The ancient Celts were a widespread group of tribes whose rich culture has been identified through burials, artifacts and language.
1. The Celts were the largest group in ancient Europe.
The ancient culture known as the Celts once extended far beyond the British Isles. With territory stretching from Spain to the Black Sea, the Celts were geographically the largest group of people to inhabit ancient Europe.
The difficulty of tracing Celtic history is that none of these ancient peoples living in Western or Central Europe would have called themselves Celts. That name came from the Greeks, who made their first contact with a “barbarian” people they called the Keltoi in 540 B.C. on the southern coast of France. The ancient Celts were never a single kingdom or an empire, but a collection of hundreds of tribal chiefdoms with a shared culture and distinctive language.
BY: DAVE ROOS UPDATED: JUNE 20, 2023 | ORIGINAL: MARCH 17, 2021
