Editing Gaul (section)

===Pre-Roman===<!--linked-->
{{Further|Prehistoric France|Celts|La Tène culture|Greeks in pre-Roman Gaul}}
[[File:Droysens Hist Handatlas S16 Gallien.jpg|thumb|upright=1.25|Map of Roman Gaul (Droysens Allgemeiner historischer Handatlas, 1886)]]

There is little written information concerning the peoples that inhabited the regions of Gaul, save what can be gleaned from coins. Therefore, the early history of the Gauls is predominantly a matter of archaeology, and the relationships between their [[Archaeological culture|material culture]], genetic relationships (the study of which has been aided, in recent years, through the field of [[archaeogenetics]]) and linguistic divisions rarely coincide.

Before the rapid spread of the [[La Tène culture]] in the 5th to 4th centuries BC, the territory of eastern and southern France already participated in the Late [[Bronze Age Europe|Bronze Age]] [[Urnfield culture]] ({{Circa|12th}} to 8th centuries BC) out of which the early [[Iron Age Europe|iron-working]] [[Hallstatt culture]] (7th to 6th centuries BC) would develop. By 500 BC, there is strong [[Hallstatt culture|Hallstatt]] influence throughout most of France (except for the Alps and the extreme north-west).

Out of this Hallstatt background, the La Tène culture arose during the 7th and 6th century BC, presumably representing an early form of [[Continental Celtic languages|Continental Celtic]] culture and likely under Mediterranean influence from the [[Ancient Greece|Greek]], [[Phoenicia]]n, and [[Etruscan civilization]]s. This culture spread out along the [[Seine]], the [[Middle Rhine]] and the upper [[Elbe]]. By the late 5th century BC, La Tène influence spread rapidly across the entire territory of Gaul. The La Tène culture developed and flourished during the late [[Iron Age]] (from 450 BC to the Roman conquest in the 1st century BC) not only in France but also what is now [[Switzerland]], northern [[Italy]], [[Austria]], southern [[Germany]], [[Bohemia]], [[Moravia]], [[Slovakia]] and [[Hungary]]. A major archaeogenetics study uncovered a migration into southern [[Bronze Age Britain|Britain]] in the Bronze Age, during the 500-year period from 1300 to 800 BC. The newcomers were genetically most closely related to ancient individuals from Gaul. The authors describe this as a "plausible vector for the spread of early [[Celtic languages]] into Britain".<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Patterson|first1=N.|last2=Isakov|first2=M.|last3=Booth|first3=T.|title=Large-scale migration into Britain during the Middle to Late Bronze Age|journal=[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]|date=2021|volume=601 |issue=7894 |pages=588–594 |doi=10.1038/s41586-021-04287-4|pmid=34937049 |pmc=8889665 |bibcode=2022Natur.601..588P |s2cid=245509501 }}</ref> 

The major source of early information on the Celts of Gaul is [[Posidonius|Poseidonios]] of Apamea, whose writings were quoted by [[Timagenes]], [[Julius Caesar]], the [[Sicily|Sicilian]] [[Greeks|Greek]] [[Diodorus Siculus]], and the Greek geographer [[Strabo]].<ref>{{cite book|author = Berresford Ellis, Peter|title = ''The Celts: A History''|pages = 49–50|publisher = Caroll & Graf|year = 1998|isbn = 0-7867-1211-2}}</ref> In the 4th and early 3rd century BC, Gallic clan confederations expanded far beyond the territory of what would become [[Roman Gaul]] (which defines usage of the term "Gaul" today), into Pannonia, Illyria, northern Italy, Transylvania and even Asia Minor. By the 2nd century BC, the Romans described [[Gallia Transalpina]] as distinct from [[Gallia Cisalpina]]. In his ''[[Gallic Wars]]'', Julius Caesar distinguishes among three ethnic groups in Gaul: the [[Belgae]] in the north (roughly between the [[Rhine]] and the Seine), the Celtae in the center and in [[Armorica]], and the [[Aquitani]] in the southwest, the southeast being already colonized by the Romans. While some scholars believe the Belgae north of the [[Somme (river)|Somme]] were a mixture of Celtic and Germanic elements, their ethnic affiliations have not been definitively resolved.

In addition to the Gauls, there were other peoples living in Gaul, such as the Greeks and Phoenicians who had established outposts such as Massilia (present-day [[Marseille]]) along the Mediterranean coast.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=26owDwAAQBAJ|last=Dietler|first=Michael|title=Archaeologies of Colonialism: Consumption, Entanglement, and Violence in Ancient Mediterranean France|date=2010|publisher=Univ of California Press|location=Berkeley|isbn=9780520287570}}</ref> Also, along the southeastern French Mediterranean coast, the [[Ligures]] had merged with the Celts to form a Celto-[[Liguria]]n culture.