he Celts were a fair-haired Aryan race who came out of the east,
probably from Danube basin, around 1000 years before the birth of Christ. They are first
mentioned in Greek writings of 500 BC, being described as a group of tribes with a common
culture. By 300 BC they were the dominant race of the western world, having imposed their
Iron Age culture from the Bosphorus to the Atlantic, from the Baltic to the
Mediterranean. However, they never estabilished an empire but remained a grouping or
warlike tribes, connected by a family of languages and a polytheist religion with its
druidical priesthood.
The first traces of the Celts in Britain date back to 300 BC, but they had certainly started colonizing these islands before then. Their domination of Europe ended with Caesar's Gallic wars, and in Britain, following the Roman conquest of 43-85 AD, the Celtic nobility became Romanized and in places retained some local administration on behalf of the occupying power. They regained control of Britain briefly when the Romans left over 300 years later, and estabilished the early Celtic Christian church. But they were then displaced by Anglo-Saxons. In the hills and valleys of what is now Wales, something of their culture and language - which developed into Welsh - still survives.