut
right through the noise of battle. It's pure
psychological warfare. Yeah. But OK, here is
where my brain short circuits. What's that? We
have these fierce painted warriors holding gorgeous
bronze shields, blowing screaming wolf trumpets
to terrify their enemies. Wait, so these fierce
Celtic warriors were also burying themselves
with sacred chickens to guide their souls to
the afterlife? Yes. That completely flips the
script on ancient history. Like the archaeological
evidence shows that before the Romans arrived,
these people refused to eat chickens or hares.
Julius Caesar explicitly wrote about it. In his
commentary to Bello Gallico, he noted that the
Britons considered it contrary to divine law
to consume chickens, hares, or geese. They actually
bury their dead with whole chickens. I have to
admit, that shatters the one -dimensional barbarian
stereotype completely. It really does. But if
you look at the mechanics of their belief system,
you know, overseen by the druids... It begins
to make sense. How so? Well, humans have always
assigned profound spiritual weight to animals
that behave strangely or inhabit unique spaces.
To the Celtic Britons, hares and chickens weren't
agricultural livestock. Right. They were brought
over from somewhere else. Exactly. They were
exotic. They believed these creatures existed
in a liminal space, a threshold between the living
world and the afterlife. So there were spiritual
guides. Not dinner. Precisely. They were sacred
psychopomps meant to guide the soul. You only
start to see chickens consumed as a regular food
source much later. When the Romans arrived. Yeah,
when the Romans introduced widespread urbanization
and shift the entire agricultural model of the
island. Which means we have to talk about the
Romans because this unique, eccentric, highly
artistic culture couldn't stay isolated forever.
No, they couldn't. In 43 AD, the Roman Empire,
the ultimate unstoppable military machine, invades
and they fundamentally change what it meant to
be a Britain. forcing them into a desperate fight
for survival, right? It was a cataclysmic shift.
The Romans decisively conquered the southern
half of the island, establishing the province
of Britannia, but they couldn't conquer everyone.
No, the north was a problem. A huge problem.
The Britannic and Pictish tribes in the rugged
north pushed back with such ferocity that in
122 AD, Emperor Hadrian ordered the construction
of a literal physical divide. Hadrian's Wall.
which is insane when you think about it. The
Rome has essentially said, we give up, just build
a wall across the entire width of the country.
They did try pushing further north 20 years later
to build the Antonine Wall, but they eventually
retreated back, so you end up with a physically
divided island. Two different worlds. Exactly.
South of the wall, you have a Romano -British
culture blending Roman urbanism with native traditions.
North of the wall, the Britons remain fiercely,
stubbornly independent. But then the Roman Empire
starts crumbling. Fast forward to about 400 AD
and the Roman military just packs up and leaves
Britannia to fend for itself and history hates
a vacuum. Almost immediately, the island is hit
by a devastating wave of migrations and invasions.
Germanic -speaking Anglo -Saxons begin crossing
the North Sea to settle the east and south coasts.
Meanwhile, Gaelic -speaking Scots migrate from
Ireland to the western coasts of Scotland. So
the Britons were completely surrounded. The map
of their territory just shattered. Completely
fractured. They get pushed to the extreme western
fringes of their own island. into the mountains
of Wales and the peninsula of Cornwall. Some
of them even flee the island entirely. It was
a massive diaspora. Yeah, they sail across the
English Channel and settle in Armarca, which
is why that region of France is still known today
as Brittany. I even read they established a colony
down in Galicia in northwestern Spain called
Bretonia. It was a desperate flight for a lot
of them. But here's where it gets really interesting
for me. We always hear about the ones who fled
south or west. But the source material mentions
a region called Urhen Ogold, the Old North. Ah,
yes. Covering northern England and southern Scotland.
Right. And the Britonic kingdoms there didn't
run. The kingdom of Strathclyde successfully
fought off the Anglo -Saxons, the Gaels, and
eventually the Vikings. They remained an independent
Britain kingdom until the 1090s. Which is...
Centuries of survival against impossible odds.
Their resilience is astounding. It's wild to
think about. And if you connect this to your
understanding of modern geography, the implications
are huge. When you look at a map of the UK today,
When you see the defined borders of Wales, the
distinct cultural zone of Cornwall, the division
between England and Scotland, you are literally
looking at the direct geopolitical fallout of
that exact fifth century fragmentation. Those
modern borders are the scars of the Britons fight
for survival. That is mind blowing. The map is
basically a photograph of where the Britons managed
to hold the line. Exactly. But what about the
places where they supposedly didn't? If you read
traditional history texts, they claim the Anglo
-Saxons completely wiped out the Britons in eastern
England. Just total eradication. Well, that was
the accepted narrative for a very long time,
heavily driven by texts like the Anglo -Saxon
Chronicle. Right. It was compiled around 890
AD, but it has an entry for the year 491 describing
an Anglo -Saxon siege of a southern fort and
a desaster. And what does it say? The text explicitly
brags that they slew everyone inside, and nor
was there for that reason one Briton left alive.
OK, I have to push back. hard on this. Yeah.
So did the Britons in the East actually get wiped
out or did they just rebrand? Because not one
Briton left alive sounds like pure political
propaganda. It definitely does. If the Anglo
-Saxons didn't wipe them out, why does everyone
in eastern England speak a Germanic language
today? It doesn't make sense that a surviving
native majority would just voluntarily give up
their Celtic language. This raises an important
question right feeling. How do we define survival?
And how does a language change without a genocide?
The mechanism historians point to now is a concept
called elite dominance. Elite dominance, okay.
The Anglo -Saxons didn't need to kill every farmer.
They just needed to take over the positions of
power. If the new kings, the tax collectors,
and the courts all speak Old English, then the
native Britons have to learn Old English if they
want to trade, seek justice, or achieve any social
mobility. Ah, so it goes back to my corporate
buyout analogy. Let's hear it. The Anglo -Saxons
come in, execute a hostile takeover, and change
the name of the company. The local workers, the
Britons, aren't fired or killed. They're still
working the same fields. They just have to learn
the new boss's language and wear the new company
uniform if they ever want a promotion. That is
exactly how it functioned. And because they were
still there, they left indelible ghosts in the
landscape. Oh, I love that phrase, ghosts in
the landscape, like what? Well, historically
speaking, the biography of St. Gufflack, an eighth
century hermit living in the swamplands of eastern
England, records him being attacked by people
speaking Bretonnic in the Fens. Wait, in the
eighth century? 300 years after they were supposedly
wiped out. Exactly. They are still living in
the Fens, and the linguistic ghosts are still
on the map, too. Right. River names and things
like that. Everywhere. The River Cam in Cambridge
derives from a proto -Celtic word meaning crooked.
You find towns with the root wheel, which was
the Anglo -Saxon word for foreigner or Britain,
in places like Walpole and Walsokan. That's wild.
They were calling the natives foreigners in their
own land. Yeah. There are even 13th century records
of the Wandelberry legend in Cambridge that preserve
strong echoes of ancient Celtic paganism. But
the real smoking gun is the DNA, isn't it? It
always is. The sources highlight two major genetic
studies by Schiffles and Martiniano that looked
at the DNA of Iron Age and Roman era Britons.
Yes. And when geneticists compared the ancient
indigenous Britons to the later Anglo -Saxon
arrivals, the populations were substantially
different. OK, how different? The Anglo -Saxons
matched modern Danes and Dutch populations. But
when they looked at the modern inhabitants of
places like Yorkshire in eastern England, they
found those Those modern people don't differ
significantly from the ancient native Britons
found in those exact same regions. The political
kingdoms fell, and the Britonic language in the
East was replaced, but the bloodline survived.
Iron Age Britons actually share close genetic
links to modern Celts, particularly the Welsh.
So what does this all mean? We started this deep
dive by throwing out the stereotype of grunting
cavemen in animal skins. Instead, we found a
highly sophisticated culture. They were Bronze
Age migrants who spent 500 years integrating
into the landscape. They were the shapely painted
people who created sweeping psychedelic bronze
art. And terrified the Romans. Right. Terrified
the Romans with animal headed war trumpets, yet
venerate the natural world so deeply they were
buried with sacred chickens. They survived the
crushing weight of the Roman Empire, and when
the world shattered around them, they fragmented
to form the modern Celtic nations of Wales, Cornwall,
and Brittany. And even in the East, where they
supposedly vanished, they just adapted, weaving
their DNA invisibly into the fabric of modern
England. To you listening right now, thank you
for coming on this custom deep dive with us.
And as you reflect on this, I want to leave you
with a final thought to mull over. Think about
your own local geography or family history. We
walk past rivers, towns, and hills every day
with names we don't fully understand. What ancient,
invisible boundaries are you crossing on your
morning commute without even realizing it? Whose
forgotten language are you speaking when you
give directions to your own home?