Editing Celts (section)

===Urnfield-Hallstatt theory===
[[File:Hallstatt LaTene.png|thumb|upright=1.5|Overview of the [[Hallstatt culture|Hallstatt]] and [[La Tène culture|La Tène]] cultures.<small>
{{legend|#f6bc0a|The core Hallstatt territory (HaC, 800 BC) is shown in solid yellow.}}
{{legend|#d5c089|The eventual area of Hallstatt influence (by 500 BC, HaD) in light yellow.}}
{{legend|#80da34|The core territory of the La Tène culture (450 BC) in solid green.}}
{{legend|#9bce9b|The eventual area of La Tène influence (by 250 BC) in light green. }}
The territories of some major [[List of Celtic tribes|Celtic tribes]] of the late La Tène period are labelled.</small>]]

The mainstream view during most of the twentieth century is that the Celts and the [[proto-Celtic language]] arose out of the [[Urnfield culture]] of [[central Europe]] around 1000 BC, spreading westward and southward over the following few hundred years.<ref name="ChadCorc" /><ref>{{cite book |last=Chadwick |first=Nora |title=The Celts |date=1970 |page=30}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Kruta |first=Venceslas |title=The Celts |date=1991 |publisher=[[Thames & Hudson]] |pages=89–102}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Stifter |first=David |title=Old Celtic Languages - Addenda |date=2008 |page=25}}</ref> The Urnfield culture was preeminent in central Europe during the late [[Bronze Age]], [[wikt:circa|circa]] 1200 BC to 700 BC. The [[Iron Age|spread of iron-working]] led to the [[Hallstatt culture]] (c. 800 to 500 BC) developing out of the Urnfield culture in a wide region north of the Alps. The Hallstatt culture developed into the [[La Tène culture]] from about 450 BC, which came to be identified with [[Celtic art]].{{Citation needed|date=April 2022}}

In 1846, [[Johann Georg Ramsauer]] unearthed an ancient [[grave field]] with distinctive grave goods at [[Hallstatt]], Austria. Because the burials "dated to roughly the time when Celts are mentioned near the [[Danube]] by [[Herodotus]], Ramsauer concluded that the graves were Celtic".<ref name="Koch 386">{{cite book |last=Koch |first=John |author-link=John T. Koch |title=Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia |date=2006 |publisher=[[ABC-CLIO]] |page=386}}</ref> Similar sites and artifacts were found over a wide area, which were named the 'Hallstatt culture'. In 1857, the archaeological site of [[La Tène (archaeological site)|La Tène]] was discovered in Switzerland.<ref name="Koch 386" /> The huge collection of artifacts had a distinctive style. Artifacts of this 'La Tène style' were found elsewhere in Europe, "particularly in places where people called Celts were known to have lived and early Celtic languages are attested. As a result, these items quickly became associated with the Celts, so much so that by the 1870s scholars began to regard finds of the La Tène as 'the archaeological expression of the Celts'".<ref name="Koch 386" /> This cultural network was overrun by the Roman Empire, though traces of La Tène style were still seen in [[Gallo-Roman culture|Gallo-Roman artifacts]]. In Britain and Ireland, the La Tène style survived precariously to re-emerge in [[Insular art]].{{Citation needed|date=April 2022}}

The Urnfield-Hallstatt theory began to be challenged in the latter 20th century, when it was accepted that the oldest known Celtic-language inscriptions were those of [[Lepontic language|Lepontic]] from the 6th century BC and [[Celtiberian language|Celtiberian]] from the 2nd century BC. These were found in northern Italy and Iberia, neither of which were part of the 'Hallstatt' nor 'La Tène' cultures at the time.<ref name="Sims-Williams" /> The Urnfield-Hallstatt theory was partly based on ancient [[Greco-Roman world|Greco-Roman]] writings, such as the ''[[Histories (Herodotus)|Histories]]'' of Herodotus, which placed the Celts at the [[source of the Danube]]. However, [[Stephen Oppenheimer]] shows that Herodotus seemed to believe the Danube rose near the [[Pyrenees]], which would place the Ancient Celts in a region which is more in agreement with later classical writers and historians (i.e. in Gaul and Iberia).<ref>{{cite book |last=Oppenheimer |first=Stephen |title=The Origins of the British |pages=21–56 |date=2007 |publisher=[[Robinson (publisher)|Robinson]]}}</ref> The theory was also partly based on the abundance of inscriptions bearing Celtic personal names in the Eastern Hallstatt region ([[Noricum]]). However, Patrick Sims-Williams notes that these date to the later Roman era, and says they suggest "relatively late settlement by a Celtic-speaking elite".<ref name="Sims-Williams" />