La Tene Celtic culture spreads

La Tene is the name archaeologists give to a style of Iron Age material culture found across much of temperate Europe from about 450 BCE until the Roman conquests. It is named after a site on Lake Neuchatel in Switzerland, where from 1857 thousands of weapons, tools and ornaments were found. The people who used it are identified with the Celts, known to Greek and Roman writers as Keltoi and Galatai. They never formed one state, but shared languages related to modern Irish and Welsh, similar religious ideas and a common taste in art.¹²³

The culture grew from the earlier Hallstatt Iron Age in central Europe, where chiefs grew rich on salt and metal. Around 500 BCE the center of power moved northwest to the Rhine and Marne, and rich graves such as Vix in Burgundy hold a huge bronze wine vessel imported from Greece, a sign of trade with the Mediterranean via Greek colonies like Massalia (Marseille). Celtic artists, using Etruscan and Greek motifs, developed a new style of swirling, abstract curves, palmettes and stylized faces on swords, torcs, mirrors and brooches.³⁵⁶

From the fourth century BCE Celtic groups migrated and raided: they sacked Rome around 390 BCE according to Roman tradition, settled in northern Italy, crossed the Balkans, and in 279 BCE attacked Greece and went on to settle in central Anatolia, where they became the Galatians. Later Celts built large fortified towns called oppida. The culture ended as Rome conquered Gaul under Julius Caesar by 51 BCE and Britain from 43 CE, and Celtic languages survived mainly in Ireland and parts of Britain. Celtic art lived on in Irish metalwork and in illuminated manuscripts such as the Book of Kells.⁴³