Ethnology of the Iberian Peninsula c. 200 BC, based on the map by Portuguese archeologist Luís Fraga

The Celtiberians were Celtic-speaking people of the Iberian Peninsula in the final centuries BC. These tribes spoke the Celtiberian language.^[1][2] Extant tribal names include the Arevaci, Belli, Titti, Lusones, and Berones.

Archaeologically, the Celtiberians participated in the Hallstatt culture in what is now north-central Spain. The term Celtiberi appears in accounts by Diodorus Siculus,^[3] Appian^[4] and Martial^[5] who recognized intermarriage between Celts and Iberians after a period of continuous warfare, though Barry Cunliffe says 'this has the ring of guesswork about it'.^[6] Strabo just saw the Celtiberians as a branch of the Celti.^[1] Pliny the Elder thought that the original home of the Celts in Iberia was the territory of the Celtici in the south-west, on the grounds of an identity of sacred rites, language, and the names of cities.^[7]

The Celtiberian language is one of the Hispano-Celtic (a.k.a. Iberian Celtic) languages that were spoken in pre-Roman and early Roman Iberia.

History [edit]

Main language areas of pre-Roman Iberia, according to epigraphy and toponymy, based on the map by Luís Fraga

Strabo cites Ephorus's belief that there were Celts in the Iberian peninsula as far as Cadiz,^[8] bringing aspects of Hallstatt culture in the 6th to 5th centuries BC, adopting much of the culture they found. This basal Indo-European culture was of seasonally transhumant cattle-raising pastoralists protected by a warrior elite, similar to those in other areas of Atlantic Europe, centered in the hill-forts, locally termed castros, that controlled small grazing territories. These settlements of circular huts survived until Roman times across the north of Iberia, from Northern Portugal, Asturias and Galicia through Cantabria and northern Leon to the Ebro River.^[9]

Celtic presence in Iberia likely dates to as early as the 6th century BC, when the castros evinced a new permanence with stone walls and protective ditches. Archaeologists Martín Almagro Gorbea and Alvarado Lorrio recognize the distinguishing iron tools and extended family social structure of developed Celtiberian culture as evolving from the archaic castro culture which they consider "proto-Celtic".

Archaeological finds identify the culture as continuous with the culture reported by Classical writers from the late 3rd century onwards (Almagro-Gorbea and Lorrio). The ethnic map of Celtiberia was highly localized however, composed of different tribes and nationes from the 3rd century centered upon fortified oppida and representing a wide ranging degree of local assimilation with the autochthonous cultures in a mixed Celtic and Iberian stock.

Territory of the Celtiberi tribe with the probable locations of its sub-groups

The cultural stronghold of Celtiberians was the northern area of the central meseta in the upper valleys of the Tagus and Douro east to the Iberus (Ebro) river, in the modern provinces of Soria, Guadalajara, Zaragoza and Teruel. There, when Greek and Roman geographers and historians encountered them, the established Celtiberians were controlled by a military aristocracy that had become a hereditary elite. The dominant tribe were the Arevaci, who dominated their neighbors from powerful strongholds at Okilis (Medinaceli) and who rallied the long Celtiberian resistance to Rome. Other Celtiberians were the Belli and Titti in the Jalón valley, and the Lusones to the east.

Excavations at the Celtiberian strongholds Kontebakom-Bel Botorrita, Sekaisa Segeda, Tiermes^[10] complement the grave goods found in Celtiberian cemeteries, where aristocratic tombs of the 6th to 5th centuries BC give way to warrior tombs with a tendency from the 3rd century BC for weapons to disappear from grave goods, either indicating an increased urgency for their distribution among living fighters or, as Almagro-Gorbea and Lorrio think, the increased urbanization of Celtiberian society. Many late Celtiberian oppida are still occupied by modern towns, inhibiting archaeology.

Bronze Celtiberian fibula representing a warrior (3rd–2nd century BC)

Metalwork stands out in Celtiberian archaeological finds, partly from its indestructible nature, emphasizing Celtiberian articles of warlike uses, horse trappings and prestige weapons. The two-edged sword adopted by the Romans was previously in use among the Celtiberians, and Latin lancea, a thrown spear, was a Hispanic word, according to Varro. Celtiberian culture was increasingly influenced by Rome in the two final centuries BC.

From the 3rd century, the clan was superseded as the basic Celtiberian political unit by the oppidum, a fortified organized city with a defined territory that included the castros as subsidiary settlements. These civitates as the Roman historians called them, could make and break alliances, as surviving inscribed hospitality pacts attest, and minted coinage. The old clan structures lasted in the formation of the Celtiberian armies, organized along clan-structure lines, with consequent losses of strategic and tactical control.

The Celtiberians were the most influential ethnic group in pre-Roman Iberia, but they had their largest impact on history during the Second Punic War, during which they became the (perhaps unwilling) allies of Carthage in its conflict with Rome, and crossed the Alps in the mixed forces under Hannibal's command. As a result of the defeat of Carthage, the Celtiberians first submitted to Rome in 195 BC; Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus spent the years 182 to 179 pacifying (as the Romans put it) the Celtiberians; however, conflicts between various semi-independent bands of Celtiberians continued. After the city of Numantia was finally taken and destroyed by Scipio Aemilianus Africanus the younger after a long and brutal siege that ended the Celtic resistance (154 – 133 BC), Roman cultural influences increased; this is the period of the earliest Botorrita inscribed plaque; later plaques, significantly, are inscribed in Latin. The Sertorian War, 80 – 72 BC, marked the last formal resistance of the Celtiberian cities to Roman domination, which submerged the Celtiberian culture.

Botorrita plaque: one of four bronze plates with inscriptions.

The Celtiberian presence remains on the map of Spain in hundreds of Celtic place-names. The archaeological recovery of Celtiberian culture commenced with the excavations of Numantia, published between 1914 and 1931.

A Roman army auxiliary unit, the Cohors I Celtiberorum, is known from Britain, attested by 2nd century AD discharge diplomas.^[11]

See also [edit]

• Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula
• Gallaeci

Notes [edit]

References [edit]

• Antonio Arribas, The Iberians, London: Thames & Hudson, 1964
• Francisco Burillo Mozota, Los Celtíberos, etnias y estados. Crítica, 2007
• Barry Cunliffe, 'Iberia and the Celtiberians' in "The Ancient Celts". London: Penguin Books, 1997 ISBN 0-14-025422-6
• Alberto J. Lorrio, Los Celtíberos, Murcia: Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 1997 ISBN 84-7908-335-2
• Alberto J. Lorrio and Gonzalo Ruiz Zapatero, "The Celts in Iberia: an Overview" in e-Keltoi 6
• J. P. Mallory, In Search of the Indo-Europeans. London: Thames & Hudson, 1989 ISBN 0-500-05052-X
• Jesús Martín-Gil, Gonzalo Palacios-Leblé, Pablo Martín-Ramos and Francisco J. Martín-Gil, "Analysis of a Celtiberian protective paste and its possible use by Arevaci warriors". e-Keltoi 5, pp. 63–76.

External links [edit]

Media related to Celtiberians at Wikimedia Commons

• Gamito, Teresa Júdice (September 2005). "The Celts in Portugal". e-Keltoi (Center for Celtic Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee). 6: The Celts in the Iberian Peninsula: 571–605. 
• Lorrio, Alberto J.; Gonzalo Ruiz Zapatero (February 2005). "The Celts in Iberia: An Overview". e-Keltoi (Center for Celtic Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee). 6: The Celts in the Iberian Peninsula: 167–254. 
• Ramos, Jesus Rodriquez (March 17, 2006). "Iberian Epigraphy Page". Jesus Rodriquez Ramos. Retrieved 2008-11-29. 
• "Botorrita 1". Quellentexte (in German, Celtiberian). Vienna: *indegermanistik wien: Institutsteil des Instituts für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität Wien. 2002. Retrieved November 30, 2008. 
• Almagro-Gorbea, Martín; Alberto J. Lorrio (October 2004). "War and Society in the Celtiberian World". e-Keltoi (Center for Celtic Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee). 6: The Celts in the Iberian Peninsula: 73–112. 
• "The Celtiberian and Roman city of Tiernes": an on-going excavation
• James Grout: The Celtiberian War, part of the Encyclopædia Romana
• Detailed map of the Pre-Roman Peoples of Iberia (around 200 BC)

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