The blog of The Druid

They came originally from Asia and formed the trunk, as a member of the Indo-Germanic people, who settled in western Europe in the twentieth century BC and inhabited the central and northern Europe. By 1000 BC spread across the British Isles, northern France, part of Switzerland and northern Italy. Invaded Spain in the ninth century BC Their language was Indo-European, which are preserved rare literary records.
By the fourth century BC were displaced from the central and northern Europe, following the arrivals of other peoples, the Germanic groups
They developed the so-called culture of Hallstatt and La Tène . The first was manifested in the first period of the Iron Age. He took the name of a town in Upper Austria. It originated from the Bronze Age , where the iron substituted by other materials in the manufacture of items such as swords, spear points, axes, needles, containers, knives and daggers.
La Tene culture is Celtic in the second Iron Age structured in three or four periods. Ran from the Hallstatt and Roman conquest (450 to 50 BC). Those who shared this civilization is noted for the development of large items such as swords, shields elongated, oversized buckles, brooches, built their fortifications on the heights and minted its own currency.
The most characteristic monuments of the Celts were the Dolmens (Gaelic tohl table, and maen: stone), menhirs (Gaelic maen: stone and hir: high or upright), trilithons. The first describes a megalith consists of a flat rock in the form of slab, placed horizontally on two or more vertical pillars of stone, the others refer to an isolated rock three to eight meters high. It also highlighted the impressive megalithic tombs developed modalities atrium, gallery, portal, or a combination of these. Special consideration deserves the famous and mysterious megalithic alignments formation Stonehenge , 13 miles. north of Salisbury, a town in Wiltshire, southern England. Excavations and carbon-14 measurements have shown that exceptionally long history of use as a ritual or religious center. Its construction spanned five stages, where the first began in the 2800 BC.
Unlike the Romans, who built only within the city limits and near-famous routes such as the Via Apia, the Celts built around nature, that lived more in touch with her.
They were also carriers of the culture called urnenfelder or "potter's fields." They lived in villages located in mounds of easy defense, called - in Galicia - forts , with dwellings irregularly distributed. Its economy was closed, and livestock grazing.
The warriors and herders were organized into a variety of tribes, clans and groups. Socially progressively developed, differing in priestly classes ( Druids ), nobles, merchants and peasants.