Quote from dcvtss:
Celts were at their largest geographical distribution ~300BC, covering most of western and central Europe and the Iberian, though they were never an empire in the Roman sense of the word. More like separate kingdoms/tribes linked by common language elements and culture.
As to comparisons between "mediterranean" whites and "nordic" whites, keep in mind that the people of the ancient Italian peninsula did not necessarily look the same as the people inhabiting that region today. The southern european look of today found in Spain, southern Italy and the Balkans is the result of more recent history involving North African and Turkish Islamic conquests and the resulting admixture of genetics.
Hmm, a lot of "history" seems too simplistic, really. Not every conquest involves an army, indeed the history (and subsequent lack of history ) of Carthage, a superpower/city, trading all over the mediteranean, greeks, Phoenicians, must have produced a remarkable melting pot a long time prior to the respected (such as they are) roman historians.
Particularly, given they were often trading slaves alongside other goods-even the vandal migrations to northern africa, during the roman epoch, in fact produced incredible cultural artifacts and influence.
Speaking of roman sens of words, (or latin) wasnt it Julius Ceasar who first coined the basis of the modern word "celt"? He , quite literally, wrote the book on it.
There isn't that much ambiguation as to what he meant though, clearly he differentiated most germanic tribes from more eastern tribes, he seems to speak, basically, of the tribes roughly encompassing modern france to the Pyrenees, and roughly following or overlapping on the other side, perhaps the danube or there-abouts, and possibly the british isles.
I should read Ceasar's accounts again, but im not certain he included much of iberia in his appraisal of celtic territory, per se. But, he's the go-to guy, Vercingetorix's fortress was freaking huge, its easy to think of asterix and obelix with simple wooden ramparts, a druid and some magic potion, but not the case.
Post Caesar (julius), is their any evidence, white slave traders on the volga were actually called, or known as celts?
Lets face it-Rome, greece, persia, even egypt after the glyphs were eventually translated, these empires we think of as all conquering, , exist entirely on their written records, and the fact that many worthy adversaries did not have, or had evidence destroyed, of their written culture-where it existed, leads back to the amazing modern archeology available, to back up proofs.
The classic examples of course, being Hammurabi, or the Etruscans -not much writing, but plenty of evidence of advanced civilisation.
