The Greek historian Herodotus wrote ~ 450 BC that the Celts occupied the most western regions of Europe, what is now Southern Portugal (Algarve and the Alentejo) and South-west Spain (Western Andalusia). He wrote:
"...The Keltoi (Celts) live beyond the Pillars of Hercules [Straights of Gibraltar] and border the Cynetes who are the westernmost inhabitants of Europe..." (trans, Freeman in Koch & Carey 2003,5).
To be honest, this is to be taken with a grain of salt. Herodotus was, in many respects, geographically challenged. We do not know how much knowledge the Greeks in his time (5th century BC) - and how much he actually had of the Atlantic Façade and of Westenr Europe. There is no mentioning for instance of the Iberians by Herodotus, who clearly were in contact with the Greeks.
In ~ 40 BC Strabo, another Greek historian, describes Celtic tribes as occupying North-west Spain and NW Portugal with cultural practices very similar to the Gauls.
This is correct. On th other hand, Strabo also describes the Turdetani (who are probably the descends of the Tartessians, as
Iberians).
The Atlantic School posits that Celtic speaking communities were already present in SW Iberia as early as ~ 825 BC (Cunliffe and Koch, 2010).
This notion is purely based on the idea that Tartessian is a Celtic language, which can be refuted with certainty (since the examples that Koch brought up do not conform to Celtic sound laws). However, while I wouldn't rule out that Celtic languages were spoken in Iberia by the 9th century BC (in fact, this is kind of inevitable since you cannot otherwise explain the thorough presence of (Q-)Celtic-speaking peoples in Iberia.
It should be said that the Greeks never clearly located the Celts in the central European zone (Hallstatt / La Tene). See Koch (2010) and Collis (2003).
I disagree. First off, the Celtic invasion of the Balkans cannot be written away. It resulted in the attempted invasion of Greece (notably, the battle of the Thermopylae in 279 BC). A part of the Celtic tribes (offshots of the Boii and Volcae) moved on further into Anatolia and established the kingdom of Galatia, which lasted until it was subjugated by the Romans. The Galatians clearly came from Central Europe.
Furthermore, there are, although scarce and short, clearly Celtic inscriptions from Austria, Bavaria and Slovenia, written in variants of both the Greek and Etruscan alphabets.
There is also linguistic evidence in the Germanic languages, namely clearly Celtic borrowings which MUST have entered into Proto-Germanic because they correspond to common Germanic sound laws. Proto-Germanic makes the mutation from initial K -> H (compare Latin "
centum" with English "
hundred").
One example is the word for "steed", which is found in Gaulish as "
Marcos" (Breton "
Marc'h", Welsh "
March"), which is found in English "Mare" and German "Mähre".
There is also the term
*Walha- to be considered, which means "foreigner", used in opposition to the term
*Theudiskaz ("one's own tribe" - used today for instance in the word "
Deutschland"). It is found today in place names like "Wales", "Wallonia" and "Wallachia", and is probably derived from the Celtic tribal name "Volcae".
Perhaps even more drastic is the word for "iron":
Gaulish - "Isarnos"
Irish - "Iarann"
Breton - "Houarn"
Welsh - "Haern"
English - "Iron"
Dutch - "Ijzer"
German - "Eisen"
Gothic - "Isarn"
Swedish - "Järn"
Archaeologically, iron-working arrives in northern Germany / Scandinavia from the Hallstatt Culture. The similarity of Gaulish "Isarnos" and Gothic "Isarn" very striking - you have a clear correlation that iron working must have arrived with the Germanic peoples from Celtic-speaking peoples. Since we know archaeologically speaking when iron-working arrived in northern Germany, we can roughly date this time of Celtic-Germanic contact to approximately 600 BC.
Finally, there is also onomastic evidence. Ptolemy in his "Geographia" offers readily identifiable Celtic place names not only in Noricum and Vindelicia, in fact Celtic town names extend as far as the Main and even as far north and east as Silesia. It's quite astounding that in Ptolemy's time (2nd century
AD), a time in which the areas north of the Danube must clearly have been Germanicized, you still find plenty of Celtic town names.
One issue I wanted to add regard for Herodotus, he claims that the Celts (Keltoi) lived near the source of the Istros (Danube). Now, again, Herodotus seems to have been really challenged here because he apparently thought that the Danube was flowing from the
Pyrenees through half of Europe. Some people (Koch) think that this is evidence that the Greeks placed the Celts in the Pyrenees, and not into Central Europe. The problem with this is that in the Pyrenees, there is practically no onomastic evidence of Celtic languages - only Basque/Aquitanian and Iberian. Even with the Gaulish tribes in the vicinity of the Pyrenees (for instance, the Volcae Tectosages), there is evidence of an Aquitanian substrate. This shows that the Gauls were relatively recent immigrants in this area. In contrast, there verymuch is Celtic presence in the actual source area of the Danube.
This is, in my opinion, also the key weakness of the hypothesis of the Atlantic School: if the Celtic languages do have their origin in the Atlantic Facade? What does this make of Hallstatt and La-Tene? We cannot simply ignore all the evidence above. Just like Hallstatt/La-Tene (or even Urnfield) cannot explain the presence of Celtic languages in Iberia, the Atlantic Bronze Age alone cannot explain the thorough presence of Celtic-speaking people in Central Europe.
Come on guy, try and refute the evidence. Try it. Go on little Grizz. You will be embarrassed again and again.
