Editing La Tène culture (section)

==Ethnology==
{{main|Continental Celts|Gauls}}
{{see|Thraco-Cimmerian|Dacia|Illyrians}}

The bearers of the La Tène culture were the people known as [[Celts]] or [[Gauls]] to ancient ethnographers. Ancient Celtic culture had no written literature of its own, but rare examples of [[epigraphy]] in the Greek or Latin alphabets exist allowing the fragmentary reconstruction of [[Continental Celtic]].

Current knowledge of this cultural area is derived from three sources comprising archaeological evidence, Greek and Latin literary records, and ethnographical evidence suggesting some La Tène artistic and cultural survivals in traditionally Celtic regions of far western Europe. 
Some of the societies that are archaeologically identified with La Tène material culture were identified by Greek and Roman authors from the 5th century onwards as ''Keltoi'' ("Celts") and ''Galli'' ("Gauls"). [[Herodotus]] (iv.49) correctly placed ''Keltoi'' at the source of the [[Danube|Ister/Danube]], in the heartland of La Tène material culture: "The Ister flows right across Europe, rising in the country of the Celts".<ref>{{cite journal |first=Lionel |last=Pearson |title=Herodotus on the Source of the Danube |journal=Classical Philology |volume=29 |issue=4 |year=1934 |pages=328–337 |doi=10.1086/361781 |s2cid=162214275 }}</ref>

[[File:Dôme aux dragons - Bronze gaulois de Roissy, dans le Lieu dit de La Fosse Cotheret (Val d'Oise).jpg|thumb|Bronze chariot fitting from Roissy, France|195x195px]]

Whether the usage of classical sources means that the whole of La Tène culture can be attributed to a unified [[Celt]]ic people is difficult to assess; archaeologists have repeatedly concluded that language, material culture, and political affiliation do not necessarily run parallel. Frey (2004) notes that in the 5th century, "burial customs in the Celtic world were not uniform; rather, localised groups had their own beliefs, which, in consequence, also gave rise to distinct artistic expressions".

Artefacts typical of the La Tène culture have been discovered in stray finds as far afield as Scandinavia, Northern Germany, Poland and in the Balkans. It is therefore common to also talk of the "La Tène period" in the context of those regions even though they were never part of the La Tène culture proper, but connected to its core area via trade.