Who were these illiterate and uncouth barbarians? |
Celts technicly were a wide group of people ranging from Turkey to
Ireland and almost everywhere inbetween. Most people assiciate the
Celts with the Ancient Britons, but the oldest Celtic archeological
findings are in Central Europe, those wet and windy islands were one of
the last places to see Celtic culture take root.
Were they developing a proto civilization before the Romans invaded Gaul? |
I'd say they were well past developing a proto-civlisation, they had a few small cities, which is the main critera.
Were the Picts a branch of the Celts or were they a pre Indo European left over? |
The Picts are iffy, in the past, it was assumed that they were just
another Celtic people, seeing as all the other Ancient Britons were.
Not much is known about the Pictish language, other than Roman
accounts, and the fact that the Picts did make limited use of the Ogham
script (which probably led people to believe that they were Celtic),
but there is a growing following of people who think that the Picts
were a leftover from Britian's pre-Celtic days, possible even
Pre-Indo-European.