Was their a variation?

[ocelot397]

I was wondering, was there a large cultral differeance betwwen the celts? Was there a difference between the british(the welsh, Irish etc) and the Gauls?

[Xiaodun]

I thought that they were mostly the same untill the Gauls began to get Romanized, but Im not sure.

[wilpuri]

Of course there were variations. The Celts were not a uniform race or people, but a collection of different tribal sub-cultures all part of the Celtic culture stretching from Ireland to Asia Minor.

[Habelo]

Bu the gauls where pretty civilazed, they most have some connection to eachother.

[Pompeius Minus]

The Gauls were an advanced civilization and had some fairly big towns and fortresses, like Avaricum and Gergovia. The Britons resembled the Gauls but were a little less advanced. The Irish and Picts were less advanced than the Britons. I don't know a lot about the Celts in the Iberian peninsula, but my guess is they were similar to the Iberians i.e. fairly advanced.

"But the Gauls where pretty civilized, they must have some connection to eachother."

The Gauls had connections with the Britons, the Germans, and perhaps most importantly the Romans. Where do you think the legionaries got their chainmail and helmets from?

Like you said yourself the Gauls were pretty civilized. They lost to the Romans because they were politically fragmented and not able to mount a coordinated defense. The settled nature of Gaul actually made it a lot easier to conquer than Germany, which lacked political centres to attack (like Alesia) and agricultural resources to feed the Roman troops.

[Trax]

Picts were less advanced than the Britons.

Were the Picts Celtic at all?

[Slythis]

Indeed they were.

By some accounts Celtic cultures stretched from Hiberia (Ireland) to the Steppes. Though I beleave this is pushing it a bit I have heard the Sarmations reffered to as Celtic (in the context of the Hibernian and Sarmation Celts being the most feared by the Romans)

Variation came in cultural and religious practices. For example in Irish Society the Bards were considered Nobility and were historians first and preformers second, if at all.

[BKB]

The Picts were a celtic people but not like the Irish or scots who would come to settle their. Not much is known about them but their tongue would have been a Celtic one but not scots or Irish Gaelic.

[Habelo]

Well vercinggetorix draw on some kind of patriotic notion to their culture, didnt he get the support of all the celts?

[Frostwulf]

There were tribal variances and regional variances as well. The Belgae for instance were closely associated with the Germans, while the Britons had different settlement types then those of Gaul. I wonder if there were dialect differences, I could only imagine there would be.

They lost to the Romans because they were politically fragmented and not able to mount a coordinated defense.

I agreed with everything you said except for this. Even if they would have mounted a coordinated defense earlier, Caesar most likely would have triumphed.

Well vercinggetorix draw on some kind of patriotic notion to their culture, didnt he get the support of all the celts?

He drew a great many of the tribes together, but the Remi and the Aedui still stayed with the Romans.

[Sphere]

Well vercinggetorix draw on some kind of patriotic notion to their culture, didnt he get the support of all the celts?

I think the brutality of J. Caesar and his legions was unifying enough.

[Exarch]

da grammar nazi has this to say:

the 'their' in your title should be 'there'

now, back to topic
i think yes

[merlinuscdxx]

Indeed they were.

By some accounts Celtic cultures stretched from Hiberia (Ireland) to the Steppes. Though I beleave this is pushing it a bit I have heard the Sarmations reffered to as Celtic (in the context of the Hibernian and Sarmation Celts being the most feared by the Romans)

Variation came in cultural and religious practices. For example in Irish Society the Bards were considered Nobility and were historians first and preformers second, if at all.

This is probably just the Romans being confused as to where the Sarmatian sphere begins and the Celto-Dacian sphere ends. The Lugii and the proto-Baltic peoples were living on the fringes of the Sarmatian sphere of control/influence throughout Antiquity (as were the Getai/ Dacians). There was also some confusion as to whether the Lugii fell into the Celtic or Germanic cultural littoral, as the Lugii especially, shared some cultural characteristics with both the Celts and the Germanic tribes. There was also a fair amount of cultural exchange between both groups inhabiting the Rhineland at the time, hence the Continental Belgae (who were thought to be from either group at different times).

* both peoples' ancestors were a part of the greater Indo-European migrations, and thus shared some physical features. The "Tocharians" of the Tarim basin (Western end of Chinese Turkestan) were mistaken for Celts due to their physical appearance (Red hair and light eye color, as recorded by Chinese chroniclers) and checked (plaid) clothing (including trousers). These Tocharians' ancestors were also a part of the aforementioned migration.

[Blarni]

Keltoi was a Greek term for pretty much everyone to the northwest of them. Julius Caesar divided Gauls ethnically into Aquitanians, Belgae with the largest group being the 'Celtae'. No Roman or Greek writer ever applied the term to Britons, that's an 18th invention. However, the 'celtic' languages were spoken from Ireland to Spain to the Czech and Slovak republics - and under today's shaky and PC crippled ethnic labelling, ethnic groups are defined as speakers of the same language. My belated point is being 'Celt' is an exercise in labelling rather than any kind of united culture and certainly not ethnicity. But there were trading and at time political connections between many groups at different times, with shared cultural practises. In Britain the western peoples were closely related in trade and culture to the Veneti and other seagoing Atlantic fringe cultures. Meanwhile more eastern tribes show close cultural affinity, even tribal designation, with the Belgae, while in Yorkshire a dynasty of Parisii - true Gaulish 'Celtae' established itself and its practises. But still there was massive variation in custom, even within 'tribes', a lot of what gets defined as their culture was determined simply by which trade network they were tapped into - Welsh tribes would get goods from Western France and Spain, while Essex tribes traded with Belgae and Germanic people.
And then to make this even more complex, there was the Nordvest Block in Belgium and Holland which appears to have been neither Celtic or Germanic until encroachment from the north and south.