The
Celtiberians were a
Celtic-speaking people of the
Iberian Peninsula in the final centuries BC. The group originated when
Celts migrated from
Gaul and integrated with the local
pre-Indo-European populations, in particular the
Iberians.
Archaeologically, the Celtiberians participated in the Hallstatt culture in what is now north-central Spain. The term Celtiberi appears in accounts by Diodorus Siculus,[1] Appian[2] and Martial[3] who recognized a mixed Celtic and Iberian people; Strabo saw the Celts as the more dominant group in this blend. Extant tribal names include the Arevaci, Belli, Titti, and Lusones.
The Celtiberian language is attested from the first century BC. Other possibly Celtic languages, like Lusitanian, were spoken in pre-Roman Iberia. The Lusitani gave their name to Lusitania, the Roman province name covering current Portugal and Extremadura.
Early Celts migrated into the Iberian peninsula and penetrated as far as Cadiz, bringing aspects of Hallstatt culture in the sixth to fifth centuries BC, adopting much of the culture they found.[4] This basal Indo-European culture was of seasonally transhumant cattle-raising pastoralists protected by a warrior elite, similar to those in other areas of Atlantic Europe, centered in the hill-forts, locally termed castros, that controlled small grazing territories. These settlements of circular huts survived until Roman times across the north of Iberia, from Northern Portugal, Asturias and Galicia to the Basque Country.
