The great (and amazing) Celts and Britons QA Thread

[alex33]

Armed with knowledge from the olden days, our expert on ancient Celts and Britons, Brennus, emerges from the depths of Gaul, like the legendary Rix of old to burn dow... no, wait... scrap that... he emerges from his garden shed to answer all the burning questions about Celts and Britons you always wanted answered. So feel free to ask whatever you wanted to know about those great civilizations

[VickyLyn]

Cool!

[Lusitanio]

I would like to ask about the influence of the Celts in the Iberian Peninsula. When did they came, how did they adapt to the society, their organisation there, the armies, contact with Carthage and Rome, etc...

[Genava]

I would like to ask about the influence of the Celts in the Iberian Peninsula. When did they came, how did they adapt to the society, their organisation there, the armies, contact with Carthage and Rome, etc...

What is a celt and what isn't a celt? It is an important question there. If it is based on languages, we have generally no clues about the languages of a very huge number of archaeological cultures. If it is based on the mythology and the religion, we have again no clues. Especially for the tribes in Spain. The Romans and the Greeks where bad ethnographers, they only describe tribes that fit their own ideological opinions of the world. Iberians? not interesting. Celtiberians? just a few words. Lusitanians? what a joke. Galicians and Asturians tribes? who are they? The problem is there. We need more informations on their society to know their relation in comparison with others society. Informations we haven't.

Gladly, there is archaeology and sometimes good archaeology. In the subject of the origin of the Celts, there is material clues relating the Spanish iron age tribes with the British isles iron age tribes through the Atlantic bronze age.
http://www.csarmento.uminho.pt/docs/...ve1999_005.pdf
http://www.academia.edu/1262855/Iber..._Mediterranean

About the warfare, a few articles:
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/do...10.1086/529423
https://www4.uwm.edu/celtic/ekeltoi/...lorrio_6_2.pdf
https://www.uam.es/proyectosinv/equu...%20enemies.pdf
http://www.academia.edu/735291/_Guer..._against_Rome_
http://www.academia.edu/727113/_Not_...berian_armies_
https://www.uam.es/proyectosinv/equu...%20Quesada.pdf

[LusitanianWolf]

Great initiative!

[Baharr]

Following on from that response, actually, what does "Celt" specifically mean? Is it an umbrella term for several ethnicities and languages loosely connected by common cultural roots and a degree of mutual intelligibility (like e.g. modern-day Slavs), is it just a word that Greeks and Romans loosely threw around and we inherited, or something else?

Basically: what do we mean today when we say "Celts?" (And is there a general consensus among historians as to the answer to this question?)

[Lyathon]

Were the Celts (and different types) native to Europe? I heard somewhere about Indo-Europeans migrating.

[Hound_Of_Culann]

I have 2 questions!

1) How much, in your opinion, did the Brythonic/"British" Celtic religion borrow from the religious customs of pre-Celtic peoples' who inhabited the British isles before them? Did they co-opt or continue any traditions, holy sites, customs...

2) If I took a time machine and traveled back to the area where Celtic and Germanic cultures met and mingled, what would I see? What are some unique traits of the tribes we would describe as Celto-Germanic? Did the Belgae build, worship or fight in a way that had both Celtic and Germanic elements? If I visited current-day southern Germany or the northern edges of the Czech republic, how would I see a fusion between Celtic and Germanic ways of life, during the time when both cultures touched elbows?

[Genava]

I have 2 questions!

1) How much, in your opinion, did the Brythonic/"British" Celtic religion borrow from the religious customs of pre-Celtic peoples' who inhabited the British isles before them? Did they co-opt or continue any traditions, holy sites, customs...

[Morrowgan]

Being biased towards the "civilized" factions of EB II, what makes the Celts so appealing to you?

[Genava]

Basically: what do we mean today when we say "Celts?" (And is there a general consensus among historians as to the answer to this question?)

There are two opposite views. I suggest John Collis for the skeptical view and Karl Raimund for the classical view. For example, John Collis stated that the British pre-roman iron age cultures are not Celtic, since they are not Hallstatt neither La Tène and since the Romans never called them "celts". In my opinion, it is overskepticism. John Collis is in a no-brain interpretation of the iron age cultures that works only because British archaeology is horrible (most of the iron age sites discovered aren't studied completely yet). The weakest point in his opinion is that for him the label "celtic" is only referring to La Tène cultures. But there are clearly similarities between British and continental iron age populations he has trouble to explain... why the goddess Brigantia is known both in the British isles and in the mainland for example?

2) If I took a time machine and traveled back to the area where Celtic and Germanic cultures met and mingled, what would I see? What are some unique traits of the tribes we would describe as Celto-Germanic? Did the Belgae build, worship or fight in a way that had both Celtic and Germanic elements? If I visited current-day southern Germany or the northern edges of the Czech republic, how would I see a fusion between Celtic and Germanic ways of life, during the time when both cultures touched elbows?

You should be disappointed because generally cultural transmission is unilateral. There is a dominant culture in its golden age that spreads in every directions and later it will be another one. The Celts of the La Tène culture spread their way to live and even reach Poland, Denmark and Ukraine. Much later, the Germanic peoples of Jastorf and Oxhöft cultures spread their way to live and did the same. The przeworsk culture is a good example to follow up this trend. Very celtic in the beginning and germanic at the end. Another example, there are several Celtic loan words in the Germanic languages, most comes from the politic and the military vocabularies:
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~kroch/cou...celt-loans.pdf

About the Belgae, the idea that they were germanic or germanized is not supported by any archeological elements. It seems they have the same origins than the Volcae Tectosages and Arecomici settling in southern France during the third century BC, from central europe.

[torf]

For the Volcae, that's the view of some old french specialists, like Vencesla Kruta. But some others, like Jean-Louis Brunaux, says, according Caesar and Strabon (and their source Poseidonios, that traveled in southern Gaul), that the Volcae are coming from the Languedoc (Les Celtes, Histoire d'un mythe, p318-319).

Another french text about this view : http://epmp.huma-num.fr/volques-tectosages/

[Genava]

For the Volcae, that's the view of some old french specialists, like Vencesla Kruta. But some others, like Jean-Louis Brunaux, says, according Caesar and Strabon (and their source Poseidonios, that traveled in southern Gaul), that the Volcae are coming from the Languedoc (Les Celtes, Histoire d'un mythe, p318-319).

Another french text about this view : http://epmp.huma-num.fr/volques-tectosages/

Thank you very much for this text. I checked in the books of V. Kruta, he has never described in details his opinion about the Volcae but it seems based on the idea of the gold of Tolosa. I think the position of Brunaux is more rigorous in this case. I found another similar critic of the old view in this book, 3rd part: https://digilib.phil.muni.cz/handle/...e-attribute=cs

About the Belgae, the position of Kruta is better detailed, but more nuanced. The region of Champagne is depopulated during the fifth century BC and there is a resettlement during the end of the fourth century. Several finds in the burials indicate a Central Europe origin: Belts of Solre-le-Château and of Leval-Trahegnies, axle key of Leval-Trahegnies, lignite wristbands of Fesques, a decorated fibula of Fesques and the finery of Martot. The theory of Kruta is then followed by Nathalie Ginoux who described a redistribution of the population and the appearance of complete military panoplies from central Europe in the Belgian and Parisian regions during the third century BC.

[Admiral Piett]

What happened to the Galatians and the Gallic tribes of Thrace?

[torf]

Thank you for the book Les relations entre la Bohême et la Gaule du IVe au Ier siècle avant J.-C , I will read this one.

About the Belgae, I remember something I have seen in the book Les religions gauloises (p170-172) of Jean-louis Brunaux, about a battle during the installation of Belgae in Picardie.
He says that there was a battle by nearly 260 BC at Ribemont-sur-Ancre. The opposents seems to be the Belgae that arrived in this part of Gaul (maybe the Ambiani, according the place of the battle) and some Armorici tribes, probably Lexovii or Aulerci Eburovices (according the coins finds on some defeated warriors). After the victory, the Belgae builds a temple of a particular style, like a trophy.

He said that before this battle, this region seems to have been sparcely populated. At the nearly sanctuary of Gournay-sur-Aronde, some evidence of a small sanctuary dating of the 4th century BC (the same book, pages 151-152) have been found. When the Belgae (the Bellovaci) arrived, they seems to have build their own sanctuary on this old one.

The Armorici are known to lived of the trade between Gaul and Britain. This part of Gaul was maybe very usefull for their trading activity. Jean-Louis Brunaux hypothesized that the Armorici exercised, before the arrival of the Belgae, an hegemony on this region due to their activity, or that they wanted to imposed their hegemony on this region. But the presence of armorican ceramics, in the few settlements of the 4th century, make him prefer the first hypothesis.

Also I have question about the buildings descriptions. Is it planned to make a new description (different of the description coming from EB I) for the aedui and arverni temples of governor ?

[BailianSteel]

I've got a few:

1) How would Celtic leaders learn about governance? Tactics?


2) How interconnected was the Celtic world? In the game members of Druidic order could make pilgrimages to modern day Wales. How feasible was it for Celts as far as Eastern Europe or even Anatolia to make such a pilgrimage?


3) How politically stable was the Celtic world?

[alex33]

BTW don't worry guys, Brennus is already hard at work on the replies =)

[Jormungand]

Armed with knowledge from the olden days, our expert on ancient Celts and Britons, Brennus, emerges from the depths of Gaul, like the legendary Rix of old to burn dow... no, wait... scrap that... he emerges from his garden shed to answer all the burning questions about Celts and Britons you always wanted answered. So feel free to ask whatever you wanted to know about those great civilizations

Have you read the recently released Caesar's Footprints - Journeys in Roman Gaul by Bijan Omrani? What do you think of it?

[torf]

I have another question.

The Arverni and the Aedui are some of my favorit factions. But, when I start to try to have an historical army composition and an historical gameplay, it's problematic.

Polybe and Caesar give some precious informations (about the units order on the battlefield, about the gallic coalition armies of the gallic wars, ...). But, I have find nothing about the exact composition. Unfortunatly, there is no description like those of Sellasia and Raphia Battles.

Is-it planned to have a proposition of gallic army composition ?

For the gallic politic, I'm reading a good french book about this subject :
La politique des gaulois, Vie politique et institutions en Gaule Chevelue (IIe siècle avant notre ère-70), by Emmanuel Arbabe. The informations of this book for the gallic independance period are mainly coming from Caesar, but it's an interesting study about the gallic institutions.

[alex33]

So here comes the big one with best regards from Brennus:

"Thanks for waiting everyone, hopefully the below will sufficiently answer your questions. First of all, a big thanks to Genava, who has already provided some excellent comments.

So, in turn.

Lusitanio: would like to ask about the influence of the Celts in the Iberian Peninsula. When did they came, how did they adapt to the society, their organisation there, the armies, contact with Carthage and Rome, etc...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

My colleague Trarco would be best placed to answer this, however, I shall give it a shot. There are two schools of thought on the Celts came to be in Iberia. The older of the two argues for a migration from central Europe, likely in the late Bronze Age. It views the Late Bronze Age Urnfield culture as being the cultural formation from which the Celtiberians originated. It was (and sometimes) is also postulated that the presence of Q-Celtic languages in Iberia (Horse: *Equos in Iberia rather than *Eppos in Gaul) was due to a lack of invasion/migration by Celts with the La Tène culture. Some support for this can be found in the lack of La Tène objects from Iberia (a small number from the Meseta and Catalonia), however, evidence for an invasion during the Late Bronze Age and Hallstatt (early) Iron Age, is equally lacking.

However, there are an increasing number of archaeologists and phonologists today who prefer to see the Celtic languages as originating as a result of Early Bronze Age contacts along the Atlantic coast. This would explain why it is difficult to detect evidence for an invasion; the Celtic languages developed as a means to facilitate trade between Atlantic communities, not from invasion. Thus, the limited number of objects from central Europe that we find in the Meseta and Catalonia originated from trade or the movement of limited numbers of people, not wholescale invasion. The Celts therefore never “arrived” in Iberia, instead their ancestors had been there for a long time, probably since the end of the last Ice Age.

In terms of how their societies were organised, archaeologists observe a shift in the 2nd century BC, when communities began to become increasingly centralised in towns (oppida). Unlike the oppida which emerged in central Gaul and Bohemia a century later, these oppida appear to have been independent of one another. Thus, in Bohemia, the Boii had several oppida (Závist, Stradonice etc.) which were all part of the Boii polity. By contrast, oppida in Celtiberia may have shared the same identity, for example the Arevaci, but they didn’t belong to a unified polity. Think of it in a similar way to how the Greek poleis existed. The armies of these societies appear to have become increasingly large, better armoured and specialised as time went on. Graves between the 4th and 2nd century BC display an increase in the amount of weaponry contained within them. This probably relates to the encroaching power of Carthage and Rome into the region. Indeed, we see similar patterns along the Roman Limes in the Rhineland, where Germanic societies, like the Batavi and people living in Jutland, began to value warrior identities as a result of their contact with Rome. Probably the most noticeable influence of Carthage and Rome was the adoption of coinage among Celtiberian peoples. Like other indigenous groups elsewhere in Europe, the imperial ambitions of Rome and Carthage placed a great degree of stress on some Celtiberian societies.

Baharr: Following on from that response, actually, what does "Celt" specifically mean? Is it an umbrella term for several ethnicities and languages loosely connected by common cultural roots and a degree of mutual intelligibility (like e.g. modern-day Slavs), is it just a word that Greeks and Romans loosely threw around and we inherited, or something else?Basically: what do we mean today when we say "Celts?" (And is there a general consensus among historians as to the answer to this question?)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Ah! The question with a dozen different answers. OK. “Celt” has come to mean several different things. There is the emic definition which is that if someone calls themselves a Celt, then they are a Celt. Due to the lack of texts we have from Iron Age peoples this is extended to mean that if a Classical author used the term Celt, then we should assume that the people they were talking about referred to themselves as Celts. Of course, this is not without its own problems, and it has been argued by Peter Wells (2001) in Beyond Celts, Germans and Scythians, that some people only called themselves Celts after the term had been applied to them by Greek and Roman authors. Thus, for the Iron Age, Celts would mean people from parts of Iberia, southern and central France, northern Italy and Bohemia. It may have been applicable to people in southern Germany and parts of the Balkans, but not the Belgae, Britons or Iron Age Irish. This becomes confusing as many people in Brittany, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Cornwall and the Isle of Man call themselves “Celts” today, and are recognised as such by archaeologists simply because they call themselves Celts, even though their Iron Age ancestors unlikely did.

This brings us to the second part: language. A Celt is sometimes classified as someone who spoke a Celtic language. Thus, this would include peoples in Britain and Ireland, as well as the Belgae and groups like the Galatians. Now, just to be clear, nobody in antiquity used the word “Celt” to refer to language. This comes from a Welsh phenologist called Edward Lluyd who, in the 18th century, noticed that there were clear links between Welsh, Cornish, Breton and the various forms of Gaelic. Because he knew Breton pre-dated French, he decided it was the language spoken by the Celts (which was not wrong) and thus applied the term “Celtic” to describe these languages. Recently, new discoveries at the southern Spain, at the site of Tartessos, have been used to argue that the Celtic languages originated in Iberia, whereupon they spread, via trade, along the Atlantic Coast during the Bronze Age.

Then we come to the traditional definition of a Celt, based on material culture. Herodotus described how the Danube originated in the lands of the Celts. Curiously he also mentioned the Pillars of Hercules, showing that his knowledge of where the Danube originated was not fantastic (this mention of the Pillars of Hercules has recently been linked to the evidence from Tartessos). Nevertheless, in the 19th century the famous site of Hallstatt was excavated in Austria. Here a new Iron Age culture was discovered, which was named after the site. Ten years later the site of La Tène was discovered in Switzerland, and the new culture represented here was in turn named after this site. It was realised shortly after that the Hallstatt culture (c800-475BC) was succeeded in central and western Europe by the La Tène culture (c.475-20BC, on the continent). Based on Caesar’s comments that “the Gauls call themselves Celts in their own language” it was accepted that the La Tène culture was the culture of the Celts. This also fitted with the fact that the La Tène culture succeeded the Hallstatt culture, which was located at the source of the Danube at the time Herodotus had described the Celts being there. Thus, anyone who had La Tène material culture came to be viewed as a Celt. Although this covers Britain and Ireland, it doesn’t cover Iberia.

Finally, related to material culture, is art. Objects decorated in the curvilinear, abstract style of the La Tène culture are said to be decorated with “Celtic” art. Thus people talk about things like Early Medieval Irish crosses as being Celtic, when they mean the art. So, in short, there are many different ways of terming a Celt. Personally, I prefer the first option as it is more reflective of how people view themselves. It also prevents us from trying to force the archaeological record to do things it clearly can’t.

These lectures by John Collis, John Koch and Raymond Karl should help:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMmertCoa_k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aMCaoG8fMA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub5izFOdtDs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8bU...M&t=0s&index=3

Lyathon: Were the Celts (and different types) native to Europe? I heard somewhere about Indo-Europeans migrating.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Very much native to Europe. There did exist a 19th century theory which held that the Celts, along with many other groups, had migrated to Europe in a great wave at the start of the Iron Age or sometime in the Bronze Age. A recent study of DNA from the Beaker culture (c.2,900-1.800BC) by Olande et al. (2018) entitled “The Beaker phenomenon and the genomic transformation of northwest Europe” concluded that there was a major change in the genetic composition of the northern European population during this period, especially in Britain, Scandinavia, the Netherlands and Germany. However, by the time that the Iron Age begins (c.800BC) there is no evidence for similarly sized migrations. Isotopic analysis by Mirjam Scheeres (et al.) (2013; 2015) of cemeteries from Monte Bibele, Italy, Rodesive and Kutna Hora, both Bohemia, and Nebringen, Germany, have shown there to have been sizeable population movements at times (c.25% of the population), but these represent trans-Alpine migrations, not population movement from the Steppe.

Hound_of_Culann: 1) How much, in your opinion, did the Brythonic/"British" Celtic religion borrow from the religious customs of pre-Celtic peoples' who inhabited the British isles before them? Did they co-opt or continue any traditions, holy sites, customs...
2) If I took a time machine and traveled back to the area where Celtic and Germanic cultures met and mingled, what would I see? What are some unique traits of the tribes we would describe as Celto-Germanic? Did the Belgae build, worship or fight in a way that had both Celtic and Germanic elements? If I visited current-day southern Germany or the northern edges of the Czech republic, how would I see a fusion between Celtic and Germanic ways of life, during the time when both cultures touched elbows?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

1) This is a very difficult question to answer. If you subscribe the older, largely discredited idea that Celts migrated to Britain and Ireland in large waves (which is almost impossible to detect in the archaeological record) then it seems they borrowed a huge amount from the original inhabitants of the islands. This included the cosmological alignment of houses, which animals they sought to depict in their artwork, a general aversion to depicting human forms (until the 1st century BC in southern Britain, the 2nd century AD in northern Britain, and the 3rd century AD in Ireland), and the practice of making offerings to subterranean deities in bogs, rivers and pits. Indeed, there was no break in many traditions until the 1st century BC. However, if, like the majority of archaeologists, phonologists and historians you subscribe to the idea that the Iron Age peoples of Britain were overwhelmingly descended from earlier populations (except perhaps a few migrants like the Belgae), then they inherited the religious customs of their ancestors.

2) Although it is an older publication now, the best source remains Hachmann et al. (1962) Völker zwischen Germanen und Kelten. The regions where the La Tène (Celtic) and Jastorf, Pommeranian and Suddeutsche Eisenzeit (Germanic) cultures meet is characterised by small settlements, a lack of oppida, hand-turned rather than mass produced wheel-turned ceramics, and above all, graves with a lot of warrior equipment. It’s difficult to describe any traits as being distinctly Celto-Germanic. In fact, the only place which would really fit this description would be Anglo-Saxon England, where there was a fusion of North Sea Germanic traditions, British practices, and Irish influences. Also, Germanic regions beyond the main La Tène zone have also produced numerous “Celtic” artefacts, such as the triskele decorated torcs from Gammelborg or the wagon from Djerberg, both Denmark. Likewise, we find Germanic objects, such as circular shields with central spines, from La Tène sites likes Wedderath-Belginum. The contact zone between the “Germanic” and “Celtic” worlds was a very fluid area which exited for only a brief time in the 1st century BC. If you were to visit there, you would find people being very selective about which aspects of their culture they borrowed from groups to the west and east.

The idea that the Belgae were Germanic is due to an uncritical reading of Caesar. The first mention of “Germani” is from Poseidonius, writing in the early 1st century BC. “Germani” originally referred to a Celtic group, living somewhere along the banks of the Rhine. When Caesar, who plagiarised Poseidonius, talked about the Belgae being of German origin, he meant that they originated from the east bank of the Rhine. Classical authors, as has been pointed out, were terrible ethnographers. They simply employed natural geographical features, especially rivers, to divide up regions. Thus, Gaul and Germania were separated by the Rhine. At the time of the Gallic Wars, the cultures which we refer to as Germanic (Jastorf in this case) had not expanded to the Rhine. The archaeological, and the few personal names we know from numismatics and historical sources, show that the Belgae were “Celtic”. Although they possessed a distinctive regionalised form of the La Tène culture, Germanic traces are not apparent in this region until the arrival of the Franks here in the 5th century AD.

Morrowgan: Being biased towards the "civilized" factions of EB II, what makes the Celts so appealing to you?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

A variety of things. Firstly, I always like underdogs, and the Celts do fit that description quite well. I also like the fact there is something slightly magical about the Celts (to paraphrase the late Professor Barry Raftery). Whereas we have an abundance of texts for the “civilized” societies, we only get glimpses of the Celts in historical records. Thus we have to look at archaeology, and when we do, we see a variety of contradictory patterns. There is also something slightly romantic about them. 1st century BC Gaul was at a comparable level of social and technological development to Europe at the time of Charlemagne, yet due to the Romans we can never know what would have happened.

Admiral Piett: What happened to the Galatians and the Gallic tribes of Thrace?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Basically they became acculturated within the local population. As the boundaries of the La Tène culture contracted, the Gallic elites in Thrace and Galatia found themselves increasingly removed from others who displayed their power in similar ways. In order to preserve their position in society, the Gallic peoples in Thrace thus became indistinguishable from the local Thracian nobility. In Galatia a strange thing occurred. Within two generations of settling in Galatia, it is almost impossible to detect any traces of the La Tène culture in Anatolia. A few fibulae and a very small number of other metal objects are known, but it is debateable to what extent these are the result of Galatian settlement or mercenaries from Europe. Nevertheless, the Galatian elite minted coins with Celtic images on them in the 1st century AD. They employed Celtic names until the 1st century AD. And until the 6th century AD, they continued to speak a Celtic language. It was only the re-organisation of the Roman Empire following the massive territorial losses to the Islamic Caliphate which causes us to lose trace of the Galatians.

torf: Also I have question about the buildings descriptions. Is it planned to make a new description (different of the description coming from EB I) for the aedui and arverni temples of governor ?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Yes.

BaillanSteel: 1) How would Celtic leaders learn about governance? Tactics?
2) How interconnected was the Celtic world? In the game members of Druidic order could make pilgrimages to modern day Wales. How feasible was it for Celts as far as Eastern Europe or even Anatolia to make such a pilgrimage?
3) How politically stable was the Celtic world?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

1) In addition to institutions such as the druids and bards, it seems some Gallic and British nobles were educated in the Roman fashion. By the final centuries BC, the Romans had become used to holding Hellenic royal hostages and tutoring them. This practices, it seems, was also expanded to include Gallic and British hostages, as evidenced by the way in which the coinage of certain British and Gallic nobles mimicked Roman issues. Furthermore, evidence for this can be seen in regions like Burgundy, where Mediterranean drinking vessels and wine were imported in a direct emulation of Roman dining practices. Tactics are a different matter, and it is likely such things would be learnt from trial and error.

2) Very interconnected. As to the feasibility of moving from Eastern Europe or Anatolia to Britain, that is debateable. At least one British type bronze bowl has been recovered from Poland. Likewise, two, if not three bronze leg ring ornament (called Hohlbuckelringe) have been recovered from Greece and Anatolia. Hohlbuckeringe are typical of Bohemia and southern Germany, and represent very exotic finds so far south. A very exotic find is the skull of a Barbary ape from Navan fort in Northern Ireland. Barbary apes originate in Morocco. Although probably not the journey of a single person, two Gallic coins were also excavated in Delhi.

3) Not very. Some periods appear to have been more stable than others. For example, in the 4th century BC in Champagne and Bohemia, we find extremely long-lived cemeteries covering multiple generations. By the 1st century BC, however, historical texts talk about coups, attempted coups, regicides and governments changing in fairly rapid succession. The burial record during this period is also characterised by often short lived cemeteries, although, conversely, the settlement record in Gaul is the most stable of any period during the Iron Age. In short it seems that the mid-5th to late 4th century BC was a very stable period. The late 4th to the early 2nd century BC was extremely unstable, only to be followed by what appears to have been a century of stability. Finally, the 1st century BC, although initially appearing to have been stable, appears to have been as turbulent as the 3rd century BC.

Jormungand: Have you read the recently released Caesar's Footprints - Journeys in Roman Gaul by Bijan Omrani? What do you think of it?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I have not. What did you make of it?

torf: The Arverni and the Aedui are some of my favorit factions. But, when I start to try to have an historical army composition and an historical gameplay, it's problematic.
Polybe and Caesar give some precious informations (about the units order on the battlefield, about the gallic coalition armies of the gallic wars, ...). But, I have find nothing about the exact composition. Unfortunatly, there is no description like those of Sellasia and Raphia Battles.
Is-it planned to have a proposition of gallic army composition ?
For the gallic politic, I'm reading a good french book about this subject :
La politique des gaulois, Vie politique et institutions en Gaule Chevelue (IIe siècle avant notre ère-70), by Emmanuel Arbabe. The informations of this book for the gallic independance period are mainly coming from Caesar, but it's an interesting study about the gallic institutions.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

As you correctly note, the lack of historical information for the 3rd century BC frustrates attempts to accurately recreate Gallic armies in this period. Perhaps the best clue is the burial record. In the 5th century BC, graves with weapons typically contained a spear and dagger. By the 3rd century BC the panoply had changed to include an increasing number of swords. Horse riding equipment also becomes more common during this period. This trend continues into the 1st century BC, when graves with weapons contain a full set of equipment (spear, shield, sword and horse riding equipment), as well as a greater number of examples of chain mail. From these finds, it can be inferred that Gallic armies transitioned from being dominated by spearmen, with some swordsmen and chariots, to being composed of heavy, sword wielding infantry with an emphasis on cavalry.
Thank you for the book recommendation.

"